caribbean roundup

CASTRIES, St. Lucia (AP) – Ca-ribbean Community (Caricom) leaders went into caucus on the second working day of their annual summit yesterday with crime and security within the region a major discussion item.

St. Lucia’s Prime Minister and Cari-com Chairman Dr. Kenny Anthony said the leaders would also be discussing the crisis now confronting the West Indies cricket.

Caribbean leaders have regarded crime as among the obstacles to the economic, political and social stability of the region and Dr. Anthony told his regional colleagues that “it is the scourge that threatens us all and it gnaws at the very root of the economic and social transformation that we seek as the at-tainable fruit of our labor.”

He said crime highlights the soft underbelly “of our weak social and legal infrastructure” as well as the “in-ability to cope in conventional ways with unprecedented levels of violence, brutality and inhumanity.

“For many victims life has indeed become nasty, brutish and short,” he said.

The leaders will discuss the conclusions of the special meeting of regional ministers responsible for crime and security and law enforcement recently held in Trinidad & Tobago.

Caricom Secretary-General Dr. Ed-win Carrington said the leaders would also be discussing the historic meeting between government and parliamentary opposition leaders held over the last weekend.

The leaders are expected to appoint two more members to the government side of a committee of six that would also include three opposition leaders to review the progress made at the meeting.

Another agenda item will be the discussions surrounding the region’s energy sector, and it is most likely that the leaders would be making known their views on the statement made by Trin-idad & Tobago’s Prime Minister Pat-rick Manning regarding the Venezuela initiative.

Manning has acknowledged that the initiative, called “PetroCaribe” is in-deed “very attractive” but said that it also had the potential to “erode” his country’s economy.

The European Union’s (EU) sugar reform proposal and its expected negative effects on sugar producers from African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States, were also discussed.

Caricom states to take unilateral positions on

UN reform

CASTRIES, St Lucia (AP) – Jam-aica’s Prime Minister PJ Patterson yesterday said it was likely that Caribbean Community (Caricom) countries would adopt unilateral positions regarding the reform of the United Nations, but insisted it would not represent any di-vision within the 15-member grouping.

The UN reform is among agenda items during the four-day summit of Caribbean leaders taking place in the northern fishing village of Gros-Islet, and Patterson said it was likely that any position could emerge.

“I cannot say which position will emerge,” Patterson said pointing out that even among the G77 countries and China there were divisions as to the way forward regarding the reform issue.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had mandated a high level report on the reform issue and the chairman of the General Assembly had put forward a set of recommendations aimed at guiding the reform.

But Patterson, who said he had also been mandated by the G77 and China group to articulate their concerns to the G8 meeting on issues such as debt reduction, poverty eradication and im-proved terms of trade, said the UN had been developed after the Second World War and the global environment had changed dramatically since then.

“We as developing countries give great importance to strengthening of the UN,” he said noting that the reform must place greater emphasis on global development.

“We believe the whole global situation has changed dramatically and we believe the whole global institutions must be overhauled and strengthened,” he added.

Patterson said the developing countries were grateful for the decision to write off the debt of poor countries, particularly in Africa, adding that there was also need to examine problems that had been in existence for a long time including health and economic stagnation.

“I hardly need to point out that the decisions of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and the effect they had on the lives of people in developing countries,” Patterson said, adding “we do not believe that we have a sufficient voice in those institutions at the moment.”

He said while some countries were preoccupied with the changes to be made within the UN Security Council, he was disappointed that the Economic and Social Council of Latin America and the Caribbean (ECOSAC) had not developed that leadership role which it had to discharge.

Patterson was also critical of the existing role of the UN General As-sembly, describing it as “a little more than a debating chamber.”

“It can’t take effective decisions on a range of issues,” he added.

Patterson said it was important therefore for the Caribbean to be aware that it needed to re-position itself within the new global paradigm so as not to be left out in the change in aid packages to developing countries.

“We in the Caribbean must make sure we don’t fall out of the loop completely and there is a great danger that could happen unless we can impress on the need of the international community to give assistance to a category of countries to which the Caribbean falls,” he said.

antigua pushes for oecs countries special treatment

CASTRIES, St Lucia (AP) – An-tigua & Barbuda has further highlighted the need for OECS countries to be given special and differential treatment as the discussions continue on the im-plementation of the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME) by Dec-ember 2005.

During an intervention on the discussions on the issue at the Heads Meeting, Prime Minister Baldwin Spen-cer said Antigua & Barbuda was in agreement with the broad principles of the CSME, but recognized the need for governments, policy makers and economic agents to gain a clear understand-ing of the main issues, effects and implications of the agreement.

“In undertaking commitments as a process of this economic integration, Antigua & Barbuda must ensure that there are regulatory changes to ensure harmonizing policies to create an integrated labor market,” he said. “Such changes go beyond the existing general agreement on trade in services commitments and should be finalized be-fore committing to any further market access liberalization,” the Prime Min-ister added.

He noted that for a region which contributes on average 87 percent of GDP and 80 percent of foreign exchange earnings, it was imperative to ensure that services export initiatives within Caricom included OECS service suppliers and did not focus inappropriately on the OECS region as the target of imports from other Caricom states.

The country’s leader told the heads that more significant to Antigua & Bar-buda, the provision of Mode 4 (movement of people), whereby the right to require work permits and setting the terms thereof should be retained.