Reflections on Heads meeting in Grenada, include CSME, EPA and Jamaica-Haiti football tension

AS IF guaranteed to face new problems after circulating their draft work agenda, Caribbean Community Heads of Government will have to deal, at their first Inter-Sessional Meeting for 20II this week, with an unexpected, spreading controversy involving Haiti and Jamaica.
It has to do with Jamaica’s decision to send back home at the weekend the entire Haitian football team whose members were participating in the current CONCACAF Under I7 tournament following discovery that three members were infected with the contagious malaria disease.
Since then, while at the level of governments, in Kingston and Port-au-Prince, feverish efforts were being made to keep the lid on what threatens to be a serious rupture in diplomatic relations, angry Haitians have engaged in anti-Jamaiaca/CARICOM protests in the Haitian capital.
And, sensationally, they torched the official flag of the 15-member Community–an unprecedented development in the 38-year life of CARICOM, amid clamour for a break in diplomatic ties between Kingston and Port-au-Prince.
When the draft work agenda went out for this week’s two-day meeting, carded to start tomorrow in St. George’s, CARICOM leaders were already having to contend with a range of unresolved sensitive and pressing issues.
These include the finding of a Secretary-General to succeed Edwin Carrington, who retired last year end after I8 years in office; and the establishment of a new and relevant governance structure at the Community Secretariat.
Further, they have to come to grips with complaints about lack of expected progress on a backlog of readiness-arrangements for the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME); as well as implementation of provisions of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU), signed back in 2008 in Barbados.
Jamaica has traditionally been the hub for Caricom activities involving developments in Haiti. It is the only Community state with an Haitian embassy; and the one which the deposed President Jean Bertrand Aristide had chosen for political asylum before moving on to South Africa where he has remained for most of his current seven years in exile.
Ahead of the official agenda for the Inter-Sessional Meeting, being chaired by host Prime Minister Tillman Thomas, there is to be a scheduled meeting today of the Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on the CSME under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Fruendel Stuart of Barbados. It is the country with lead responsibility for CSME-readiness arrangements.
Given the growing anxieties across the Community over an apparent standstill in arrangements to push ahead with the CSME–the so-called “flagship project” of the Community, expectations for some positive developments from the St.George’s Inter-Sessionial would be focused on.
For example, information on some specific details of progress made since the last Caricom Summit held in Jamaica in 20I0, in areas like intra-regional free movement to live and work, consistent with CSME provisions located in the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.
Also, the related legislation on contingent rights for approved skilled nationals and their families, and the proposed regional health insurance scheme to benefit all Community nationals.
On the old issue of the much talked about introduction of a recognised need for an effective governance system–that dates back to the I992 seminal “Time for Action” report from The West Indian Commission—the Heads of Government would, hopefully, have been sensitised to informed criticisms across the region, that their proposal to establish a Permanent Council of CARICOM Ambassadors is not the way to go.
The fact that an ill-considered, unwieldly “search committee” has failed to come forward with a short-list of potential appropriate nominees for appointment as Secretary-General, should be given priority consideration.
Before, that is, proceeding any further with the proposed creation of a Permanent Council of CARICOM Ambassadors–the envoys scattered across the Community and whose powers to influence change and terms of accountability are yet to be defined for the benefit of the public.
For a start, how useful have the existing country envoys to CARICOM proven over the years? Quite a few often convey the impression of being adrift in a canoe in the Caribbean Sea without even a paddle.
Now that the interviewed five Caricom nationals–from Belize, Jamaica, Dominica, St Vincent and the Grenadines and St Lucia have not been approved by the ‘Search Committee”, it is reasonable to assume that an entirely new and realistic approach would have to be pursued.
At this time, there is neither commonality on the way forward in determining the choice for appointment of a new Secretary-General, nor the usefulness of a Permanent Committee of CARICOM Ambassadors to help the process of effective governance of the Community.
For now, we must await the outcome of this week’s meeting in St.George’s  to discover if, indeed, there has been progress in areas that continue to be plagued by political sloth.