The meeting was held in the shadow of the impending war on Iraq. The Chairman of the Council, Foreign Affairs Minister Hugo Tolentino Dipp of the Dominican Republic, spoke of “the threat that presently looms over the multilateral international system”, and declared that “the commitments assumed in international institutions cannot be broken by the unilateral opinion of any one state, because only the plural will of the majority has the right to decide in the name of the international community”.

Jamaica’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Delano Franklyn, was equally forthright in opposing unilateral action. He called for “unequivocal support for the central role of the United Nations in maintaining global peace and security” and for “multilateral action in accordance with UN principles in resolving threats to international peace”.

As they spoke, Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Minister Ernesto Derbez was reiterating his country’s fervent wish for a peaceful resolution to the crisis. At this writing, Mexico, Chile, and the other non-permanent members of the Security Council were working feverishly on a draft resolution that would give more time for the United Nations process to work.

President Vicente Fox had previously stated publicly that the Mexican economy is still recovering from the effects of 9/11 and can ill afford the further shock that a war was certain to bring.

In Central America, Costa Rican Finance Minister Jorge Bolaños was warning of the likely impact of war on regional trade. Fifty per cent of Central America’s energy supply is imported, so that higher energy prices will reduce the amount available for intra-regional imports. Thirteen per cent of Costa Rica’s exports goes to its Central American neighbours.

Costa Rica’s 98-per cent reliance on domestic energy will not, therefore, insulate it from the energy crunch generated by war. A similar situation occurs in oil-rich Trinidad and Tobago with respect to its CARICOM partners, as Prime Minister Patrick Manning already pointed out some weeks ago.

In the Dominican Republic, economists estimate the lost export income due to 9/11 and the global economic recession of 2001-2002 at $2.3 billion, equivalent to 5.6 per cent of annual GDP.

Of all the developing regions in the world, the Greater Caribbean has the closest economic, social and political ties with the world’s sole remaining super-power.

It is because of the close economic ties that the traditional relations of political friendship are now under stress. Caribbean leaders are counting the probable cost of war in terms of lost tourism and higher energy prices, coming on top of at least two years of economic stagnation.

They do not have the economic room to manoeuvre of the world’s largest economy, which can sustain a rising fiscal deficit without worrying about International Monetary Fund discipline.

For them, a peaceful resolution to the crisis could be a matter of economic life or death.

By the time this column appears, the bombs may already have started to fall on the people of Baghdad. History may record this war, if it happens, as one of the most unpopular ever. It has already become a milestone in the emergence of a global community of concern. Even if it is of short duration, its economic and political consequences will be with us for a long time to come.