At the precipice of a new decade, events within the year set the momentum for much of what was going to preoccupy humankind for the last decade in both the century and the millennium.

The year started off with the ascension of the first George Bush to the U.S. Presidency; an event quickly followed by the decree, issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, of a fatwah upon the head of British writer Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses; the oil tanker, Exxon Valdez, ruptures spilling millions of gallons of crude oil into the waters of Prince William Sound off the coast of Alaska, bringing to light the devastating environmental consequences of oil spills; Mikhail Gorbachev was sworn in as President of the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; the Chinese government, under the orders of leader Deng Xiaoping, sent tanks and military personnel of the People’s Liberations Army against students protesting in favour of democratic reform, resulting in the massacre of about seven thousand people; and all this in the first half of the year.

The next half of 1989 saw the fall of the Berlin Wall, along with that of communist hegemony in Eastern Europe; the resignation of the man behind the Tiananmen massacre Chairman Deng Xiaoping; as well as that of South African President P.W. Botha; and later in the year, the US invaded Panama in search of General Manuel Noriega and the Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace Prize.

It is little wonder then that the July 1989 Declaration coming out of the meeting of the CARICOM Heads of Government at Grande Anse, Grenada, was effectively rendered almost inaudible amidst all that worldwide clamour.

The Declaration of Grande Anse was the instrument by which the regional movement towards integration was to have been accelerated, with the Caribbean Community Heads of Government promising to “work expeditiously together to deepen the integration process and strengthen the Caribbean Community in all of its dimensions to respond to the challenges and opportunities presented by the changes in the global economy.”

The Declaration set itself the decidedly optimistic deadline of four years for the establishment of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) by July 4, 1993. One of the steps to be taken towards this goal was “arrangements by January 1991 for the free movement of skilled and professional personnel as well as for contract workers on a seasonal or project basis”.

To support this, there was to be put in place a regional agenda of eliminating work permits for Caribbean artistes, sportsmen (and women), and media workers travelling intra-regionally to specific events; and the elimination (“by December 1990”) of the necessity of passports for CARICOM nationals travelling to other CARICOM territories other than their country of citizenship.

Over a decade after the original implementation deadline for the CSME and, by extensions Free Movement of Persons (FMP), nationals from individual CARICOM states are still required to furnish a passport at the ports of entry of other CARICOM states. Whereas the 1989 Declaration of Grande Anse envisioned the people of the Caribbean Community taking advantage of one of the key benefits of regional integration, it may be argued that, already four years into the new millennium, most of the region’s citizenry have no idea of what FMP means.

The Sunday Chronicle recently had a chance to speak to Mr. Steven Mac Andrew, the Deputy Programme Manager of Labour and Manpower Development within the CARICOM Secretariat, and one of the effective point men on the issue of Free Movement of Persons within the region.

To the question of what exactly it is that FMP entails, Mr. Mac Andrew responded that it entails a number of elements.

“One,” says Mac Andrew, “being single lines at point of entry for all CARICOM nationals; [another] one being a common format for embarkation/disembarkation forms which is now also being pursued.”

“One other issue”, he adds, “is that of a CARICOM passport; and I believe that the [CARICOM] Heads [of Government] will have to take a decision on this…when they meet in March in Antigua and Barbuda.”

In response to our query on how far has any implementation gone towards the facilitation of FMP, Mr. Mac Andrew responded that to date, certain categories [of persons] have the right to enter other member states and to “engage in gainful employment.”

“Those categories,” he says, “are [university] graduates, artistes, musicians, sports persons and media workers. Those five categories can either enter (other countries) as self-employed persons or looking to be employed by somebody else.”

Mac Andrew relates that Chapter Three of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, also allows for the free movement of self-employed service providers other than those who fall into the stipulated five categories, as well as persons who are moving from one country to another in order to establish a business. Persons who qualify under Chapter Three provisions also have the right to travel with their managerial, supervisory and technical staff as well.

With the exception of St. Kitts and Nevis, all member states (of the CSME) currently have procedures in place for the issuance of Certificates of Recognition of CARICOM Skills Qualification (CRCSQ), obtainable from the designated ministry in each member country.

Speaking at the opening ceremony for the Fifteenth Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development held in Georgetown last year, Byron Blake, CARICOM’s Assistant Secretary-General, Regional Trade and Economic Integration, had stated that “any CARICOM national who satisfies definition in any of the four categories is now free to go into 11 member states on the presentation of a "certificate of skills" issued by his/her country and to work for up to six months. At the end of six months an application must be made to the host country for the issuance of its own certificate which then provides for the stay to be indefinite.”

This development has not found unanimous favour across the region. In a recent BBC Caribbean article entitled `Free Movement slowed by red tape’, Mr. Peter Wickham, a political science lecturer at UWI’s Cave Hill campus, was as quoted being critical of the process through which persons falling into the approved categories have to go in order to obtain their qualifying certificate, stating that “the leaders have simply supplemented one piece of paper for another.”

Responding to Mr. Wickham’s charges, MacAndrew says that “the certificate received from your receiving country gives you indefinite entry which means that you can always leave and reenter. There’s no need to renew it. A work permit, you have to renew after one year, two years, depending on the length…”

With the Caribbean Single Market and Economy finally scheduled to be come fully online next year, we asked Mr. Mac Andrew about the importance of Free Movement of Persons within the context of the CSME and received the answer that “free movement of persons for work purposes is a critical element of any CSME.”