No dividing CARICOM - Biden won’t cherry-pick Caribbean heads to meet with, say diaspora leaders
Published:Sunday | November 15, 2020 | 12:18 AMJanet Silvera - Senior Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
The divide-and-rule strategy outgoing US President Donald Trump was accused of using to win support for some policies from some Caribbean countries, including Jamaica, is an issue diaspora representatives say they hope the incoming Joe Biden administration will not repeat.
Trump, who lost the November 3 elections to Biden, created what has been tagged the ‘Mar-a-Lago Five’, when he had an exclusive meeting with the leaders from Jamaica, The Bahamas, St Lucia, Haiti and the Dominican Republic to discuss trade, border security, drug trafficking and the political impasse in Venezuela in March last year.
The invitation was not extended to any member of the CARICOM Advisory Committee, which at the time was led by St Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados.
In fact, Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne called those who attended “weak-minded”, while his counterpart in St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr Ralph Gonsalves, said it was “an insult” to the region.
“Cherry-picking in the way it was done by the Trump administration is not what we want to see; we want a united CARICOM,” Irwine Clare, diaspora leader and head of Caribbean Immigration Services, said during a Gleaner Editors’ Forum last Thursday.
He was optimistic that the Biden administration would look to cementing a wholesome relationship with CARICOM.
Clare and other panellists at the forum – including Ambassador Curtis Ward; Dr Basil Wilson, former professor of John Jay College of Criminal Justice; and Patrick Beckford, Democratic strategist – said the Biden win gives CARICOM an opportunity to strengthen the fact that they will have to work together as a unit.
Clare pointed to a framework which he said was already in place, allowing the Caribbean regional body to participate at the political level in the US.
DEEP CONSULTATIONS
Ward, however, pointed out that the diaspora could not develop and push policies without deep consultations with the governments of the Caribbean.
“Caribbean governments, as CARICOM, must have policies which they articulate to the diaspora, for us to use our political contacts and political power to advance. We can’t do it in a vacuum. We must be on the same page, and one of the issues with the region over the years is that it does not articulate a policy. They do not have an agenda that we can carry forward,” Ward lamented.
According to him, former US representative for districts in New York, Charles Rangel, also bemoaned on occasions that as chair of the most powerful ‘Ways and Means’ committee in the Congress, he was not able to get CARICOM to present policies that he could advance on their behalf.
Ward said one of the big deficits that the region has is within the Diplomatic Corps in Washington.
Referencing a conversation he had with a current Caribbean ambassador, Ward further stated that when he asked why they were not on Capitol Hill when there were important issues being tendered on various committees that affect the region, the response was, “We spend 90 per cent of our time at the OAS (Organization of American States), chairing committees and wasting time, and not going to Capitol Hill, where it matters most.”
NO HOPE
Ward feels it is time for the Caribbean Caucus of Ambassadors to speak in unison and has no hope things will get better until there is a clearer understanding what the Caribbean needs.
Scherie Murray, Republican and head of Unite The Fight PAC, said she was very proud to have worked on the policy recommendation to the Department of State, which calls for bilateral meetings. She is inviting everyone to become familiar with the policy – United States Caribbean Strategic Act HR4939.
“It is a policy that can be used to effectuate new policies on behalf of the Caribbean region,” she noted, adding that a companion report that she worked with stakeholders across the country to put together is also available to view at ICS.org
In the document, there is a call for a Caribbean American Council, a task force or an office that would help build equity within the Presidential administration, she argued.
Murray strongly defended Trump’s tenure, stating that he had the interest of the Caribbean.