New thrust in Caricom diplomacy
Editorial
Stabroek News
May 5, 2004
When the Caricom foreign ministers met a fortnight ago in Barbados, they met in a kind of limbo. The occasion was the Seventh Meeting of the Council for Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR). Although the major issue now confronting Caricom is a foreign policy issue, namely Caricom's non-recognition for the time being of Haiti's interim government, despite the insistent demand of the United States to do so and the consequent deteriorating relationship with the US, the Caricom foreign ministers found themselves unable to advance the matter. This was because the important policy decisions on Haiti had been made by the heads of government themselves when they met exactly a month before in St Kitts and Nevis. Those decisions can only be reviewed and revised by the heads themselves when they meet two months hence in their regular annual summit in Grenada.
Hence the foreign ministers in Barbados, although the crisis over Haiti had deepened, went no further than reviewing "issues relating to the representation of Haiti within the Community and how best representatives of Haiti and the interim administration of Haiti could re-establish a dialogue that could lead to a normalisation of relations."
Yet the overarching sense of crisis apparently had its effect on the foreign ministers' deliberations. It is reflected in the communique in profound concern with the need to strengthen the mechanisms for the co-ordination of foreign policies.
Dame Billie Miller, the experienced and courageous Foreign Minister of Barbados who is now the COFCOR Chairman, while acknowledging after the meeting that there were differences with the US over Haiti, asserted that these should not affect other dimensions of the relationship with the US (SN, April 26). This must surely be a "diplomatic" utterance as the recent history of the Bush administration's dealings in foreign affairs shows the strict adherence to the doctrine that "you are either with me or against me" across the board. So that given the present impasse over non-recognition of the Latortue administration, Caricom will have to be collectively watchful over a wide field including trade negotiations.
It is never easy to make the distinction between legitimate persuasion and the point at which it becomes threat and unacceptable pressure on Caricom, especially when the relationship involved is between the only superpower and very small states located in the superpower's sphere of influence. In the case of the non-recognition issue, the situation has been clearly one of unacceptable pressure. The Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines has recently revealed that some governments had received letters prior to the St Kitts Summit demanding recognition of the Latortue administration. In St Kitts a distinguished journalist reported that some delegates had been subject to personal harassment. Now there was the demand that the Haiti interim administration should be included in the Caricom ministerial team which was to have met with Mr Tom Ridge, US Secretary for Homeland Security, in Nassau on May 3. In view of Caricom's principled position on recognition, it was left with no alternative but to ask for a postponement until after its Grenada summit.
The meeting with the US Secretary Ridge was a Caricom initiative. It was diplomatically shrewd on the part of Caricom to broaden representation by engaging the US government on issues of mutual interest over a wide field, including security. Arguably Haiti is in Caricom the main focus of security risks, including drug trafficking. But there were several ways in which Haiti's presence in Nassau could have been effected, while respecting Caricom's principled position. The US might have requested that Haiti attend as an observer. It would have been difficult for Caricom to reject this proposal as it is acutely aware of the need to develop a working relationship with the interim administration. Alternatively, Haiti might have been attached to Ridge's own delegation; after all, Haiti is an occupied territory. Hence the insistence on Haiti's inclusion in the Caricom ministerial team must be seen for what it is, a form of coercion. Such action can have no place in the discourse between states.
In this context of threat, Caricom foreign ministers and officials have perceived the need for an urgent rethink of the role of the Foreign Policy Co-ordination mechanism and how it could be enhanced. The Chairman of COFCOR, Dame Billie Miller, noted in her address to the meeting that the policy co-ordination role must be considered COFCOR's most vital function in the service of the community, and that such "co-ordination based on due consultations and the articulation of positions with one voice constitute the most prudent and healthy approach for small vulnerable countries."
The communique further records that the foreign ministers, in reviewing the mechanisms for such coordination, agreed that the Bureau of COFCOR should be revitalised - the bureau, as is the case with the Summit Bureau, consists of the immediate past chairman, the current chairman and the next chairman. Currently the bureau will be the foreign ministers of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados and the Bahamas. The ministers in Barbados considered that the bureau must assume a prominent role in promoting continuous consultation and coordination in the light of the dynamics of the current global environment.
The foreign ministers likewise called for the greater use of modern technology in facilitating consultations through such technologies as television and video conferencing. Indeed, in the European Union arrangements for coordination (known as European Political Cooperation (EPC)), there is an officer in each foreign ministry who is designated as 'correspondent,' whose function is to maintain daily exchange of information - a matter now easily possible, through e-mail.
In his opening address Secretary-General Edward Carrington had expressed concern that the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas did not spell out the responsibility of COFCOR in the area of community relations, and recommended that attention be given to this matter. This is a penetrative insight as it is the case that the divisive foreign policy issues which now confront the community - Haiti, the demarcation of maritime borders among certain members, begin as intra-community problems.
Most crucially for the future the foreign ministers agreed "to the commissioning of a study on new aspects of a foreign and security policy for the Community in the light of recent developments in the Hemisphere and the world community." This decision goes to the heart of the matter. For a long time one has had the feeling that foreign policies in the region are still running on old rail tracks which no longer go to the decided destinations.
Elsewhere the Barbados Communique records the foreign ministers' re-commitment to developing strategic alliances with like-minded developing and developed countries in the pursuit of material interests. In this connection the COFCOR meeting can itself become a powerful instrument for building such linkages. The communique states that the foreign ministers met with the Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chile "in the fringes of their meeting." There is no good reason why such meetings should be on the fringes or margins. It could be a powerful but not wholly innovative step to invite the foreign minister or senior official of a friendly state to attend a special session of a COFCOR meeting where there could be mutual briefings and perhaps exchange of commitments. A prime candidate for such invitation would be Brazil. It was recently disclosed that Brazil hopes to build a role as a regional crisis mediator by leading the UN Peace Mission to Haiti to rebuild that nation (SN, April 20). In addition, Brazil is the catalytic force within the G-20 group of developing nations.
In addition, the COFCOR Chairman could be entrusted with the task of briefing the ambassadors of key states. The Latin American group of foreign ministers, the Rio Group, in which Caricom can participate as an observer, regularly meet with the EU and its commission. Should not Caricom seek a similar arrangement? COFCOR should similarly seek meetings with the appropriate body within the African Union and the major states including India and China.
One must warmly welcome this apparent return to serious diplomacy.
Too often the COFCOR meetings have looked like annual get-togethers.
Guyana once demonstrated that with an effective diplomacy one can carve out a place in the world which is not strictly dependent on the limits of size and resources. Caricom as a grouping can do this again.
Caricom's survival is not ultimately dependent on the eventual implementation of the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME).
On the other hand, Caricom as a movement and its individual states cannot survive in a hostile or indifferent international environment. It is crucial that its external representation be made effective. Which means that COFCOR must move to centre stage in regional action.