Caricom's political space
Editorial
Stabroek News
March 26, 2003
Just over a month ago, Norman Girvan, was in Georgetown to deliver a lecture in the Distinguished Lecture Series at the Foreign Service Institute. The occasion was the Second Convocation for the award of the Post Graduate Certificate in diplomacy. Girvan, who is now Director General of the Secretariat of the
Association of Caribbean States (ACS) in Port of Spain, is one of that distinguished group of W.I. economists which includes McIntyre, Jefferson, Clive Thomas and Havelock Brewster and the late George Beckford whose influence was felt not only in the region but far afield.
As was to be expected Girvan had many important things to say. Dealing with regionalism and globalisation Girvan contended that " developing countries must depart from open regionalism in certain significant aspects if they are to successfully confront the challenges of globalisation".
"First", Girvan noted, "although the general objective of market liberalisation to spur efficiency and competitiveness can be accepted, the timing, scope and sequencing of such liberalisation must be a matter of conscious choice so as to facilitate adjustment and minimise dislocation".
"Second, market liberalisation needs to be complemented by selective state interventions aimed at building up local capabilities for successful performance in international markets".
"And third", Girvan stressed, "the principal aim of the external negotiation strategy should be to create and enhance space for the adoption of policies of this kind".
Girvan's first two points have been made before. It is Girvan's third point about the creation and enhancement of space for the adoption of necessary policies which has not been made before, as far as one recalls, with such force and clarity.
The pitfall for negotiators is that the request for Special and Differential (S&D) treatment for Caricom and other small states has begun to be seen almost as a kind of magical incantation which once invoked will provide acceptable results for required periods of time. It is, of course, not that easy. In any event, S&D are principles or criteria which have to be applied to concrete situations within the three sets of current negotiations for the FTAA, with the European Union (EU) and within WTO fora, and which will in turn each yield different results.
But Girvan may be putting it too high when he contends that the creation of appropriate space should be the principal aim of the three sets of economic negotiations mentioned above. It has never been the case that special benefits flow only from meeting economic criteria. There are always political linkages which could override whether the state is small , under-developed and vulnerable. To put it bluntly the economic criteria will not prevail if the power with which one is negotiating perceives the vulnerable state as indifferent or hostile to its political objectives.
One may be moving into a post-Iraq war world in which coping with such cross linkages of issues will have to become central to the foreign policies and diplomacy of Caricom States including Guyana.
The above discussion on political space is of particular relevance in the situation of the diplomatic failure of the Bush administration to mobilise significant support for its war on Iraq. This is clearly as defining a moment for US foreign policies as was the September 11 events for its military strategy.
Who will forget the pathos of Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, giving out the list of thirty states who had pledged support for the US. The list did not include Mexico and Chile, two states which have such close economic ties with the US through NAFTA and the recently concluded Trade Agreement respectively. Some of the support was nominal, most surprisingly from Spain which will not send any forces, the latter being also a blow for Prime Minister Tony Blair who has so sedulously cultivated the Spanish relationship even to the extent of trying to sacrifice Gibraltar. Equally pathetic was the disclosure of the existence of a list of fifteen supporting states which did not wish their names to be given out. Since then the Defence Secretary Rumsfeld has been at pains to stress that the first list has now risen to thirty-five. Clearly those lists are of high importance to the US.
The war may be comparatively short but the aftermath may stretch over a generation. The US, however isolated, will remain at the end of it an enhanced superpower. One must not personalise states but the anger of its decision makers will almost certainly be reflected in its foreign policy initiatives reinforcing the age old US patterns of isolation/intervention.
What will the aftermath signify for the Caricom small states? Already the effects have been felt. In Jamaica and elsewhere a number of Caricom Foreign Ministries and groups took strong objection to a threatening letter issued by the US administration to Caricom states regarding their position in the proposed session of the UN General Assembly on Iraq.
The US ambassador in Jamaica responded that it was a routine letter. And Trinidad's Foreign Minister Knowlson Gift reflecting on the wider situation and noting the disarray in the UN contended that the Non-Aligned Movement might in the future have to look to linkages with the European Union.
The direct effects on Caricom have been well documented, the curtailment of tourist flows, the knock on effect of escalating fuel prices, higher prices of imports and so on. But it is the ensuing global crisis which in the long run could have even more damaging effects. The major part of the cost of the first Gulf War was borne by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Germany and Japan. This will almost certainly not happen this time.
The US will have to pay its way at a time when its economy is teetering on the brink of renewed recession with a sharp rise in the loss of jobs. Despite current divisions the major source of reconstruction funds is likely to come from the European Union including France and Germany if only because they will not wish to miss the chance to be in on the share out of Iraq oil reserves. But Iraq's reconstruction is likely to be only one focus of donor attention in the Middle East. If Bush and Blair are to be taken at their word, the imposition of the so called Road Map leading to a Palestinian State will also demand large scale funds; and so will the proposed reform of Middle East regimes.
This much is certain, there will be a massive redirection of funds, both assistance and investment, to the Middle East the latter if only because of the overarching potential for oil. Hence there will be further diminution of interest in developing countries and the Caribbean (it is worth recalling how economic assistance for Jamaica was diverted to Eastern Europe). Caricom may be seen as a bothersome group of small states with a high incidence of Aids, narco traffickers and would be illegal immigrants who did not support the US when they stood almost alone.
Hence there is urgent need to consider what will be the future shape of US foreign policy in its own hemisphere where no state in Latin America and the Caribbean nor Canada found it possible to support the war against Iraq. Or to put the question more directly, and in terms of Girvan's analysis, what will be the characteristics of the regional political space in which Caricom small states must try in the immediate future to secure Special and Differential measures which cater to their own vulnerabilities. The space may now have narrowed and changed fundamentally.
What follows is not intended as a prediction but as an attempt to identify possible areas for consideration in the formulation of required new modes of diplomatic behaviour. There may be a need for a new "hygiene" for living beside a superpower with zero tolerance. Finland at an earlier period living in the shadow of Soviet power had demonstrated how this could be done.
It may be found that in future Caricom will be required to cope with a list of issues including terrorism on which support for the US position will be mandatory for survival as a viable state.
Coordination of foreign policies may no longer prove to be a useful instrument in defining the relationship with the US.
Colin Powell and his predecessor Albright have shown scant respect for the Caricom Council for Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR). The US may show a strong preference for bilateral relationships and may encourage individual states to seek bilateral arrangements outside the Caricom context. (Was your state on the list of supporting states?).
The Caricom/UK forum may move to centre stage as the UK is seen as the effective mediator with the US, a role hitherto played intermittently by Canada .
What will be the future role of the OAS with an uneasy superpower in its membership?
What will be the future shape of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) at a time when major Latin American economies are in crisis and there is profound questioning of market liberalisation as a basis for growth and development?
The kind of political space available to Caricom in its relationship with the US will inevitably influence and perhaps curtail its negotiating leverage with the EU and perhaps in the WTO.
At the fourth meeting of COFCOR in Georgetown in May 200l Caricom Foreign Ministers in discussing relations with the USA had made an optimistic assessment of how relations with the new US Republican administration were developing. Now when the Foreign Ministers meet almost two years later to a day in May in St Vincent they must consider as a matter of urgency the challenges of the rapidly changing political space in which Caricom states must survive.
