CARICOM needs to tread carefully in mediation
CARICOM and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) deserve high commendation for helping to defuse the political crisis that paralysed St Vincent and the Grenadines earlier this month. When it was its turn in January 1998, Guyana was eternally grateful that the Herdmanston Accord - brokered by CARICOM's three `wise men' - and later the St Lucia Statement helped to reel this country back in from the brink. But along with the satisfaction that comes with such success, CARICOM needs a hard-nosed assessment of its efforts in St Vincent and Guyana before embarking on any similar mission. And there isn't much time to do this as the volatile situation in Haiti could yet prove to be the region's toughest challenge. The intervention in Kingstown followed the Georgetown pattern; deep-seated unrest, a CARICOM mediation mission and prematurely called elections to ostensibly "settle" the original grievance. In essence two governments have acquiesced under CARICOM mediation to have their constitutionally guaranteed terms in office significantly cut. Right there, CARICOM has begun to chip away at the legitimacy of the very governments from which it draws its own authority and sustenance. It won't come as a surprise if the next time CARICOM sets off on a mediation mission, freely-elected governments begin to shut their airports and find ways to opt out. Its intentions are no doubt well-meaning in this fairly new enterprise that it has embarked upon and there must be pitfalls and missteps. What it must now do earnestly is to reassess its efforts and find ways to strengthen them and limit the internal upheaval in its member countries. The last thing CARICOM can afford to do is to send an ambivalent signal to emboldened, opportunistic opposition groups in the Caribbean whose cherished aim is to dislocate freely elected governments. CARICOM definitely has a role to play in de-escalating crises in its member countries. But as with any other endeavour it needs to work out precisely what its objectives should be in these situations and what methods should be applied. This matter should be formally discussed at the level of the Heads of Government at their next gathering. There should be a permanent mediation unit set up within the CARICOM Secretariat which should form the core of future missions. In both of the recent cases CARICOM has scrambled at the last minute to find mediators acceptable to both sides and team members are sometimes on the `back foot' so to speak as they have not been in touch with the particular problem. Importantly, a permanent unit might be able to discern a looming crisis far before it mushrooms into a national showdown where the original grouses have subsided into the background and one of the only options left is early elections. There could have possibly been earlier mediation in St Vincent but probably not in Guyana. If CARICOM is to get involved in the internal politics of its member states then it should ideally be when the outcomes are likely to be less disruptive than the curtailment of the life of an administration and the staging of fresh elections (no easy task in a divided society as we Guyanese are witnessing here.) After holding elections in June 1998, Vincentians will be going to the polls again by March 2001 under the Grand Beach Accord and street protests will be halted. Outside of this a national committee is to be empanelled to ensure fair elections and another committee will hold dialogue on industrial relations and other matters of "national interest". Two other points in the accord relate to the implementation of long-standing commitments to teachers and elements of the Venner Report, the application of parts of which sparked the original crisis. It is conceivable that long before the crisis snowballed, the St Vincent government could have sought assistance from an established CARICOM mediation unit. CARICOM mediation should not convey with it the automaticity of elections. It should therefore assess carefully the range of options that can be applied to settle the crisis in a phased manner. One can very well ask what new elections had to do with the James Mitchell administration passing a bill for increased pensions and gratuities for parliamentarians. The call for new elections was cleverly played up by the opposition as the only way out, still stung by Mitchell's one-seat electoral win with less than half the eligible votes. As Trinidadian Prime Minister Basdeo Panday, a member of the mediation team, put it "it means that opposition (parties) can bring down governments before their duly elected term by violence and demonstrations". Mitchell speaking to reporters after the signing of the Accord said OECS heads supported the idea of using troops from the Regional Security System and supported the imposition of a state of emergency to forestall the collapse of the government. "They themselves recognised all of our cities in the Caribbean can be blocked by a few cars or a few loads of rubbish - today for me, tomorrow for you", Mitchell told reporters. The St Vincent experience needs close examination by CARICOM. The regional grouping also has a sobering lesson to learn from Guyana. Several of its prescriptions in the Herdmanston Accord - the electoral audit and dialogue - have failed to produce the desired results and the third - constitutional reform - is being reflected in minimal, cosmetic changes to the Constitution until more work can be put into it. The ultimate question is still left to be answered. Will the results of the 2001 elections in Guyana produce greater acceptance by the populace?
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