AS THE Caribbean Community (CARICOM) prepares for an emergency summit next month, there are increasing concerns that President George W. Bush can be persuaded by his western allies against pursuing any massive, indiscriminate retaliation for the horrendous destruction and humiliation suffered by America at the hands of terrorists.

In his address to a special session of Congress and to the American people on Thursday night on the shocking developments of September 11, Bush was to make the strangely simplistic and dangerous assertion that "either you are with us (America), or with the terrorists".

Does the leader of the world's superpower honestly believe that sovereign nations that are known, like those in our Caribbean, to be opposed to all forms of terrorism, will really wish to put themselves in the corner of 'global terrorism' by simply exercising their moral and legal right to disagree with policies and initiatives of the USA? I think not.

While there were quick responses, at the national level, to the tragedies of September 11, including outright condemnations of the terrorists attacks, prayer vigils, memorial services for the dead in New York and Washington, as a Community, CARICOM has been tardy in coming up with a collective statement.

Then on Thursday, as President Bush was preparing to address the American people on the latest diplomatic and military initiatives as his administration prepares for vengeance, there came news that CARICOM leaders would meet at a special summit in The Bahamas next month to discuss the security, economic, air transportation and other implications of the war of the terrorists that so deeply hurt the USA and shocked the world.

Tourism destinations in the Caribbean, like Jamaica, The Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Barbados and St. Lucia have all been pointing to the negative economic consequences of cancelled flights and hotel bookings by expected tourists and business travellers, while national airlines, such as 'Air Jamaica' have been lamenting the millions of dollars in losses already suffered.

The emergency CARICOM Summit will be held following the October 6-9 Commonwealth Summit in Brisbane, Australia, that will serve as a much wider forum for assessing the global implications of international terrorism and America's declared intention to wage a long and extensive campaign to hunt down terrorists, not just those who may have been directly involved in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Regional Security
Trinidad and Tobago is particularly keen to have the proposed CARICOM discuss the security threat to national jurisdictions and the region as a whole by the secret foreign funding of controversial groups.

While no names have been officially given, private briefings have alluded to Libya as one such funding source and to religious/political organisations like the Jamat-al-Muslimeen that had staged the abortive 1990 coup against the then government of Prime Minister ANR Robinson, now President.

It is, however a shared concern among some CARICOM heads of government and Foreign Ministers that it is necessary for future peace and security of states, not just small and vulnerable ones in this region, that a distinction be made by the USA and its European allies between revenge and justice in the quest to combat global terrorism.

Such sober thinking is to be welcomed since the Caribbean public is quite conscious of the thousands of innocent lives that perished in the September 11 tragedies, among them our own nationals, and clearly would not wish for thousands more innocent people to die.

The strength of a great nation like the USA must certainly have something to do also with humility and compassion in the use of the massive power it commands at a time when its resolve has been so murderously tested by terrorists.

And as the Caribbean keeps counting its own feared dead from the September 11 tragedies, we must hope that dialogue can be established by Washington with the Taliban authority in Afghanistan, however difficult this was even with the rejection by Washington of the Taliban's influential clerics offer for Osama bin Laden to voluntarily leave Afghanistan and plea for evidence of his guilt in the attacks on America.

Justice, Not Revenge
In a world that has for many years experienced the horrors of terrorism, including state-sponsored terrorism for ideological/national security reasons in which the USA has been a player, there are saints and sinners on all sides, not just Islamic infidels and wild west Christian cowboys.

Even as the hunt continues for those involved in the horrors of September 11 that have sent rightwing hawks in Washington screaming for vengeance, there were the sad manifestations of fascist-type criminal behaviour in American states of attacks on dark-skinned turbaned and bearded Asian Americans by white Americans who seem incapable of distinguishing a Muslim from a Sikh.

In their rage over the pain and humiliation inflicted by the terrorists, those Americans who have been attacking the dark-skinned, bearded or turbaned non-white in their midst, should perhaps reflect on the acts of hostility and aggression, the often displayed arrogance of power by the USA that may have contributed to the hatred and rage also among peoples of other nations.

That is why justice must not be confused with revenge. Bringing Osama bin Laden and his suspected cohorts to justice is most desirable.

But to talk of launching a coalition force for a long and massive war, starting with military attacks on so-called “rogue states” (America's perception) like Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, is sheer madness. This cannot be the Christian perspective of “vengeance is mine, said the Lord”

Let it not be forgotten while the Bush administration is feverishly seeking to have its allies fall in line for planned retaliation, that bin Laden is himself a by-product of America's anti-communist, anti-Soviet involvement, via Pakistan, in Afghanistan.

Remembering
Also, that having for years trained, financed and help execute state-sponsored terrorism in a number of countries in Latin America, long before it invaded Panama to kidnap President Manuel Noriega - its former CIA-informant -the USA has also been demonstrating its contempt for institutions like the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Condemned, for example, for identified acts of terrorism against the then Sandinistas government in Nicaragua, it was to arrogantly refuse to acknowledge the verdict.

Cuba, a victim of numerous acts of terrorism hatched on US soil, has been unsuccessfully asking for many years for the extradition of the Cuban exile, now an American citizen, Orlando Bosch, a medical doctor for his lead role in the bombing of the Cubana aircraft off Barbados in 1976 when all 73 people aboard, among them 11 Guyanese, were killed.

Remember, we are dealing with loss of innocent lives through terrorism. Not quantum, ethnicity, nationality, their politics or religion. Count the Bosches with the bin Ladens.

A lot can happen between now and when the CARICOM leaders meet next month. But there are some encouraging indicators that though small and vulnerable, and quite ready to cooperate, the Community's leaders are not about to simply genuflect to pressures from Washington on its new “do-it-our-way” anti-terrorist moves.