UK forum launched with pomp and royalty
Blair implores Caribbean to look after 'mutual interests
By John Mair in London
Stabroek News
May 12, 2004
To some it is a biennial talk shop, to others a vital link between the Old World and the New. The fourth UK/Caribbean Forum opened in London on Monday night with speeches from British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and Barbados Foreign Minister Billie Miller speaking on behalf of Caricom. Hundreds of guests packed into the elegant Locarno room of the Foreign and Common-wealth Office in Westminster with its ceiling of gold inlay. On the podium were Jack Straw, his Cabinet colleague Baroness Valerie Amos, the Leader of the Lords and twelve foreign ministers from Caribbean countries plus Caricom Secretary-General Edwin Carrington. British Prime Minister Blair sent a video welcome from Downing Street. The Duke of York attended in person on behalf of the Queen. There was pomp, splendour and a touch of West Indian flavour from Guyanese conductor Ian Hall and his musicians.
On the level of Forum business, the major issues to be covered over the two days will be security, drugs (the two inevitably interwoven) and the HIV pandemic. Jack Straw called this triad "threats across international boundaries" and spoke of the urgent need to "tackle the conditions in which these threats breathe". The official version may be talk of 'security co-operation' but the real agenda of this forum is the need to control the growth of the Caribbean, especially the Southern ring, as a transshipment point for cocaine and other drugs to Europe from the growing fields of South America. The UK will offer the Caribbean help 'in the form of police and customs training and hardware' but in return the Caribbean, according to Guyana's Foreign Minister Rudy Insanally speaking to Stabroek News, will expect more concrete aid packages. Prime Minister Blair touched on this in his video message saying that "for once talk of mutual interest is actually true".
So, drugs are top of the agenda.
On HIV/AIDS, the Foreign Secretary said this Forum and the governments at it "would be judged on how we respond to the epidemic" sweeping the region. Once again the regional governments are looking to the mother country for concrete help - medicine and money on combating the scourge.
Trade and the recent expansion of the European Union (EU) will also be high up the agenda. The preference arrangements with the EU have kept many economies alive.
The hope is for continuance. The Caribbean governments, said Billie Miller, speaking on behalf of Caricom are "looking forward to working with the new Europe" but that symbiotic relationship could only work if the Caribbean Single market came into being as soon as practicable.
As Tony Blair elegantly put it "current trade regimes put pressure on already vulnerable economies". They had to be protected from trade storms.
Guyana, unlike most other participants, was represented by not one but two foreign ministers. Minister Insanally may have been on the podium and in the inner circle but prominent in the audience was Foreign Trade Minister Clement Rohee, here to look after Guyana's trade interests. How the two Ministers divide their labour makes for much febrile speculation.
They are being serviced by London High Commissioner Laleshwar Singh and ample staff. When the HC was asked about the agenda and likely results he merely told Stabroek News to "wait until Wednesday and the final press conference".
The other great trade referred to by all the British ministers was the tourism trade. Straw felt it had bounced back post 9/11 whilst Blair, not long back from his sojourn in Barbados, was quick to remark on the trade, but also on his delight at the recent triumphant England cricket tour of the West Indies.
The Duke of York, another not long back from a West Indian drum-banging trip for British exports that included Guyana, graced the event later on with his presence. This author was treated to his robust views of the lack of need for a university education at eighteen.
Overall, this fourth forum was launched with a big fanfare. When the final communiqué is issued today, it's not expected that there will be that much to trumpet about for the West Indies and for Guyana.