The public relations choreography by the foreign ministers of Jamaica (A.J. Nicholson) and Trinidad and Tobago’s Winston Dookeran over two days of meetings and a shared Press conference earlier this week in Kingston, seemed so perfect as to provoke cynics to wonder about the core features of the “agreement” they reached on the two sensitive issues that required their hurriedly arranged dialogue.
The sensitive matters that led Mr Dookeran to travel to Jamaica at Mr Nicholson’s invitation pertained to the right to unhindered free trade under CARICOM’s Single Market and Economy arrangements and, relatedly, the freedom of Community citizens to travel to any member state, either for pleasure or business, without being subjected to humiliating treatment at ports of entry.
As is now known region-wide and beyond, sections of the Jamaican business sector, civil society organizations and the media have been caught up in addressing demands for a trade boycott of T&T exports following the deportation of 13 Jamaicans, who had been denied entry and kept waiting overnight at the Piarco International Airport.
Both Nicholson and Dookeran moved with alacrity to discourage any initiative for an organized trade boycott, conscious as they are of the interdependence of their economies and the reality of legal implications for violating the CARICOM treaty that guarantees free trade in commodities, clearly identified as originating from a partner state.
The question of relevance is whether not just Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, but all member countries of CARICOM are not just anxious to protect rights to free trade and services, but equally committed also to upholding the fundamental rights of citizens to hassle-free intra-regional travel and curb the awful, distressing recurrence of nationals from partner states being humiliated and deported from ports of entry?
Following the deportation last month of the 13 Jamaicans, both Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and her National Security Minister Gary Griffith hastily chimed that “no wrongs” were committed by the immigration department. Griffith went further to engage in some unfortunate emotional talk about these “foreigners” (citizens of our Community), settling down to “take away jobs” from Trinis.
Common sense should inform all and sundry that no government of CARICOM should fall victim to pursuing a decadent, insular politics that hold up nationals from any member state as “foreigners”, while gladly marketing their export commodities and services to the very countries whose citizens are contemptuously viewed as “foreigners”.
Among related concerns for the future progress of the region’s economic integration movement as “One Community for One People” is that intra-regional trade remains less than 18 per cent of total exports, while food imports have climbed to at least US$5 billion annually. Sharing of natural and human resources are quite integral for the orderly social and economic development of our regional integration movement.
Of immediate interest is whether we can expect – after the Dookeran/Nicholson meeting – priority arrangements for a special working session of senior immigration and customs officials to be sensitized to the implications of the recent judgment by the Caribbean Court of Justice as part of new efforts to ensure hassle-free intra-regional travel for CARICOM citizens and conformity with the revised Community as well as the treaty that brought the CCJ into existence?
•? Rickey Singh is a noted Caribbean journalist.
