New CARICOM Chair, PM Dean Barrow shares plan

By Ingrid Fernandez, Staff Reporter

Prime Minister Dean Barrow took over the chairmanship of CARICOM this week, emphasizing on the major issues facing the Caribbean in the year to come.

Barrow expressed optimistism over the prospects the Caribbean has, amidst the economic crisis most Caribbean countries face. He stated the economic challenges might be “the sternest economic test that our member states have had to face in recent memory.”

He noted that elevating the standard of living of member states’ civilians has been a challenge for the region, as most countries have faced an increase in foreign debt and poverty this year.

Under his leadership, Barrow, hopes the Caribbean will build economic, environmental, social and technological resilience to foster sustainable development.

The Prime Minister’s priority is on the issue of consolidation and he expressed hope that during his year of leadership, the arrangements made for Caribbean unity will be revised with the hope of making them more effective. Regional unity continues as a resounding message for Caribbean leaders.

Barrow highlighted the achievements the region enjoyed, making reference to the success of the Caribbean’s input at the COP21 and other achievements over the past years. He said these are benchmarks in keeping together as a region.

The leader of the country also mentioned the importance of the Caribbean Court of Justice, especially to shape identity and regional unity. He says he believes that having a regional appellate reflects on the level of intellectuality in the Caribbean and the region’s ability to manage its own affairs.

Crime, Barrow stated, is one of the worst social ailments prevalent in the Caribbean. He assures that this year, the member states will implement new forms of dealing with crime, especially focusing on grassroots movements.

Barrow acknowledged the Prime Minister of Barbados, Freundel Stuart’s guidance over the past year and resolved to continue strengthening Caribbean integration under his one year leadership.

Source: http://www.reporter.bz/general/new-caricom-chair-pm-dean-barrow-shares-plan/

Experts say Myrie ruling is a turning point for regional integration

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Tuesday November 5, 2013, CMC 

Almost a month after the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) ruled that Barbados had breached the rights of a Jamaican national when she sought entry into the country in 2011, regional stakeholders say the judgment represents a turning point for the regional integration movement.

The CCJ was established in 2001 to replace the London-based Privy Council as the region’s final court, but while many Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries are signatories to its original jurisdiction, only Barbados, Guyana and Belize are signatories to the appellate jurisdiction of the court that also serves as an international tribunal interpreting the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas that governs the integration movement.

At a panel discussion at the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies earlier this week, panellists examined the implications of the CCJ ruling in the Shanique Myrie case in which Barbados was also ordered to pay BDS$75,000 (one BDS dollar = US$0.50 cents) in compensation.

Myrie, who had been granted leave by the CCJ to file the action, alleged that when she travelled to Barbados on March 14, 2011 she was discriminated against because of her nationality, subjected to a body cavity search, detained overnight in a cell and deported to Jamaica the following day.

Myrie also claimed that she was subjected to derogatory remarks by a Barbadian Immigration officer and asked the CCJ to determine the minimum standard of treatment applicable to CARICOM citizens moving around the region.

Barbados Attorney General Adriel Brathwaite said that while the introduction of free movement within CARICOM though noble, it was not properly thought out.

Highlighting Barbados's concerns, he said there were not enough structures in place to ensure free movement work and if the region doesn't get it right, there will be chaos.

“We're faced with a situation where we are concerned about whether or not we have the capacity not only to provide housing for all of our people but for those of us, those people from the region who we would love to come to live with us.

“But we can't invite people to come and live with us and then we have six and eight people living in a room, sharing one bathroom etc., (these) kind of stories you hear from time to time.

“We have the whole issue of education. We, to the best of my knowledge are about three secondary schools behind where we would like to be and probably three or four junior schools from where we would like to be. If we want to invite our brothers and sisters we want to ensure that they also have access to education,” he said.

Brathwaite insisted there's nothing earth shattering about the Myrie judgement and that Bridgetown has already made moves to re-train its border personnel in keeping with the CCJ ruling.

But he stressed that all member states must follow suit to make free movement a reality.

“What we were doing is that we were granting three months initial and then if you want an extension come back and give us a chance so we can get an idea in terms of what you are doing, what you are up to and if you needed the additional three months then they will give you the additional three months.

“All it means now from a particular perspective is that you want the six months and rather than having the mechanism where you need to come back to us, if we think there are issues we will go to you. It means that we will have to have some additional bodies on the ground immigration-wise but that's what happens in most countries.

“So that's why I said it is really not a major issue. What might be the major issue would be the fact that we really have to change psyche of many Immigration Officers across the region. I have been in St Kitts going into Nevis and been asked how come I am going into Nevis so often? I have been asked that. So it is not a case where it only happens in Barbados,” he added.

But Dean at the UWI Faculty of Law, Dr David Berry, believes it is important Caribbean people are educated about their rights under the Treaty of Chaguaramas. He said the treaty does not in fact grant freedom of movement.

“It grants freedom of movement in Article 46 to CARICOM Skilled Nationals, certain categories of persons. So what the revised treaty does have is another provision which says towards the goal of free movement we will try to do these things.

“So Article 45 talks about a goal of free movement and Article 46 is of one instance of free movement. So the revised treaty itself, and this was argued before the court, does not give a full blown right of freedom of movement.”

He said the regional leaders at their conference in 2007 created in a sense a right of free movement. “They created an automatic right to enter and stay for six months subject to sufficiency of funds...you will not become a burden on the public purse and that you are not undesirable. So those are the two criteria.”

But Dr Tennyson Joseph, the head of the Department of Government, Sociology and Social Work at the university said the Myrie ruling has forced the region to rethink the concept of sovereignty.

He said the region's current economic troubles have also led some governments to look inward, moving away from the vision of deeper integration articulated by the framers of the “Time for Action” report who laid the foundation for strengthening of CARICOM and the integration movement.

“Whether or not the rationale that they identified which forced them to ask for a revised treaty, has either deepened or diminished, I would say that the challenges are greater. But because the challenges are greater one of the tendencies is for us to become regionalist instead of xenophobic.

“Instead of redefining sovereignty towards more regional framework, we turn inwards. Hitler faced a similar issue in his time in the First World War period, where he was facing an economic crisis and you know which choice that he took.

“Sovereignty is malleable, that the nation of citizenship is malleable. Globalization has raised new questions about what is a citizen. What is a state and what sovereignty,” Joseph added.

Another academic, Orlando Marville, the coordinator, Law, Governance and Society at the UWI said political leaders must do more to build a community.

He said ordinary citizens were making integration a lived reality and it's time for the political directorate to speed up the process.

“Very often ordinary people sometimes appreciate the community that we have more than the political agents. We sometimes make promises or agree to things that they know that they are not going to do, until come back to bite them.

“We have to have the sort of commonness that exist for instance among our musicians. I have been in Suriname and heard Surinamese sing bits of songs from Kross Fyah (in Barbados). Alison Hinds sings a song from Suriname as part of her thing and these musicians all believe in our community.

Read more: http://www.caribbean360.com/index.php/news/barbados_news/1082850.html?print#ixzz2jzDEWAKP

CARICOM IN 'COMA'

by RICKEY SINGH

Source: Jamaica Observer

Published Sunday, January 17, 2010

EVEN as the Caribbean Community Secretariat remains intensely engaged in commendable regional humanitarian aid efforts for earthquake-devastated Haiti, the prognosis for any significant advancement in Caricom's major programmes during the first half of this second decade of the 21st century does not appear encouraging.

Indeed, with a perceived trend towards a narrow nationalism, masked in a few cases as new approaches in trade, immigration and economic policies, there lurks the danger of an undermining of the growth of a once robust regional spirit to make the Single Market and Economy (CSME) a reality.

At present, while the Caricom Secretariat is preparing for the first Inter-Sessional Meeting of Heads of Government for this year, scheduled for Dominica next month, or early March, there are serious misgivings about the way forward for the CSME -- the Community's flagship project originally targeted for inauguration in 2015.

In November 2009, one of the foremost collaborators in the regional enterprise that is Caricom, Sir Shridath Ramphal, had painfully noted in an address to a forum of distinguished West Indians in Port of Spain on "Regional Progress and Challenges" that "As with West Indies cricket, regionalism can be damaged if we forget our trust and are ruled by short-term fixes. We did not become independent of Britain to scatter our regional heritage to the winds of passing fortune. But we are being tempted to do just that, and Caricom is blowing in the wind..."

A former long-serving Commonwealth secretary general and chancellor of the University of the West Indies warned:

"The CSME has lost credibility. Shame overwhelms us as we create the Caribbean Court of Justice and cling, unwanted, to the Privy Council. If things continue to fall apart like this, the centre will not hold. Caricom is comatose; and without intensive care a coma can precede death."

Ramphal's "straws"

Asked last Wednesday (before the announcement of Haiti's earthquake disaster) whether he still felt the same way about Caricom as he did at last November's symposium in Port of Spain, Ramphal told this columnist, "Unfortunately I still do", then quickly added:

"If I am to clutch at straws I would derive hope from the recent initialling of the treaty to establish an OECS Economic Union; and the potential for deeper cooperation between Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, as exemplified in current negotiations involving the operations of Air Jamaica..."

At Caricom's upcoming inter-sessional in Roseau, Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson is expected to give a report on the CSME Convocation he had hosted last October.

It was an occasion when representatives of both the region's private sector and labour movement did not spare criticisms of what they continue to view as yawning gaps between official rhetoric and actions to generate public confidence that arrangements for advancing the CSME are indeed being seriously pursued.

A notable absentee from the CSME Convocation was the regional economist, Professor Norman Girvan, author of the seminal report on "Towards a Single Economy and a Single Development Vision" that outlined a "road map" for strategising and methodical implementation.

To say that Girvan has himself become disillusioned over the lack of necessary collective approaches to implement the CSME project -- unanimously endorsed by the Community Heads of Government -- would be to recall a similar discouraging example as it relates to Professor Vaughn Lewis's report on the need for a new and more effective form of governance of Caricom affairs.

Now heading towards its 37th year of existence on July 4, 2010, Caricom remains divided on how and when to introduce what leading political and economic scholars, eminent private sector executives and others regard as a necessary new administrative architecture.

At its core -- as long recommended in the 1992 report of The West Indian Commission that was headed by Sir Shridath -- could be a team of eminent Caricom nationals (either three or five) armed with executive authority and focused on systematic implementation of unanimously adopted decisions by the Heads of Government.

If it's not a case of a seeming reluctance by the Community's political directorate against sharing power with leading regional technocrats, or a preference to hide behind expedient interpretations of "national sovereignty", then the Community's leaders should come clean in 2010 on what are the main barriers to the introduction of a more relevant system of governance of Caricom.

Disappointments

Last year, when there were a lot of "special meetings" of Caricom ministers and leaders, as well as task forces with overlapping mandates, to find practical responses to the negative impact on regional economies of the global financial and economic crisis, we were told of plans for a special delegation of Heads of Government and top fiscal and economic experts to engage the international financial institutions in Washington.

Well, the year ended and no such engagement is known to have occurred.

We were also informed of an expected summit of Caricom leaders with President Barack Obama before year-end. No such meeting took place and none is yet carded for any time in 2010.

The region's people are aware of developments that resulted in the miniaturising of the once high-profile Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM).

Less awareness prevails about the status quo of either CSME-readiness arrangements or the extent of progress by the special unit in the Community Secretariat responsible for implementation arrangements for the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) entered into with the European Union in 2008.

The first decade of the 21st century ended last year with ongoing disappointments that no progress of significance was made on the much-publicised people-focused project of intra-regional free movement, particularly as it relates to skilled Community nationals. The issue remains enmeshed in immigration controversies.

The current immigration situation in Antigua and Barbuda, for example, appears serious enough to warrant some direct action by the governments of Jamaica and Guyana with that of the Baldwin Spencer administration in St John's, as there have been repeated reports of unfair and inhumane treatment of their nationals.

At the symposium in Port of Spain on "Regional Progress and Challenges" referred to earlier, Sir Shridath Ramphal had expressed the hope that the results of that event could "help bring us (the region) to our senses...".

Alas, that hope has often been variously expressed at successive Caricom Heads of Government.

It would, therefore, be quite refreshing to see Caricom leaders demonstrate a new readiness to advance the goals of our economic integration movement at their coming 31st annual summit in July - venue is still undecided.

Hopefully this will bring closure to the multiplicity of negative features and occurrences during the second half of the first decade of this 21st century to inspire hope for a significant change, at least during the first half of this second decade when the CSME is scheduled to be operationalised.

Swim together or sink separately

Caricom Summit: Swim together or sink separately by:Andy Johnson Wednesday, July 15th 2009 Source: Trinidad and Tobago Express

IT was billed as Caricom's make or break summit. One comment also described it as another attempt by the region's political leaders to address "an ever increasing list of unresolved issues". When he spoke at the opening ceremony at which he was conferred with the region's highest award, the former Jamaican Prime Minister P J Patterson also talked in dark tones, weighing the prospects for the region's survival against the possibility that the regional integration project was foundering. Swimming together or sinking separately was another one of the end-game analogies being used to convey the impression of a movement approaching the rock of disintegration. With an article appearing in the online Caribworld news, David Jessop concluded by suggesting that "if the Georgetown Summit, Caricom's 30th regular meeting of Heads of Government, failed to result in "decisions that are implemented, it will be hard to avoid the sad conclusion that the age of pan-Caribbean regional integration is passing". Armed with the communiqué issued at the end of the Georgetown Summit on the morning of July 5, Mr Jessop and others are in a position now to assess the extent to which the decisions taken there were sufficiently implementation friendly to avoid the catastrophe they envisage. Many of those decisions, frankly, leave much to be desired on some of the key issues facing the countries involved in the "Caricom project," the term now adopted as flavour of the month. With expectations aplenty among many of the region's well wishers along with the dependants of its best deliberations, on the issue of "Agriculture and food security", the leaders "reaffirmed" the following. "Their commitment to providing financial and other support measures for agriculture. They underscored the importance of agriculture for food and nutrition security and for the development of our economies." They issued a separate declaration on the matter as well, but which itself requires further, detailed examination.. On Tourism, the lifeblood activity for many of the economies in the region, this is what they said. "Heads of Government also considered the impact of the global economic and financial crisis on the tourism sector and agreed that implementation of the Regional Marketing Programme was urgent." They also agreed to pursue with the government of the United States the establishment of more pre-clearance facilities in the Caribbean. And they resolved to pursue with the government of the UK the proposed Air Passenger Duty, and matters related thereto. Many of the region's peoples and organisations hanging on for every word that would have come from the meeting on these issues could well be left wanting more. After hearing also a report on an audit of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy, with all that is critical in this for the movement's very survival, the leaders agreed to hold convocation with all the stakeholders, to give full consideration of that report. This was the first of three short statements on this item. But with his own back against the Georgetown summit's wall over his government's new immigration policy, it was the Prime Minister of Barbados who came out firmly against those who would see only gloom over the Caricom cloud. And against those who remain merely cynical or apprehensive about the future. He saw a past full of achievements, from which a prosperous future should easily be imagined. From where he stood, he told reporters at a news conference on July 1, "You have to understand your past in order to sensibly shape your future. You have to understand the historic context of the long and arduous journey, started by that great generation of West Indian leaders, which took us from colonialism, through the Federal experiment, to Carifta". And beyond. "You have to measure the way forward by acknowledging the way already travelled," he said, declaring that it was easy for stakeholders, in times of crisis, to become impatient at what they see as the slow pace of the integration project, and to declare it dead on arrival. When one looked dispassionately at what has happened in the region over the last four decades since independence began in the 1960's David Thompson said the region confronted formidable odds. It was difficult, in those circumstances, he said, "to understand the pessimism and the talk of failure". He had traced that journey over some 40 years, surveying both the state of the world and of the region, stopping at points along the way, in 1969, and 1989, to emphasise his focus. Twenty years ago for instance, he reminded those who would listen, the world was in turmoil and the region was feeling the impact of that. He quoted Michael Manley at the Grand Anse summit that "crisis, stagnation and economic recession had been the permanent bedfellows of Caricom since its inception. This, the late former Jamaican Prime Minster had said, produced a "long period of near-retreat from strategic purpose". But coming out of the Grand Anse summit was the decision to go for a revision of the community establishing Treaty of Chaguaramas, therein the call for the establishment of the CSME and the setting up of the West Indian Commission. Over this period also, Thompson listed some of the achievements, many so taken from granted they would not be heralded, their impact blunted by their very fit with regional expectations. In 2009, he said, the region was once again faced with global economic convulsions of unprecedented proportions. Not so daunting, however, as to cause any revision of his conviction "that regional integration is the last best hope for the Caribbean". He worried, nevertheless, about "fragmenting into unworkable reconfigurations of the regional project, saying concentration should be on "strengthening the core, not on proliferating the periphery". Railing a current clamour for instant results, notwithstanding inherent complexities or difficulties in the external environment, he cautioned against pessimism over the CSME project. "All the provisions on the right of establishment, and the free movement of goods, services, capital and skilled persons are being implemented," he said pointing to the unacknowledged "realities". Conceding that the CSME timetable "may have been delayed," recent developments in the region have shown the true extent of the financial interdependence that already exists among us," he urged. They have given new urgency to the policy co-ordination efforts of the region's regulators and Ministers of Finance. The Regional Negotiating Machinery for him represents "a unique institution in the developing world", one that is "highly regarded internationally (and) had helped us to conclude an Economic Partnership Agreement with Europe and is preparing the groundwork for the start of talks with Canada". In the area of functional co-operation, Thompson remains convinced, "Caricom's significant achievements have gone almost unheralded". Such institutions as the UWI and the Caribbean Examinations Council are now so much a part of the region's fabric of everyday life, "we do not register them as components of the integration process". There exist harmonised systems in education, health, on climate change, disaster preparedness and response, standards and quality, competition, crime and security. And perhaps most significant of all, he said, has been "the coming into being of the Caribbean Court of Justice". Within all of this, for him the issue of free movement was simply one which has generated perhaps "the greatest heat but least light", one that is fundamental but around which "much confusion and misunderstanding persists"

Eastern Caribbean Integration

Eastern Caribbean integration byJohn Spence Source: Trinidad Express Thursday, July 9th 2009

I have as yet made only a preliminary examination of the Trinidad and Tobago-Eastern Caribbean States Integration Initiative Task Force Report. With respect to the matters discussed in the report I am a lay person. However, in view of the importance of such a possible development as is proposed in the report the issues should be understood by all citizens. My first difficulty is to understand the language used since it is of a discipline with which I am unfamiliar. Is it social science, foreign relations or economics? In the Task Force Report use of the word "space" extends beyond physical space (such as discussion on Human Resources space). I address first the governance structures proposed, starting with the geographic areas being considered. Under "Priorities of External Relations" the report suggests that countries of the Eastern Caribbean (including Barbados) and Trinidad and Tobago will need to organise a more coherent relationship among themselves and that this grouping will also need to sustain a balanced set of relationships with Guyana and Suriname. As recognised in the report these latter countries have large land masses and can thus provide food security and in future provide markets as they industrialise. In a previous article (Express, June 26) I referred to such possibilities and gave a specific example of how Trinidad and Tobago could start this process by investing in aluminium smelting in Guyana. It seems to me that the most important proposals in the Integration Initiative Report are: (1): "enabling legislation" which is to be enacted in each Parliament which would cause legislation "enacted" by the super-national bodies (the nature of which I shall discuss subsequently) to automatically become law in the individual countries and (2) the fact that the populations of the various countries will not be involved directly in these super-national bodies which will be composed of heads of government of the various countries and their nominees. Thus in spite of the size of the population of Trinidad and Tobago the head of government of Grenada (which has a much smaller population) will have an equal vote in decision-making as the head of Government of Trinidad and Tobago on issues that could have far reaching consequences for the citizens of this country. The Task Force recognises this issue and proposes "consultations" with civil society. Having attended many such consultations I consider that this system has no merit to address this issue. With respect to enabling legislation the most important issue for this country will be: can such legislation be passed with a simple majority in Parliament? If it can: what will the position be if legislation is passed by the super-national body which, had it been presented directly to our Parliament, would have required a special majority? I shall now attempt to set out the structure of the governance bodies as I interpret the proposals in the organisational charts shown in Appendix I and Appendix II of the Task Force Report. Model I (Appendix I): The Union (of Trinidad and Tobago and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States) shall consist of three arms: executive, legislative and judicial. The executive arm consists of: Council of States (heads of government of the members of the union); Council of Ministers: (Ministers of the member states of the union in relevant subject matter); Union Commissioners (Commissioners-one from each Member State of the Union); Inter-State Committees (on different subject matters) The quasi-legislative arm consists of: House of Assembly (Representatives from the Government and Opposition of each member state of the union); social compact arrangements (including representatives from civil society). The judicial arm shall consist of: Caribbean Court of Justice (Exercise of Original Jurisdiction); national courts (of the member states of the union). Model ii (Appendix ii): Executive Arm: Council of States: (heads of government of the members of the union); Cabinet (of Ministers presided over by a First Minister. Ministers do not hold such office in member states); Union Departmental Ministries, Inter-State Committees (on different subject matters). Legislative arm: House of Assembly (Representatives from the Government and Opposition of each member state of the union), social compact arrangements (including representatives from civil society). Judicial arm: Caribbean Court of Justice (Exercise of Original Jurisdiction); national courts (of the member states of the union). It should be noted that the union would start with only the executive arm in Model I so the initial decisions would be taken by the heads of government and ministers nominated by the leaders. My greatest concern is that I do not see a direct involvement of citizens at the start or for that matter even as the process develops (apart from the so-called social compact arrangements). This is no doubt that this is in keeping with the present trend in Trinidad and Tobago where, in spite of rhetoric to the contrary, citizen participation is being steadily eroded. I hope that we will have an explanation, possibly from the Minister of Information, of the main proposals in the report in simple language so that citizens might be fully informed and not misinterpret any of its provisions.

An Uneasy Integration

An uneasy integration

Sun Jul 15 2007

By Jeff Cumberbatch

Source: Barbados Advocate

ANOTHER CARICOM heads of government summit comes to a close, with the usual grand promises of increased co-operation, the hopeful expressions of confidence and the lengthy communiqué couched in the language of the mandarin. We shall see. However, it would be reckless to ignore the fact that at the popular level, where regional integration should be not only a felt but a lived reality, there is an almost palpable disconnect between the discourse of officialdom and that of an increasingly vocal number so far as this is concerned.

It can be sensed in the growing stridency of anti-Guyanese sentiment, especially on the populist electronic media. This is likely to vary at any given time from discomfort with their numbers to our unaccommodating lack of geographical space to an anecdotal innovation in local criminal techniques. We must never be allowed to forget that these are a people who have experienced the politics of racialism, a potential contaminating factor in a pristine Barbados where there is no racial, social or other division. It can be heard in the calls for restrictions on the property rights of those who are not Barbadian, however this protean classification may be defined. In an era of globalisation, such views seem at least peculiar; in an age of vaunted regional integration, they are positively bizarre.

They may reflect a Caribbean attitude, however. Globalisation and integration may be conceptually compelling realities at this time, but neither must be permitted to impede our sovereign agenda of business as usual, nor do some of us care in the least to take advantage of the opportunities offered by these phenomena -- "We are doing quite nicely as we are, thank you ever so much" . One group in a neighbouring island some years ago expressed horror at my suggestion that one logical extension of CSME was that our present nationalities would eventually become irrelevant. I suspect that this is not a minority reaction regionally.

So our governors pro tempore will cheerfully sign onto global and regional treaties which envision the opening of our markets and borders while popular sentiment insists that we keep them firmly shut. Ruritania is for Ruritanians first! So, alas, the Caribbean Court of Justice limps along to what seems the inevitable demise of its initially conceived format; work permits remain a regulatory sine qua non in a purported single economic space which guarantees the right of establishment and freedom of movement; and some continue vainly, in spite of everything, to imagine a single currency sometime hence. There is always the talk, but are our people prepared to walk?

This disconnect between official reality and popular discourse presents a fertile field for opposition politics in the member states. An appeal to nationalism is unlikely to fail and, in a context where one fears an end to assumed entitlements, that message becomes even more cogent. It is this which might explain the recent conditional promise by David Thompson, the Leader of the Opposition, that should the ink still be dry on any deal for the acquisition of Barbados Shipping & Trading when his party assumes office, he will put a stop to the transaction. Of course, for varying reasons, this statement would have resonated with a substantial segment of the population, many of whom would not have given even a passing thought to precisely how such might be achieved. Of course, there would be those who, for varying reasons, would oppose this position but, equally, would not have considered its im/possibility. So we are assured, once again, of an absence of reasoned discourse; local politics as usual.

While I do recognise and concede the obvious political value of Thompson's proposed strategy, it is not one to which I am immediately attracted. For one, it is not clear what criteria, or criterion even, would qualify BS&T for special protection relative to other local concerns. Second, given the nature of company ownership, a rescue of BS&T by State action might raise all sorts of political queries should others not be similarly assisted in future. Third, there might be an insalutary effect on Barbados' investment reputation unless it is made clear that this is an exceptional case. For me, it is a veritable Pandora's Box and, in the unforgettable dictum of one politician (not local), should we open it we don't know what Trojan horses are likely to jump out.

Precisely how Thompson would achieve his objective is not for me to advise; though those who are minded to inquire further should consider that no freedom is absolute and that the public/national interest once established is an overarching consideration. Moreover, his proposed policy recourse is not necessarily abhorrent in a liberal democracy. Legislation aimed at regulating takeover bids may be found in France ("economic patriotism", Switzerland, Japan and even in some US jurisdictions. This, in spite of the US constitutional mandate even in some US jurisdictions. This, in spite of the US constitutional mandate that " [n]o State shall pass any law impairing the Obligation of Contracts&" In Germany, in 1999, the then Chancellor came to the defence of Mannesman AG when it was under threat of a takeover from Vodafone Air Touch plc of Britain, arguing that the bid could "destroy the culture of the company".

The time has now come for all of us to decide what will be the nature of our integration, if we are to have one. I do not mean in respect of what our leaders say, or what the international documents stipulate. I mean the collective view of regional citizens, however this may be identified. The result might give cause for surprise to some.