It was, therefore, disturbing to hear him calling for the removal of the Caribbean Community Secretariat in Georgetown and also for a reconsideration of Haiti's membership in CARICOM.

The Community's Secretary General, Edwin Carrington, would not have been the only one perplexed by such ideas. His company, we suspect, would include all the Community's Heads of Government.

This double whammy from the Chairman of the 'Jamaica Gleaner Company came when he delivered the feature address at the recent annual dinner and awards event of the Guyana Manufacturers Association (GMA).

Whatever the extent of disenchantment or disillusionment over Haiti's presence in CARICOM, Mr. Clarke would be well advised to first engage the attention of the Jamaican Prime Minister, Mr. P. J. Patterson, on the rationale for bringing the oldest and poorest Black nation in the Western Hemisphere into the Caribbean Community family where it has a right to belong.

Patterson was quite influential in Haiti's access to CARICOM membership that came in 1998 with the UNANIMOUS approval of all member states of the Community, including Guyana.

For someone of the stature of the head of the Gleaner Company to now question the wisdom of Haiti's involvement in CARICOM, locked as it is in a virtual civil war, is perhaps itself the kind of wisdom that requires critical evaluation.

Insensitivity
Secondly, Clarke betrayed a very surprising level of insensitivity to call for the removal of the CARICOM Secretariat from Guyana while addressing a forum of the GMA here in Georgetown.

Equally surprising was the lack of any response from the local business community or civil society questioning this position of such a leading citizen of our Caribbean Community.

The Guyana Government which, in significant partnership with Japan, is involved in the construction of an ultra-modern headquarter complex for the CARICOM Secretariat - this country's gift to the Community - may have considered it irrelevant to challenge the suggestion by Clarke for the removal of the Secretariat from Georgetown.

Any objective assessment of today's Community, now proceeding towards the creation of a single economic space, as well as the thinking, resources and goodwill that have led to the construction of the new headquarter complex for the Secretariat, would quite easily conclude that any such shift in location would be a non-starter. Irresponsible, really.