By Rickey Singh From Jamaica Observer

Oh no, Mr Holness

IT seems incredible that a major political party of national and regional significance would want to move away–even temporarily–from membership of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) which is currently marking its 40th anniversary.

More disturbing is that this idea could be publicly voiced by the leader of such a party – the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) – Mr Andrew Holness, at a time when his party is celebrating its 70th anniversary and is fully aware that Jamaica is a founding member of CARICOM.

This is undoubtedly a most challenging period in global political and economic development for some countries of our relatively small economic integration movement that is the 15-member Caribbean Community and Common Market.

A few of the leading Community partners seem to be wilting under mounting economic and social pressures resulting in some rather surprising political posturing, none more so than in the case of Jamaica.

Hence, last week, the JLP’s leader, speaking against the backdrop of recurring complaints from the country’s very vital private sector about significant trade disadvantages with Trinidad and Tobago, felt compelled to publicly call for a suspension of CARICOM membership until trade-related disputes could be satisfactorily resolved.

In Barbados, which once enjoyed, for a number of years, the reputation of being perhaps the best managed economy within CARICOM, the challenges are of a different manifestation.

There, current outcries against the punishing cost of living are competing with spreading vocal criticisms over a debt crisis amid fears of a likely resort to a stand-by arrangement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The difference is that while Barbados remains deeply focused on coming forward with a practical response to its estimated US$200 million fiscal deficit, ahead of next month’s presentation of the 2013 national budget, the opposition JLP seems spoiling for a political duel with Trinidad and Tobago, in particular, over a widening trade deficit. Even to the extent of suspending membership ties with CARICOM.

Ironically, while serving as Jamaica’s prime minister for three months, before gambling with a snap general election in 2011–on the basis of opinion poll projections, Mr Holness (a former education minister), appeared to be quite a promising political leader for the future.

However, in expanding on a similar “suspension” position earlier voiced by his colleague, Dr Christopher Tufton, the party’s spokesman on foreign affairs, the JLP leader told an ‘exchange forum’ at the Jamaica Observer newspaper:

“There could be a suspension until we get our house in order, so that we can participate on equal footing with everyone…We do not believe that Jamaica’s interests are necessarily being fully served by CARICOM, and that’s not a statement from which we hide…”

That position, as some may cynically remark, was perhaps much more than the proverbial “mouthful”, but one seemingly lacking in required intellectual thought which the JLP leader is reputedly quite capable of offering.

So why then this political flirtation with the idea of a temporary suspension of Jamaica’s membership from the regional economic integration movement? Jamaica, after all, is a founding member of CARICOM and, as the JLP leader would know, without a united front involving the People’s National Party administration of Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, the “suspension” call is simply a non-starter that can only hurt his image and that of his party.

The harsh reality is that, unlike Jamaica’s “success” in mashing up the region’s first political unity experiment with the short-lived West Indies Federation in the 1960s, as consequence of an ill-considered national referendum, no government, in Kingston, Port-of-Spain, or any other regional capital should be inclined to suspend membership of CARICOM.

Suspending membership of CARICOM is not to be contemplated, especially when the Dominican Republic, for one, is knocking more loudly to access membership of the Caribbean Community, while a collection of French and Dutch territories in this region are lobbying to secure associate membership.

Of more relevance, is whether the influential decision-makers of Jamaica’s manufacturing and commercial sectors have exhausted negotiations with their counterparts in Trinidad and Tobago, and to what extent they have failed to gain required support from the government in Kingston.

Both governing and opposition parties in Jamaica would be fully aware of the provisions embedded in the revised treaty of CARICOM for settlement of trade and other disputes. They are also well served with legal minds to access the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) which is empowered with original jurisdiction to resolve trade disputes.

Indeed, even before the JLP leader came forward with his idea for suspension of Jamaica’s CARICOM membership, the Jamaica Manufacturers Association (JMA) had revealed its disappointment with the government’s handling of the trade dispute with Trinidad and Tobago.

The primary choice for its expressed anger was Foreign Minister A J Nicholson. In calling for his resignation, the JMA claimed that Nicholson, a former attorney general, had contradicted a “promise” that his colleague, Anthony Hylton, Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce, had made about resorting to the CCJ for a resolution of the lingering trade dispute.

Whatever may have been the specific hurdles to achieve a satisfactory approach involving the JMA and Prime Minister Simpson Miller’s administration, the then prevailing scenario clearly pointed to movements for a resolution of the conflict.

Why then the surfacing of emotional talk about suspension of Jamaica’s CARICOM membership? That’s not an answer to a resolution of this vexed issue of bi-lateral relations between the Community’s two more populous and economically developed member states.

Surely it cannot be beyond the capacity of the representatives of the private sector organisations in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, as well as their respective governments, to arrive at a solution via structured dialogues in both Kingston and Port-of-Spain.

If such a resolution proves elusive for serious dialogue, inspired by mutual goodwill and shared commitment to regional economic integration, then perhaps CARICOM could be in more difficult waters than may be apparent.

For more on this story go to:

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/Jamaica-s–suspension–threat-over-CARICOM_14716176