Caricom bruised, not broken

It is increasingly apparent to me that whatever its operational deficiencies and political challenges – characteristic of all multilateral groupings - news of Caricom’s demise constitutes a gross exaggeration rooted in appalling, publicly exhibited ignorance of its structure, role, and functions.

Yes, breaches have widened along one critical pillar, but there remain other sturdy functioning structures. International relations expert Nand Bardouille’s suggestion of a widening Caricom “breach” is valid regarding the foundational pillars of foreign policy coordination, and associated regional security concerns, and cannot be dismissed.

However, past quarrels – Guyana, Grenada, Taiwan/China, Malvinas/Falklands – brought bruises and fractures, but nothing close to death.

It is also true, and not for the first time, the body blows have been bruising and extensive. Yet, there is no accompanying corpse - which would certainly include a gory exhibition of important T&T socio-cultural and economic organs and limbs.

For, who is sustaining the blows from whom? There is a certain nonsense about Caricom comprising a “them” and an “us.” It’s also there in the language that somehow “Caricom” comprises a monolithic “other.”

Regional political coordination is, by definition, a highly problematic pursuit. We may recall the early years that brought us Guyana’s chronic electoral challenges, the Grenada Revolution, and the embrace of Cuba as a regional partner.

We’ve also had the problematic embrace of Haiti as a member, the Taiwan/China divide, and differing perspectives on the Gaza genocide.

In this, all of us have at some point been unreliable allies on the consensus field. T&T stood its ground on the US invasion of Grenada in 1983. And let us not forget politely divided opinions surrounding the Falklands/Malvinas War in 1982.

On matters such as these we have not been alone. Who, indeed, is “the United Nations” or “the OAS” or “the EU” or “ECOWAS.”?

Among the more important issues explored by OAS Secretary General, Albert Ramdin in my recent interview with him were the numerous challenges to the process of multilateralism amid current global turbulence.

It concerns many that while all of this comes down to questions of defensive self-preservation, there has been a growing trend by countries – big and small, rich and poor, the powerful and the powerless – to  contemplate the dismantling of regional and global alliances designed to address conditions that conduce to peace, cooperation, and ensuing development gains.

The Ramdin interview unveiled real-life experiences associated with the OAS and its place as a hemispheric platform for the realisation of declared multilateral values.

He was able to cite the “ups and downs (of) the United Nations in the 1940s and the later crises of the 1960s and 1970s which were bilateral in nature, in the first instance, but later expanded to global levels.

Since then, everywhere, there have emerged regional integration arrangements such as Caricom to distil the dynamics of multilateralism in measures of collective geographical self-interest and to activate the potential of joint enterprise.

As explained in this space two weeks ago, the longstanding Caricom project is ambitiously multidimensional in nature with core mandates including economic integration, foreign policy coordination, human and social development, and security cooperation.

Its rules of engagement, especially in foreign policy, have never pretended to undervalue individual posture.

Despite this, there has been general consensus on international candidatures, and bloc representation in hemispheric and global decision-making. There is also the pursuit of a notion of open regionalism reliant on a high measure of policy coherence within Caricom.

“Not for the first time in their post-independence history, Caricom member states are mired in a foreign policy-related trajectory in which national and regional interests are pulling in opposite directions,” Dr Bardouille wrote recently.

In my view, the critical point to monitor would be the extent to which Caricom’s sometimes faltering foreign policy “pillar” teeters and destabilises other key structures.

Adjoin regional security and problematic foreign policy cohesion and witness what confronts the region now in the face of the US military attack on Venezuela and abduction of Nicolás Maduro and his wife. This was plainly a violation of international law.

The statement by the Caricom Bureau (comprising the heads of Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Lucia) covers some essential points including “the fundamental principles of international law and multilateralism enshrined in the UN Charter, including sovereignty and territorial integrity of States and respect for human dignity.”

This is neither bland nor ideologically neutral. It is a useful guide. Propagandists and social media trolls had hoped for either congratulatory declarations or unqualified condemnation. That’s not how this works.

Here’s hoping all reliable regional partners meet and discuss even before the St Kitts and Nevis Summit next month. There are wounds, but none of them fatal.

A penalty of death

On December 17, in this space, I described what I considered to be the so-called “big and little” things of public life in T&T.

Among the several phenomena mentioned, when referencing the “little” things, was the absurd prevalence of potholes and disfigured roadways – both major and minor – all over the country.

I described the “beauty” of a hole near T&TEC along the Eastern Main Road in Curepe and jokingly noted its proximity to a tyre shop and three places of worship.

Four days later, a male pedestrian died when a car, presumed to have swerved to avoid that very pothole, struck him, narrowly missed a nearby metal bridge, and landed in the river some seven or eight metres below.

The last time I checked, the “complex” pothole - comprising a jagged, narrow horizontal strip and an adjoining axle-breaking crater was still there.

Nobody appears to have made a big, public fuss over what happened. The victim was described in news reporting as being “homeless,” and since the occupants of the car appeared to have received non-life-threatening injuries, there has been little follow-up – at least none that I have seen.

Both T&TEC and the tyre shop are back in action, road users who know the spot do a quick left and sharp right to escape; while others unfamiliar with the area painfully deal with damaged rims, tyres, and suspension systems.

The point here is that, in this instance, the penalty paid for what is at least state neglect was someone’s death. Speeding has not (yet) been proven - which would have, at minimum, introduced a notion of contributory negligence. Even so, should the penalty for speeding be someone’s death, if not yours?

The fact is that paying with one’s life has become, far too routinely, a grim feature of existence in a society that loudly proclaims the sanctity and preciousness of life – at least rhetorically.

An opinion poll would most likely show, for instance, that most of us approve of the continued presence of the death penalty on the statute books and that many would prefer to just kill “them” all … violently. This is especially so during this violent period when revenge is so frequently inter-changeable with a notion of “justice.”

It does not matter that shortcomings in the areas of policing, prosecutions, and prompt judicial action persist, and the potential for loss of innocent life - an accused in this instance - exists.

People here, by and large, believe that if you are adjudged to have taken someone’s life you should die. But even that is not the end of it.

For, simultaneously - and judging from public commentary on recent legislation introduced and passed - a penalty of death is also desirable even when all juridical and humane pre-requisites have not been satisfied.

For example, pair the eager passage of (largely misconstrued) “stand your ground” legislation with an expanded, voracious appetite for more readily available firearms and see what I mean.

Whatever the requirements of proportionality, the potential for violent escalation, and the absence of safeguards against deadly outcomes, there is a recognisable thirst for both tried and untried criminal blood. Intruders, you see, need to be killed.

It’s approximately the same mindset when it comes to people, including our own, in pirogues out at sea unilaterally declared to be engaged in criminal activity. Guilty or not, a penalty of death appears to be quite acceptable.

In such instances, insisting on any semblance of due process is certainly not a mere symptom of uninformed, partisan haste or irrational “angst.” In fact, a predisposition to question and to condemn such actions may well be a rare redeeming quality of the current period.

Meanwhile, from the same sacred platforms from which such angst is being noted there has been scarce mention of the fact that the penalty for being a baby or young child in Gaza has, for the past two years, been death by violence – all 21,000 of them (including 1,000 babies under the age of 1).

Okay, there is some disagreement over the numbers. So, let’s say, hypothetically, a single baby has been murdered (and not the 1,000 as claimed) without remorseful mention … even as we honour the birth of another, where does that leave us?

Could it be that a penalty of death is not as undesirable as we so often claim? That life, once it’s not ours, is an expendable commodity. It is a sorry condition to contemplate.

Happy New Year.