CARICOM'S political will
Editorial
IT IS recognised by now that the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) would end 1999 without having any major or significant project of a regional nature to coincide with the start of the new millennium. This is indeed a pity. It suggests a surprising lack of collective imagination for a region so often praised by others for its creative reservoir. At the national level, various programmes and activities are being planned. But none of a regional character to stimulate that sense of Caribbean togetherness that will be all the more relevant in the single market and economy to be inaugurated. For all their increased emphasis on the "implementation" process, there is also that persistent feeling of lack of political will among Heads of Government to expedite the deepening of regional economic integration. This seems to be the case even after the expectations they raised by their promising "Consensus of Chaguaramas" at the Convention Centre last October when they engaged in a reality check on progress and shortcomings of the Community. It is not quite clear why a meeting of the CARICOM Bureau, the so-called management committee of the Community, planned for last weekend in Port-of-Spain, had to be cancelled. The impression was conveyed by the Community Secretariat that the meeting was important to advance some unresolved issues, among them recommendations for specific portfolio responsibilities of Heads of Government, and the restructuring and empowerment of the Secretariat. The recommendations of the Bureau were to be forwarded to Heads of Government well ahead of their next Inter-Sessional Meeting in March 2000. The Bureau meeting may now take place sometime next month. Unless recommendations are made and considered for action in good time, hopes will again be dashed in 2000. This time on advancement of the "implementation agenda" on pressing matters, like the single market, a Caribbean Court of Justice and the empowerment of institutions, as well as Heads of Government themselves, with special lead responsibility. Another unresolved issue of importance, of course, has to do with the status of CARICOM's involvement in the inter-party dialogue process in Guyana after the end of this month. At their Chaguaramas Summit, the Heads of Government had agreed to extend until year end the mandate of the CARICOM Facilitator, Maurice King, the former Attorney General and Foreign Minister of Barbados. King returned home last Saturday for the Christmas holidays and the indications are that he will not be returning to Guyana although he will honour the terms of his mandate. The question of relevance is whether CARICOM intends to remain engaged in the Guyana inter-party dialogue in 2000. One feels that the time has come to let the parties in that country continue the process in good faith on their own, without a facilitator. A statement of clarification seems necessary, the earlier the better, in the interest of CARICOM's own integrity in this matter of involvement in the political situation in Guyana. (Reprinted from yesterday's Trinidad Guardian)
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