CARICOM to review involvement in internal conflict resolution Grenada PM sees need for improved political conduct By Patrick Denny in Canouan Stabroek News July 6, 2000 CARICOM is to commission a study on its future involvement in conflict resolution in its member states. The decision announced yesterday at the just concluded summit of CARICOM heads came on the heels of views that the region needed to reassess its approach after its interventions led to the curtailment of the terms of governments in Guyana and St Vincent and the Grenadines. Summit Chairman, Sir James Mitchell, Prime Minister of St Vincent had said publicly at the gathering in Canouan that CARICOM's role should be reviewed. Of particular concern in some quarters was the feeling that democratically elected governments could be brought to their knees because of disenchantment by a few with elections results. In the case of Guyana the government's term was cut by two years making elections mandatory by January 17, 2001; in the case of St Vincent, the elections must be held by March 2001. Speaking with reporters during a break in the discussions yesterday, Sir James said he agreed with Guyanese President Bharrat Jagdeo "that in hindsight we should have said when the audit was done by CARICOM on the [December 17, 1997] elections, if the elections were found to be satisfactory there should have been no curtailment of the life of the Guyana parliament." This year's summit has been preoccupied with dealing with the resolution of conflicts within member states and between member states and CARICOM's role in conflict resolution has taken centre stage. However, the need to review the process has been recognised and a study is being commissioned to identify the conditions that should determine CARICOM's involvement in conflict resolution in a member state, St Kitts-Nevis Prime Minister, Dr Denzil Douglas, said. However, Dr Douglas cautioned, "We want to make it absolutely clear that out of the situation of St Vincent that it is not the intention of CARICOM to give the impression to anyone that a group of people can join with political parties and force a government out of office." President Jagdeo had told the opening session of the summit that the Herdmanston Accord brokered by CARICOM should have imposed equal responsibilities on the government and opposition. He also warned that government should not be seen to be consecrating measures outside the ballot box for removing governments. St Lucia's Prime Minister, Dr Kenny Anthony, who has responsibility for governance in the quasi-cabinet structure, agreed that the events in Guyana and St Vincent did provide the opportunity for CARICOM to determine the way it would proceed in the future. But he noted that the issue was not street protests, since CARICOM states supported the right to protest once public order was observed. Grenada's Prime Minister, Dr Keith Mitchell, who admitted to having engaged in such protests in the past, said that the issue was the relevance of such protests in the present environment. The interests of the people could be badly served if political instability resulted in the loss of investor confidence, he said. The CARICOM Audit Commission headed by retired Trinidadian appellate court judge, Ulric Cross, found that the results of Guyana's elections were not significantly different from those which were declared. It had observed, but later withdrew the observation, that some 45,000 persons had voted without voter identification cards. The audit was one of the measures of the Herdmanston Accord to see the return of political normality in Guyana. However, it was provided in the Accord that the audit would not prohibit a party from challenging the elections in the courts and that the results of the audit could be tendered in the court as evidence of fact. In the case of St Vincent, an opinion provided by the legal expert on the CARICOM mission which intervened to help resolve the situation that threatened the island's stability, vindicated the government. The events in St Vincent sprang from a move by the government to provide that senators who had served as ministers and parliamentary secretaries be paid a gratuity. The opposition objected and the government decided to introduce legislation to delay the implementation of the bill. The opposition was not satisfied and pressed the government to resign, staging a number of street protests which brought the country to a standstill. CARICOM intervened and an agreement brokered in Grenada provided for new elections to be held by March 2001. However, though his administration has been vindicated Sir James said that the elections would proceed as agreed as he had given his word. Guyana and St Vincent were not the only countries in which the streets have been used to create political instability. There were also protests in Grenada but that government won the subsequent elections overwhelmingly. However, its Prime Minister, now has to deal with a parliament that his party dominates and the need to provide the social partners with a greater say in the decision-making process. But he questioned whether the constitutional arrangements in the region could accommodate the sort of inclusivity which the new political culture demanded and the correctness of the assumptions the region has made in creating the existing political and civil infrastructure. Dr Mitchell, in his presentation to the opening session of the CARICOM Summit on Sunday said that it was assumed that all the social partners would adhere to the same rules of societal behaviour, stressing that economic and social development could not be fully achieved, or maintained without harmony and stability in the society. "They are the prerequisites to growth and social development." Dr Mitchell noted that this era of globalisation and liberalisation demanded of governments and opposition parties "political conduct, social behaviour, and economic operations higher in quality than those of the past. "Today we have to be competitive. We have to be comparable with the best in the world. Today our workers have to compete for jobs not so much with one another, but with workers worldwide, as jobs move freely around the globe." He said too that the "in the new global environment, the demands on us are for higher levels of political judgment, greater sense of social responsibility, superior civil behaviour and more mature adherence to the principles and the spirit of democracy." Follow the goings-on in Guyana in Guyana Today