– Ambassador Ramdin
ASSISTANT Secretary General of the Organisation of American States (OAS), Ambassador Albert Ramdin has pointed to a new environment developing in the Western Hemisphere.

In view of that, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) would need to revisit its integration objectives, he told a recent news conference at the Pegasus Hotel in Kingston, Georgetown.

Mr. Ramdin said the main purpose of his recent visit was to participate in the Regional Diplomatic Training Programme, at which 35 CARICOM nationals are being updated on developments in the various regions to which the Caribbean belongs and provided with the skills and techniques for performing more effectively.

He said: “I thought that it was a very important exercise for CARICOM, a grouping of countries at a stage where so many internal things are happening, in terms of the integration process.”

“We have the Treaty of Chaguaramas; we have the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas. We have the institutional structure revised with the different consuls and more have been added recently.

“We have the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), in terms of the judicial operations. We have the first part of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) and going towards a single economy.

“As a natural flow of those activities, in other integration processes, foreign policy coordination becomes critical and this will require a Caribbean perspective on relations with the rest of the world,” Ramdin explained.

The diplomat said the training would help in this direction, adding: “…it will be useful to have a CARICOM brief for all CARICOM representatives in major capitals and at major institutions, so that, while the ambassadors are representing their country, it would be useful for them to know what is the CARICOM perspective, as a region.”

“Developing Caribbean diplomacy is of critical importance, so that diplomats do not only speak from a national but from the regional perspective,” he said.

Ramdin also spoke about the developments in the Western Hemisphere and the changing realities.

There are many things which have happened over the past couple of years in the Western Hemisphere, Ramdin observed.

Alluding to them, he said: “Democracy has been established while, in some countries, you still need to support, nurture and strengthen it. But, generally speaking, democracy is established in the 34 member States of the OAS.”

VOICE
Ramdin said, as a consequence, a voice, a space has been created for those groups in society which were previously more or less marginalised, like the indigenous peoples, the women and youth groups and so on.

“Through this voice, through this opening in society, through the dialogue which they now have, they have their political aspirations being expressed in taking up leadership roles in many countries.

“We have a changed leadership in many countries in the Western Hemisphere, including in the Caribbean countries,” he said.

Ramdin said six of the eight elections which took place in CARICOM resulted in a change of government.

He commented: “It says a lot about the quality of the electorate in the Caribbean, that they can make decisions on their own and choose to go in a different directions.”

Reiterating that the political landscape in the hemisphere is changing, Ramdin said leaders have different views on development, different views on how to organise the societies, different views of inter-state relations and different views with regards to security and, most importantly, they develop their own independent foreign policies.

“So there is a new environment developing in the Western Hemisphere,” he maintained.

The OAS Assistant Secretary General noted that before President Barack Obama was elected in the United States (U.S.), which is a major historic change, it is in this environment that the Caribbean has to find its place in the Western Hemisphere.

“What we have spoken about is about how that could take shape and one of the most critical elements is that, in the context of what is happening globally, what is happening hemispherically, CARICOM would need to revisit its integration objectives to understand better in which areas they need to focus and what kind of strategic agenda they can develop in furthering the interest of this sub-region,” he stated.

However, he advised: “For that, you need a pro-active, strategic forward looking foreign policy for the region.”