ACCORDING to unofficial reports, the just-concluded two-day Inter-Sessional Meeting of Caribbean Community Heads of Government could hardly boost optimism for new initiatives to overcome prevailing disillusionment resulting from lack of commitment to implement approved decisions.

Held in The Bahamas and chaired by host Prime Minister Perry Christie, the official communiqué of the February 26-27 meeting was unavailable at the time of writing up to late yesterday afternoon, though promised to be forthcoming by an evidently hard-pressed Communications Unit.

Although the official text would not reflect any of the negative developments in relation to decisions sought but not taken. Or, for that matter the mood at caucus sessions on issues pertaining to either foreign policy co-ordination as well as regional security, the unofficial indicators could hardly generate enthusiasm for the immediate future.
As a regional journalist committed to the unity and progress of the 15-member regional economic integration, now in its 42nd year of existence, I share hopes that the Heads of Government and Foreign Ministers who were depressed at the closing session of the two-day event in The Bahamas, could yet find common ground to resolve outstanding issues of much importance by the time of their annual summit this coming July.
Unresolved sensitive matters included economic development; regional security, as well as foreign policy co-ordination. As a consequence, there was neither desirable unanimity on common approaches in responding to serious global threats from the ‘ISIS’ bloc of Islamist terrorists, nor on strengthening of foreign policy co-ordination. For example, election of Community citizens for top-level international offices.
The Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who has lead responsibility among Community leaders for regional security, is reported to have failed in her bid to win required unanimous support on the sensitive matter of a common position in relation to responses to the global threats posed by ISIS.

NEED FOR CONSENSUS

Need for ‘consensus’ proved elusive also in relation to a second initiative by the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, for the election in Malta of a new Commonwealth Secretary General this coming November in Malta.
Prime Minister Browne has been canvassing support for his fellow national, Sir Ronald Sanders, with Trinidad and Tobago’s Minister of Planning and Sustainable Development, Dr Bhoe Tewarie, and Dominica-born British citizen and a former Attorney General as other contestants for the top Commonwealth post.
However, when the issue was discussed on the margins of the triennial Cuba/CARICOM summit in Havana last year by Community leaders, nine of a dozen available votes were in favour of Sanders’ candidature. Hence the subsequent quest in The Bahamas for a ‘consensus’ candidate which did not materialise.
POSITIVE MOVE
One positive and most welcome initiative agreed to by the CARICOM meeting in The Bahamas was to establish a special committee of the Community’s Finance Ministers to work with the Caribbean Association of Bankers to develop a common plan to combat the highly undesirable image being fostered abroad of this region as a “high-risk area for financial services….”
Happily, this initiative, once implemented, could well prove a much needed plus for CARICOM – an integration movement seemingly moving across distressing waters at present.

Analysis by
Rickey Singh
(Rickey Singh is a noted Caribbean journalist based in Barbados)