Caricom’s crisis governance

With all due respect to everyone concerned, including the UN and Caricom SGs, I paid close attention to just three speakers at Sunday's torturously long opening ceremony of Caricom Heads of Government Meeting in Suriname – John Briceño of Belize, Chan Santokhi of Suriname, and Dickon Mitchell of Grenada.

Briceño, as outgoing chairman during an unprecedented period of turmoil. Santokhi as incoming chairman - and, like Briceño, from an “outlier” continental member state not umbilically tied to UWI or hooked on cricket. While Mitchell, a UWI graduate, was the new kid on the block.

Fresh from his baptism as chairman of the regional grouping, Briceño was worth a listen as he manoeuvred his hand out of the mouth of a hungry Caricom lion in handing over to Santokhi.

It is however advisable that public servants permit more extemporaneous expression by the politicians at such events – just as they are during cantankerous leaders’ caucuses tightly guarded from public view.

Because of all this, the Belizean leader was big on platitudes and effusive with the painfully well-known and obvious, while granting himself a single profound line around which the entire agenda could have been designed.

“Crisis governance,” he said, “is the new normal.” This, indeed, had to be the unspoken, overarching theme for a meeting of leaders for whom, as it has always been, everything remains a priority.

That’s why the failure of a longstanding commitment to rationalise over-packed agendas. But in the end, it always comes down to management of a series of simultaneous developmental crises.

Even when there appeared to have been some space, along came a pandemic, sharp economic decline in most states, and now, fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

So, yes, the rest of Briceño’s address outlines the well-known challenges. But the “crisis governance” punchline actually comes near the start. He could have ended there.

Of course, and to be clear, at both national and regional levels, when have states of crisis not framed our experience? When has EVERYTHING not been a priority? It is a dynamic that predates even the advent of independence 60 years ago.

When it came to Mitchell, it would have been preferable to have let him loose on his own – fresh from the hustings with all the passion and fury that accompany newness.

Instead, there was full restatement of the endless priorities – regional transportation, food, the climate crisis, the pandemic and his country’s assigned portfolio of science and technology. The copy of the speech I received awaited the words of a senior public servant on the latter, hugely important, subject.

There ought to have been a case, made up front by him, that his regional assignment lies at the core of the responses to concurrent crises. He must know it is an area that exceeds the confines of the “science and technology” craved by technocratic originators of the portfolio. This enters terrain he, as an under-60, should understand as mindset.

We needed to hear him say he will be among those to lead a revolution. Maybe he will come to that. But on Sunday, such a message was not woven into a bureaucratic regurgitation of current realities.

Then came Santokhi – in many ways a well-timed ascendant to Caricom chairmanship – an emerging oil boom, mainland location, diverse population, acquaintance with recurring tumult, and a safe distance away from most traditional Caricom fancies.

Note the discomfort of the Surinamese reader of the citation on behalf of Viv Richards OCC. It could have been the same in Belize, Haiti, and even The Bahamas where a preoccupation with “the good old days” of West Indies cricket is barely understood.

Santokhi had a thinly disguised message for this cricket-playing neighbour: “Offshore oil and gas is new for Suriname and Guyana,” he said.

“I welcome my Caribbean sisters and brothers, to benefit from our resources and invite them to invest and contribute as contractors and sub-contractors,

“All you have to do is register your business at our Chamber of Commerce and partner with a Surinamese company to become a local content (sic).”

His trusted foreign minister is former ASG at both Caricom and the OAS, Albert Ramdin, who has also been pinch-hitting on his behalf on several domestic issues and knows the Caribbean well. His hand is easily recognisable.

Santokhi’s turn at the helm promises to be as torrid as Briceño’s initiation. He will need all the support that’s available. His “local content” remark is quite an opener and supports his recognition of a joint Caricom enterprise to address emerging challenges.

His speech was worth the wait.

Postscript: Congratulations to all OCC awardees. But special mention here of David Rudder – a T&T and Caribbean treasure whose rallying call transcends the boundaries of mere cricket.