COMMENTARY

Law and Politics: What unification and Caribbean integration?

by Lloyd Noel

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

It seems that every time we have a meeting of the CARICOM Heads of Government, one of the many issues that always generate a great divergence of opinions is that of unity and integration in the region.

The very idea that such opinions should even arise is itself rather strange in the context of CARICOM; but it becomes even more confusing when one hears the various differing view point being expressed by individual Heads.

The recent meeting that ended in Trinidad & Tobago last week Tuesday was no exception. The Trinidad & Tobago Prime Minister, Mr Patrick Manning, and the St. Vincent & The Grenadines Prime Minister, Dr Ralph Gonzalves, were the front-line proponents on this occasion -- because the propositions this time are for some form of unification and closer integration among Trinidad and Tobago, St. Vincent and Grenada.

I have not heard our own Prime Minister, Dr Mitchell, on the issue, but I overheard the opposition NDC’S cautious opinion on the matter, as they await further information.

What gives me cause for concern is not the ideas of unification and or integration as such -- because after all is said and done that was, and still is I hope, the whole basis for CARICOM. In fact, the Heads have gone well ahead with cementing and widening the CARICOM concept, by their decisions relating to the (CSME) Caribbean Single Market and Economy, and the (CCJ) Caribbean Court of Justice.

My concern is with the varying versions of grouping that are frequently being proposed -- although besides CARICOM, we also have the (OECS) Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, which comprises Eight or Nine Independent and colonial entities within the CARICOM system.

I must point out, that the OECS is mainly grounded around the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (its own court system), as well as the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (the ECCB) which controls its own currency – the ECC dollar. I will come back to those Agencies later.

And while I can see clearly the merits in the reasoning in support of the CSME and CCJ, as very logical extensions of the CARICOM concept, I cannot help remaining a “doubting Thomas” about the sincerity, the timing, the beneficial interests, and even the wisdom surrounding the reasons being advanced.

And every time I hear those eminent Heads of Government put forward their new, or revised versions, of yet another grouping my doubts and reservations are very decidedly strengthened.

We had the Four MDC’s of Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados, Guyana and Jamaica; we had Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados and Guyana; we had the Four LDC’s of the Windwards -- Grenada, St. Vincent, St. Lucia and Dominica; and now we are hearing about Trinidad & Tobago, Grenada and St. Vincent; and I may well have left out others.

And all the above have been coming forward, at the same time those same Heads of Government have been trying to convince our Caribbean people that the way forward for total Independence and economic prosperity, is centred along the only two passage ways of the CSME and the CCJ within CARICOM.

Unless the trauma and stress and depression, resulting from the horrors of “Ivan Roofless”, have in some way re-fashioned my sense of reasoning, I cannot see how our people in the region can benefit, should they follow our current crop of Heads of Government, and fall for that half-baked notion of total independence and economic prosperity.

Despite the many postponements, regarding the various dates of doing one thing or another towards the said CSME and CCJ, we know that many of the States which signed the Agreement sometime ago, for both new Institutions, are a long way from being ready to fully participate in either.

But even apart from that drawback, after the OECS meeting ended in the (BVI) British Virgin Island last week, just after the CARICOM meeting in Trinidad & Tobago, I heard our Prime Minister saying, words to the effect, that for the smaller islands to effectively take part in the CSME there must be a Regional Development Fund, or some such source of finance, to help the (LDC’s) Smaller Islands to benefit from the new Single Market in the global rat race that will follow.

Maybe our Prime Minister was motivated by Grenada’s ill-fated situation, in the wake of the devastation from “Ivan”, but I submit that even before and without “Ivan” our positions in these smaller Islands were no better.

Against that background, the interest of Trinidad & Tobago to form some kind of union with Grenada and St. Vincent, and speed up that Tri-Island integration movement -- outside the OECS and CARICOM umbrella -- must raise eyebrows in the other member States.

I have noticed that the Trinidad & Tobago Prime Minister has been putting forward a whole range of financial measures recently which, he claims, are intended to raise the economic viability and competitiveness in the region.

And that is very commendable coming from Trinidad & Tobago, since that state is the most prosperous in the region with its tremendous wealth from gas and oil. Besides which, all the Islands in the Caribbean have, at one time or another, helped in the development of the Trinidad & Tobago economy with their supply of labour.

And not the least of those is Grenada, so that it was a very natural family gesture in a sense when Trinidad & Tobago was the first and most helpful provider of various services and foodstuff for Grenadians, because it has been said over the years that more than half of the Trinidad people have some Grenadian roots, dating back from the Second World War when all routes led to Trinidad.

On the other side of that coin is the financial reality that despite its wealth the Trinidad & Tobago currency is at an all time low on the global market – whereas the E.C. Currency is very stable and twice that of the T&T dollar. And since Grenada and St. Vincent are so close to Port-of-Spain, and St. Vincent also have a lot of its nationals in Trinidad & Tobago, then some form of merger could be beneficial to all three sides in the prevailing circumstances.

Also, the Court system and law and order in the OECS are far more comforting than in Trinidad & Tobago, and the one aspect of the Trinidad & Tobago lifestyle we can never tolerate or accommodate in these Grenadines would be the crime rate and security generally.

So when all is said and done, there is a lot of talking and negotiating and consulting to take place, before any firm decisions can be made.

My suspicions, however, are that this latest proposal is just another nice sounding idea, that comes naturally after a CARICOM Heads Meeting, and based on past experience it will remain just that -- another credible but nice-sounding idea.

But to come back to our own “Ground Zero” from our “9/7 Ivan”- we most certainly need a lot more than the series of old talk we are getting from the powers-that-be, if we are to extricate ourselves as a people from this natural disaster.

Unlike the Prime Minister, who said in his broadcast recently that there was great confidence among the people, I am of the considered opinion that our people’s confidence has never been lower than now.

Too many people simply do not know where to start to put their shattered homes back together again. And that group includes big people as well as little people, and a whole lot of business people in the bargain.

The insurance industry has failed too many people when they needed them most.

And as for the banking Industry, I am not impressed that they are seriously taking up the slack. And because the Government does have some clout in both those fields, it is my view that very much more must be done by our financial wizards to set that ball rolling -- and the sooner the better.

We cannot sit back and wait for handouts, nor can we build back our devastated country by or with gifts alone.

This is one time we cannot flinch from mortgaging our country to put it back on stream. We are members in all the institutions with financial power – World Bank, OAS and our very own CDB, so that a low-interest fund from which our desperate home owners can borrow the cost of making their humble homes their castles again, should not be beyond our collective wisdom and capability.

And we already have the Grenada Development Bank, which can be usefully utilized to handle that kind of funding from those overseas sources. Worth thinking seriously about.

I noticed that last weekend, the two sides in Parliament -- Government NNP and Opposition NDC -- were in Washington and New York respectively, presumably selling their individual brands of post Ivan political wares, to our Grenadians in exile in those cities.

The time may have passed, and the opportunity went a-begging on that score, but it would have been so much more beneficial for our people as a whole if both sides could have been speaking with one voice, in terms of what happened, how a unified Government was planning to deal with the recovery and reconstruction process and, above all else, of the absence of any partisan political position for the immediate future.

Instead, am sure we would be getting the usual claims and counterclaims, and accusations and denials from both sides that we have heard so many times before -- and how that state of affairs can be helping our people beats my simple mind.

But life goes on and we have to learn to cope, or adapt as nearly as possible to what obtains for survival.

In the midst of that scenario, however, we cannot remain silent, and take things for granted, and wait on handouts from others.
A united people cannot be defeated, and the voice of the people is the voice of Him who created us all – we must use it for our benefit.

Unification and integration and any manner of getting together, are all very laudable and must always be pursued. But we have to first achieve those ideals in our own back yards, as it were, before setting out to make hay in the sunshine of the wider region because, as the old saying goes, charity must begin at home.

Lloyd Noel is a former Attorney General of Grenada, prominent attorney at law and political commentator.

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