9S aint Lucia
St. Vincent, t~
Barbados
DGrenada
c: Trinidad aind Tobago
Panama Venezuela
80 Colombia 64uan
FIGURE 1 The Caribbean
of the region during the 1980s may yet produce positive regional benefits
by inducing efforts toward integration. It might be generalized that this
outcome appears all the more possible because of a substantial trend in
regional leadership patterns toward younger, more pragmatic individ-
uals. Expanded membership in the subregional community, in contrast,
would probably tend to retard the integration process.
This article also hypothesizes that this group of small nations will
remain only partially linked in the near future due to metropolitan influ-
ences, cultural parochialism, and the personal and turf-protective policies
of some insular leaders. These same factors appear to have ensured the
failure of previous integration attempts in the Commonwealth Caribbean.
Finally, should present integration efforts fail, it is highly probable that
efforts at integration will be renewed. But before pursuing these hypoth-
eses, a backward glance is in order.
4
CARIBBEAN INTEGRATION
THE COLONIAL LEGACY
Viewed from outer space or a superjet flying over the seldom-out-
of-sight Lesser Antilles, the dots of emerald, coral, lava, and sediment
that lie below in seemingly close proximity can be readily perceived as
natural candidates for integration (see figure 1). Indeed, some degree of
unity existed among the Taino-Arawak and Carib tribes in these territories
prior to the imposed Iberian order that linked the region legally until the
early seventeenth century.
Between the 1620s and the turn of the twentieth century, a British
West Indies developed among these territories partially because of almost
continuous European-Caribbean wars. One colonial official, James Pope-
Hennessy, referred to the British West Indies as “pieces in Elizabethan
schemes of empire, objects of Caroline and Cromwellian enterprise, [and]
loot of eighteenth-century wars” (cited in Bolitho 1947, 174). As a result, the
twelve independent states and five dependent territories now comprising
the English-speaking or Commonwealth Caribbean had imposed on them a
new colonial order involving a harbinger of integration (see table 1).
FACTORS THAT DIVIDE: THE POLITICS OF DISINTEGRATION
Cultural and Developmental Problems
Integration, however, implies far more than a common sovereign.
Integrated status is achieved only with great difficulty, as evidenced by
the experience of contemporary multistate efforts at integration. Its com-
plexity is also evident in theory, as reflected in Bela Balassa’s five-step
integration typology (Nye 1971, 29). 1 Whether it is attempted at the level
of a single island or a great or small archipelago, integration relies on
shared feelings or attitudes toward unification and identity that grow
from actual or imagined common experiences. In the Caribbean, such
attitudes have not been strongly developed even among the Caribbean
colonies of single European states because of the vagaries of nature and
geographical distance. Moreover, the colonizing countries compounded
1. The Balassa ideal type of integration model suggests a wide range: from free trade (no
internal tariffs, a condition reached with great difficulty, as so-called free-trade zones and
even the several de jure, but not de facto, common markets suggest), to de facto common
markets (with a common external tariff), to “unification of policies [and] political institu-
tions” (Nye 1971, 29). Multistate political mergers occur only rarely, and as Nye observes,
“political integration is by far the most ambiguous and the most difficult for which to develop
satisfactory indices” (Nye 1971, 36). He perceives major problems in the Balassa “list” but
cites it for heuristic appeal. For the Balassa taxonomy to be relevant to Caribbean integration,
however, one or more new first steps and perhaps an intermediate step would be necessary
to reflect more accurately the de facto pre-free-trade and pre-common-market realities expe-
rienced in the Caribbean. Policy harmonization categories two and three (common external
tariffs and free flow of factors) probably should be collapsed, and language changes must be
made throughout Balassa’s classification system, especially in the final integrative category.
5
Latin American Research Review
TA B L E 1 Economic Indicators of Caribbean Countries in 198
8
Annual
Rate of
Population Average
Area Mid-Year Increase Labor
(in square Population 1985-88 Force
Country kilometers) in 1988 (%) 1988
Anguilla 91 7,300 1.3
Antigua and
Barbuda 440 77,900 1.0
Bahamas 13,942 244,600 2.0 124,300
Barbados 4
31
253,800 0.1 123,800
Belize 22,960 179,600 2.
6
British Virgin
Islands 150 12,400 1.4
Cayman Islands 260 24,900 6.2
Dominica 750 81,200 0.6
Grenada 345 99,200 2.1
Guyana 214,970 755,800 -0.1
Jamaica 11,4
24
2,356,600 0.
7
1,078,400
Montserrat 102 12,000 0.3
St. Kitts
and Nevis 26
9
43,000 -0.8
St. Lucia 6
16
145,400 2.0
St. Vincent and
the Grenadines 388 113,100 1.1
Trinidad
and Tobago 5,1
28
1,211,500 1.6 476,800
Turks and Caicos
Islands 4
17
14,000 11.9
Source: Adapted from Caribbean Development Bank, Annual Report, 1989 (St. Michael,
Barbados: Leachworth Press, 1989), p. 15, with the permission of the Caribbean
Development Bank.
the problem by inducing destructive racial and class divisions, imposing
Eurocentristic and often ethnocentristic educational programs, and erect-
ing political, linguistic, monetary and trade barriers. As Daniel Guerin
observed, “Cut off, withdrawing into themselves, the islands’ ‘insularity’
[and] stagnation [resulted]. Even when attached to the same governing
‘mother country,’ their reciprocal contacts are very limited . .. [and they]
form . .. aloof little worlds” (Guerin 1961, 15):
As colonizer, Britain can also be blamed for massive political un-
derdevelopment and considerable developmental unevenness from one
British West Indies colony to the next, which would prove detrimental
to future efforts to federate. This unevenness ranged from variations in
6
CARIBBEAN INTEGRATION
Annual GDP at Real
Average Change in Current GDP per Rate of
Rate of Consumer Market Prices Capita Growth
Unemployment Prices 1988 in in GDP
1988 1988 (in millions 1988 1988
(%) (%) of dollars) dollars (%)
4.5 28.0 3,856 9.7
3.4 321.1 4,1
23
7.1
11.0 4.7 2,153.1 8,802
17.4 4.8 1,456.9 5,740
15.0 0.4 285.1 1,587 8.3
0.0 132.5 10,685 8.0
5.2 463.2 18,603 15.3
1.7 137.4 1,692 5.6
6.5 166.2 1,675 5.3
45.8 413.8 547 -3.0
18.7 8.8 3,183.3 1,351 1.6
3.6 54.2 4,516 12.4
1.0 108.4 2,5
21
4.7
0.8 211.4 1,454 6.8
1.6 154.4 1,365 5.0
21.0 7.8 4,481.6 3,699 -3.7
63.1 4,507 19.6
the constitutional status of individual colonies in the British West Indies to
variances in the amount of political party and semi-ministerial develop-
ment that was encouraged or allowed. For instance, Barbados and the
Bahamas maintained the traditional old representative system with its
largely independent legislature, which often yielded relatively weak gov-
ernors (especially in Barbados).2 Meanwhile, Jamaica and most of the
remaining units were governed more directly as Crown Colonies. Further,
the smaller islands were likely to be assigned colonial administrators, such
2. For a survey of the great difficulties facing a British governor in highly nationalistic and
sometimes semi-independent Barbados, see James Pope-Hennessy (1964).
7
Latin American Research Review
as “the failed Oxford ‘passman’ [with his] own brand of British racial
superiority” (G. Lewis 1987, 9). Westminister actively encouraged uneven
levels of political development within the West Indies, apparently per-
ceiving that the older, less racially divided colonies of Jamaica and Bar-
bados were more prepared for party development and semi-ministerial
status than the other islands and racially bifurcated Guyana. The West
India Royal Commission (often referred to as the Moyne Commission)
found that “a substantial body of public opinion in the West Indies is
convinced that far-reaching measures of social reconstruction depend,
both for their initiation and their effective administration, upon greater
participation of the people in the business of government” (U.K. Colonial
Office 1945, 303). Genuine reluctance in the United Kingdom, however,
discouraged democratic development in many of its West Indies colonies
until the eve of independence (Wood 1968; Williams 1970; G. Lewis 1968).
Jamaica experienced direct involvement by British Labourite politi-
cians in the formation of the Peoples’ National Party (PNP) in the late
1930s. By 1946 British pressure had brought a kind of cabinet government
with greater party responsibility to Jamaica and Barbados as well. On
these two islands and Trinidad, the British provided considerable assis-
tance in lowering the franchise gates, a course perceived as “truly conser-
vative” in that it permitted small and gradual changes as an antidote to
massive protest. This approach contributed to significant expansion of
suffrage (500 percent in Barbados and an even larger increase in Jamaica)
in the interlude between the release of the Moyne Report in 1945 and the
West Indies Federation (1958-1962).
Structural Problems and Policy Inconsistencies
On the eve of independence, even such obvious linkage structures
as trade, personnel, and mail transport remained poorly developed in the
West Indies. As E. F. L. Wood (later Lord Halifax) observed during an
official visit to the British West Indies before World War II, “Jamaica is
separated from the Lesser Antilles and British Guiana by a journey longer
in time than from England to Jamaica. It would have been totally out of the
question for us to effect our tour of the West Indian Colonies had it not
been for the fact that we were conveyed . . . in one of the ships of His
Majesty’s Navy especially detailed for this service…. The postal author-
ities in Jamaica are usually compelled to send mails for Trinidad, Bar-
bados, and British Guiana via either England, New, York or Halifax.”3
Compounding the situation were inconsistencies in British policy, as
3. U.K., Cmd. 1679, quoted in Historical Society of Trinidad and Tobago, British West In-
dian Federation ([Port of Spain], Trinidad and Tobago: Government Printing Office, 1954), 49,
47-53.
8
CARIBBEAN INTEGRATION
observed by Guyanese writer Clive Thomas. As early as 1882, a royal
commission proposed an “ultimate” West Indies federation, but in 1897 a
royal commission opposed such “strong unity” and even objected to the
integrated civil service that had been proposed earlier. As Trinidadian Eric
Williams explained, “The West Indian territories were divided, and so
Britain ruled easily” (Williams 1970, 296).
Such “ease of rule” was eventually threatened by the world de-
pression, however. Following extensive rioting and violence that caused
almost five hundred casualties between 19
35
and 1937, the previously
noted Moyne Commission was appointed to investigate the situation.
This body found major problems in colonial policy and delineated charges
so potentially damaging to support needed by the empire for the pending
war effort that the Moyne Report was not released until after World War II.
When finally released in 1945, the Moyne Commission’s report
emphasized the need for greater integration among the colonies of the
British West Indies. But it also stressed the great difficulties to be con-
fronted in providing the effective and affordable intercolony transport
and communication infrastructure required for even the most basic eco-
nomic integration. The report concluded that federation was at best a far-
off ideal. This finding apparently varied with British policy because
almost as soon as the report was released, representatives of the British
government began meeting with British West Indies territorial represen-
tatives to discuss federation (U.K. Colonial Office 1945, 379ff; Thomas
1988, 303; Williams 1970, 296).
THE WEST INDIES FEDERATION, 1958-1962
A Policy of Economics First
The demolished infrastructure and economic collapse of the United
Kingdom resulting from World War II modified the British agenda for
independence for the British West Indies. These changes converted what
in 1938 appeared a far-off need to an immediate one, a need “to force all
the little birds to fly.” The loss of India, the Raj’s crown jewel, in 1947
began the countdown of the demise of the second era of European colo-
nialism. The Caribbean, which had once financed the industrial revolu-
tion in the United Kingdom by producing wealth then superior to that of
the North American colonies, was now increasingly perceived as an
economic liability.
Although British efforts had been made intermittently for “closer
union” (the title of a 19
32
conference), from the initial settlement in the
1620s to discussions of federation of the British West Indies in the postwar
period in the 1945 Montego Bay conference, it seems that Whitehall
actions were not committed to the goal of national viability for an in-
9
Latin American Research Review
dependent integrated British Caribbean. As Gordon Lewis reported,
“Examination of the voluminous documentation of … Westminister
debates, royal commission reports, Colonial Office memoranda and the
published correspondence between the Colonial Secretary and individual
West Indian governors shows that the most persistently recurring reason
evoked in support of federation was the greater economy and the im-
proved administrative efficiency it supposed federation would bring”
(G. Lewis 1968, 345).4
Britain’s use of federation as a primary means of advancing metro-
politan colonial goals rather than assisting its West Indies colonies to
achieve viable independent nationhood was instrumental in dooming the
process (Thomas 1979, 285). Even during negotiations, startling errors
were made that can be laid directly at Whitehall’s door: delaying the
second federation conference until 1953, three years after the reports were
submitted and after the individual islands learned that they could gain
separate independence; failing to follow the precedent of earlier colonial
officers and inform Jamaican Premier Norman Manley that secession was
unthinkable; and failing to use the Colonial Office’s considerable weight
in resolving pertinent issues ranging from site selection of the federal
capital5 to transferral of adequate power to the central government of the
Federation and designating a four-year (rather than a two-year) period for
constitutional review.
Caribbean Interests and Personality Politics
Many Caribbean leaders have acknowledged for generations what
Gordon Lewis has termed “the seminal truth”: that only an economically
and politically integrated Caribbean could maximize the subregion’s eco-
nomic and political power and provide insulation against its provincial
divisions (1968, 343). Thus when formation of the West Indies Federation
was being negotiated, numerous leaders gave federation their full sup-
port, at least in the abstract. The Eastern Caribbean, with its closer
physical and cultural ties, was especially well represented in federation
talks.
These negotiations were attended by British West Indian leaders,
4. For the history of this period, see Mordecai (1968, 18-74) and Levy (1980, 138-59).
5. The eventual selection of Trinidad as the federal capital certainly did not reassure Jamaica.
The selection process itself exemplified the parochial and personality fights, economic con-
cerns, and metropolitan mistakes hypothesized at the outset of this research. Even though
Jamaica was the largest political and economic unit in the West Indies Federation and was
thus crucially important to the future of the subregion, it was not chosen as the capital site
because of its relative isolation from the Eastern Caribbean. Much of the current lack of rap-
port between Jamaica and fellow CARICOM units harks back to serious integrative neglect
during the colonial era and misunderstandings during the negotiation periods preceding the
ill-fated West Indies Federation and the Little Eight attempt.
10
CARIBBEAN INTEGRATION
except for those from the Bahamas, who were absent along with represen-
tatives of the mainland territories. Those present advanced a concerted
demand for federation to the leaders gathered at the Roseau Conference
held in Dominica in 1932 (Mordecai 1968, 22). Sir Arthur Lewis charac-
terized three leaders in particular-Norman Manley of Jamaica, Dr. Eric
Williams of Trinidad-Tobago, and Sir Grantley Adams of Barbados-as
“men of the highest quality, in any definition of that word. Their talents
were outstanding, and their education (all three had won scholarships to
Oxford) the envy of mankind. They were men of immaculate integrity and
selfless devotion to public service. Each was at the top of his profession
before entering public life, and gained neither [inordinate] prestige nor
money from politics. Each would be recognized in any country in the
world as a public servant of the highest calibre” (W. A. Lewis 1965, 457).
According to Sir Arthur (St. Lucia’s Nobel laureate), Manley, Williams,
and Adams, the political leaders of the three largest states participating
in the West Indies Federation (1958-1962), were especially supportive
throughout most of the negotiation period.
Yet the federation collapsed just four years later, and when its
inaugural period was analyzed, the personality politics and shortsighted-
ness of these same leaders received major blame. Like many subsequent
Caribbean leaders, these three were first and foremost provincial nation-
alists who became great men in their home countries but were hesitant to
accept compromise. Thus the West Indies Federation failed in part because
its leaders did not accept and utilize this crucial aspect of nation-building
(W. A. Lewis 1965, 454-62).
“One from Ten Leaves Nought”
These prophetic words were uttered by Trinidad-Tobago Premier
Dr. Eric Williams when he learned in March 1962 that Jamaica intended to
pursue singular independence. This action followed the loss by Norman
Manley and his PNP of a referendum on
19
September 1961 to Alexander
Bustamante and his Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). The JLP had mounted a
year-long door-to-door campaign against federation. As Wendell Bell’s
1958 elite survey data indicated, suspicion had arisen that the federation
might impede eventual full self-government in Jamaica. The data also
reflected a general feeling that Jamaica would suffer economically from
federation (Bell 1960, 862-79).
FURTHER ATTEMPTS AT POLITICAL INTEGRATION
The Williams-PNM Response
The referendum results in Jamaica and the negative reaction in
Trinidad spelled bad news for the eastern Caribbean states. Trinidad’s
11
Latin American Research Review
positive participation in the 1932 Roseau Conference nonetheless sparked
a ray of hope among these states that the federation could survive the loss
of its largest member. Sir Arthur Lewis’s report on a survey of eastern
Caribbean leaders can be usefully summarized:
Barbadians and the Windward and Leeward Islanders had close links with
Trinidad; members of their families live there; their songs, their news, their
political excitements, the novelists who articulate daily Caribbean life mostly come
from Trinidad. To make foreigners of people so bound by customs and culture
would come as an immeasurable tragedy which leaders could not justify in
history… This was a new opportunity to fashion a strong Federation. While
there was profound sentimental regret at the loss of Jamaica, the loss was seen as
making possible in the Eastern Caribbean a much more meaningful and practica-
ble federation. They would start off not only with emotional ties, quite absent in
the case of Jamaica, but with accustomed patterns of trade and treatment of mutual
economic problems. Adversity had also assisted them to overcome their dislike for
Economics of Nationhood [Williams’s blueprint for government], and all were now
ready to consider a strongly centred federation. (W. A. Lewis 1968, 429)
But times had changed since 1959, when Eric Williams had offered
to fund small-island development. He was now evincing the bitterness of
the past four years in an increasingly nationalistic and personalistic tone.
Williams especially abhorred the frequent battles with Grantley Adams of
Barbados and the even more provincial leaders of the Leeward and Wind-
ward Islands. Williams also deplored the lack of West Indian nationalism
and the lack of coherence in the so-called Federal party. At this point, he
felt that the best opportunity for positive change rested in his two-island
state and his own Peoples’ National Movement (PNM). On
14
January
1962, Williams proposed formation of a unitary state centered in Trinidad.6
This news was even more shocking to the Leeward and Windward
Islands and Barbados than Jamaica’s withdrawal from the West Indies
Federation. Except for a brief period of consideration by Grenada, the
Trinidad proposal was rejected outright.
A Federation of the “Little Eight’?
Of the ten members of the original federation, there remained only
Barbados and seven smaller British West Indies colonies still being aided
by metropolitan grants. If Jamaica, a leading bauxite producer with a
population of two million, and Trinidad, with nearly a million and the
only substantial oil production in the West Indian territory, could not
assume the reins of leadership and help “carry” the small and poorer
islands, how could Barbados take the lead with merely a quarter-million
people, a scant 166 square miles of relatively unendowed land, and the
6. See editorials in The [PNM] Nation, 1962, published by the People’s National Movement.
12
CARIBBEAN INTEGRATION
lowest income of the “Big Three”? The economic burden required to bring
the “Little Seven” up to Barbadian standards would be massive indeed.
Errol Barrow, the newly elected Premier of Barbados, was espe-
cially angered by the Williams-PNM announcement because he believed
that Williams had assured him that further federation negotiations would
ensue. Despite this setback, Barrow remained committed to federation if
joining with smaller neighbors could offer more positives than negatives
for the economic and political well-being of Barbados. What he feared
most, like the Jamaican and Trinidadian leaders before him, was that
union with the Little Seven would engender economic disaster for his
island and political defeat for him and his party. But with apparent strong
backing from U.K. Colonial Secretary Reginald Maudling and active sup-
port from Vere Bird, the leader of Antigua and Barbuda, Barrow and the
remaining leaders were induced to act immediately to form a federation of
the Little Eight.
Maudling was informed of this intention the day after the PNM
announced its withdrawal, along with Barrow’s two conditions for stay-
ing the course: that there be no waiting period for independence for the
remaining eight colonies like that imposed by the United Kingdom on the
1958-1962 effort; and that the United Kingdom would supply generous
financial support to advance development of the poorer units in the
proposed new federation. In just three days, a preliminary constitution
and budget were drafted. This unusually swift progress indicated the
substantial degree of interest elicited by the new integrative movement.
The constitution, which provided much stronger central authority than
the previous ten-state effort, was sent on its way through the ratification
process in the insular legislatures by June 1962. Included were powers
over national income, customs, and excise taxes and a proposed national
police, a federal judiciary, and sweeping regulatory authority.
Ratification within two years seemed assured and progress ap-
peared excellent, especially in comparison with the previous effort. But
insurmountable obstacles soon began to intrude into the process. An
election in St. Lucia produced new faces and new problems; in Grenada
the scandal-ridden but pro-federation government of Eric Gairy was re-
placed by the first Herbert Blaize administration, which was oriented
toward seeking unitary linkage with Trinidad; and by 1965, opposition
movements had emerged in Antigua as well as in Montserrat, the smallest
territory in the federation group.
Much of this unrest could be traced to economic factors that could
have been eased had Britain shouldered the financial burden for the
subregion’s development at the necessary level. The amount needed had
been determined by Carleen O’Loughlin’s British-commissioned study in
1963 to be sixty-six million pounds, to be provided in a development fund
spread over ten years. This sum was commensurate with French outlay
13
Latin American Research Review
for Martinique and Guadeloupe and averaged less on a per capita basis
than U.S. expenditures on the Virgin Islands. Yet Britain, financially
strapped, responded to the findings by funding only one-sixth of the
necessary amount for the first year and agreeing to extend that limited
assistance for only five years more. In short, as the most viable member
of the new coalition, Barbados began to feel singled out to bear the re-
sponsibilities recently rejected by its larger neighbors, a burden that
the Barrow government did not wish to assume (Barbados 1965, 2-9;
O’Loughlin 1963, 120-36; O’Loughlin 1968, 222-30).
As if these hindrances were not enough to undermine the faltering
status of the Federation of the Little Eight, the United Kingdom again did
not discourage the possibility of singular independence for these eastern
Caribbean actors. Serious errors by provincial local leaders also became
formidable stumbling blocks and as occurred with the West Indies Federa-
tion process, goals of personal survival seemed to take precedence over
those of federation. The bickering over minor items that once seemed
settled-including a Grenadian demand to issue its own postage stamps-
suggested a refractory pattern. One Little Seven minister worried about
the treatment these countries would receive after federation, fearing that
after “independence we would resign ourselves to a future of dictation by
Barbados” (Cheltenham 1971, 223-24).
By December 1963, Barrow had reached his limit with Britain’s
“footdragging” and the “pettifogging” of local politicians. He announced
that his government had moved to secure singular independence by 1966,
concluding defiantly, “if it is not granted, it will be declared because I do
not feel that we should have to ask for it!”7 On
30
November 1966,
Barbados became the fourth Commonwealth Caribbean state to achieve
independence, following Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and, just six
months earlier, Guyana.
By this time, Barrow (who had attended the London School of
Economics) appeared to place greater emphasis on economic linkages in
advance of political ties than on the reverse.8 Thus the formation of
economic linkages became the next focal point in the integration saga of
the English-speaking Caribbean.
THE POLITICS OF CARIFTA
In 1965, one year prior to Barbadian and Guyanese independence,
secret negotiations had already taken place between Premiers Barrow and
7. Interview with Errol Barrow, Prime Minister of Barbados, in St. Michael, Barbados,
14 July 1970. See also editorial in Advocate,
26
Dec. 1963.
8. Much of Errol Barrow’s integration theory was based on economic functionalism as a
requisite step toward political integration. For insight into the European prototype of this
theory, which developed following World War II, see Balassa (1961), Haas (1964), Etzioni
(1965), Yalem (1965), Russett (1967), and Nye (1971).
14
CARIBBEAN INTEGRATION
Forbes Burnham. These talks built on existing and potential economic ties
to produce the announcement that by 1966, these two leaders intended to
form a free trade area. Their decision was no doubt influenced by poten-
tially successful integration movements forged in Europe and Hispanic
America. An especially significant inducement for this latest effort at
integration, however, was the appearance in 1965 of a slender but pre-
scient book, The Economics of Development of Small Countries, by respected
West Indian scholar Dr. William Demas.
Demas argued that the substantial postwar growth in gross na-
tional product experienced by several British West Indian countries, in-
cluding Jamaica (a factor in the island’s rejecting the West Indies Federa-
tion), had produced results far short of real economic development. In his
view, development requires a substantial economic redistribution, reduc-
tion in severe levels of unemployment and underemployment, and an
attack on socioeconomic maladies that provoke the so-called misery index.
Promoting light industrial development and agricultural diversification
would positively address these problems by better utilizing the well-
developed infrastructure and highly educated work force of the region
while simultaneously broadening the market base (Demas 1965; W. A.
Lewis 1954; W. A. Lewis 1965).9
The organization proposed for achieving this goal was to be called
the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA), and the plan was to
invite the participation of other British West Indies territories. Although
proposing only a free-trade area initially, it also envisioned “creation of a
Customs Union and a viable Economic Community for all the Caribbean
territories who so desire.” Cynical observers speculated the movement
was part of a game designed to “get back at Williams,” but if revenge was
an understandable element, the stance on open membership soon eclipsed
this personal grudge. The agreement establishing CARIFTA was signed
on
15
December 1965 in Antigua. Designed to eliminate internal tariffs
and import quotas, the treaty was scheduled to take effect in three years
(Payne 1980, 56-66).
The cause of regional economic integration was advanced further
by several supportive studies in the late 1960s, most of them authored by
academics attached to the three-campus University of the West Indies, the
single major multistate institution that survived breakup of the federation
(1958-1962). Although Jamaica and Trinidad (the two largest British West
Indies states) had initially demonstrated little open support for integra-
9. Sir Arthur Lewis was another contributor to early Caribbean integration and develop-
ment theory. He was feted at the opening meeting of the May 1989 conference of the Carib-
bean Studies Association in Barbados for his balanced approach to regional development.
His version emphasized implementing a balanced program of agricultural diversification
and light industry utilizing indigenous resources as well as the integral role of government
and educators in the total process (McComie 1989).
15
Latin American Research Review
tion, Trinidad’s Prime Minister Williams went on record favoring West
Indian economic linkages and ultimate West Indian unity. It thus appeared
that positive support for CARIFTA and further integration of the West
Indies were being forged (Payne 1980, 67-85; see also Brewster and
Thomas 1967; Beckford 1975; Best and Levitt 1969).
FROM CARIFTA TO CARICOM
Within three months after the 1 May 1968 inauguration of the
CARIFTA treaty, membership had expanded to include the ten states of
the original federation as well as Guyana. This new intergovernmental
organization experienced economic success, as evidenced by export ex-
pansion from 85 million U.S. dollars in 1970 to 2
33
million in 1974. Im-
ports expanded comparably during the same period.
Another incentive for affiliating with CARIFTA was to maximize
leverage opportunities in international negotiations. For example, Brit-
ain’s anticipated membership in the European Economic Community
(EEC) was expected to jeopardize the region’s preferred market status in
the United Kingdom, and a major achievement of Caribbean integration
would be negotiating associate status in the EEC for CARIFTA states
(along with former European colonies in Africa and the Pacific).10
Beyond the initial benefits that member states garnered from
CARIFTA, however, the reality remained that CARIFTA’s economic po-
tential was restricted by its being neither a customs union nor a common
market. Caribbean integration could not maximize the region’s potential
nor advance significantly without major acceleration in the relatively
small functional steps that CARIFTA was able to implement (Thomas
1988, 307-8). Steps toward corrective changes occurred with the Treaty of
Chaguaramas signed in Trinidad on 4 July 1973. The stage was now set for
CARIFTA to evolve into the Caribbean Community and Common Market
(CARICOM).
THE CARIBBEAN COMMUNITY
The newly restructured community was projected as a major func-
tional advance over its predecessor and incorporated two distinct divi-
sions, the Caribbean Community and the Caribbean Common Market.
These entities are controlled by the Heads of Government Conference-
the supreme decision-making organ-and the Council of Ministers.
10. In the case of Burnham and probably also Williams, a secondary factor in pursuing
integration may have been the ultimate potential for population movement and its ramifica-
tions in terms of a possible black creole counterweight to the Asian majority in Guyana and
the soon-to-be Asian plurality in Trinidad and Tobago.
16
CARIBBEAN INTEGRATION
CARICOM’s organizational structure also includes a secretariat based in
Guyana and several ancillary institutions, committees, and agencies,
including the Caribbean Development Bank formed in 1966 and based in
Barbados.
One major goal of the Caribbean Community has been the harmo-
nizing among member states of seven Standing Ministerial Committees
on health, education, labor, finance, mines, agriculture, and foreign
affairs. Of these, the goal of foreign-policy harmonization (underscored in
Article 17 of the Chaguaramas Treaty) holds the greatest integrative poten-
tial. It has also set precedent in that not even the European Community
has formally structured this level of coordination. To quote from the
treaty, “Member states aim at the fullest possible co-ordination of their
foreign policies . . . and seek to adopt, as far as possible, common posi-
tions in major international issues…. The Committee shall have the
power to make recommendations to the Governments of Member States
represented on the Committee (CARICOM).” The treaty goes on to state
that decisions will be made by the “affirmative vote of all Member States
… participating.””
As provided in an annex to the treaty, the common market is
envisioned as encompassing the overall economic dimensions of Carib-
bean integration, including internal trade liberalization, a common exter-
nal tariff, and the general coordination of economic policies and planning
for development among the member states (for example, fiscal policy,
industrial promotion, and agricultural marketing). A special program was
set forth for the Little Seven less-developed countries, including a com-
mitment to remove nontariff trade barriers progressively, harmonize
fiscal incentives, and free capital movements. When fully implemented,
these goals will be farsighted developments indeed (Manigat 1988, 95-97;
Thomas 1988, 308-9).12 According to one Trinidadian scholar, CARICOM
“is perhaps the most successful regional arrangement for the promotion
of economic integration outside of the European Community” (Maingot
1989, 283).
CARICOM PROBLEMS, POTENTIAL AND REAL
Although this renewed and expanded attempt at integration has
promoted optimism, the problems facing CARICOM are many. The diffi-
culties result from flaws in the CARICOM structure itself, from differing
levels of development among the participating states, and from disso-
11. Treaty Establishing the Caribbean Community and Annex, 1972, printed in “Organi-
zations and Arrangements in the Western Hemisphere,” Internationial Organization and Inte-
gration 2, E.5.a-5.a.i. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982).
12. Ibid.
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Latin American Research Review
nance created by divergent policy goals and disparate perceptions among
elites in an expanded and diffuse membership base.
First of all, some instances of structural problems should be exam-
ined. When Belize joined CARICOM in 1974, it insisted on retaining its
tariff policy and thus created an anomaly within the agreement. A similar
variance by tiny Montserrat sparked a comparable dilemma. A second
kind of anomaly resulted from the coexisting Eastern Caribbean Common
Market (ECCM), a subsystem formed on 11 June 1968 by the Little Seven
or Associated States, the states “left behind” when Barbados withdrew
from the Little Eight federation attempt. By 1981 the Little Seven had
furthered subregional integration within CARICOM by forming the Or-
ganisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), which subsumed both the
ECCM and the Secretariat of the Associated States while incorporating
political, economic, and security functions. 13
Thus although CARICOM offered member states benefits as a
result of enlarged membership and geographic scope, such expansion
also brought potential problems in the form of specific variances negoti-
ated by the smaller or weaker states as part of their association agreement
to compensate for their status as less-developed countries. This pattern is
not unique to CARICOM, as can be seen in concessions to Honduras by
the Central American Common Market or to Bolivia by the Andean Pact.
A second obstacle presented by the expanded membership base of
CARICOM was the increase in potential among member states for a
weakened sense of community and for divergent policy goals resulting
from disparate elite perceptions and even ideological cleavages. For exam-
ple, the increase in CARICOM membership to thirteen with the admis-
sion of the Bahamas in 1983 was positive because the Bahamians have the
highest per capita income among independent states in geopolitical Latin
America. At the same time, however, CARICOM faced a potential dilution
of regional consensus in that the Bahamas, a sprawling 550-mile archipel-
ago situated within fifty miles of the U.S. mainland, share greater historic
and cultural links with South Florida than with traditional CARICOM
members. Further, of the three CARICOM states that had not joined any
of the various British West Indies federation attempts, only the Bahamas
had never even participated in federation discussions.
But the Bahamian archipelago (which has not posed major prob-
lems within CARICOM aside from embarrassment stemming from the
alleged ties of the Lynden Pindling government to drug trafficking) at
least shared the English language and political order based on borrowed
British institutions. In contrast, a perceived lack of such shared norms
and existing trade differences have raised barriers to admitting applicants
13. Treaty Establishing the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), 1981, printed
in Hopkins (1985).
18
CARIBBEAN INTEGRATION
from the Hispanic, Dutch-speaking, and Francophone Caribbean, specifi-
cally the Dominican Republic, Suriname, and Haiti. These states have
nevertheless been accorded observer status in CARICOM. Despite the
expanded trade and prestige that might be realized from admitting them,
incongruous communication linkages would be problematic and irrecon-
cilable differences could arise in coordinating policy and aligning foreign
policy, not to mention concerns related to domestic, economic, and politi-
cal development. Even so, the return to civilian rule by two of the three
states and significant democratization in the Dominican Republic may
hasten their eventual membership.
Incongruity in policy coordination can result even when member
states do not represent differing linguistic blocs or the geographic periph-
ery of the region. During the late 1970s and the 1980s, the English-
speaking member states of CARICOM came face-to-face with two addi-
tional factors potentially dividing their community: a sharp economic
downturn and widening ideological cleavages, particularly following the
1979 Grenadian Revolution. Personality and insular politics as well as
metropolitan inputs compounded these variables. All of them severely
tested CARICOM’s unity and durability during the late 1970s and most of
the 1980s.
THE UPS AND DOWNS OF CARICOM POLICY COORDINATION
Variances in Goal-Seeking and Elite Perceptions
The foreign-policy goals sought by most nation-states include
national protection or security, prosperity or economic development,
prestige, and the often unstated but very real goal of political survival for
incumbents. Heading the list in most West Indian states is the goal of
prosperity or a sound domestic economy, with prestige second, followed
by security needs. The last-named goal is pursued by a variety of means,
including multinational programs and efforts to avoid friction with neigh-
boring states (Will 1979, 29; Preiswerk 1969, 1-24).
Although external security is not the primary concern for most
CARICOM states, it is especially significant to Guyana and Belize because
both are involved in disputes that threaten their territorial integrity. From
another angle, East-West rapprochement is perceived as positively affect-
ing Caribbean development and integration in that fiscal dividends could
accrue from peace.
Because all the CARICOM states are relatively open plural democ-
racies at present, political survival is closely tied to economic prosperity,
the essential factor of jobs, and ultimately to regime survival. Jacqueline
Braveboy-Wagner has formulated five conclusions in this regard:
Caribbean states pursue goals of security, economic development and prestige/
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Latin American Research Review
status in the international system…. Economic development will normally be
given priority but not when threats are perceived to the security of the state….
Absent any perception of threat, the behavior of the Eastern Caribbean states is
best analyzed in terms of their search for economic development…. Absent any
perception of threat, the behavior of the larger states is best analyzed in terms of
their search for both prestige and economic development. . . . Left-leaning states/
governments have given more priority to the goal of prestige than have states with
more conservative political orientations. (Braveboy-Wagner 1989)
Despite the diversity noted in goal-seeking between larger and
smaller nations, the CARICOM states were relatively successful in sub-
regional caucusing and multilateral diplomacy through the mid-1970s,
especially in various agencies and organs of the United Nations. This
trend changed in a negative direction in the 1980s, when narrow provin-
cial interests took priority.
Cooperation among the CARICOM states has also been evident in
the Commonwealth of Nations, particularly under the leadership of the
late Tom Adams of Barbados, prompting observers to marvel at the con-
siderable influence generated by such small states.14 Significant coordina-
tion among these states was shown in helping form the sixty-five-member
African-Caribbean-Pacific group in 1984 and its successful access to the
European Economic Community.15 A current priority is negotiating the
Lome III Treaty. In addition, a strong, unified stance has been demon-
strated in the perennial territorial battles involving Venezuela’s claim to
five-eighths of Guyana and Guatemala’s claim to all of Belize. In the latter
case, the United States and the Hispanic intermediate powers in the
Caribbean Basin have been important allies of Belize and the supportive
CARICOM bloc.
The potential for successful policy coordination within CARICOM
remains strong as a result of the common colonial heritage and these
states’ patterns before independence. Positive aspects of these patterns
reach back to the Canada-West Indies agreement of 19
25
and include the
initial negotiations for collective independence. Policy coordination and
even frank discussion of options became increasingly difficult, however,
in the face of ideological divisions, alleged or real external interventions,
and what DeLisle Worrell has described as the balance of payments and
monetary mysteries of the 1970s and 1980s, all of which exacted a stressful
toll on collective action (Worrell 1987, chaps. 2-3). But it was the Grenada
14. It should be noted that all CARICOM states are members of both the United Nations
and the Commonwealth of Nations and that seven of the larger CARICOM states alsobelong
to the Group of 77.
15. See “Africa-Caribbean-Pacific European Community,” The Courier 89, special issue with
complete text of the L6me Treaties (Jan.-Feb. 1985), esp. 26-
27
An example of lost cohesion
within CARICOM, even in the late 1980s, was the failure of CARICOM countries to support
adequately the candidacy of Dame Nina Barrow of Barbados for president of the UN General
Assembly in 1988.
20
CARIBBEAN INTEGRATION
crisis and U.S. reactions to the revolutionary Spice Island that proved to
be the most divisive issue of all.
The Grenada Crisis
The advent of the New Jewel Movement’s coup-turned-revolution
in Grenada on 13 March 1979 created major tensions within CARICOM.
It divided conservatives (Tom Adams of Barbados, Eugenia Charles of
Dominica, and, after 1980, Edward Seaga of Jamaica) from left-socialist
leaders like Grenada’s Maurice Bishop, Guyana’s Forbes Burnham, and,
for a time, leaders in St. Lucia, Dominica, and Jamaica. The spotlighting of
ideological cleavages in the region disrupted official government relations
and contributed to refractory policy stances as well as to postponement
and cancellation of CARICOM summits. It also stymied policy coordina-
tion. For example, the George Chambers government of Trinidad did not
officially communicate with the Bishop government from its rise to power
in 1979 until 1982, and contacts between Bishop and Adams and Seaga
were minimal. When questioned in May 1982 about the failure to coordi-
nate policies within CARICOM, Prime Minister Seaga asked rhetorically,
“How can there be policy consultation when one member [of CARICOM]
is Marxist?”16
CARICOM Heads of Government had convened only twice prior
to 1979, largely as a result of the worsening economy. These meetings
were then delayed three more years before members agreed to convene
in Jamaica at Ocho Rios in November 1982. As might be anticipated,
sessions at this third meeting were often tense. Planks containing con-
tentious language on human rights and pluralism were proposed by feud-
ing Grenada and Barbados (Will 1984, 618-31).17 These official differ-
16. Interview with Edward Seaga, Prime Minister of Jamaica, in Kingston, Jamaica, 27 May
1982.
17. At the Ocho Rios meeting, Prime Minister Adams formally proposed an amendment to
the CARICOM treaty that, with obvious reference to Grenada, would have committed mem-
ber states “to the principle of political liberty and the protection of the fundamental rights
and freedoms of the individual through adherence to the principles of the rule of law and the
practice of free, fair, and regular elections.” Bishop’s response called for “appointment of a
multidisciplinary working group of public opinion experts . .. to undertake a series of sur-
veys in each CARICOM member country to determine the people’s perception of human
rights and to determine to what extent these rights have been violated, abused, eroded or
strengthened over the last five years.” The compromise resolution affirmed commitment to
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights. It also reiterated “the right of self-determination of all peoples including the
right to choose their own path of social, political and economic development….” Other
resolutions accepted included support for Belizian security, a peaceful settlement of the
Guyana-Venezuela boundary dispute, seabed authority to be established in Jamaica, and
concern about growing economic protectionism and the failures of the Caribbean Basin Ini-
tiative. Serious work also began on trade, air, and sea transport, as well as on industrial,
agricultural, and energy development, all of which were continued at the Trinidad meeting.
See Caribbean Contact, December 1982, 1, 8-9.
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Latin American Research Review
ences were papered over enough to permit compromises, however, and
CARICOM leaders managed to move on to discussing such pressing
regional problems as interstate communications, freedom of trade, and
financing of the multi-island University of the West Indies. The leaders
even initiated debate on collective security and peace goals, substantive
issues that were to be addressed further at the fourth conference of Heads
of Government scheduled to meet in Trinidad in 1983. But the cleavages
remained, leading to an emergency CARICOM “mini-summit” in Bar-
bados in May 1983 that attempted to avert a trade war. By the fall of 1983, a
shooting war had engulfed Grenada, embroiling the region in the deepest
of misunderstandings and suspicions.
Military. intervention in Grenada on 25 October 1983 was sup-
ported by leadership from the OECS, Barbados, and Jamaica. Strong
opposition was voiced by leaders from Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, the
Bahamas, and Belize, and also by the opposition parties in Jamaica and
Barbados.18 These contradictory responses engendered new divisions
and misunderstandings within CARICOM that yielded severe repercus-
sions. For example, Trinidad and Barbados clashed angrily over whether
Trinidad had been advised that an immediate invasion of Grenada would
occur in the aftermath of a “not well-advertised” OECS meeting in Bar-
bados on
22
October 1983, to which Jamaica and Barbados (neither of
them OECS members) sent representatives.19 Trinidad was all the more
incensed because its prime minister, George Chambers, had chaired
a simultaneous emergency meeting of CARICOM Heads of Government
in Trinidad (22-23 October 1983) that voted to suspend Grenada from
CARICOM immediately but specifically opposed regional military par-
ticipation in the crisis at that time (UN Security Council 1983a; Brana-
Shute and Brana-Shute 1985, 887-90).20 As a result of this rift, Trinidad
18. A more typical response among Eastern Caribbean leaders was that of Prime Minister
Kennedy Simmonds of St. Kitts-Nevis, who apparently used the Grenadian action to garner
electoral support for his victorious coalition ticket in the May-June 1984 general election. The
murder of Maurice Bishop (and his revolution) was most repugnant to West Indians, espe-
cially those in the Eastern Caribbean, where inter-island colonial, economic, and familial
links are prominent.
19. According to Rosemary and Gary Brana-Shute, rumors persist in the OECS that this
meeting was a partial response to “feelers” from the Reagan administration (1985, 887-89).
20. One of the most complete defenses of the Barbadian (and Jamaican and OECS) position
can be found in the Barbadian report made to the UN Security Council on 18 October 1983.
Four noteworthy reasons were cited: Barbados had regularly defended the Bishop regime
from U.S. intervention, despite differences with the Bishop government; especially strong
blood and cultural ties among the Eastern Caribbean islands; the murders of Maurice Bishop
and others, plus fear of spreading violence and the imposition of a “draconian 96-hour cur-
few” by the countercoup clique in Grenada; and economic, political, and security treaties by
which Barbados felt bound, including the Regional Defense Pact (UN 1983a). It should be
noted that the Reagan administration had sought support within the U. S. government and in
the Caribbean for militarily overthrowing the Bishop government, beginning with “Opera-
tion Ocean Venture,” in which twelve thousand troops, 240 warships, and a thousand planes
22
CARIBBEAN INTEGRATION
and Barbados withdrew their respective envoys and did not exchange
high commissioners again until mid-1985. Such outcomes threatened a
major setback for Caribbean integration.
Errol Barrow, who was leading the opposition in Barbados (the
island from which the Grenadian attack was launched) harshly castigated
the intervention participants, calling them “camp followers . .. con-
scripted by the U.S. to give credibility to the decaying political image of
the American president . . . [and] to send messages to Nicaragua, Cuba
. . . and other left-leaning forces!” (Barrow 1983, 3-4). Barrow and Prime
Minister Eugenia Charles of Dominica were still not communicating in
1986 when Barrow was elected to serve a second term as Prime Minister of
Barbados. More important, Barrow expressed grave concern regarding
the potential “dismantling of the Caribbean Community,” not to mention
damage to Caribbean sovereignty and self-respect and the integrity of the
Commonwealth and the OAS (Barrow 1983, 3-4). Until his untimely death
in 1987, Barrow feared deeply that the damage in mutual trust and
institutional self-respect inflicted on an already economically debilitated
CARICOM could never be reversed. The jury is still out on this troubling
assessment, although resumption of cordial relations among CARICOM
leaders suggests that a healing process is under way.
U. S. Pressure via the Caribbean Development Bank
The Grenada issue also undermined one of CARICOM’s most suc-
cessful multilateral institutions, the Caribbean Development Bank. Cre-
ated in 1969, membership in the CDB today includes all seventeen former
British states and territories in the subregion, the thirteen CARICOM
members as well as the four dependencies-the British Virgin Islands, the
Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and Anguilla, which broke
away from St. Kitts-Nevis in a “mouse that roared” incident prior to the
latter’s independence. The “other regional members” of the Caribbean
Development Bank are Venezuela, Colombia, and Mexico, while Canada,
France, and the United Kingdom are included as nonregional members.
Although the United States is not a member of the Caribbean
Development Bank, officials of the U.S. Agency for International Devel-
opment praised it in testimony to Congress in 1980 as an effective and
desirable institution for promoting stable Caribbean governments that
provide a “basis for cooperative U.S. -Caribbean relations” (USAID 1980,
22-23). Buttressing this acclaim, the Carter administration contributed 32
percent of the total resources of the institution in 1979-80. By 1986-87,
however, the Reagan administration had reduced U.S. contributions to the
conducted a “warm-up” operation to rescue Americans from “Amber and the Amberdines,”
a clear reference to Grenada and the Grenadines. See Payne (1984, 55).
23
Latin American Research Review
CDB by nearly 10 percent (to 23 percent), 4 percent less than the contribu-
tions made by France and Britain (CDB 1979-87). Some U.S. cutbacks to
the bank during this period stemmed from policy disagreements, but the
reductions primarily reflected increased opposition to multinational pro-
grams and institutions by the Reagan-Bush administration in comparison
with the preceding Democratic administration.
While reduced U.S. support for the CDB presented a serious
obstacle, the greatest reverberation of U. S. policy on the bank occurred in
1981 in conjunction with Washington’s attempts to destabilize the Grena-
dian revolution. At that time, the Reagan administration stipulated that
any U.S. financial grant to the CDB was conditional on the institution’s
exclusion of educational loans to Grenada. This action was collectively
protested by the foreign ministers of CARICOM as an effort “to subvert
Caribbean regional institutions” (Payne 1984, 55).
Tom Adams, the conservative Prime Minister of Barbados who was
probably the greatest foe of the Bishop regime among CARICOM leaders,
was so outraged by this U.S. restriction that he instructed his represen-
tative to the CDB Board of Directors to organize opposition to accepting
the conditional U.S. grant. Also infuriated was Karl Hudson-Phillips,
leader of the conservative Organisation for National Reconstruction (ONR)
in Trinidad and one of the region’s premier international law practitioners.
Hudson-Phillips expressed his dismay by asking, “Why would the United
States attempt to destroy our regional institutions by forcing a violation of
the [CDB] constitution?” The conditional U.S. aid was rejected unan-
imously by the Caribbean Development Bank.21
Despite this victory for prestige and regional pride, cohesiveness
within the CARICOM organization had been weakened by the ideological
cleavages within the region between the more conservative regimes and
those considered revolutionary (Grenada, Forbes Burnham’s Guyana,
and Jamaica between 1976 and 1980). The CARICOM Heads of Govern-
ment Conferences, which convened only infrequently during the ten
years prior to 1987, tended to eschew controversial policy issues or con-
front them only indirectly. These discords were exacerbated by metro-
politan perceptions and actions. But even if events in Grenada and the
East-West struggle had not occurred, the goals of individual CARICOM
states would have varied greatly. Substantial disintegration may also have
occurred due to the rapidly deteriorating economy.
The Economic Down Staircase
Serious intra-CARICOM divisions have emerged from differing
trade and debt-servicing policies implemented in response to the massive
21. Interview with Karl Hudson-Phillips, party chairman of the ONR and noted interna-
tional legal specialist, in Port of Spain, Trinidad, 8 October 1981.
24
CARIBBEAN INTEGRATION
economic crisis that has engulfed the region since the late 1970s. During
the 1980s, massive regional problems were introduced as these once
prosperous nations found themselves encountering economic breakdown.
This outcome was especially true for the crucial “Big Four” countries, who
must carry a substantial share of the burden if regional integration is to be
achieved.
Among the CARICOM Big Four (Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago,
Guyana, and Barbados), Guyana and Jamaica were the first to face eco-
nomic crisis, driven by attempts to transform their dependent economies
and by the perceived need (especially in Jamaica) to adapt to clientelist
democratic pressures. Both countries depleted international reserves and
had severe conditionalities imposed by the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) in the form of mandatory program cutbacks. These actions trig-
gered domestic political unrest that exacerbated external problems with
metropolitan countries controlling the IMF, especially the United States.
For example, Guyana’s 1975 per capita gross domestic product of
nearly eight hundred U.S. dollars declined to five hundred dollars by the
mid-1980s, the lowest per capita GDP of the CARICOM states. By 1990 it
was among the lower per capita incomes in the region. Further damage to
the community ensued when Guyana defaulted on intra-CARICOM loans,
especially those contracted within the region’s Caribbean Multilateral
Clearing Facility, which was soon to be suspended. Guyana’s debt in-
volved an unpaid obligation of ninety-six million dollars, more than sixty
million of which were owed to Barbados. Guyana’s default started a
negative ripple that weakened CARICOM itself.
Jamaica, a GDP growth leader in the early 1960s, experienced es-
calating financial woes by the mid-1970s that drove the Manley govern-
ment from power in 1980. The country’s economic difficulties continued
to mount throughout the 1980s, despite the election of Edward Seaga as
Prime Minister in 1980 and the resulting infusion of massive U.S. and IMF
assistance. The Jamaican national debt soon reached a level that many
consider unpayable, and the continuing economic downturn proved in-
strumental in overturning the Seaga government in the 1989 general
election. To compound Jamaica’s economic woes, major cuts were made in
U.S. assistance in 1990.
By 1983 Jamaica was forced to use a two-tier and then a three-tier
currency. Under this system, the Jamaican dollar traded at a domestic level
that differed from that in trade within the community, and at yet a third
level for financial transactions. These measures induced countermeasures
by other Caribbean actors, with regional trade suffering as a conse-
quence.
Trinidad and Tobago, the only CARICOM country to produce oil
for export, also enjoyed a boom economy in the 1970s that pushed its per
capita income close to the top in the hemisphere. By 1982, however, a
25
Latin American Research Review
series of consecutive GDP declines began, including a seventeen-billion-
dollar plunge between 1985 and 1986, a 78 percent currency devaluation
in 1986, and an admission by the government in 1986 that the treasury
was empty. That year witnessed the first national defeat of the People’s
National Movement since independence in 1962. The continuing eco-
nomic crisis later took its toll on the government of A. N. R. Robinson,
which faced rioting in 1989, IMF conditionalities in 1990, and almost
certain replacement by the PNM in the general election of 1991. This
probability was compounded during 1990 when, following a year of
galloping inflation, Prime Minister Robinson and some of his cabinet
were held captive in a bloody coup attempt.
In reacting to the economic crisis of the 1980s, Trinidad felt impelled
to place import licensing and other restrictions on its CARICOM trade.
The regional impact of this move, combined with the Jamaican and Guy-
anese actions, was dramatic because these three countries are the largest
CARICOM partners, not only in population but also in trade potential.
Barbados was able to avoid IMF conditionalities during the 1970s
primarily because of two decades of impressive growth, the longest period
of sustained growth in the Caribbean community. But after 1980, the
Barbadian economy faltered and remained virtually flat from 1982 to 1985.
By the early 1980s, Barbados too faced IMF conditionalities and growing
unemployment. In response to these economic pressures and perceived
discriminatory trade treatment by Jamaica, Barbados allowed its currency
to float temporarily against the Jamaican dollar and then imposed a tax on
CARICOM goods. Despite a 5 percent recovery in 1986, the cumulative
impact of the economic slowdown played a significant part in the massive
electoral defeat of the Barbados Labour party government in early 1986
and in serious labor problems and even racial tension during 1989-90 in
the face of demands for increased economic democracy.
Thus by the late 1980s and early 1990s, the national economies of
the Big Four, as well as several of the smaller states in CARICOM, were
severely stressed and encountering major threats to their goals for politi-
cal survival, and the community was compromising its original free trade
standards. CARICOM’s regional trade declined during much of the 1980s,
despite the program for trade, aid, and investment promoted by the
Caribbean Basin Initiative. In 1986 CARICOM trade plunged a record 33
percent, dropping to less than half of its 1981 level. With the clash over
Grenada finally receding, the 1986 trade collapse provided the incentive
that was to induce regional leadership to attempt a serious effort at
regional resuscitation.
26
CARIBBEAN INTEGRATION
A POSSIBLE CARICOM RECOMMITMENT AND
NEW MOVEMENTS IN THE EASTERN CARIBBEAN
CARICOM Resuscitation
If a significant resurgence of CARICOM is at all possible, a begin-
ning may have been made in July 1987 at the eighth Heads of Government
summit in Castries, St. Lucia. Stimulated by half-steps taken in previous
conferences like that in Nassau in 1984 and faced with the 1986 trade
debacle, the leaders hammered out an agreement calling for the removal
of “all measures restricting intra-regional trade” by September 1988, a
deadline subsequently extended. Participants in the St. Lucia summit also
formulated a plan for developing the Caribbean Export Bank (CEB) to
replace the now-defunct Caribbean Multilateral Clearing Facility. The
CEB, which is to be structured on a sound financial footing, became a
separate entity of the Caribbean Development Bank in Barbados.
In other actions at the Castries summit, plans were initiated for
obtaining much-needed cooperation in resolving territorial claims, secur-
ing access to and policing national oceanic economic and fishing zones,
and promoting a limited “Caribbean citizenship” status for CARICOM
notables. Much discussion also ensued on controlling the drug trade,
upgrading inter-CARICOM communication, promoting CARIFEST (an
important but economically short-changed regional cultural event), and
monitoring soaring debts in the three largest CARICOM states, although
few specific solutions were suggested beyond hope for expanded trade.
Of greater importance, Barbados and Guyana initiated a call to
proceed on regional integration of customs services and cooperation
among senior police, judicial, health, and legal services. With a view
toward reducing costs, they also proposed a system of sharing repre-
sentation in intergovernmental organization memberships, particularly
those relating to UN functional activities and agencies (the International
Civil Aviation Organization, the International Labour Office, the World
Meteorological Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization et
al.) and diplomats at international conferences (V. Lewis 1988, 90). The
idea of sharing diplomats has a historical precedent in that Barbados and
Guyana once shared the services of High Commissioner S. S. Ramphal at
the Court of St. James in the late 1960s.
Selective integration, or at least cooperation, among regional po-
lice, court, and customs facilities is long overdue given the increasing flow
of drugs and contraband through the region and the ongoing potential for
terrorist acts, like the attempted Ku Klux Klan intervention in Dominica
and the sabotage of a Cuban plane as it exited Barbadian air space.
Questions relating to maritime delimitation in connection with the new
Law of the Sea Treaty must be negotiated by the early 1990s, and serious
problems remain relating to reform of the region’s monetary system.
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Latin American Research Review
Experts have agreed since 1981 that the latter is a key issue in expanding
integration within CARICOM. According to the report issued by the
Group of Caribbean Experts, efforts toward monetary reform must focus
“on matters such as the CARICOM Multi-Lateral Clearing Facility, which
should be progressively enlarged so as to finance a higher proportion of
inter-regional trade . .. ; prior consultation before changes are made in
exchange rates; a greater degree of coordination of exchange control
policies and practices; and the maintenance of a common intervention
currency” (V. Lewis 1988, 90-91).
In the foreign-policy sphere, the 1987 CARICOM summit issued
resolutions supporting a negotiated peace in Central America and imple-
menting strong sanctions against the Botha regime in South Africa. Both
of these stances contradicted the perceptions of the U.S. Reagan admin-
istration then in office.
No action at the 1987 summit in St. Lucia was more important or
required greater compromise from the CARICOM national governments
than revitalizing the goal of free trade within CARICOM. If the com-
munity is to reach its full potential, it must perform in this area as it
was constituted. Thus far, however, free trade-the point from which
CARICOM was to have embarked-has remained an elusive goal. With
CARICOM and many of the domestic economies in the region facing a
literal trade collapse, by 1986 it was indeed time to act. The degree of
commitment by individual states, especially Trinidad and Jamaica, will
determine the future of the community.
Efforts to revitalize regional trade began to bear fruit as early as
1989, CARICOM Secretary General Roderick Rainford announced, as
overall intra-CARICOM trade expanded by 20 percent, a good omen on
entering the 1990s. Rainford also noted, however, that “while the econo-
mies of a few [the Bahamas and selected OECS countries] showed some
buoyancy during 1989, the larger economies continued to be mired down
in problems, [the] major one being . .. external debt.”22 Plans to reduce
trade barriers within CARICOM are also being realized. It is to be hoped
that the resolve demonstrated in the late 1980s and early 1990s to trans-
form the economic sector of CARICOM and pursue expanded political
linkages will trigger a phase of regional linkages.
Signs remain positive. For example, the July 1989 CARICOM sum-
mit in Grenada yielded agreements to proceed with revising local con-
stitutions to allow establishment of a common Caribbean citizenship and
to abandon subregional customs barriers by 1991.23 In October 1988,
Barbadian Prime Minister Erskine Sandiford and his Guyanese counter-
part, Desmond Hoyte, agreed to support the plan by the Caribbean
22. Grenadian Voice, 30 December 1989, p. 11.
23. “CARICOM Approves Economic Unity Steps, ” The Times of the Americas, 26 July 1989.
28
CARIBBEAN INTEGRATION
Heads of Government to establish a long-needed Caribbean court of
appeals. They also agreed, at least in principle, to pursue a Caribbean
parliament. A. N. R. Robinson, Prime Minister of Trinidad, has stated
that quick action on the proposal for a regional court is crucial, that
“CARICOM shouldn’t allow the lukewarm attitudes of one or two states
to block the court from coming into being” (Best 1988, 8).
Prime Minister Sandiford recently reminded the press that he is
“unapologetically a firm advocate of maximum Caribbean integration.”
His position was backed by his foreign minister, Maurice King, who
observed in a May 1989 interview that “regional integration is the best
way [that Barbados] can achieve its primary national interests…. We
must-be willing to sacrifice some sovereignty to bring it off.”24 In much the
same vein, Guyanese Prime Minster Hoyte has exhorted regional busi-
nessmen to “avoid the temptation of believing that we can act individually
even to protect our individual national interests. Huge economic group-
ings are going to dominate the world economy and [we] cannot face these
powerful groupings individually” (Braveboy-Wagner 1990, 9).
Thus efforts toward Caribbean integration remain alive and seem-
ingly well, even though most West Indians retain understandable skep-
ticism and the “need to be shown.” There is no lack of appropriate theory
to guide such new beginnings (Emmanuel 1988, 101-25; Bryan 1984,
71-94; McIntyre 1984, 14-26). But the need always remains for forward-
looking leadership. In the region, this stimulus and leadership are being
provided by the Eastern Caribbean.
New Integration Movements in the Eastern Caribbean?
Activity on behalf of intra-CARICOM integration and the devel-
opment of regional intergovernmental organizations has been concen-
trated in the Eastern Caribbean since the late 1970s. There the Eastern
Caribbean Common Market (ECCM) was implemented, as was a sub-
regional court. Most important, since the inauguration of the Organisa-
tion of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), both political and economic
sectors have emerged in its permanent secretariat. By 1983 its Eastern
Caribbean Currency Authority had evolved into a central banking facil-
ity. An OECS council of manufacturers, a drug-abatement program, and
a sports desk have all been established. Plans have also been initiated for
harmonizing foreign and economic policies, and by 1988, four OECS
states were sharing a mission in London while all six shared one in
Canada.
Another important although controversial linkage now in place
24. Interview with Maurice King, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Barbados, in Christ Church,
Barbados, 23 May 1989.
29
Latin American Research Review
among the Eastern Caribbean states is the Regional Security System
(RSS). Arising from the Grenada crisis, the RSS is largely financed by
Barbados, where it is located, but has significant OECS participation and
an initial contribution of fifteen million dollars from the United States for
weaponry and training. This force, which includes a multinational coast
guard, originated in a five-nation memorandum of understanding issued
in 1982. Although it was ostensibly formed to protect fisheries, interdict
drugs and smuggled goods, and provide rescue support, Antigua’s Prime
Minister Vere Bird has fueled new suspicions by suggesting that the force
should also be utilized to protect governments from domestic disorder.
Nevertheless, this cooperative venture in the military sphere currently
appears to be a positive force for the Eastern Caribbean in launching
rescue operations and stymieing mercenary threats (Brana-Shute and
Brana-Shute 1985, 890-91; Thomas 1988, 317-18).
Perhaps the most ambitious OECS undertaking of all was discus-
sion in 1987 of a pending intra-OECS political union of as many as seven
states, an idea promoted by Prime Ministers James Mitchell of St. Vincent
and John Compton of St. Lucia. Mitchell noted a “strong sense of worry
about the twentieth century closing and leaving us all stranded,”25 and a
feeling that such integration would probably facilitate increased U.S.
assistance (a point by no means assured). Mitchell made his case for a
unitary nation-state to delegates at a May 1987 conference in the British
Virgin Islands at Tortola. One of a new breed of increasingly pragmatic
West Indian leaders, Mitchell has long advocated Caribbean integration.
He has consistently argued that “independence has hardly protected [us]
from what remains essentially the geography of the Caribbean. The rest of
the world sees the Caribbean . .. as one region, and the Caribbean needs
to greet the rest of the world with one voice if we are to exert any influence
on the international forces controlling our destiny” (Mitchell 1973, 10).
Unity discussions continued in St. Lucia after the July 1987 meet-
ing of the thirteen-member CARICOM summit, and at one point, six of
the seven Eastern Caribbean leaders were endorsing political union by
1989 (Richards 1987, 1, 4, 14).26 Momentum slowed, however, as opposi-
tion surfaced from several sources: Vere Bird, Prime Minister of Antigua
(the only negotiator from the 1950s federation attempt still holding politi-
cal office), several provincial OECS opposition party leaders, and the
vocal but provincial local press. Another problem was presented by
uneven economic growth and excessive overlap of agricultural exports
25. Mitchell’s remark about “leaving us all stranded” no doubt anticipated a weakening
CARICOM position within the expanding European system. With the Iberian and Eastern
Mediterranean countries joining the EEC, many traditional Caribbean products will no longer
have sufficient access to these markets.
26. See Jeremy Taylor, “Mini-States Plan to Merge as a Nation,” The Times (London), 24 July
1987, p. 9.
30
CARIBBEAN INTEGRATION
among OECS members. Finally, a growing perception that this latest
integration idea had been incubated and “hatched” in Washington occa-
sioned genuine skepticism.
Should political union occur within the OECS, the most likely
subset would be led by St. Vincent, with Grenada, St. Lucia, and possibly
Dominica participating. George Brizan, economics minister and a deputy
leader of Grenada’s National Democratic Congress government (1990-
1995), spoke encouragingly of this possibility in March 1990: “Due to the
market and resource limitations of our small states, and to the integration
patterns now emerging in Europe and North America, we in the Eastern
Caribbean must further integrate in order to survive.”27
Grenadian Prime Minister Nicholas Braithwaite has carried this
same message to Dominica and other OECS states. Antigua appears to
be the key to inclusion of the northern three countries in any federation
effort by the total OECS bloc because St. Kitts-Nevis and soon-to-be-
independent Montserrat will likely follow the Antiguan lead. A prerequi-
site to moving such a process forward may be replacement of the aging
Vere Bird. In the meantime, these appear to be prescient times for the
larger Caribbean community and its OECS subset.
FINAL THOUGHTS AND CONCLUSIONS
In the Commonwealth Caribbean, especially in the Eastern Carib-
bean with its frequent colonial links, the lengthy tradition of shared his-
tory is stronger than among the five traditional states of Central America
or even the multilingual European community. Karl Deutsch has argued
that integration can take place only after the likelihood of war has been
eliminated (Deutsch 1988). Unlike the Central American isthmus or West-
ern Europe, however, the Caribbean has never suffered intrastate war-
fare. Moreover, cultural and familial linkages among West Indian commu-
nities are very strong in comparison with other regions.
Yet the thirteen nations that now comprise CARICOM and even
the seven OECS states remain “a nation divided,” despite recent at-
tempts to transform their fragile economic community and to strengthen
political linkages. Unlike Europe, which anticipates full common-market
status by 1992, the Caribbean has often found itself constrained by an
overabundance of political leaders with inordinately provincial and myo-
pic orientations. Unfortunately, such perspectives also enjoy consider-
able cultural support. Too often, as St. Vincent Prime Minister Mitchell
has observed, “residents of these small islands have not grasped the
significance (or the insignificance) of their size . . . [and are] oblivious to
27 Interview with George Brizan, Co-Deputy Leader of the governing National Demo-
cratic Congress (NDC) party, in St. George’s, Grenada, 12 March 1990.
31
Latin American Research Review
the world market forces and the insignificant role in trade reciprocity that
a market of 100,000 people can play. Protected by the cloak of our chauvin-
ism, some of us seriously feel that the rest of the world knows or cares
about the difference between Anguilla and Antigua, or between Grenada
and Tobago” (Mitchell 1973, 10).
Yet integration efforts-some with political overtones but most
with an economic emphasis-are still being pursued in the late 1980s and
early 1990s, as they have been sporadically for centuries, albeit with
better results when local leadership is less provincial and more pragmatic.
Contemporary CARICOM and OECS political leaders tend to be more
pragmatic in outlook than their frequently personalist and mesmeric
predecessors. This trend has undoubtedly contributed to the recent in-
tensification of integration activity in the Commonwealth Caribbean, and
it would seem especially applicable to current political leadership in St.
Vincent, Barbados, Grenada, and possibly Trinidad, St. Lucia, Dominica,
and Guyana.
In his epilogue to John Mordecai’s history of federation failures
during the 1950s and early 1960s, Sir Arthur Lewis sadly concluded, “The
current political leaders are so scarred by the mutual hatred and contempt
which they acquired for each other on the last round [of federation talks]
that they are not likely to make [further] effort. However they will …
yield to a new generation. Then West Indians will once more face their
destiny, which is to come together as a nation” (W. A. Lewis 1968, 462).
That new generation has almost arrived as an increasingly younger, more
pragmatic, and better educated group of individuals assume leadership in
the West Indies. With a bit of assistance and support from their metro-
politan friends, the not-always-pragmatic press, and their very practical
West Indian constituents, these new leaders have the potential to attain
the national destiny forecast by Sir Arthur.
There is at least one other explanation for the latest surge of rhetoric
and planning for regional integration. First, the generalization adapted
from Etzioni at the outset of this article suggests that if integration cannot
not be fostered prior to the rise of state sovereignty and power, then the
next propitious time arises when these factors have weakened. With the
region experiencing its worst economic downturns since the great de-
pression, many of the subregion’s political economies have surely been
weakened. But is the corresponding integration effort a product of this
environment or merely a coincidence? If integration has indeed been
encouraged by the economic crisis in the Caribbean, then perhaps scru-
tiny of other crisis-impacted subregions in geopolitical Latin America and
the Third World would be useful. In only two such areas-Central Amer-
ica and Yemen-economic weakness indeed appears to have been a major
factor in recent efforts at reintegration.
The spirit of integration continues to be nourished by the Carib-
32
CARIBBEAN INTEGRATION
bean people, who are neighbors and friends of the United States living on
the U.S. doorstep rather than, as too many in Washington elect to project,
in its backyard. The individual and collective national interests of the
English-speaking Caribbean are not and should not be cloned from their
northern neighbor. It is true, however, that their conservative values and
their ongoing quest for democratic governance, progressive policy change
in the socioeconomic arena, and integration all tend to be congruent with
long-term Western and U.S. interests.28 The United States in particular
should respect these neighbors by assisting them in achieving their goals,
especially when they support mutual interests like economic and political
integration. U.S. assistance in addressing the burgeoning debt problems
of these countries, aided by the return to a less polarizing and less
militarizing policy of East-West relations, could positively encourage this
end.29 These are prescient times.
28. Even if the Grenada of 1979-1983 or Cheddi Jagan’s Guyana of the 1960s had a Marxist
bias, the United States could wisely reflect on the authoritarian nature of the Grenadian sys-
tem that stimulated Bishop’s socialist revolution, the authoritarianism of the Burnham regime
following the U.S. -British intervention in Guyana, and the authoritarianism and severe hu-
man rights abuses that followed U. S. intervention in Guatemala in 1954. Washington might
also reflect on Bishop’s many attempts to establish a dialogue with his neighbor to the north,
especially through the office of U.S. Ambassador Milan Bish. In fact, Bishop was in Wash-
ington seeking dialogue and pledging greater openness immediately prior to his incarcera-
tion and subsequent assassination in October 1983, again to no avail. It is highly possible that
a more diligent and sensitive U.S. policy reflecting genuine long-term U.S. interests could
have strengthened the forces of moderation and political openness both in pre-Burnham
Guyana and in pre-Coard-Austin Grenada. In the 1940s, British Colonial Governor Sir Grat-
ton Bushe advocated assisting the evolution of gradual change to forestall sudden overturn-
ing change. In this regard, the “new” metropolitan power in the Caribbean could learn from
the old.
29. Trade assistance from Washington in the form of a resuscitated Caribbean Basin Ini-
tiative II with increased sensitivity to and consultation with small-unit producers throughout
CARICOM, plus increased quotas for the region’s sugar, would be mutually beneficial for
both the United States and CARICOM. If combined with multilateral leveraging, these mea-
sures could also promote regional integration.
33
Latin American Research Review
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37
This journal assignment is a formative assignment for the current module. The assignment requires that you prepare ONE 200-250-word statement in paragraph form to present a snapshot of:
· your point of view (POV) about the module topic (identify this before turning to the assigned reading)
· key evidence and themes pertaining to the module topic that stands out to you upon completing the assigned reading (include endnotes to cite the information you are extracting from the reading)
· a concluding comment and/or question that captures an aspect of your POV after reading the assigned chapter.
The module topic is Regionalism and Internationalism
