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Caribbean heads of presidency met from July 3-5 in Trinidad and Tobago to kick off a yr of celebration marking the fiftieth anniversary of CARICOM (the Caribbean Group). One of many key areas of dialogue on the group’s forty fifth assembly involved confronting the challenges of local weather change.
As per common, there was virtually zero protection in U.S. legacy media. Frankly, I had no expectations of main reportage, since, as I maintain saying, the Caribbean is barely of curiosity to People when a hurricane is crossing it and headed towards the U.S. mainland. I do know that sounds cynical. However I used to problem my faculty college students to call any Caribbean head of state, and the same old response price was zero. After all, lots of those self same college students couldn’t title greater than three or 4 Caribbean nations on a clean define map; the bulk couldn’t title any.
Whereas I used to be penning this story, my goddaughter dropped by my home along with her grownup son; they’re of Caribbean descent. I made a decision to query them for this piece. Neither knew what CARICOM is, and neither might title a Caribbean head of state aside from the late Fidel Castro. Be that as it might, and given the truth that many individuals within the U.S. are lastly starting to pay extra consideration to local weather change (minus right-wing local weather deniers), all of us needs to be involved with the very actual conditions confronted by our Caribbean neighbors on the entrance traces.
RELATED STORY: Caribbean Issues: CARICOM meets in Belize
Caribbean Issues is a weekly collection from Day by day Kos. If you’re unfamiliar with the area, take a look at Caribbean Issues: Attending to know the nations of the Caribbean.
With U.S. media missing, I rely totally on Caribbean information sources and the CARICOM web site to search out out what’s occurring down there—and the newest CARICOM occasion was no exception.
As Antigua and Barbuda’s Observer reported on July 3:
The packed agenda for the Assembly tackles a number of urgent points for the Group, together with meals safety issues, local weather change and the local weather finance agenda; the continued difficulties in Haiti; safety points; exterior relations issues and the CARICOM Single Market and Economic system
The Heads of Authorities will have interaction a number of worldwide visitors, together with the President of Rwanda, H.E. Paul Kagame; the UN Secretary-Basic, H.E. Antonio Guterres; President-Designate of the United Nations Local weather Change Convention (COP 28), H.E. Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jabe; the Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea H.E. Han Duck-Soo; US Secretary-of-State, Mr Anthony Blinken, and Minority Chief within the US Home of Representatives, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries.
One would suppose that with each Blinken and Jeffries in attendance, extra consideration can be paid right here. Nope.
RELATED STORY: Caribbean Issues: VP Harris visits the Bahamas to satisfy with Caribbean leaders
I additionally learn concerning the U.S. delegation on Loop Information:
The Members of the delegation are:
- Chief Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic Chief, U.S. Home of Representatives
- Rep. Amata Coleman Radewagen, Member, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs; Member, Pure Sources Committee; Member, Overseas Affairs Committee
- Rep. Gregory W. Meeks, Rating Member, Overseas Affairs Committee; Member, Committee on Monetary Companies
- Rep. Steven Horsford, Chair, Congressional Black Caucus; Member, Monetary Companies Committee; Member, Armed Companies Committee
- Rep. Yvette D. Clarke, Member, Committee on Vitality and Commerce; Member, Committee on Homeland Safety
- Rep. Joyce Beatty, Member, Committee on Monetary Companies
- Rep. Joaquin Castro, Member, Everlasting Choose Committee on Intelligence; Member, Overseas Affairs Committee’
The Miami Herald is likely one of the few main mainland information retailers that experiences frequently and persistently on Caribbean doings—and far thanks goes to their award-winning journalist Jacqueline Charles.
Charles’ July 3 report:
It started as a gaggle of former British colonies, led by 4 of the Caribbean’s fiercest and most independent-thinking leaders of their day when it got here to international coverage. Realizing, nonetheless, that their energy as small states lay of their unity, particularly through the Chilly Conflict, the 4 pioneers of the Caribbean Group, or CARICOM, joined forces to create the framework for a typical market and what integrationists hoped can be a political union to find out the coverage of the area. Fifty years later, that alliance, led on the time by prime ministers Errol Barrow of Barbados, Forbes Burnham of Guyana, Norman Manley of Jamaica and Eric Williams of Trinidad and Tobago, is at the moment a regional political and financial grouping of 15 Caribbean nations that features French-speaking Haiti and Dutch-speaking Suriname. All however one, Montserrat, a British dependent territory within the japanese Caribbean, are unbiased. The opposite 5 British dependent territories of the Caribbean area are affiliate members.
[…]
“These early steps taken in Chaguaramas have led us far past what the naysayers and doomsayers have been sure would have been a brief lifespan and one other disastrous shattering. However right here we’re, 50 years on, facet by facet in mutual solidarity,” Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Keith Rowley stated Monday as he recalled the signing of the treaty on July 4, 1973, within the Trinidadian metropolis that laid the muse for CARICOM. “Now we have confronted challenges and we’ve got risen to beat them.”
[…]
Much like the European Union, CARICOM was fashioned to advertise regional financial integration. However not like the EU, it has lagged behind the creation of a single forex, the elimination of commerce boundaries and the motion of individuals and abilities throughout member states.
Charles continued her protection on Monday, shifting towards the devastation brought on by hurricanes.
Patricia Scotland remembers when she first began speaking concerning the connections between local weather and debt. The newly elected secretary-general of the Commonwealth of Nations, the political grouping made up principally of former territories of the British Empire, Scotland had seen firsthand how one exterior shock like a hurricane might devastate a rustic, plunging it deeper into debt with no recourse however to borrow cash at charges it couldn’t afford.
Her personal nation, Dominica, misplaced 226% of its Gross Home Product in 2017 when Class 5 Hurricane Maria plowed by means of earlier than devastating the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. Two years later, Hurricane Dorian inflicted losses of about $3.4 billion on The Bahamas, an quantity equal to one-quarter of the nation’s GDP, in accordance with the Inter-American Improvement Financial institution. The GDP loss was the equal of the U.S. shedding the mixed financial outputs of California, Texas and Florida.
“All of those nations are beginning to suppose, ‘Am I going to be hit this time?’ ” Scotland stated in an interview with the Miami Herald. “We all know it’s not ‘if,’ it’s ‘when.’ And so this actuality, which is barely current within the Caribbean, is beginning to impinge on the consciousness of different nations as a result of no extra can they are saying [you’re crying] wolf, as a result of the wolf is right here and he’s consuming our lunch.”
And as Gail Alexander, senior political reporter for the Trinidad & Tobago Guardian, wrote of leaders’ frustrations on July 5:
With the Caribbean now within the hurricane season, Caricom chairman Roosevelt Skerrit expressed concern a couple of lack of agency selections on local weather change.
He admitted that he someday appears like giving up and never attending COP local weather change conferences. Skerrit spoke at a flag elevating ceremony marking Caricom’s fiftieth anniversary which passed off in heavy rain yesterday on the Chaguaramas Conference Centre.
He stated persons are dwelling in a world which is tougher than it was 50 and even 20 years in the past and Caricom needs to be united as a result of too many injustices are being inflicted on to it as a Caribbean neighborhood. He cited local weather change and “kicking down the bucket of agency selections” to deal with Caricom’s issues. “Generally we really feel like giving up and never going to any of the COP (Convention of the Events) conferences however we must not ever relent on our battle in opposition to injustice,” he stated.
Latin America’s teleSUR English reported on a key determination made at this yr’s assembly.
“We couldn’t depart Trinidad and Tobago with out discussing the core of the combination motion, which is the flexibility of individuals to maneuver freely,” Dominica’s PM Skerrit stated.
On Wednesday, Dominica’s Prime Minister and incoming President of the Caribbean Group (CARICOM), Roosevelt Skerrit, introduced that the Caribbean neighborhood will permit the free motion of all individuals by early 2024.
“Now we have made the choice for the free motion of all classes of individuals to reside and work,” he stated in his closing speech on the Trinidad and Tobago summit, which was carried out to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of CARICOM.
Subsequent yr, the free motion of individuals will likely be permitted between the 13 member nations of the Caribbean Single Market and Economic system (CSME), and important providers will likely be supplied. This regional coverage, nonetheless, is not going to cowl the Bahamas and Montserrat as a result of these nations are usually not CSME members.
Authorized consultants should current a report back to the regional leaders earlier than March 30, 2024, as a way to undertake a “definitive place” on the matter.
Skerrit’s remarks on the shift to free motion:
The Jamaica Gleaner posted this editorial on Sunday:
If there is no such thing as a eleventh hour volte-face, Caribbean Group (CARICOM) leaders final week took what will likely be their most consequential determination within the half a century of the present iteration of the regional integration motion. They agreed at their summit in Port of Spain to, by subsequent March, go the total hog on the fitting of residents of the neighborhood to reside and work in one another’s nations. Whereas this unfettered freedom of motion is already loved by residents of the Organisation of East Caribbean States (OECS) (a gaggle of seven nations in the Leeward and Windward Islands which might be individually members of the neighborhood) it isn’t an obligation of CARICOM, whose present association covers solely a restricted class of expert staff.
This improvement is profoundly necessary on two fronts:
First, it’s the second very important pillar upon which CARICOM’s ambition to transition to a real single market and financial system should stand – the free motion of labour. The opposite, although nonetheless a piece in progress, the free motion of capital, is basically in place. For probably the most half, the member states which might be signatories to the settlement on the only market and financial system adhere to the unrestricted proper of CARICOM nationals to ascertain corporations wherever in the neighborhood.
Second, it underlined the vitality of the previous three years – unmatched for the reason that early days of the neighborhood – to get issues achieved, beginning with the 2021 launch of a report on reignite CARICOM by a fee chaired by Avinash Persaud, a Barbadian economist who’s shut adviser to that nation’s prime minister, Mia Mottley.
Will Kenton wrote this explainer on CSME for Investopedia:
The Caribbean Single Market and Economic system (CSME) is an initiative of the Caribbean Group and Frequent Market (CARICOM) that may combine member-states right into a single financial unit. The tip consequence can be the free motion of capital, providers, expertise and expert professionals inside the area.
The broader purpose of Caribbean financial unification can be to assist member economies—lots of that are small and nonetheless growing—compete with bigger rivals within the international market.
Key Takeaways
- The Caribbean Single Market and Economic system (CSME) is an initiative of the 20 member states and associates that make up Caribbean Group and Frequent Market (CARICOM).
- The CSME would would combine all member-states right into a single financial unit.
- The purpose is permit without cost motion of capital, providers, expertise and expert professionals inside the area.1
- It’s hoped CSME will give member nations a stronger footing in an more and more aggressive and globalized market.
This was the primary CARICOM assembly the place I had the chance to observe the complete three-plus hours of the assembly’s opening ceremony. The printed stream was hosted by T&T Guardian journalist Dike Rostant, who carried out a number of fascinating interviews previous to the beginning of the official program. He opened with a dialog concerning the subject of freedom of motion all through the Caribbean with veteran journalist Andy Johnson.
One of many (a number of) issues I discovered fascinating within the ceremony was the various illustration within the prayers provided; Protestant, Catholic, Hindu, Muslim, Orisha, and Pentecostal religion leaders all participated, representing the broad range of the main religions practiced within the area. As an Orisha practitioner right here within the States, the place my religion is nearly ignored, I used to be happy.
The CARICOM Tune was additionally a part of the ceremony:
The CARICOM Tune is the official, patriotic music of the Caribbean Group, which celebrates the historical past, tradition and id of the individuals of the Caribbean. It’s for use primarily at ceremonial and Group occasions. In celebrating the Fortieth Anniversary of CARICOM in 2013, the CARICOM Secretariat launched a Tune Competitors to encourage the participation of all CARICOM Member States in composing a music that may encourage regional pleasure and unity, have fun our range and spotlight our shared imaginative and prescient and aspirations.
The composition “Celebrating CARICOM” by Ms. Michele Henderson, a extremely acclaimed recording artiste from the Commonwealth of Dominica, was chosen by a regional panel of judges because the official CARICOM Tune. A novel characteristic of the Tune that celebrates our linguistic range, is the Kwéyòl spoken within the Lesser Antilles and Suriname’s Sranan Tongo that punctuate the rhythmic bridge
Right here’s a efficiency of the tune, from 2022.
Lyrics:
CELEBRATING CARICOM
Verse 1From many distant lands, our fore fathers got here
Some in search of journey, some sure in chains
Via battles waged and fought
Via victory and ache
By take a look at of their braveness
Our freedom was gained
In homage to these gone earlier than us
The heroes of lands within the solar
We vow to hitch arms and to focus
On constructing one CaribbeanRefrain
Elevate your voices excessive
Sing of your Caribbean pleasure
Sing it loud and robust
Really feel our hearts beat as one
Rejoice in music
As we rise to heights the place we belong
Sound the victory drum
For CARICOMVerse 2
Although nice and various be our ethnicities
The bonds that unite us are stronger than these
We dine we pray we love, we dance and we play
We relate to one another the West Indian method
Right now as individuals united
Decided and steadfast we stand
We glance to a model new horizon
The long run now firmly in our armsRefrain
Bridge
Hélé hélé bwavo (Shout Bravo)
Opo yu stem CARICOM (Elevate your voices CARICOM)
Lévé lévé vwa’w (Elevate your Voices)
Naki yu dron CARICOM (Beat your drum CARICOM)
Tanbouyé tanbou a wo (Drummer drum woh)
Opo you stem CARICOM (Elevate your voices CARICOM)
Lévé lévé vwa’w (Elevate your voices)
I’ll shut right here, and hope you’ll be part of me within the feedback for extra on CARICOM, and for the weekly Caribbean Information Roundup.
And circling again to my college students, I discover myself curious to know what number of Caribbean nations you’re accustomed to, and what number of Caribbean leaders you possibly can title!
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