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Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Foreign Ministers Distinguished Delegates Members of the Diplomatic Corp Representatives of International and Regional Organisations The Rev. Osbert James of the Grenada Council of Churches Members of the Media Ladies and Gentlemen
As Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community, I am pleased and honoured to address this opening ceremony of the Ninth Meeting of the Council for Foreign and Community Relations which we call COFCOR. I do so however in the shadow of a tragedy that has served to highlight one of our most formidable challenges, as a Community and also a threat to our goal of promoting ourselves as a grouping of stable, law-abiding nations. The scourge of crime continues to ravage our societies. I take this opportunity to offer deepest condolences on behalf of the Community, the Secretariat and myself to the Government and people of Guyana and to the family of the Hon. Satyadeow Sawh, Minister of Fisheries, Crops, and Livestock and Acting Minister of Agriculture and the other three victims so brutally murdered last Saturday morning. Words cannot adequately express the shock and the depth of abhorrence that I feel at the manner of the death of Minister Sawh and all those who were slain with him. The callous destruction of human life that has infiltrated our society risks shredding us of our decency, civility, humanity and intrinsic Caribbean spirit. But I have no doubt that Minister Sawh would have wished us to press on with our task of building a Caribbean Community worthy of the highest aspirations of its peoples. And so we shall. In this regard Grenada provides the historical setting from which significant thrust in the building of our Community has been engendered. It was here in 1989 at Grand Anse that the vision and commitment for the CARICOM Single Market and Economy was laid out. Today, a distinguished son of the soil Foreign Minister the Hon. Elvin Nimrod assumes the Chair of this august body. It is with pleasure that I welcome him. At the same time, I would like to extend deepest thanks and appreciation to the outgoing Chairman, the Hon. Fred Mitchell, Foreign Minister of the Bahamas, for his energetic stewardship over the last year which has seen this Council make significant stride. A particular pleasure which this Meeting provides me is the opportunity to welcome back to the regional Ministerial fold and to the COFCOR in particular, the Hon. Anthony Hylton, the new Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, of Jamaica. Welcome Hon. Minister. We look forward to your well known insightful contributions. In my address to the VIII Meeting of this Council last year in Freeport, The Bahamas, I laid particular stress on the establishment of the CARICOM Single Market and the expectations which would arise from its launch. I have not been disappointed. The Region and the world community at large have responded most positively to its coming into being on 1 January 2006 marked by the launch which took place at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica, on 30 January. The Community must now seize the moment and prepare itself for the thrust towards the Single Economy in our quest for sustainable development. The boldness of our vision must be matched by the boldness of our action. We have proved to be highly competitive in many areas not least in business, academia, the sporting arena and in culture. That same spirit of competition and enterprise matched by self belief and confidence which has taken us to those heights, must now drive our regional movement. We must inspire our people including our Diaspora to give of their skills and talents enthusiastically and we must lure our external partners to participate with us in the building of a dynamic, enterprising community. Honourable Ministers, distinguished delegates, members of the media, ladies and gentlemen, though we are small states, we do have an important role to play in the multilateral arena. Within the last four months our Community has had fruitful discussions with US Secretary of State and the US Trade Representative. Later this week, our Foreign Ministers will be meeting with the British Foreign Secretary in Barbados during the Fifth CARICOM-UK Forum. Today, we expect to have in our midst the Distinguished Foreign Minister of Brazil and our officials have already this year met with representatives from Canada, Japan and Mexico. At the highest level, in the coming weeks, our Heads of Government will journey to Spain and then Austria to meet first with the Prime Minister of Spain and then with fellow Heads of State and Government of Latin America and the European Union. The opportunities are there for us to make our case and have our voices heard. To do this however, we must prepare ourselves thoroughly. I am certain that over the next two days the work of our officials which preceded this meeting will serve to provide you Ministers with a solid base for your discussions, decisions and recommendations to our Heads of Government. Among the many relations of the Community, that with the European Union remains one of our key areas of focus. It is for that reason that it engaged so much of your attention during your retreat yesterday. The new European perspective on the Caribbean presents both challenges and opportunities – challenges, especially by the changes it has wrought to our trading and other historical special relations; and opportunity by the scope that the new expanded Europe has provided for this Region to use its creativity to fashion innovative responses to this new dispensation. That response will involve more than the negotiations of an Economic Partnership Agreement, even one which seeks to incorporate the development dimension. It will require as well the instilling of a new dynamic through a political dialogue that transcends the narrow confines of regional integration issues. The global situation also underlines the need for a closer working relationship between and among our Councils in the interest of ensuring cohesive responses and approaches to the wider global community. An item on your agenda which will give further impetus to this thrust is the issue of Joint Representation. Cohesion of action among Member States, Councils and Institutions will undoubtedly form part of this Council’s discussions when it considers the item related to the changes in the geopolitical environment and the influence of energy. These changes are having profound impact on our small, vulnerable economies and on our relationships with external partners, placing even greater emphasis on the making of concerted efforts towards the implementation of the Single Market, as well as on foreign policy formulation and coordination. Ladies and Gentlemen, June is expected to be officially designated as Caribbean-American Heritage month, the US Congress having already so agreed. We thank those Members of Congress and of the Caribbean Diaspora who were instrumental in this achievement. We must now play our part to ensure its success. Work has also begun on an event that we hope would be the cornerstone of the celebration of that event in June 2007. I refer to the initiative for the holding of a Conference on the Caribbean which is designed to increase both the awareness and the influence of the Caribbean in the United States, our largest trading partner and home to the largest Caribbean Diaspora. The input of this Council will be of particular importance to this seminal event. And here I do hope that the Honourable Dame Antoinette Billie Miller would forgive me for publicly commending her for her determined leadership in pursuit of this initiative. The highlighting of the Caribbean in this way is, we hope, a step towards recognition of the special circumstances of small and vulnerable states in this era of “bigger is better.” We also trust that our partners would thereby better understand the development dimension of their relationship with the Caribbean Community and work with us towards building hope and eradicating despair for we too have a right to life. I thank you.
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