IT is now a time for a settlement over the undocumented nationals of Barbados. People of goodwill, people of good sense, in both Guyana and Barbados will recognise that it is time Guyana and Barbados put behind them the ghosts of past that have haunted their relations these past months. It is one thing to agitate an undocumented claim. It is quite another matter to pursue policies which will replace hostility by friendship and replace mistrust and suspicion by confidence and goodwill.

No Caribbean government has openly offered to mediate and bring about a comprehensive and intelligent settlement between the two nations illegal nationals, save Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves of St Vincent and the Grenadines, President Bharrat Jagdeo, Mia Mottley and Owen Author as reported in the media.

In the meantime, the minds of the undocumented people of Guyana and other Caribbean islands are being prepared by their respective governments for an open solution; only something positive, such as an offer by an intelligent intermediary interested in the welfare of both nations can, it seems, bring about a peaceful and comprehensive solution satisfactory to all sides.

Within recent times, after a series of unfortunate incidents by the Barbadians immigration officers the whole controversy had been lying dormant under the CARICOM Free Movement Protocol, and the two nations had, it appeared, taken a new direction toward closer understanding. But this no longer seems to prevail and, instead, there is an infuriated backlash between them.

Unless something tangible occurs to pacify the minds of both sides, a tremendous showdown is in the offing building up at a very fast rate. In these circumstances a great responsibility rests upon the leaders of both nations to avert the crisis of confrontation which looms ahead.

For this to be done, they should face the issue squarely and come to grips with it in a dispassionate manner and find a solution satisfactory. They should take immediate steps through consultation, conversation, and compromise which are far superior. In the approach to the undocumented illegal nationals the leaders should seek to set aside concern for their personal political standing, as it would affected by any settlement, and set a course expressing the clearest intention to settle the dispute once and for all times, in a manner satisfactory not only to themselves but to the people of both lands.
MOHAMED KHAN