Fred Mitchell's Saving CARICOM

Saving CARICOM pt.4

• This commentary is taken from a lecture given by Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration Fred Mitchell on February 6 at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine in Trinidad and Tobago. Mitchell’s address was on “Saving CARICOM”.

This is said against the backdrop of the much-publicized speech of the American Secretary of State John Kerry to the Organization of American States (OAS) on November 18, 2013: “... In the early days of our republic, the United States made a choice about its relationship with Latin America. President James Munroe, who was also a former secretary of state, declared that the United States would unilaterally, and as a matter of fact, act as the protector of the region. The doctrine that bears his name asserted our authority to step in and oppose the influence of European powers in Latin America. And throughout our nation’s history, successive presidents have reinforced that doctrine and made a similar choice.

“Today, however, we have made a different choice. The era of the Munroe Doctrine is over. The relationship – that’s worth applauding. That’s not a bad thing. The relationship we seek and that we have worked hard to foster is not about a United States declaration about how and when it will intervene in the affairs of other American states. It’s about all of our countries viewing one another as equals, sharing responsibilities, cooperating on security issues, and adhering not to doctrine, but to the decisions that we make as partners to advance the values and the interests we share.”

The proof of this declaration by Mr. Kerry will of course be in the pudding. The recent developments with CELAC where the sub-hemisphere has determined to meet without the United States and Canada is a most interesting development. It parallels the Organization of American States but is much more Latin focused. The United States remains in a state of antipathy with Cuba. Cuba, although now welcomed back to the OAS has said it will not take the seat at the OAS table. CELAC includes Cuba.

Mr. Kerry’s statements come against the bitter experience of CARICOM in its work with the democratic forces in Haiti during the presidency of Jean Bertrand Aristide. CARICOM was asked to help and then Prime Minister P.J. Patterson of Jamaica was in the chair. CARICOM was with U.S. and other developed country assistance helping with the dispute between Mr. Aristide and his opponents which was turning increasingly violent. Mr. Aristide had conceded all that the forces arrayed against him, including the developed countries, had asked. We went to the United Nations to ask for the protection of U.N. troops to save the elected government of Haiti. The U.N. equivocated and said no troops were available. Yet on February 29, 2006, Colin Powell called me at my home to say that Mr. Aristide had taken refuge behind a U.S. Security mission and had resigned and was on his way to a destination unknown. Following his departure from Haiti, troops were suddenly available to restore order. It has left a bitter pill in the mouths of many of our CARICOM leaders and the experience is less than 10 years old.

In The Bahamas we say: “You only know me when you need me.”

The other and more interesting public policy issue to watch in our relations with the United States is our policy both in the CELAC context and in the CARICOM context to marijuana. In the Mexican/CARICOM dialogue in Barbados last year, the then President of Mexico Filipe Calderon spoke to a new approach to anti-drug policy, one which takes a market approach rather than a law enforcement approach. It seeks the decriminalization or legalization of the use of marijuana with the appropriate regulation and taxes as opposed to the resources used to lock up young males and criminalizing them in the process without any hindrance to the use of drugs. The U.S. domestic market is also changing on this. CARICOM has the issue of medical marijuana on its next agenda for heads of government in St. Vincent. It remains to be seen whether the U.S. federal policy will change and what that will mean for the CARICOM region. I say this because the U.S. relationship and interest in this region seems almost entirely based on national security and in particular anti-drug interdiction.

The Latins are very much interested in the support of the Caribbean countries for their position on the islands they call the Malvinas, also known as the Falklands, against the backdrop of our being former British colonies in the main and the supposed automatic support for the British position. This new CELAC relationship will be very important going forward.

I would suggest also that it will be helpful to this region and hemisphere if Mr. Kerry is able to translate his declaration into a more normal relationship with Cuba, particularly given the moves toward market reforms which are now evidenced in that latter country.

It would seem to make sense given that the United States has no such diplomatic issues with China. At a recent meeting in Trinidad 2013, the American vice president made it clear that the United States had no objection to our relationships with China, and I believe the U.S. view is very important. China has been clear about its objectives in the region. For the Caribbean, a region which is starved for capital, and with the traditional friends the U.S., Canada and Europe either unable or unwilling to provide the capital locked into a cycle of low growth and high debt, China has been a savior.

The Chinese position was given in a paper policy paper on Latin America and the Caribbean. They are interested in acquisition of raw materials and in political cooperation to support the one China policy. In exchange, they will support Latin America and the Caribbean in their national development goals and have set aside significant capital for access by the hemisphere to support that development.

Paragraph IV (5) of the paper reads as follows: “The Chinese government will continue to strengthen coordination and cooperation on international issues with Latin American and Caribbean countries, and maintain regular consultation with them on major international and regional issues. The two sides will continue to support each other on such important issues as sovereignty and territorial integrity. China stands ready to work with Latin American and Caribbean countries to strengthen the role of the United Nations, make the international political and economic order more fair and equitable, promote democracy in international relations and uphold the legitimate rights and interests of developing countries, China supports a greater role of Latin American Countries in international affairs.”

Throughout the conduct of international relations there is this constant refrain which looks to this region with what is often called a bloc of votes. One after the next country comes calling. They crowd our Council for Community and Foreign Relations Agenda (COFCOR) with requests for support for that candidacy or the next. The question is always as far as The Bahamas is concerned whether or not we use the numbers that we have to our sufficient advantage. It is not a rhetorical question.

I think the answer is obvious that we do not.

It makes the case for reform more urgent lest the parade passes us by.

The distinguished foreign minister of Trinidad and Tobago has made an urgent case for the expansion of CARICOM to include all the countries and territories in a paper in which he describes a Caribbean Sea Convergence. This convergence would encompass some 40 million people and ultimately will include in the short term the Dominican Republic, the French Territories including French Guyana and the Dutch ones, and in the longer term the American possessions and ultimately Cuba.

The idea is that unity is strength or as the Haitians would say: L’Union Fait La Force.

These matters are not simple or cheap. P.J. Patterson led the way in bringing Haiti into CARICOM. Suriname is also a member. These nations do not speak English as a first language and CARICOM has not been able thus far to ensure that documentation and conversations are available in the native languages of those countries. Imagine then including a Spanish-speaking country.

Further, there continue to be tensions in relationships because Haiti is a source country for illegal migration. The Bahamas does not confer citizenship on people born in The Bahamas whose parents are not Bahamian. One consequence is that there are thousands of Haitians in The Bahamas who are undocumented and who have to be regularized in some way or fashion. Immigration enforcement in The Bahamas is becoming stricter. Our country is committed to working on a solution to this.

All of this makes the enterprise of fixing our internal arrangements at CARICOM a priority.

Here is what Winston Dookeran, the foreign minister of Trinidad and Tobago, said in his paper “A New Frontier For Caribbean Convergence”: “As noted earlier, CARICOM integration was narrowly defined in terms of trade and markets, which is not a very accurate measure. The new perception of convergence needs to be understood as ‘a new economic space’ where there is partnership not just across the Caribbean Sea space, but also between the public and private sectors. It is forging of ‘a right partnership toward productive efficiency. Convergence therefore implies a partnership (inclusiveness and cooperation) among public and private actors in the economies of the Caribbean sea emphasizing equality and equity as integral components.”

Minister Dookeran went on to list a number of arrangements and decisions which have to be taken, ought to be taken. I have mentioned already the inclusion of the new members. However, I want to parse some of his ideas and lead us into what I think is the inevitable conclusion.

He says in the chapter Policy Execution and Outcomes Institutional Drivers Caribbean Sea Convergence: “CARICOM Secretariat – is the principle administrative organ of CARICOM... recommend a fast-track decision to facilitate the entry...”

Anyone who knows CARICOM and its decision making will know that the expression “fast track ” and CARICOM in no way comport. Yet mandates are piled upon the secretariat which is the closest thing we have to an executive arm but which is resource starved and under-manned.

Prime Minister Kenny Anthony speaking at the Chamber of Commerce in Barbados in October 2012 said this: “We know that we have too often asked our secretariat to perform miracles without even the requisite loaves and fishes. Unable to deliver miracles, decisive action has been replaced by documentation – mountains of it – which most of us have neither the time nor the appetite to digest.”

So whatever reforms are contemplated for CARICOM and I agree the need for reform, amongst the issues: human resources and money.

Given the economic issues that face us, all treasuries and ministers of finance will be reluctant to agree to increases in subventions to CARICOM. Indeed many nations struggle to pay the existing duties. However, one suggestion is that there ought to be in each country a specific set aside, a revenue stream which goes straight to CARICOM and its agencies as a means of ensuring the funding at the appropriate levels. Further that the human resources issues can be helped by the foreign ministries and foreign trade ministries indeed the public service generally seconding officers to CARICOM as part of the public service careers for officers, which service would be part of the permanent and pensionable establishment in their countries as a means to ensure that the best talent ends up working there. Indeed, The Bahamas has led the way by already offering that possibility to at least two public servants per year on secondment to the secretariat.

In terms of the decision making, clearly nations will have to bite the bullet to give stronger powers to the secretariat to ensure that decisions are executed. Those who argue on sovereignty will do well to remember the saying of Dame Biller Miller of Barbados, that you cannot approbate and reprobate at the same time.

With regard to the convergence paper by Mr. Dookeran, I am also proud to say that we in The Bahamas recognize this need for convergence. Within our own country, the prime minister has embraced the three PPPs. In Bimini, the island in The Bahamas closest to the U.S. mainland there is an investment which will require a significant upgrade to the international airport. The private investor is doing the upgrade to the government’s specifications but the cost will be recaptured by credits given for taxes collected on the investment. It is this kind of creative financing that will invigorate economies around the region and is to be recommended for its efficiency and simplicity and speed, with minimum impact on the public purse but exponential benefits to the public good.

• Fred Mitchell is the member of Parliament for Fox Hill and minister of foreign affairs and immigration.

March 08, 2014

- Saving CARICOM, pt. 1

- Saving CARICOM, pt. 2

- Saving CARICOM, pt. 3

- Saving CARICOM, pt. 5

thenassauguardian

Fred Mitchell discusses CARICOM’s survival

Saving CARICOM, pt. 2

• This commentary is taken from a lecture given by Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration Fred Mitchell on February 6 at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine in Trinidad and Tobago. Mitchell’s address was on “Saving CARICOM”.

Stay with me for a minute here.

We in the Progressive Liberal Party returned to power in The Bahamas in 2002. We had lost to the Free National Movement 10 years earlier in 1992 which ushered in a more conservative and laissez faire attitude toward governance.

The leader of our party Lynden Pindling, who had founded the modern Bahamian state, was thrown out of office unceremoniously in 1992 after 25 years, and within eight years was dead of prostate cancer. When we came back in 2002, the CARICOM leadership of Manley, Burnham, Williams, Barrow had all passed on and we met a new order.

The new order was Kenny Anthony, P.J. Patterson, Jean Bertrand Aristide, Ralph Gonsalves, Patrick Manning, Owen Arthur, all a new generation of CARICOM leaders, all forged in the crucible of the region’s premier institution, the University of the West Indies, with the exception of Mr. Aristide.

Jamaica’s Prime Minister P.J. Patterson explained that Haiti had no other natural allies than we in CARICOM in the sub-region and he believed that it was necessary that they not stand alone and he persuaded them to join us.

Amongst these new leaders was a commitment to the CARICOM project. Even when there were strong disagreements around the table you got the feeling that no one would leave. There were some strong disagreements as in the meeting in St. Lucia in 2005 when P.J. Patterson sought to bring the leaders of the opposition together with the prime ministers in order to forge a consensus on the Caribbean Court of Justice. The meeting got off to a rocky start when one of the leaders of the opposition said he would not sit next to that prime minister because that prime minister was trying to put him in jail.

We stayed in office until 2007 when we lost to Hubert Ingraham, the leader of the opposition and once prime minister again. It surprised everyone in the region including us.

However, we might have seen it coming, for a trend against incumbents had started to develop: St. Lucia had elections in December 2006 and Kenny Anthony lost, then we lost in Nassau in May 2007. Then there was a loss by Portia Simpson Miller in Jamaica in September 2007, and then by Owen Arthur in Barbados in January 2008. Said Musa lost on February 7, 2008 in Belize and then a loss by Keith Mitchell in Grenada on July 8, 2008.

Patrick Manning, the then prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, speaking at a political rally in Port of Spain reminded his party how up to that time he had bucked the trend. Here is how the press reported the statement by the then prime minister on Sunday, July 13, 2008: “Prime Minister Patrick Manning said yesterday that his controversial actions in the selection of candidates in the last general election were vindicated by the results of the elections across the Caribbean.

“Addressing the PNM’s 42nd Annual Convention, Manning noted that many people questioned the strategy he employed in the selection of candidates, which saw many senior MPs and Cabinet members rejected.

“Let me ask you this question, where is the last government of Belize?” Manning enquired. ‘Gone!’ the crowd replied. ‘The last government of The Bahamas?’ he asked. ‘Gone!’ was the refrain. ‘The last government of Jamaica?’ he enquired. ‘Gone!’ shouted the crowd. ‘The last government of Barbados?’ he asked. The response was the same. ‘The last government of St. Lucia?’ ‘Gone!’ they shouted. ‘Where is the last government of Grenada, my dear friends?’ ‘Gone!’ the crowd chorused. ‘Where is the last government of Trinidad and Tobago?’ Thunderous applause drowned out the words, ‘Here, here.’”

Of course, history now shows that in 2010, a trend had indeed developed and that trend continued in Trinidad and Tobago. My larger point here is that we can detect the shifts in our societies by looking at one another.

Another example is how Jamaica started to develop a crime problem in the 1970s; and many of them as they fled Jamaica and came to Nassau would warn us that we too would face the problem of bars on our windows and crime out of control. We are seeing these same pathologies today in The Bahamas.

My point is that on this anecdotal level, trends seem to develop in our region and it tends to start south and move north.

The trend reversed itself somewhat within five years when beginning with Kenny Anthony some of the men who had lost power five years before were back in power again. Kenny Anthony described it on July 4, 2012 in St. Lucia as returning to power following a period of political metanoia. This inspired us in The Bahamas. In addition to Perry Christie, Portia Simpson Miller has returned and so has Keith Mitchell of Grenada. Of the original group that were Perry Christie’s peers in 2002, only Ralph Gonsalves and Denzil Douglas are still there uninterrupted by the vagaries of democracy. Everyone else had lost elections.

What we do then in The Bahamas is we look at the CARICOM region and what is happening here because it has been a fairly reliable predictor of what may transpire in our own society.

In fact, the talent to run our election campaigns has often come from Trinidad, Jamaica and Barbados.

You may also know that the Progressive Liberal Party was founded following a visit in 1953 to Jamaica by the founders of the party and talks with the then leadership of the People’s National Party.

My thesis then is that the development of the CARICOM project is a natural projection of what has been done on an informal basis by people over the years as they migrated from one territory to the next.

Who can forget how the lives of the region and of Trinidad and Tobago were influenced and transformed by the man now known as the Mighty Sparrow who hailed from Grenada.

I have styled this lecture rather grandly “ Saving CARICOM”. That has elicited many responses from many people but most people have said “how are you going to do that?” I argue that it does not need a savior, contrary to the harsh judgment issued by the Trinidadian writer V.S. Naipaul in his essay “The Killings In Trinidad”. CARICOM is a project that grows itself. The project is organic and when one looks at the history of the events, it shows that the Caribbean ethos causes it to survive, compels it to survive.

In this effort I adopt the history as outlined by the distinguished Secretary General of CARICOM Irwin La Rocque.

In an address delivered right here in Trinidad on October 3, 2013, the secretary general gave the summary narrative of the founding of the modern CARICOM project. I think that one decision that should be made is to adopt a common narrative about the founding of the organization and spread the story. It is important for the history to be reduced to a bite size. It makes for part of the wider understanding amongst the younger people of how we came to be where we are. The secretary general wrote: “Ladies and gentlemen, in real terms our integration process can be regarded as beginning 81 years ago, given that it was in 1932 that the first concrete proposals for Caribbean unity were put forward at a meeting of Caribbean labor issues leaders in Roseau, Dominica.

“It was the labor movement which championed and pioneered integration as a means of self-governance for the West Indian territories. At congress in the late 1920s and 1930s, Caribbean labor leaders went from discussion of the idea to actually drafting a constitution for the unified terror territories, aided in large measure by a young economist from Saint Lucia, Arthur Lewis, who later distinguished himself and the region as our first Nobel laureate.

“Progress stalled with the intervention of the Second World War but shortly after its end in 1945, momentum was regained towards independence as a unit. This was the main theme of a landmark meeting which took place in 1947 at Montego Bay, Jamaica. Out of that meeting, the process began towards the West Indies Federation. This federation would eventually involve the British colonies, with the exception of then British Guiana and British Honduras, and came into being in 1958. Its goal was independence and some services were established to support the West Indian nation, including a Supreme Court and a shipping line. In preparing for independence, a plan for a Customs Unit was drawn up but during the four years for the federations (sic) existence free trade was not introduced among the islands.

“The end of the federation in 1962 brought a close to this phase and to this approach to integration. In many ways, however, the end of the federation led to the beginning of another chapter in the integration process which would evolve into the Caribbean Community. The need to maintain and possibly expand the Common Services that existed during the federation was the catalyst for that (1963) Common Services Conference which I mentioned earlier. The UWI and the Regional Shipping Service along with the Caribbean Meteorological Service, which began one year later, kept the embers of integration glowing along with the so-called Little 8, comprising the Windward and Leeward Islands and Barbados which stayed together after the dissolution of the federation.

The Little 8 folded in 1965 and later that year, the premiers of Barbados and British Guiana and the chief minister of Antigua and Barbuda Messrs Barrow, Burnham and Bird respectively, agreed to establish the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA). It was the first attempt to integrate through trade. The other territories joined the initiative and CARIFTA was launched in 1968 along with the Commonwealth Caribbean Regional Secretariat, which became the CARICOM Secretariat.

“During that period, ‘regional nationalism’ was alive and well. It was a nationalism born out of a common desire and recognition of the imperative to forge our individual nationalism within a regional context. There was a political chemistry among our leaders.

“Eight years later, recognizing that CARIFTA could only carry us thus far, our leader felt confident enough to move on to a Common Market and Community and deepened integration arrangements on the basis of three pillars: economic integration; foreign policy co-ordination and functional co-operation. The Treaty of Chaguaramas formalizing this new agreement was signed in 1973. That treaty which reflected the aspirations of the time could only carry us so far. It included a Common External Tariff (CET) which incidentally requires member states to give up some sovereignty. However, decisions were largely unenforceable and dispute settlement arrangements were weak. Trade barriers among members were also rampant and many of the provisions of the treaty were best endeavor clauses.

“Sixteen years later, the watershed meeting of Heads of Government at Grand Anse, Grenada in 1989 set the region on course towards the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME). Grand Anse was a bold response to the circumstances of the day. The community was faced with a changing global economic environment while the performance of the regional economy was sluggish. The traditional market for our commodities was threatened with the advent of the European Single Market, and discussions continued on the global trading arrangements. Both of these developments would result in preference erosion for the commodities the region had come to rely on so heavily. Grant assistance was also declining. Our leaders recognized that we needed to become more self-reliant for our development. A deeper form of integration was the logical answer to those challenges.

“To accommodate this even deeper form of integration, the treaty was revised significantly and was signed in 2001. That revision of the treaty set out the objectives for the community, including the Single Market and Economy. These include improved standards of living and work; full employment of labor and other factors of production accelerated, coordinated and sustained economic development and convergence; enhanced co-ordination of member states’ foreign policies; and enhanced functional co-operation. That last objective recognized the need for more efficient operation of common services and intensified activities in areas such as health, education, transportation and telecommunications.

“In 2006, five years after the signing of the revised treaty, the single market was ushered in. Twelve of our 15 member states form the single market, while Haiti and Montserrat are working towards putting it into place.

“In the midst of these various transitions in the wider region, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), whose members are either member states or associate members of CARICOM, have also been strengthening their integration arrangements which were first codified with the Treaty of Basseterre in 1981. In many ways the OECS has moved beyond CARICOM with the Revised Treaty of Basseterre Establishing the OECS Economic Union, signed in 2010, which among other things has granted free movement of persons within the member states. This is an integration group that has had its own single currency and institutions, such as its Central Bank, Supreme Court and Stock Exchange. There is much to be learnt from the progress being made at the level of the OECS which could assist the wider integration effort.”

I would only argue also that along with the common narrative on the founding of the CARICOM project, there was the parallel story of the emergence of the Pan African Movement across the Caribbean and the struggle for national independence, the negritude movement, the civil rights movement in the United States and the common cause found in the struggle of the Indians who had come to this part of the world as indentured workers. All of those blended together to produce what we now call today CARICOM.

• Fred Mitchell is the member of Parliament for Fox Hill and minister of foreign affairs and immigration.

March 06, 2014

- Saving CARICOM, pt. 1

- Saving CARICOM, pt. 3

-Saving CARICOM pt.4

- Saving CARICOM, pt. 5

thenassauguardian

Fred Mitchell joins the discussion on CARICOM’s survival

Saving CARICOM, pt. 1

• This commentary is taken from a lecture given by Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration Fred Mitchell on February 6 at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine in Trinidad and Tobago. Mitchell’s address was on “Saving CARICOM”.

Kamau Brathwaite, the Barbadian poet writes in his work “Negus”:
It is not enough to be free
of the red white and blue
of the drag of the dragon…

In the days just before Christmas the great man Nelson Mandela died. The Bahamian prime minister had made arrangements to get to South Africa on a commercial airline. We received a call from the secretary general’s office at CARICOM to say that the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, had offered a Caribbean Airlines flight to all CARICOM countries without cost and would we take advantage of the offer. Our prime minister agreed right away. He was joined by the president of Haiti, deputy prime ministers of Grenada and St. Lucia, the foreign minister of Barbados and ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda. That single gesture of Caribbean outreach made an impression on Africa and ourselves which went beyond what money could buy.

The prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, who is ethnically Indian, wore on the occasion an African dress and headwear. She was resplendent. She joined the heads of Jamaica, Guyana and Suriname, who had already made their way there. We appeared in South Africa as a team. That is CARICOM at its best. This was no group of groveling mendicants, as Errol Barrow had once lamented about Caribbean leaders. In South Africa, the leaders got along well and the chemistry was there. It is that chemistry about which Prime Minister Kenny Anthony spoke last year when he hosted the heads of government conference as being the key to CARICOM’s survival.

Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar’s decision reinforced the great comfort which The Bahamas got when in September last year CARICOM issued a statement in support of The Bahamas in the face of withering criticism by Cuban-American protestors in Miami. We knew we were not alone. Someone had our back.

Tonight’s discussion is about CARICOM’s survival.

I am pleased to be here. This is a special honor for me and for The Bahamas. Being up at the northern end of the chain people tend to think of us as a world away and a world apart but I have come to tell you this evening that we see ourselves as an integrated part of this region. Our founding father the late Sir Lynden Pindling on July 4, 1983 committed our country to this CARICOM project. He reaffirmed that by signing the Grand Anse Declaration in 1989 committing The Bahamas to the Single Market and Economy although we have some ways to go.

All governments of The Bahamas, admittedly with varying degrees of enthusiasm, have embraced the notion that we have a common future together.

I come, therefore, tonight representing that generation of Bahamians to whom the task of governance for today has been entrusted, to renew our commitment to the CARICOM enterprise.

CARICOM is not just an economic project. It is the very soul of our people from Bermuda to Suriname. It is that narrative that I have come to tell.

In doing so I begin by saying thank you to my hosts for their gracious invitation to listen to what I have to say. I recall Pastor David Johnson who has now sadly passed away. He was being honored with the naming of the village Christmas tree in my Fox Hill constituency. He was then 77-years-old. He said he could not believe it. He could still on that cool winter evening in Nassau remember when he was running around in short pants and talking about the elders of the Fox Hill village. Now, he said they are calling me one of the elders.

That is the stark reality of time. It reminds us that our time on the stage is short; but I committed myself a long time ago to the notion that if I ever got a chance to be on the public stage I would not squander the opportunity. I would do what I was called upon to do.

So this then is dedicated to all of those teachers and their patience from the time I was a little boy; my parents, particularly my mother, who forced me to wake up early each morning and get ahead of the day; dedicated to Dawson Conliffe and Bonaventure Dean, my old headmasters. All now gone on but they live on the heart and mind of their student.

I thank Dr. Monica Davis, the honorary consul for The Bahamas to Trinidad and Tobago, who graduated with me from high school in The Bahamas way back in June of 1970 at the Catholic High School in Nassau, St. Augustine’s College.

James Baldwin reminds us in “The Amen Corner” how strange life is, the twists and turns it takes. I call these Dickensian moments after the pattern in those Dickens novels where someone disappears at the start of the book and then magically pops up at the end of the book with a smart and pleasant surprise.

I would like to thank the Secretary General Irwin La Rocque for his kindly providing me with access to the secretariat’s headquarters building where this work was largely written and to his supportive staff. The speech was written in Georgetown, Guyana which V.S. Naipaul, the Trinidadian-born writer, described in turns as “the most beautiful city in the West Indies” and then “the most exquisite city in the British Caribbean”.

I also thank the current prime minister of The Bahamas, Perry Christie, for permitting my participation in this, even as he complained that I was going to be away from home too long. However, I have always enjoyed a good relationship with all my bosses and with this boss the relationship is no different. I thank my constituents and Cabinet and parliamentary colleagues for their understanding and support.

I would however be remiss if I did not also dedicate this evening’s presentation to a man I greatly admired and respected. The name: Rex Nettleford. I first met him when I travelled with the late Winston Saunders, a Bahamian scholar and cultural icon in his own right, to Kingston for CARIFESTA in 1976. To quote one of the English ladies of quality who admired him, this man Rex Nettleford simply said “the most wonderful things”. He had a way of expressing life that could not be copied. He was an intellectual leader in Jamaica and widely admired and respected throughout the region as a dancer, choreographer, lecturer, trade unionist, writer, thinker, vice chancellor of the University of The West Indies and finally as the chairman of the Public Service Commission in Jamaica. He died at the age of 76 on February 2, 2010, four years ago.

CARICOM is an idea born from the genetics of the people themselves. I, for example, am the grandson of a Barbadian Sonny Forde who came to The Bahamas with his father at the turn of the last century as a baby. His father was a tailor for the Bahamian police force. My great grand grandmother was named Angelina Barrow. I never knew any of them.

The founder of our country Sir Lynden Pindling was the son of a Jamaican policeman who emigrated to The Bahamas. Many in the Cabinet that ended the white minority rule government in 1967 had one parent from the southern Caribbean. Indeed, today the governor general of The Bahamas, Sir Arthur Foulkes, is the son of a Haitian woman. Our first black member of Parliament in The Bahamas was Haitian, a man by the name Stephen Dillette elected in 1834.

Lynden Pindling was a classmate in law school in London of the late Dame Lois Browne Evans of Bermuda. She founded the PLP (Progressive Labour Party) in Bermuda with the advice and counsel of Sir Lynden of the PLP (Progressive Liberal Party) of The Bahamas. The rallying cry of both parties to this day is “ All the way!”. It was Ewart Brown, a successor of Dame Lois and a former Bermuda premier, who mooted the idea at a CARICOM Heads of Government meeting of a CARICOM airline that could provide transport for people from Bermuda to Suriname within a single day without having to traverse Miami.

I dedicate this to Rex Nettleford because he always talked about “the Caribbean ethos”. That is what this evening’s address is really about: the Caribbean ethos. The CARICOM project came about and continues and will continue because of the Caribbean ethos – what St. Vincent’s Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves amongst others has called “ the Caribbean civilization”.

So I am deeply indebted to Rex for imbuing in me a sense of hope and confidence that we as a people will one day get to the promised land.

Shortly after he died, there was a symposium in Kingston which was dedicated to his work and life. Some of Jamaica’s intellectuals and scholars were there. I was invited to lunch with some of them. For the first time in the history of my relationship with Jamaicans I detected despair. This was in the middle of the Dudus affair.

They lamented what had happened to their country. They did not see a way forward. They did not think that even with all their intellectual capacity that they could see a way out. They lamented the rise of criminal behavior in every enterprise, going so far as to say that they were shocked that some of the most respected business people in the country were infected by criminal enterprises.

This left me quite disturbed. I had come up at a time when Jamaica was bold and strong and relentless, no despair. Even in the worst of the economic issues of the Manley years, that remained true. Michael Manley himself told me that he was unreconstructed, unapologetic and unrepentant. That was the Jamaica I knew.

• Fred Mitchell is the member of Parliament for Fox Hill and minister of foreign affairs and immigration.

March 05, 2014

- Saving CARICOM, pt. 2

- Saving CARICOM, pt. 3

- Saving CARICOM pt.4

- Saving CARICOM, pt. 5

thenassauguardian