I THINK there should be a half monthly dialogue between the President of Guyana and the Prime Minister of Barbados. The PM of Barbados, Mia Mottley, has changed her mind about not contesting the next general election, so in all likelihood, she will be returned.

Ali in Guyana has no credible challenger in 2025 and is set to be re-elected. They are the two transformational leaders in CARICOM. I have no illusion that Kamla Bissessar will not be innovative or transformational. She is not a visionary politician, and I think Stuart-Young, though he comes within the typical Caribbean Mulatto/Creole middle class, he would have been more of a change-maker than Bissessar would ever be.

CARICOM needs a good dose of visionary politics and though Mottley is capable, she does not have the economic room in Barbados to manoeuvre like Ali in Guyana.

This week, for the 49th time, the Heads of CARICOM will be meeting in Jamaica. For an integration movement to have 48 yearly meetings of the heads of government and the shape and functionalism of CARICOM is what it was like 25 years ago is nothing but downright shameful.

What has 48 of these confabulations proven over the past two decades?

They say in life that when your back is against the wall, you invent, and you improvise so that you can survive or be elevated. This is a natural rule in human existence but the leaders of CARICOM since it was born have not learned that lesson. The reality of the world is so gigantic that the mental health of the CARICOM leaders, except Ali and Mottley, is open to question.
Let’s look at that reality. CARICOM occupies less than two per cent of world trade. That statistic should have driven the CARICOM heads decades ago to push for further integration. There is no individual option. In a world economy driven by rich powerful countries that have no moral hesitation to pulverise a country with less than a million people, it was an exigency that CARICOM heads frowned on a long time ago.

Secondly, the traditional trading arrangement with CARICOM and the rest of the world has remained intact since Independence with the exception being Forbes Burnham, Cheddi Jagan and Bharrat Jagdeo in Guyana.

From the time CARICOM was born to the year 2025, the world, its trading patterns, its politics, and its major players have changed to the point where the globe in 2025 bears no resemblance to what the international system was like in 1970.

Two factors must be put on the table when the CARICOM heads meet in Jamaica. The first one is a brutal examination of how CARICOM economies have fared since Independence in the 1960s within the orbit CARICOM chose to situate itself in, that is, the Western world.

CARICOM has a potent guide in one of the longest serving Caribbean diplomats – Sir Ronald Sanders of Antigua and Barbuda but born in Guyana. I quote for the umpteenth time a statistical outlay by Sir Ronald that should influence CARICOM’s economic relations with the West. Sir Ronald wrote: “The 14-nation independent states of the Caribbean Community have been at the bottom of US official development assistance for decades. In 2019, for instance, total US foreign assistance globally was US$47 billion, of which collectively, CARICOM countries received US$338 million or 0.7 percent. For emphasis, that is less than one percent of the global total. Haiti alone received US$268 million of that US$338 million intended for all 14 CARICOM states, leaving the other 13 to share US$70 million only. For 9 of the 13 countries, the sum provided did not amount to US$1 million.”

The second factor is that the world is definitely a multi-polar system with the days gone by when one country controlled the world in all its dimensions. Any leader of a poor, developing country that cannot see that China is a colossal option for trade and economic development does not deserve to be in politics muchless be elected as that country’s leader.

This second factor has a cultural, racial and political underpinning. Since the war in Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza and the foreign policy of the new American government, the people and leaders of the CARICOM nations should realise if they never thought about it before, that the tiny nations of CARICOM are not thought of by the world powers. Out of this reality, CARICOM heads in Jamaica have decisions to make that may be harder than in previous conferences.

Finally, there is no greater shame in this region in the way CARICOM heads, both past and present, except Guyana and Barbados, have treated Caribbean jurisprudence. The Caribbean Court of Justice has jurists who are far more politically independent than countries in the entire Western world.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.