DR Kai-Ann Skeete, a Bajan and University of the West Indies expert on matters relating to International Relations and regional trade, made major headlines in Guyana this past week. She is also a fellow and presented at a conference organised by the Centre for International and Border Studies.
In this article, I will examine some of the utterances of Dr Skeete which exposes a mindset oozing with a desire to be an aggressive regional integrationist but hampered by deep seated nationalist individualism; a state of mind too common in the region and the very mindset that is keeping CARICOM integration in the cellar.
It is important to analyse the thoughts of Caribbean academics and to point out unfavourable orientations in their public discourse because academics are mind shapers in ways no other profession can claim. The politician, the lawyer, the public policy practitioner, the economist, the medical specialist and future academics; their core philosophies and beliefs about society are shaped through an academic process. In the case of Dr Skeete, when her graduates leave, they do not only leave with basic rudimentary knowledge transfer, on the table of offerings will also be apprehensions, hesitations, political philosophies, world views and stereotypes in the real world. Academics are supposed to be the last bastion and repository of objectivity and empiricism.
So, let’s start with the issue that would receive a ringing endorsement from me. Dr Skeete is of the view that there should be a reexamination of the appointment of Dr Carla Barnett as Secretary-General of CARICOM (SGC) for a second term. This is, no doubt, to ensure there is regional consensus, given the objections by Trinidad and Tobago.
Dr Skeete did not stop there; she opted to take a euphemistic approach in advocating for a performance evaluation and the need to open the process for other eligible candidates. The tone and gait of her outpouring, and the forthrightness with which she made those comments, suggest that it took every ounce of diplomatic restraint that prevented a blunt and outright accusation of obtuse incompetence.
My interpretation is that Dr Skeete’s focus was not so much about the righteousness of the Trinidadian objection, but the piggy back value of a second chance opportunity to go through a process that should’ve occurred in the first place. Even if Trinidad did not suffer seasickness or did not face the claimed strategic disinvite, reappointment of the SGC should only have been made after a full competitive recruitment process. Can we have an ‘Amen!’ to that?
I believe the CSG should call it a day when her term officially ends in July. With all the political sparks and epistolic salvos in either direction across the Caribbean Sea and over the Gulf of Paria, reverberating in Turkeyen Georgetown, she will be presiding over a literal warzone. She should ignore the voice of the pale angel on her left shoulders, ostensibly spooking her to hold on to a disputed appointment that will no doubt fracture Caricom relations.
This past Wednesday, Dr Skeete also appeared on the Freddie Kissoon Show where her views were sought about the silence of CARICOM leaders when Venezuela’s Delcy Rodrigues marched into Grenada and Barbados and brazenly defied international law by displaying a redrafted map which annexed two-thirds of Guyana as a fixed and permanent part of Venezuela.
Dr Skeete said Barbados is right to look out for itself and not to stir up bad blood with Venezuela and maybe at some future date Barbados can serve as a peace broker. I would expect this kind of rhetoric from political simpletons, but it is hugely disappointing when such thoughts emanate from a tenured academic at the premier research institution of the region. Academics are supposed to follow facts and figures without manipulation, scientific deconstruction, not nationalists talking points.
Dr Skeete waxed lyrical about her consternation and dissatisfaction with the pace of our integration movement and flagged the sloth in implementing the CSME. She argued that, by now, we should’ve had a single economic space with no barriers to movement of people and goods. Right! This same contrasting mindset of Dr Skeete is the exact maggot that is eating away at CARICOM Necrosis.
An internal struggle between individual nationalism to the extent that it breathes an immobilising paranoia for which CARICOM is caught in a labyrinthine tailspin. We want integration but we are immobilised by the basic truths of integration.
The concept of a common market is not novel in the region. It started with slavery, there were no barriers when slave owners moved among territories to strike bargains for their stud or rebellious slaves, it was a free market. Today’s barriers to movement and trade are our doing, recent inventions. We are trying to rub salve on self-inflicted wounds.
The facts are that CARICOM has a treaty to which Guyana, Barbados and Grenada are equal signatories. This treaty defines a physical space, and the people in that space. The known space is 214,970 km2, 431km2 and 348km2 respectively. Further, each of these spaces is defined and canoned at the UN. The ICJ ordered Venezuela specifically to take no act of aggression or depict any part of Guyana as part of its territory. These are facts that academics should embrace and take them to their logical conclusion. If Dr Skeete did so, she could never have been in the default CARICOM individualist’s quagmire she found herself.
The logical conclusion is that Barbados and Grenada have acknowledged to Venezuela that the Treaty of Chaguaramas is both defective and open for tampering by Venezuela. That is why I believe the letter from CARICOM Chairman to President Ali following his objection to the Delcy Rodrigues diplomatic salvo was shortsighted, and to put it in blunt undiplomatic language, it was crassly stupid. You have a business partnership, and someone is making a legal claim on the assets of the partner, which is used as part of the said business, how can it be that you are not an interested party? The Treaty of Chagaramas is more than a multilateral trade agreement. Guyana does not want or never asked CARICOM to settle its border controversy; everyone knows that. Guyana laid its case before the ICJ the proper forum. What Georgetown is asking CARICOM to do is to affirm (to itself and any third party) the existing, known and legal physical space, currently defined by the very treaty, full stop.
It is simple, CARICOM should have a defined policy be it Guyana or any other of its existing territories, “one physical space, one economic space.” Any other country or person hoping to do business or pursue diplomatic relationship with any of us MUST subscribe to this fixed policy.
Much like China’s policy on Taiwan, first acknowledge the “One China Policy” then we can trade, then we can talk friendship. In so doing, it becomes a matter of simple policy to tell Venezuela, we acknowledge your right to pursue all legal avenues to realise your territorial claims but unless and until a legally binding settlement is reached and recorded at the UN and redefined in the Treaty of Chaguaramas we cannot accept depictions of territorial annexation (in any form) on our soil, on CARICOM soil.