New Caricom thrust
by Rickey Singh
PORT-OF-SPAIN – Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders, who opened their 20th annual summit yesterday, are to undertake a region-wide education programme to sensitise people about the integration movement and its benefits. New efforts to facilitate the free movement of people within the 15-member community will be given priority in this new thrust with the dawn of the new millennium, conference sources told CANA ahead of the formal opening of the four-day meeting. The decision to pursue such an initiative is expected to flow from a special retreat organised for the regional heads of government tomorrow in Tobago. At the retreat, the leaders will exchange views on developments in the 20th Century of importance to CARICOM and the challenges to be faced in at least the first decade of the 21st Century. The retreat format, introduced within the past five years, allows for the leaders to meet in a relaxed atmosphere and engage in discourse on a range of specific topics of their choice – away from piles of documents and the company of ministers and technocrats. This year’s retreat will be organised in the context of the proposition adopted at the 18th CARICOM Summit in Montego Bay, Jamaica, of the region as One People, One Society – A Caribbean Nation and with a focus on a set of strategies in the areas of education, health and science and technology. The retreat is expected to place emphasis on human resource development, including computer literacy, across the community. However, the sources explained, there was some urgency seen in the need to educate the public on the requirements and benefits of regional integration. Intra-regional hassle-free travel has not yet come to pass. The suggestion has been made for all governments of the community to open their borders for CARICOM citizens to engage in intra-regional travel for at least one week without passport requirements. Such an initiative, which could have “immeasurable psychological benefits”, had been recommended to the leaders for launching the new millennium, the sources added. 
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