DLP President calls for CARICOM to create new opportunities for Caribbean people

  In a message to mark today’s public holiday of the 50th Anniversary of CARICOM, President of the Democratic Labour Party  Dr Ronnie Yearwood underscores the importance of the regional grouping but calls for new leadership that will create meaningful change to transform the lives of our Caribbean people. He said the region must focus on policies, agreements, and goals that can transform the region. Below is the full text of the message: As we commemorate the founding of CARICOM and its achievements thus far, we must know that a stronger Barbados with social and equal opportunity for all means a stronger CARICOM. CARICOM came into being on 4 July 1973 with the signing of the Treaty of Chaguaramas by Prime Ministers Errol Barrow for Barbados, Forbes Burnham for Guyana, Michael Manley for Jamaica and Eric Williams for Trinidad and Tobago. History records that on 4 July 1965, Barrow wrote to Burnham, inviting Burnham to Barbados to discuss establishing a Caribbean free trade area. By the  4 July 1973, eight years later, with Eric Williams and Michael Manley, CARICOM was formed. We therefore recognize that Barrow and the Democratic Labour Party have not only been cornerstones in the founding of Barbados but also of the modern Caribbean integration project and by extension, modern Caribbean civilization. A debt of gratitude is certainly owed to Barrow and the Democratic Labour Party for the vision and work that made CARICOM possible. Having worked closely on the CARICOM project in my early professional career and now at the University of West Indies, an outstanding product of regional integration, I know, the regional integration project works, but stands at a particular juncture that requires sound leadership that can bring forth benefits to our 15 states, with over 177,000 square miles, and a population of more than 18 million people. Due to the forces at work in technology, international trade, climate change, and the global economy, we must fight harder for meaningful change to transform the lives of our Caribbean people. Now is a time to have laser focus on policies, agreements, and goals that can transform our Caribbean and its people. Now is the time push to forward and retool our economies for our Caribbean people. New leadership, which is agile and can put Caribbean people first, is required to discover and create new opportunities across the region for our people, to lift them out of poverty and into prosperity. That must be the aim of CARICOM and regional integration, when between a third or near half, depending on individual Caribbean states, of people live in poverty. In 1986, Barrow, thirteen years after the formation of CARICOM, reflected that, “In every territory of our Caribbean region – and it has been my own experience in Barbados – I believe we have been failing to find a way of using the collective wisdom of our people. We have not been able to communicate the essence and the cultural infrastructure of the regional integration movement. We have not been able to get people’s minds to move beyond the constraints of trade.” Barrow issued a challenge, which sadly is still good today – That all institutions, universities, schools, media, church, every gathering that goes by the name Caribbean must know and communicate that Caribbean integration is more than trade. And that as Barrow said, the trade “may be favourably influenced by the conviction among the mass of ordinary people whose collective wisdom is a fact and very much alive.” The Democratic Labour Party lives by Barrow’s challenge and to this end, in the past year, we have invited and hosted, some of the the next generation of Caribbean leadership and will continue to do so at our annual conference, as we build Caribbean relationships and family, and deepen the bonds of integration. Let’s work hard and develop a movement that Barrow spoke about to take the Caribbean forward. Let us be reminded we are a people, a Caribbean people, a Caribbean civilization as worthy as any and our contribution to humanity is also worthy in the science, arts, music, sports, advocacy, humanities, literature and technology. Happy Caricom Day to each Barbadian and Caribbean citizen. Dr Ronnie Yearwood President of the Democratic Labour Party      ]]>