The Prime Minister of St. Lucia, who is also the president of CARICOM, stated:

The people of the region strive to share nationhood in the pursuit of the common destiny of Justice, equality and economic progress. The West Indian spirit yearns for the celebration of oneness in the economic life, the laws, institutions and agenda of the region.” Integration must start as simple means and then build. This is a process that requires the harmonization of policies and treaties.

As with most situations, circumstances arise that either oppose or place obstacles in the path of a positive and progressive goal like political unity. Consequently, forces against integration result in fragmentation, a type of political division. The cause of fragmentation is often calculated colonial practice that exploited geography and produced an attitude of insularity and isolation instead of a culture of cooperation and collaboration. This state is best described in the words of Laureate Derek Walcott, “break a vase and the love that resembles the fragment is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted as a whole.

The very nature of the West Indian colonies, conquest by various European powers, did not encourage integration among the islands. The British sought only to achieve economies of scale within public administration. There was no attempt whatsoever by the Colonial Office to create inter-island co-operation. Instead the political existence of Caribbean was characterized by a “climate of isolation and petty jealousies.” The historical mission of the current generation is to cultivate the same symmetry that was broken into pieces, taken for granted and eventually at some point almost totally destroyed. In the words of Sir Shridath Ramphal, Chief Negotiator for the Caribbean, we cannot avoid the temptation of disunity “without constant effort, without unrelenting perseverance and discipline in suppressing instincts born of tradition and environment….”

Immigration, defined as the voluntary movement of nationals of one country into another country for the purpose of resettlement, has worked both for and against integration. Although Caribbean nationals find it difficult to leave their homelands, many flee for reasons such as poverty, unemployment, overpopulation, severe economic depression, religious persecution, political unrest and repression, and health purposes. These factors are what researchers know as push factors. Conversely, the pull factors are higher standards of living, social economic, political and religious freedom.

Migration is an arduous process in which many individuals hoping to find “better” lives emigrate from their homelands in search of more suitable habitation. For these individuals, immigration can mean many things. The United States is the most popular destination for Caribbean immigrants. Another type of person who is unable to return to his/her country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution emigrate to the United States and claim refugee status.

Besides migration to the United States, there is migration to other Caribbean nations. Caribbean countries that attract large numbers of immigrants tend to be small countries that possess successful, stable economies. At times these successful small nations experience economic problems due to the number immigrants entering it. This is a result of the large increase in population and the economy not having adequate time to support this type of population increase.

CARICOM is a regional integration movement with a common goal, the improvement of the standard of living of the five million people of the community. The organization was formally established in 1973 by the Treaty of Chaguaramas that derives its name from the place where it was signed in Trinidad and Tobago. This means that CARICOM celebrated its 25th Anniversary this year. Membership is open to any state within the Caribbean region providing that the state is willing to exercise the rights and assume the obligations of membership as outlined in the treaty. At present the community embraces fourteen member states, all of them independent nation-states except Montserrat. The organization is evaluating the application of Cuba. The members are: Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Granada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Christopher (affectionately known as St. Kitts) and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Granadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname and recently Haiti. There are three main objectives of CARICOM: (a) Economic cooperation through the Caribbean Common Market, (b) Coordination of foreign policy, and (c) Functional cooperation in areas such as health, education and culture, youth and sports, science and technology, and tax administration.

There is also still more to be said as the responses and reactions to the European Union’s (EU) Green Paper, posing alternatives for a post-LOME V agreement between the EU and the African Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP), are emerging. CARICOM has appointed Sir Shridath Ramphal as Chief Negotiator on a new “LOME” agreement with the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA). Sir Shridath Ramphal himself has indicated that he feels sure that although there will be some agreement between the EU and the members of an expanded ACP, it will be significantly unlike any previous LOME agreement. According to these analysts we will never see the likes of LOME again. For example, the Sugar Protocol and the questions of Bananas. The examples of sugar cane and bananas amply illustrate various aspects necessary to an understanding of fair trade issues between the Caribbean and Latin America, and secondly, among the Caribbean nations themselves as well as with the USA and the EU.

These are times of structural changes in the world. World politics, world economy, world society and world culture are deep in modes of transition and there is considerable difficulty in identifying the what and where of a final destination. Those who seek to impose a new comforting order on the disorder have provided new labels or have invested old labels with fresh new meaning. Since the process is in reality one of political power, great efforts are made to present that the new labels as self-evident, in no need of explanation and natural. Correspondingly, they are presented as non-ideological, which supposedly befits this new age of rapid scientific discoveries, and therefore is exceedingly rational. The most popular label is that of globalization. In nearly all instances of its use, the extraction of surplus values from poor and weak countries to rich and strong countries can be substituted in order to provide clarity concerning the true meaning of the concept. A lesser though very related concept is that of free trade.

The current international trading system is neither free nor fair even though it is probably freer and fairer than it ever was. Yet the question is whether free trade, whenever it is achieved, is intended to spread the prospects for growth across countries and regions. A number of related difficulties facing developing countries in rich countries’ markets include tariff peaks, preference erosion, tariff escalation and above all anti-dumping measures and countervailing duties.

These have been compounded by other very challenging aspects for many states in the developing world in relation to institutional and other requirements, such as meeting notification obligations, changing domestic laws appropriately, insufficiency of time needed to absorb and adjust to the vast set of rules and instruments of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Developing countries have faced disguised protectionist measures parading as environmental justifications and the continued use of trade measures to achieve domestic objectives. It has now become evident that for countries of the developing world to actively engage in the multilateral trading system they must also safeguard their rights and promote their trade and development interests. These involve sustainable costs (in time and money) even when multilateral negotiation platforms are established which prove almost impossible to finance in a consistent manner.

What countries of the South need are both free and fair trade. Without truly free trade in agricultural goods (raw and processed) the Anglophone Caribbean is perhaps correct in insisting upon the continuation of preferential treatment in the European market for its bananas, sugar, rum, and spices. For example, sugar is not traded freely or fairly on the world market, and the significant beneficiaries are not “privileged” countries of the African, Pacific and Caribbean (ACP) nations, the signatories to the LOME Convention agreement with the European Union (EU). The “privileged ones are the EU beet sugar producers, the US cane sugar producers for whom the United States maintains high domestic prices and a quota system on foreign sugar imports, and the manufacturers of artificial sweeteners. In terms of market shares the Caribbean countries are marginal. Indeed only about 25% of the trade in natural sugar is, in a sense, “free.” These are critical issues between the Anglophone Caribbean and the wider Caribbean, as well as with Latin America in general.

There is a need among Caribbean nations to agree on a direction, to accept the responsibility of the initial domestic costs, and to act in unity in regard to all grading arrangements, that is with GATT (General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs) and WTO (World Trade Organization), FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas), NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) accession, the Pacific blocs, and Europe. Initially, these are political decisions that will make effective economic actions and activities possible and successful.

I began writing my thesis on political unity in the Caribbean. As I researched, my topic focussed on political unity within the Eastern Caribbean, especially Anglophone. Caribbean nation-states are not unproductive and chaotic; their peoples are quite to the contrary. Thanks to globalization and the great desire of Caribbean nation-states to survive, traditional systems are being forced to change.

In actuality, what was formerly seen as a hindrance, the small size of the economy, now can be an advantage to small states in the Caribbean. I call this change the reexamination of the dependence theory. Many large industrial countries are not used to being dependent on each other. Therefore, the transition for small states, such as the Caribbean states will tend to go through an easier readjustment process than large industrialized countries like the United States.

I hold no romantic notions about the future for political integration. Yet, I do believe that this difficult job will someday become a reality that all West Indians will be able to depend on and be proud of. Caribbean peoples have been shattered by the promises of the past that did not find fulfillment in the present. Their hope hangs by a slender thread since the tendency to despair increased with each failed attempt. The hope of my people is generated in part by the constant attempt at political union and many successes of CARICOM.

I understand the weariness of some Caribbean leaders. It is a fatigue that has at times bred anger, frustration, and regret. The many efforts to bring the region together took its toll on the resolve of some of our past leaders. The baton will have to be passed onto another generation of leaders. The Eastern Caribbean is at the critical juncture as political leadership is being passed on to an entirely new generation.

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