An invitation for US President George W. Bush to visit the Caribbean and meet all the region’s leaders was one of the initiatives forwarded at a breakfast meeting yesterday in New York and the leaders avoided tangling over the controversial International Criminal Court (ICC).

Bush did find some common ground with his Caribbean counterparts even if he also disagreed on other issues, including Cuba, during the eighty-minute breakfast at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

Grenada’s Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell, St Lucian Prime Minister, Dr Kenny Anthony and Prime Minister of The Bahamas, Perry Christie, together with President Bharrat Jagdeo were the leaders invited and in attendance. Jamaica’s Prime Minister, P J Patterson was invited but declined the invitation pleading a prior commitment (his party’s annual conference) in Jamaica. Other leaders, most notably from Barbados and Trinidad, were not invited apparently because of their support for the ICC and their refusal to conclude agreements with the US exempting US servicemen from prosecution by the court. But neither this issue nor the war in Iraq was discussed.

According to a Tony Best report for the Barbados Nation, the US and Caricom leaders agreed on security issues and the economic problems facing Grenada, Dominica and the rest of the Caribbean. Bush, however, parted company with his guests, on Cuba.

Best spoke with Mitchell and Christie after the meeting. According to Best, Dr Mitchell said, “There was a meeting of the minds and like any good relationship there must be areas that we don’t necessarily agree on 100 per cent.” “I think the fact that we agree to disagree and the fact that we are working together in the best interest of the international community and our own countries, individually and collectively is an indication that we are on the right track.”

Prime Minister Christie agreed with Dr Mitchell’s assessment. He told Best, “The President of Guyana, the prime ministers of Grenada, St Lucia and myself all agreed that it was a meeting of good friends in which frank exchanges were made with respect to the challenges to the region, the Caricom region, and to our respective countries”. “We thought that President Bush demonstrated during the meeting a

genuine interest in our concerns and empathised with some of the issues which ranged from education and training to the plight of the Commonwealth of Dominica and the Eastern Caribbean States”. The Bahamian Prime Minister said that Bush appeared to be very willing to render the assistance that we were asking for. “For example an examination of the economies of Guyana and Dominica, to send people in to make this assessment with a view to seeing that we are not just complaining.”

According to Best, Prime Minister Mitchell described the meeting as a “very positive one”. In a statement issued by his Press Office in Grenada, Dr Mitchell is quoted as describing the meeting as “excellent and extremely useful”. His St Lucian colleague, Dr Kenny Anthony, described the meeting as cordial and engaging, according to a statement from the St Lucia Government Information Service.

Up to press time no statement had been issued either by the Office of the President here or the Government Information Agency on President Jagdeo’s participation.

Dr Mitchell told Best that he and his colleagues “made a case to Bush that he should sit down with all Caricom heads of government, not just a few of them, so there could be an exchange of views on a wide range of matters relating to United States-Caribbean relations, Cuba, Haiti, global trade, security, economic development and drug trafficking.

While the US President did not commit himself to such a summit, Dr Mitchell is reported as saying, “I think he understood the need for it. He did not necessarily say there was going to be one.”

In his Press Office statement, Dr Mitchell is quoted as saying, “It was agreed that there should be more regular dialogue between the US President and the Caricom Heads of Government.”

Prime Minister Christie told Best that he had offered to host the summit with the consent of his colleagues at the meeting.

About the make-up of the group invited to the meeting, Prime Minister Christie told Best, even with the absence of Jamaica’s PM it was a representative segment of the Caricom leadership from The Bahamas to Guyana.

“I felt that given what we saw one-on-one with the President, given his feeling for some of the issues that impact our countries and (which) I think have a dramatic impact on the quality of life of our people of the region that there was a compelling urgency to make the strongest possible case to meet.”

Best said Dr Mitchell played down the fact that it was the White House and not Caricom which had picked the region’s team of leaders to meet with Bush. Best reports the Grenadian Prime Minister as saying that (as there is) a general unanimity of view on crucial questions facing Caricom, it really did not matter who were asked to sit with the President.

As a matter of fact, Dr Mitchell added much was being made of the matter because whether Owen Arthur, the Barbados Prime Minister, was invited or not or whether Patterson of Jamaica was present, they would remain two of Caricom’s top leaders and no one could change that, according to Best.

Both Mitchell and Christie said they both went prepared to discuss the contentious issues of the International Criminal Court and Iraq, which caused a split between several Caricom capitals and Washington. Neither side raised the issues. Dr Mitchell said, “They didn’t bring it up and we didn’t bring it up. We weren’t sure whether it would come up or not. We were prepared to deal with it. But it wasn’t brought up by the president or any of his advisers.”

Before the meeting, highly placed diplomatic sources in Washington, New York and the Caribbean had said that the ICC was the real reason why the breakfast was being held and why certain leaders had not been invited.

About the discussions on Cuba, St Lucia’s Government Information Service and Prime Minister’s Office said that there was frank exchange of views.

Dr Mitchell’s Press Office quoted him, speaking on behalf of his colleagues, as saying that Caricom, as a friend of both countries, “stands ready to facilitate more engagement between America and Cuba on issues of common concern.”

“We are prepared to help in whatever way we can,” the release quoted Prime Minister Mitchell as saying.

It said that in response President Bush held fast to his position that economic growth “will only come about in Cuba when it embraces democracy.”

On the issue of Haiti, the statement out of St Lucia, said Dr Anthony had sought the assistance of the US to end the political crisis.

The Grenada leader said Bush praised the Caribbean, picturing it as a bastion of democracy, observance of human rights and respect for the rule of law. Just as important, he saw it as a safe place, a region untouched by terrorism.

“The president talked about the issue of security in the region and complimented the region for doing what is necessary to deal with the issue of terrorism and security threat, pointing out that the region appears to be one of the safest areas in the world community at this time and that whatever the United States can do to help continue to keep it that way and advance it even further, they were prepared to help,” Mitchell added.

An issue not discussed with Best but which Dr Mitchell’s Press office reported that he raised at the meeting is the issue of the creation of the Caribbean as Centre of Excellence for Connectivity through a Caribbean Knowledge and Learning Network.

The proposal is to connect tertiary level institutions in the region to provide educational and training opportunities through online technologies.

The idea for this proposal originates from the Summit of the Americas that was held in Quebec City in 2001. It was subsequently propelled by the Canadian government and further advanced by the World Bank.

Dr Mitchell, Caricom’s spokesperson on Science and Technology, is reported as saying, “The President was very excited about this initiative, recognising the potential for training and learning opportunities for people in the Region.”

On the issue of the breakdown of the WTO meeting in Cancun, the St Lucia statement noted that all the leaders expressed their disappointment at its failure. However, “Bush told the leaders in his view there is no free (trade) because of the dislocations of the world economy.”