WHEN CARIBBEAN COMMUNITY (CARICOM) Heads of Government meet in Belize over the next two days for their first-quarter summit, few people across the region will pay them any attention. Regional leaders over the years have been long on talk and weak in implementation.
Eight months ago at their meeting in Bridgetown for their annual conference, Guyana was at that time under pressure from its bigger and militarily superior neighbour, Venezuela. President David Granger had to seek the moral support of his CARICOM colleagues in the dispute. President Nicholas Maduro, who had courted CARICOM prior and since then, stayed away.
The tension between the two South Americans nations has abated and Maduro’s focus has been diverted given the desperate economic and political problems his administration faces. This may have been a saving grace for many CARICOM nations whose indebtedness to Venezuela through its special oil facility might have made it difficult for them to publicly indicate who has their support.
There were other issues discussed at the Bridgetown conference; most have surely been forgotten by the average Caribbean citizen. Few would probably remember that the president of Panama, Juan Carlos Varela Rodríguez, was at the conference. They would reasonably ask what benefits were gained at the end of it all.
By now Barbadians would have expected an announcement on whether, when and how often Copa Airlines, the flag carrier of Panama, would be flying to Barbados, even if not via direct flights.
Then there were a range of other issues from science and technology to supporting candidates for international positions and climate change which were discussed here. While there was a lot of hype surrounding the climate change, discussions in Paris in December, we in this region are still awaiting tangible evidence as to the benefits for us.
The disarray amongst regional governments in the election of a new Commonwealth secretary general highlighted the lack of unity as only Dominica and Barbados initially backed the eventual winner, Baroness Patricia Scotland.
But the most worrisome matter remains the attitude and stance of the Dominican Republic on its morally unacceptable treatment of Blacks there born of Haitian heritage. By stripping more than 200 000 of their right to remain in the Dominican Republic, this action has arbitrarily rendered those affected stateless. This is a gross violation of their fundamental human rights.
CARICOM needs to speak forcefully on the issue after this week’s meeting in Belmopan to let the government in Santo Domingo know of regional disgust with its action. More importantly, CARICOM must let the Dominican Republic know that it cannot count on its neighbours’ support within CARIFORUM or even at the Organisation of American States. The regional body should also lobby the European Union to support a repeal of the discrimination against tens of thousands of Haitians, most of whom know only the Dominican Republic as their homeland.
This is an opportunity for CARICOM to show Caribbean people that it is more than a lot of hot air.