CARICOM, CARIGONE ?

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We present and encourage progressive Caribbean views of Caribbean and world affairs


Caribbean Heads of  Government
We are not surprised that the recent CARICOM heads of government meeting in Trinidad and Tobago has come and gone with just passing notice. CARICOM seems to be the least passionate of all Caribbean political interests at this time. We are convinced that our Caribbean leaders are so hell bent on remaining in political office, that they see CARICOM as nothing more than a show window. We go “window shopping" but we are buying absolutely nothing.
The historical path of Caribbean integration, stretching from the failed West Indies Federation, to CARIFTA and the present CARICOM does not need repetition here.  We are concerned about the failure or lukewarm approach, to using CARICOM, as a vehicle for transforming Caribbean economies. We see an abject lack of vision and unless we collectively pressure our governments to quicker and more decisive leadership, our future would be twice as difficult as we now envision.
 The Caribbean economies continue to reel from externally driven economic crises. At present, from Port of Spain to Bridgetown; from Kingston to Kingstown; from Castries to Basseterre, we are all being economically savaged by a crisis engineered in London, Wall Street and the struggling economies of other European countries. Every decade to fifteen years, we are forced into “international recessions” that are essentially not of our making.
In the meantime, we await directives from the International Monetary Fund and our economies are rated by agencies such as Standard and Poor. We are constantly suffering the embarrassment of absentee economic leadership, similar to the absentee plantation ownership that we endured during slavery and colonialism. The absentee directors deploy their agents to enter the Caribbean and deliver instructions. We are then told that failure to execute will lead to severe hardship, increases in unemployment, currency devaluation and all the attendant maladies. 
In the midst of this reality our Caribbean leaders apparently have no plan or interests in abandoning petty party politics and winning five year spectacles called elections. They are prepared to allow the IMF and other international predators to manage our economies, while they allow us to suffer the consequences of their inaction and lack of vision.
 Another CARICOM heads of government has come and gone. CARICOM, CARIGONE.


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