OSWALD BROWN

Writes...

Could it be that the 15-member Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is headed towards the same fate as the West Indies Federation, the failed at-tempt by the British Govern-ment in the late 1950s to unite a number of its Caribbean colonies into one independent entity with a federal-style government?

There are telltale signs that some of the same reasons that the West Indies Federa-tion did not work are beginning to surface more frequently in CARICOM. The most recent example of this is the current effort being spearheaded by Trinidad and Tobago to establish a political union with Grenada, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grena-dines, three other CARICOM members, which could be interpreted as impatience on the part of Trinidad and Tobago's Prime Minister Patrick Manning with the progress being made by CARICOM to achieve its mandate to establish a single market and economy.

Manning has been visiting various CARICOM-member countries to supposedly get feedback on his initiative. On Monday he was in The Bahamas, but the only official announcement of his visit was a Bahamas Information Services (BIS) photograph of him and Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham, with a caption that referred to the visit as a "courtesy call." Clearly this was no ordinary "courtesy call," as was indicated by newspaper reports out of Jamaica, where Manning went after leaving The Bahamas.

According to those reports, Jamaica's Prime Minister Bruce Golding told Manning that Jamaica's decision was not to be a part of his proposed initiative.

"A statement issued after the meeting at Jamaica House quoted the Jamaica leader as saying the proposal to set up a political union by 2013 needs to be carefully examined as there could be implications for the Carib-bean Community (CARICOM)," one newspaper re-port stated.

More likely than not, Manning got a similar response from Prime Minister Ingraham, although there has been no official statement from the Government as to what Ingraham discussed with Manning. Since the meeting was held on Monday, it can only be assumed that Ingraham first wanted to inform his Cabinet at its regular weekly meeting on Tuesday why Manning travelled more than 1,300 miles to pay a "courtesy call" on him. However, since Gold-ing has let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, by releasing an official statement in Jamaica, it would seem as if the Bahamian people should likewise be informed of what that meeting with Manning was all about.

Certainly, The Bahamas' position on the CARICOM initiative to establish a single market and economy, which would include the free movement of people, is very well known. As far as the vast majority of the Bahamian people are concerned, that's not an initiative any Government that wants to remain in power would agree to without the approval of the Bahamian electorate via a referendum.

Manning is well aware of the strong opposition in The Bahamas to a single market and economy, but he has apparently decided to carve out his own territory within CARICOM to forge ahead with the initiative with those countries that are in agreement with it. According to newspaper reports, Manning also met earlier this month with leaders of Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis and Dominica to discuss the initiative.

This approach surely could have a similar impact on the future of CARICOM as Jamaica's dissatisfaction with the manner in which the West Indies Federation was implemented in 1958 had on the Federation's future.

At one time, Great Britain could legitimately boast that the sun never set on the British Empire, but when the drumbeat for independence began to resonate among its colonies in Africa, the powers that be in the United Kingdom decided it was time to accede to requests from those colonies that wanted to become independent nations and determine their own destinies.

Ghana became the first British colony on the African continent to obtain its independence in 1957, followed by a succession of other African jurisdictions whose national anthem was, "God Save Our Gracious Queen."

In the Caribbean, Great Britain was the predominant colonial power, but rather than grant individual independence to the group of islands that it "owned," it came up with what it thought was a workable proposition when it offered the islands the opportunity to create a political unit that would "become independent from Britain as a single state – possibly similar to the Canadian Confederation or Australian Federation," ac-cording to information provided by Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia on the Inter-net.

Established in 1958, the 10 so-called provinces of the West Indies Federation were Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla (present day Saint Kitts and Nevis and Anguilla), Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Both the Cayman Islands and Turks and Caicos were attached to Jamaica as dependencies.

The Bahamas, of course, then under the governance of the predominantly white United Bahamian Party (UBP), did not consider becoming a part of the Federation, choosing instead to remain a British colony, as did Bermuda, Belize, the British Virgin Islands and Guyana.

What Great Britain did not factor into its decision, however, was the giant egos of the political leaders in the three principal "provinces" of the Federation: Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados.

In Jamaica, Norman Man-ley and Alexander Busta-mante were towering political figures, whose prominence in the region were matched in Trinidad and Tobago by the erudite Dr. Eric Williams and in Barbados by Sir Grantley Adams.

As the country with the largest population, Jamaica's political leaders naturally felt that the leader of the federation should be Jamaican, but both Dr. Williams and Sir Grantley likewise had strong leadership ambitions.

Sir Grantley was selected as Prime Minister but, in essence, the future of the Federation was doomed from the start.

Its dissolution was hastened in 1961 when Jamaica pulled out after a Bustamante-backed referendum on political secession from the Federation passed with 54 percent of the vote. One of the reasons why the referendum was approved by such a healthy margin was that Jamaica at the time had one of the strongest currencies in the region and many Jamaicans felt that it was contributing disproportionately to the budget of the Federation.

According to information gleaned from the Internet, after Jamaica left, there was "an attempt to salvage a new federation from the wreckage of the old," but much depended on Dr. Williams of Trinidad and Tobago, who had stated previously that he wanted a "strong federation."

Trinidad subsequently followed Jamaica and pulled out of the Federation in January of 1962, leaving Barbados as the lone member of the "Big Three" to try and salvage Great Britain's experiment. The historical record will show, however, that the West Indies Federation existed from January 3, 1958 to May 31, 1962.

In the case of CARICOM, once again it appears as if Trinidad and Tobago wants to set the agenda for how that regional body should proceed in its efforts to unite the Caribbean countries under one umbrella, in much the same way that the West Indies Federation sought to do. Once again, it appears as if Jamaica has decided that it will establish its own agenda with regard to its affiliation with CARICOM.

Although The Bahamas was not a member of the failed West Indies Federa-tion, Prime Minister Ingra-ham would have made a wise decision if he told Manning during his "courtesy call" on Monday that The Bahamas wants no part of his proposed hybrid political union, as Jamaica's Prime Minister Golding did.

Oswald T. Brown is editor and general manager of The Freeport News. Comments on this column can be sent to oswald@nasguard.com