Jacqueline Anne Braveboy-Wagner - Small States in Global Affairs

Small States in Global AffairsThe Foreign Policies of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM)J. Braveboy-WagnerISBN: 9780230610330DOI: 10.1057/9780230610330Palgrave Macmillan

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Small States in Global Affairs

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10.1057/9780230610330 - Small States in Global Affairs, Jacqueline Anne Braveboy-Wagner

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Small States in Global Affairs

The Foreign Policies of theCaribbean Community (Caricom)

Jacqueline Anne Braveboy-Wagner

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Small States in Global AffairsCopyright © Jacqueline Anne Braveboy-Wagner, 2008.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in anymanner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of briefquotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

First published in 2008 byPALGRAVE MACMILLANTM

175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 andHoundmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS.Companies and representatives throughout the world.

PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the PalgraveMacmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdomand other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the EuropeanUnion and other countries.

ISBN-13: 978-1-4039-8001- 4ISBN-10: 1-4039-8001- 2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Braveboy-Wagner, Jacqueline Anne.Small states in global affairs : the foreign policies of the Caribbean community

(CARICOM) / Jacqueline Anne Braveboy-Wagner.p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 1-4039-8001-21. Caribbean Area—Foreign relations—1945- 2. Globalization. 3. Caribbean Commu-nity. I. Title. F2183.B63 2007327.729—dc22 2007021800

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.

Design by Scribe Inc.

First edition: January 2008

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

List of Illustrations vii

Acknowledgments ix

1 Introduction: Global Changes, Foreign Policy,and the Study of Small States 1

2 Political-Security Interests 25

3 Economic and Social Interests 55

4 Strategic Linkages 89

5 Diplomatic Interests and Linkages 127

6 The Foreign Policy Decision Environment 167

7 The Conduct and Management of Caricom Foreign Policy 203

8 A Brief Evaluation 231

Notes 235

References 261

Index 271

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Illustrations

Figures

6.1 The Caricom decision-making environment 169

7.1 Structure of the Jamaican foreign ministry 205

Tables

1.1 Caricom countries, basic data 16

1.2 Major aspects of English-speaking Caribbean foreign policy 20

1.3 Major aspects of Suriname’s foreign policy 21

1.4 Major aspects of Haiti’s foreign policy 22

3.1 Economic and social indicators for Caricom countries 58

3.2 Caricom historical trade with selectedpartners, exports (percentages) 61

3.3 Caricom historical trade with selectedpartners, imports (percentages) 63

3.4 Net receipts, private and public, to the independentCaricom nations, and main bilateral andmultilateral contributors (US$ million) 66

3.5 Comparison of U.S. imports under two preferential schemes:Caribbean Basin Recovery Act (CBERA) and GeneralizedSystem of Preferences (GSP), 1984–2005 (dollars in thousands) 77

3.6 U.S. merchandise trade balance with CentralAmerican and Caribbean countries, 2000–2004 78

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3.7 U.S. imports from CBERA countries under selectedimport programs (percentage of the total imported) 79

3.8 Trade between the European Union and theAfrican-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) Group 85

3.9 Total Caricom to EU-15 trade in goods (million euro) 85

4.1 U.S. military assistance to Caricom: Foreign militarysales and Military Assistance Program (dollars in thousands) 91

4.2 U.S. commercial exports to Caricom licensedunder Arms Export Control Act (dollars in thousands) 92

4.3 U.S. military assistance to Caricom:IMET Program (dollars in thousands) 93

4.4 Caricom adherence to key international securityand security-related conventions as of 2007 104

4.5 Caricom trade with developing regions (percentages) 113

4.6 Share of intra-Caricom/intra-OECS trade in total trade (percentage) 117

4.7 Foreign direct investment gross inflows toCaricom countries, 1970–2004 (US$ million) 124

5.1 Caricom diplomatic missions, ca. 2005 131

5.2 Main intergovernmental and regionalorganizations hosted by Caricom states 142

5.3 Organizational memberships of Caricom states (number), 2006 145

5.4 Caricom staff, office holding in theUN General Assembly, 1962–2007 147

5.5 Absences of Caricom states in the UN General Assembly 150

5.6 Cold war voting coincidence of Caricomcountries with the United States and USSR 163

5.7 Voting agreement with the United States 164

6.1 Participation of Caricom NGOs inselected international conferences 191

7.1 Size of Caricom UN and Washington missions, 2006–2007 221

7.2 Number of female diplomats at Caricom missions at the UnitedNations and embassies in Washington, D.C., 2006–2007 225

7.3 Female permanent secretaries (foreign affairs) andambassadors for four-year period, 2000–2004 226

viii • Illustrations

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Acknowledgments

This book is written with the aim of addressing the following: a third of the world’s territo-ries have populations below ten million in 2007; the international relations literature hasconsistently neglected these smaller states of the world, unless they create problems—secu-rity problems in particular—for the great powers; research on very small states has beenneglected; the international relations literature, and even foreign policy research, has tendedto take theoretical shortcuts that are short on descriptive detail; the area studies literature, aswell as global south analyses, have, on the other hand, tended to be long on description andshort on or devoid of theory; foreign policy is public policy, and in an era when many for-eign offices are retooling to meet the demands of globalization, attention should be paid byforeign policy researchers to the policy and planning aspects of the field.

The book takes the same approach as an earlier work, The Caribbean in World Affairs,published in 1989. Much has happened in the world since then, and this book seeks to assessthe ways in which Caribbean nations have coped with global and regional change. For read-ers unfamiliar with the region under study, a few explanatory notes are in order concerningthe names of countries. Antigua and Barbuda is the full name of the country that is some-times referred to in the book simply as Antigua. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and SaintKitts and Nevis are the full names of islands that in the book are often abbreviated to St. Vin-cent and St. Kitts-Nevis, names that are familiarly used in the Caribbean. Grenada’s fullname is Grenada and the Grenadines (that is, it includes the dependencies of Carriacou andPetit Martinique), but the abbreviated and more familiar “Grenada” is used here. Trinidadand Tobago is occasionally abbreviated to Trinidad in the book for purely stylistic reasons,and finally, the formal spelling of Suriname, not the familiar Surinam, is used for the formerDutch Guiana.

Some of the research for this book was conducted under two grants from the ResearchFoundation of the City University of New York. In my research on Caribbean foreign policy,conducted over decades and reflected in this book, I am indebted to too many people toname most individually. I will simply thank all my foreign service friends throughout theregion, and single out Marina Valere, now Trinidad and Tobago’s ambassador to the UnitedStates, and Patrick Edwards, the country’s recently appointed ambassador to Uganda andformer ambassador to Nigeria, for their consistent and unwavering support over the years.The late Festus Brotherson, Guyanese academic and also one of the country’s honorary con-suls, was also a source of insight and information about Guyana over the years. Thanks alsoto Taina Glaude, who works in the Treaty Section of the United Nations, for finding rele-vant information as needed. I also wish to acknowledge the great help given by my research

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assistants, Carmalita Thomas earlier on and later, and Diana Elsada Cassells. Finally, thanksare always due to my husband, Jeffrey, and young men Justin and Jeremy for pitching in witheditorial help, as well as to run to their university libraries or do Internet checks when asked,no matter how inconvenient the request. It is important to add that the work done for thisbook was completed well before I was asked in 2006 to chair a government-appointed com-mittee to review the foreign policy of Trinidad and Tobago. The ideas and information givenhere are not the result of any of the highly private discussions held in that committee.

x • Acknowledgments

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Global Changes, Foreign Policy,and the Study of Small States

Changes in the Content and Practice of Foreign Policy

In the last decade, both diplomats and scholars have spent a significant amount of timeassessing the changes in foreign policy wrought by the changed global environment. (Inthis book, “foreign policy” refers to the purposive—that is, official and intentional—

actions and behavior of states targeted toward external state as well as nonstate actors.)1 Ofthe utmost interest to both has been the much-debated process of globalization broughtabout primarily by rapid advances in technology. Scholars may argue about whether thisprocess is new or not and benign or not, but all agree that nations and peoples have becomeinterlinked in an unprecedented way in the last few decades.2 Certain foreign policy changesare implicated in globalization and the corresponding global interdependence. Perhaps mostimportant is the fact that the distinction between the domestic and the international hasbeen nibbled away since the 1970s in such a way that domestic issues have become interna-tionalized and international issues have taken on domestic importance. The term “intermes-tic” has been devised to denote these issues—issues such as environmental degradation,health, poverty alleviation, and sustainable development.3 The post–cold war rise to central-ity of nonmilitary issues has simply confirmed a trend that began much earlier.

Related to this breakdown of the international-domestic distinction is the emergence ofnonstate actors as significant players in world politics. First, although few doubt that thestate apparatus remains central in the devising and, particularly, the implementation of for-eign policy, today there is the increasing and independent involvement of provinces, cities,and counties in foreign policy, sometimes in a way that contradicts official policy. A case inpoint in the United States was the ban on trade placed on Myanmar by the state of Massachu-setts, a ban that was eventually struck down by the Supreme Court after hundreds of corpora-tions joined in a suit against the state. Second and perhaps more importantly, it is also clear thatregional and international organizations have continued doggedly to expand their roles vis-à-visstates in international affairs. Similarly, the role of transnational entities—groups as well as cor-porations—has continued to grow along with the trend toward globalization and liberalization.

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Corporation operations have long transcended the state, although today’s competitive cli-mate has fostered some decentralization of formerly tightly integrated structures.4 For justas long, multinationals have conducted their own profit-oriented global policies, oftenphrasing them in foreign policy terms.5 Globalization has, however, increased the impor-tance and reach of these corporations, giving them a more central role in a liberal interna-tional economy.

A newer change in transnational influence today comes in the form of the rise of transna-tional civil society, nonstate international groups that advocate globally with state and inter-national organizations. Transnational or global civil society goes beyond traditional labor andbusiness organizations to include activists in a host of nongovernmental organizations andepistemic communities concerned with social and environmental issues.6 Their mission isaided by linkages at the local and national as well as the transnational level, and their vigor-ous advocacy has earned them a place as information providers and purveyors of alternativepublic policy ideas at the decision-making tables of international organizations. Counteringthis trend are the activities of “uncivil” society—transnational groups engaged in criminalactivities such as terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, illegal immigration, prosti-tution, and other forms of trafficking in human beings.

What all this means is that whereas foreign policy observers and analysts could, in thenot-too-distant past, focus mainly on state activities—government decisions and bureau-cratic input and implementation—they now have to draw increasingly wider circles in seek-ing to explain foreign policy behavior. Not only have the context, content, and actors inforeign policy changed, but so has the conduct of foreign policy and, even, the role of thediplomat.

To meet today’s needs, the traditional generalist diplomat needs to be more knowledge-able about technical areas, including the complexities and legalities of trade and tax negotia-tions, and aspects of science and technology, informatics, energy, and other areas. Even withthe renewed focus on security in the form of global counterterrorism, greater specializationin nontraditional areas is needed—for example, the need to learn non-Romance languages,to be culturally savvy in a more strongly integrated and contentious global village, to under-stand the details of the conduct of intelligence, and to know the technical and legal implica-tions of security policies being put in place by one’s own country or by other countries.

Access to technology has also changed (or has the potential to change) the role of the tra-ditional itinerant, intelligence gathering diplomat. Today’s diplomat must make proper useof information technology both to gather and send information. Much diplomatic interac-tion can now take place remotely, either as a substitute for travel or as a way to be more pre-pared in face-to-face negotiations. Most importantly, with the heightened need for morespecialized diplomats, other bureaucracies are increasingly playing prominent roles in foreignaffairs, usurping the centrality of the traditional diplomatic services.

In small developing states such as those of the Caribbean, all the above applies with par-ticular relevance. The pressures from corporations and nonstate groups can be difficult toignore, yet hard to deal with given resource limitations. Similarly, the expansion of the for-eign policy agenda can strain skills and budgets, and the cost and skills involved in access tonew technologies can be prohibitive. Since there is always the specter of marginalization ifways are not found to deal with the new environment, small states need to be particularlyclever, efficient, and economical in devising appropriate strategies to meet their foreign pol-icy goals.

2 • Small States in Global Affairs

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Changes in International Relations Theory Toward Two-Level Analysis

The global changes beginning in the 1990s also engendered a reassessment by academics ofinternational relations theory. A key question was, why, despite the relative richness of thefield, did the end of the cold war catch international relations theorists so completely offguard? Historian John Lewis Gaddis concluded that international relations theory had beenunduly wedded to the classical scientific method—ironically, he noted, at a time when thehard sciences had recognized their limitations—and that it had given short shrift to the roleof human beings and the persistence of values. Because of this, theory had been no more suc-cessful at forecasting than had been traditional historical or novelistic methods. Gaddis calledfor the use of all available tools in trying to anticipate the future, including “not just theory,observation, and rigorous calculation, but also narrative, analogy, paradox, irony, intuition,imagination, and—not least in importance—style.”7

Precisely because of its focus on the micro level, foreign policy saw a resurgence of inter-est with the end of the cold war. The field had lost ground to systemic or structuralapproaches to international relations, with the dominant approach being that of neorealismdeveloped in the 1970s by Kenneth Waltz.8 Whereas classical realists like Hans Morgenthau9

had relied on a rather controversial conceptualization of human nature as aggressive, neore-alism eschewed such claims and focused on the anarchical nature of the international system.Anarchy was, said neorealists, the defining characteristic, fostering security competitionamong states and leading to self-help initiatives that played out as balances of power. Butsince neorealism consciously avoided the analysis of domestic factors, emphasizing insteadthat states were all similarly sovereign, it has offered little to the foreign policy analyst whoby necessity must deal with individual, domestic, as well as systemic influences. Classicalrealism actually was more useful to foreign policy analysis in emphasizing the concept of“national interest” (seen in terms of power), even though the concept was rightly critiqued aselusive.10 Classical realism also provided a role for the statesman, opening a space for the dis-cussion of leadership preferences and diplomatic strategies. It should be added that, althoughWaltzian realism avoids “second image” analysis, a later refinement by Stephen Walt, empha-sizing “balance of threat” rather than balance of power, includes a consideration of the inten-tions of other states and judgments based on foreign policy behavior.11

Neorealism’s competitors, neoliberalism and neo-Marxism, have also been structural ver-sions of earlier more rounded and multilevel theories. Neoliberalists start from realistassumptions but stress the potential for collective action even in an anarchical world, espe-cially since institutions provide information and reduce uncertainty as well as lower “trans-action costs” for states. Rational strategies of cooperation are outlined but with littleattention to cognitive deficiencies.12 For foreign policy analysts who see rationality asbounded and foreign policy decision making as a matter of satisficing,13 classic liberalapproaches analyzing domestic intergroup competition and the aggregation of societal inter-ests are far more relevant than structural explanations.

Marxism originally sought to explain domestic change based on the evolution of class for-mations resulting from economic developments. V. I. Lenin’s additional focus on imperial-ism internationalized the theory but it still remained focused on social changes within andbetween nations induced by economic interactions. Neo-Marxist offshoots such as depen-dency and world-systems analysis, however, moved more toward structural explanations,

Introduction • 3

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emphasizing the economic imbalances within and between nations. Such theories havereceived a sympathetic hearing in global south nations since they emphasize the exploitationof the south by the north through colonialism and imperialism. However, like neorealism,their application to foreign policy remains hampered by the fact that they pay little attentionto broader domestic-level factors other than the role of the merchant class. The focus on theeconomic omits important political and social factors that are generally thought to impactcountries’ foreign behavior and activity.14

Rather than impacting foreign policy analysis per se, neo-Marxist ideas have had a signif-icant impact on the subfield of international political economy where liberal and criticalapproaches compete. The subfield has had a substantial following among global south schol-ars because of its elevation of, and emphasis on, the workings of the international economicand financial systems. While foreign policy analysis has over the years incorporated someaspects of international political economy (in particular, the idea of “dependence”), scholarsof international political economy have begun to incorporate domestic considerations inoffering (rational) explanations for economic preferences.15 Nevertheless, international polit-ical economy is usually still differentiated from foreign economic policy, which, like foreignpolitical policy, is explained by using all levels of analysis.16

Both liberalism and neo-Marxism have, however, been strengthened over the years bytheir willingness to break down the domestic-international barrier. Robert Putnam’s rationalview of international politics as a two-level game bringing to the bargaining table concernsof both domestic and international constituencies provided a seminal starting point for ana-lyzing how states negotiate, and it has been widely incorporated into foreign policyresearch.17 Liberalism received a boost both from attempts to analyze the dynamics ofnational preference formation as well as from the restatement and empirical analysis of Kant-ian democratic peace theory.18 Similarly, neo-Marxist analyses of international relations arebeing expanded by critical theorists and postmodernists to include the role of a variety ofsocial forces—race, identity, culture, and gender—other than production-based forces. Fem-inist literature, too, has provided positive insights, forcing attention to gender and women’sroles previously ignored as irrelevant to international relations, let alone foreign policy.19

Moreover, the newest approach, constructivism, has gained rapid ground as an alternativeway of conceptualizing and understanding international relations: constructivism empha-sizes the role of agency in constituting structure, and constructivists stress that the structureof the international system and the identities and interests of the units that comprise it arenot fixed but rather result from the normative understandings that develop among nationsover time.20

This movement toward the incorporation of the domestic into international relations(IR) theory has helped bring IR theory and foreign policy analysis closer together. By under-standing international affairs as a two-level game, by taking a closer look at the state as agent,or by trying to understand interest formation as a matter of social values, IR scholars haveremoved the barrier that once led James Rosenau to define foreign policy study as the onlyfield “bound to both domestic and systemic levels,” “lying at the intersection of the nationaland the international,” and by its very nature having to “concern . . . itself with the associa-tion between variables on both sides of national boundaries.”21 However, foreign policyanalysis is still quite distinguishable from other types of analysis: for one, the sheer detail offoreign policy analysis is eschewed by international relations theorists. The foreign policyanalyst has to understand not only the configuration and complexity of the international


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environment but also the details of the political, economic, and social systems of particularcountries and regions—which is why most foreign policy specialists are also area specialists.Valerie Hudson and Christopher Vore note that foreign policy work is “actor-specific”: it is“data intensive; it often requires country or regional expertise; and it is time consuming.”22

They borrow from Ruth Lane in calling foreign policy theory “concrete” theory, the theoryof detail rather than parsimonious mathematical and statistical “billiard ball” models. For-eign policy theory thus “serves as the interface between abstract, actor-general theory and thecomplexity of the real world.”23

Second, the foreign policy analyst does not just incorporate the domestic to fill out sys-temic theory; rather, foreign policy analysis really begins with the domestic level of analysissince foreign policy is a tool to achieve domestic interests. Foreign policy analysis is primar-ily agential analysis, and this includes opening up the black box to puzzle over leadershipissues, cognitive, situational, informational, cultural, and societal factors that do not troublethe IR theorist. Third, the foreign policy analyst ends up seeking to understand—if notalways address fully—multiple levels of analysis and may choose from many differentapproaches in order to construct a coherent analytical whole. Thus, realist considerationsabout the system structure; liberal foci on groups and society; and critical and constructivistemphases on culture, norms, and values can all be integrated into foreign policy analysis.Finally, the foreign policy analyst is also a public policy analyst: in an age in which thedomestic and international are so intertwined, foreign policy can be viewed as just one aspectof a government’s package of political programming. Thus the compleat foreign policy ana-lyst should also be sure to analyze implementation and administrative issues that impinge onthe successful conduct of foreign policy.

Foreign Policy Analysis as a Subfield: Relevance to the Global South

Up to the 1950s, foreign policy was simply seen as an integral aspect of international rela-tions with no particular theories of its own. As already noted, the prevailing dominant real-ist approach saw state (foreign) policy as geared toward satisfying interest defined as power,and it focused on national capabilities and ideological considerations at both domestic andsystemic levels. Theoretical work in foreign policy as a separate area of study owes much tothe decision-making approach elaborated by Richard Snyder and his colleagues in the 1950sand 1960s, which itself drew on the ecological work of Harold Sprout and MargaretSprout.24 Their basic, rational model affirmed the centrality of the decision makers, theirperception of the internal and external environments, their values and motivations, as well asthe situational, organizational, and informational context within which decisions were taken.Although the entire model was too complex to be fully operationalized, it and similar mod-els25 spawned the systematic study of decision making. Many studies in crisis decision mak-ing followed, most focusing on psychological and perceptual factors. Works by Irving Janis(on groupthink), Robert Jervis (on perception), Alexander George (on leaders’ “operationalcode,”), and others are now considered classics in the field.26 These have been augmentedover the years by numerous studies by psychologists and social psychologists, and morerecently by alternative rational choice or strategic approaches using game theory, prospecttheory (risk calculations), and other variations.27

Introduction • 5

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Meanwhile, an alternative to the perceptual school of decision making had alreadyevolved, namely the bureaucratic approach most associated with Graham Allison’s work.28

Zooming in on the various bureaucracies and organizations involved in any decision, theo-rists using this approach emphasized the clashes between the organizational cultures androles of the various agencies and governmental players and how these affect the actual deci-sion outcome. Even though the approach was criticized as distracting from the failures of thedecision makers themselves (and as being suited only to Western countries), it fed a vigorousresearch tradition, today loosely subsumed under the rubric of “governmental politics.”29

A second conjuncture in the development of foreign policy as a theoretical enterprisecame with the emergence of a comparative approach to foreign policy in the 1970s. JamesRosenau is generally credited as a founder of this approach, which led to the establishmentof a subfield, comparative foreign policy (CFP). His “pretheory” typology related countrygenotypes (large-small, developed-developing, and politically open-closed) to a hierarchy ofindividual, role, governmental, societal, and systemic influences, and it laid the basis for whatbecame the “attribute” approach.30 The development of CFP coincided with the spread ofthe behavioral-positivist approach from natural to social sciences, and thus with the expand-ing use of quantitative methods. Research focused on generating and testing middle-rangetheory in the form of hypotheses. Overall, the statistical methods employed produced ratherweak correlations, strongest for propositions that were generally regarded as intuitively obvi-ous.31 By the 1980s, the field had stagnated, and many scholars, particularly those interestedin the global south, were turning instead to the newer subfield of international political econ-omy. As a result, foreign policy analysts began to test the effect of some political economicvariables on foreign policy behavior, in particular in the form of “dependent state” analysis(discussed further later). On the other hand, the usefulness of positivism itself was alreadybeing questioned by the end of the 1980s; the postpositivist era (and the new interest in crit-ical and constructivist approaches) introduced more qualitative research programs and agreater recognition of the historical, ideological, and social contexts within which IR as awhole is framed.

In the wake of the end of the cold war, foreign policy analysts returned to stressing theimpact of societal, leadership, and other agential factors on foreign policy decisions andactions. With the spread of democracy, the role of culture, identity, and values also drew par-ticular interest, framed within either liberal or constructivist perspectives. Case study analy-sis returned to prominence, and discursive and other nonquantitative methods began to bewidely employed.

Third World (Global South) Scholarship

For scholars of the third world or the global south, John Gaddis’ post–cold war admonition,cited earlier, to international relations researchers to include not just theory but also narra-tive, imagination, intuition, and style can be easily appreciated. Methodologically, positivistapproaches have never been well received in the south, where history, narrative, cultural, andcase study approaches have been preferred, even though this has certainly hindered the devel-opment of generalizable theory.32 In fact, students of the international relations of the southhave generally critiqued prevailing IR theory as irrelevant, dismissing realism for its focus on


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great powers and its insinuation that weak states are useful only as allies of the strong and dis-counting liberalism because it emphasizes norms and practices of Western civilization, evenas these were not applied in colonial and neocolonial contexts.33 Scholars of the global southhave preferred neo-Marxist approaches such as imperialism, dependency, and world-systemsanalyses, inasmuch as these schools of thought have focused on the inequalities and imbal-ances in domestic as well as international economic systems caused by the injection of capi-talism into developing nations “from without” (that is, through colonialism), as well as theresulting external political and military challenges faced by peripheral countries. While theseapproaches were not developed to address foreign policy per se, they have brought to the foreimportant distinctions with respect to the context of decision making in the south; thus, forexample, they have highlighted the fact that south policy making is undertaken within theconstraints posed by the hierarchical structure of the international system. 34 This has trans-lated into a focus in global south scholarship on the constraining configuration of the inter-national system or, as foreign policy specialists term it, “permissibility,” that is, therelationship between the political and economic characteristics of the international systemand the capability of weaker states to conduct autonomous foreign policies.35 Theseapproaches bring to the fore the various vulnerabilities of dependent states, and overcomingthem must be, it is the argument of this book, one of the main aims of foreign policy. Again,these approaches have done much to focus attention on the role of nonstate actors in inter-national affairs, including the transnational corporations, the international economic andfinancial institutions, and within the state, the clientalistic role of the business vis-à-vis thegovernmental elites.

Yet these approaches cannot by themselves explain all or even most of foreign policy: infact, there is inherent in them an over-reliance on economic explanations, an ideologicalslant that is sometimes difficult to support empirically, and an overemphasis on system-levelfactors at the expense of deeper explanations at the domestic level, notwithstanding someattention to class linkages.

Specific foreign policy approaches to the global south can best be summarized by region.36

Arab foreign policy theorists Bahgat Korany and A. Dessouki recognize three traditionalapproaches to Arab foreign policy: (1) the psychological approach emphasizing the idiosyn-crasies of leaders; (2) the great powers approach, dominant during the cold war, focusing onthe role of the balance of power in the international system; and (3) the “reductionist”approach that attempts to use models that generalize across both developed and developingcountries on the assumption that, except for differences in capabilities, states are similar,rational actors.37 All three approaches have their limitations: the first has been criticized astoo narrow, ignoring other environmental factors, the second for not taking into accountdomestic as well as relevant geostrategic interactions, and the third for underestimating thedifferences among states.38 Korany and Dessouki themselves developed a model based onrole conception and role performance that, while seen as very useful, has also been critiquedas lacking historical grounding and de-emphasizing key institutional factors.39 Still otherArab scholars have focused on statist explanations, that is, national interest calculations basedon the imperative of state building as well as regime survival.40

There is a relatively rich tradition of international relations study in Latin America. There,foreign policy studies were originally centered on the inter-American relationship, but thesewere broadened over the years to analyses of the Latin American states themselves, drawingon prevailing geopolitical as well as comparative foreign policy and political economic

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approaches. Overall, a focus on international constraints developed, emphasizing in particu-lar the perceived lack of autonomy in foreign policy stemming from the dominance of theUnited States over the region. In fact, it was in Latin America that the dependency perspec-tive was developed. In political and military relations, the power-politics model was popular,defining both inter-American and intra–Latin American relations in terms of strategic con-siderations. In the context of cold war divisions, Latin American scholars also looked at thedomestic level, seeking to show that regime change as well as differences in development ide-ology could account for variations in foreign policy perspectives and behavior. With the riseof democratization, this has been transformed into the study of the impact of both politicaland social change as well as the economic liberalization driving such changes. Another areathat has drawn some attention in Latin American research is bureaucratic relations, given thefact that in many Latin American countries, a bureaucratic-organizational model has driveneconomic development. There is also a tradition of strong foreign policy bureaucracies in theregion, encouraging some attention to administrative politics.41

African foreign policy studies have veered between traditions of political realism andpolitical economy. The former, popular during the cold war, emphasized the influence ofpower politics both in terms of the national interest calculations of African states as well asthe role of the great powers in the continent; the latter, more popular since the developmentcrises of the 1980s and beyond, has used dependency, neocolonialism, and imperialism ashandles for identifying the structural constraints under which state policies are formulated.42

Studies of the foreign policies of east, south, and southeast Asian nations have used a fullrange of theories, including psychological-perceptual approaches (given the prominence ofcharismatic leaders), realist approaches focused on the regional and global balance of power,and dependence and modernization in a region that has produced some of the main playersin the nonaligned arena. Studies have also been done on bureaucratic and governmental fac-tors, less so on societal factors.43

Summing up, global south foreign policy has been thought to derive from internationalpressures and dependency; leadership preferences; national interest calculations; economicinterests and development aspirations; and especially in Latin America, bureaucratic influ-ences. Also, in the last few decades, matching changes in the global system, research hasshifted to incorporate factors such as democratization, public opinion and social change, andthe influence of local and transnational civil society as independent variables affecting for-eign policy decision making and state behavior.

Small States, Small Developing States, and Ministates

What approaches can be applied to small states, and in particular the small developing state?Indeed, what is the definition of a small state? In the 1960s, the United Nations, concernedabout the viability of small states, tried to establish upper population limits for smallness. Inthis, the UN was joined by scholars and private foundations. The results were, however, highlyvariable. An influential study done by the United Nations Institute for Training and Researchdefined a small state as one having a population of less than 1 million. A study done for theAmerican Enterprise Institute corroborated this by categorizing states with 300,000 to 1 mil-lion inhabitants as small. On the other hand, scholar David Vital set an upper limit of 20 to 30


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million, while Maurice East used statistically precise data defining small states as havingfewer than 23.7 million people.44 Braveboy-Wagner, while discounting the effectiveness ofsize as a distinctive measure for nations other than ministates, notes that “when we look atthe bulk of the world’s territories, about 129 . . . have populations below 10 million, a rea-sonable upper limit for a small state given that the top states of the world have more than 1billion people.” Similarly, Roderick Pace speaks of the European Union being dominated by(small) states with fewer than 10 million people.45

In fact, except for a relative consensus on “ministates” discussed later, there has never beenagreement on what population limits to use to identify smallness. Moreover, in the early lit-erature, there was some confusion of smallness with “developing”: while the population mea-sure was most commonly used, a few authors used economic measures, that is, size of theeconomy. Again, some scholars equated “small” with “developing,” whereas others expresslyrecognized that small countries could be developed as well.46 A recent study notes that infact, “scholars have at least three different communities in mind when they speak of ‘smallstates’: microstates . . . ; small states in the developed world . . . ; and small states in the so-called third world.”47 The concept of size is clearly somewhat problematic.

Other characteristics have intervened between size and behavior in various theoreticalperspectives. The classical realist conceptualization of small states is that they are “powerless”states or “weak” states subject to the dictates of the stronger powers. Thucydides’ dictum isoften cited as indicative of the relationship between strong and weak in the international sys-tem: “The standard of justice depends on the equality of power to compel and . . . in fact thestrong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.”48

A similar sentiment, albeit in the economic sense, was reflected in Marshall Singer’s state-ment in 1972 that “unfortunately for the underdeveloped, weaker states of the world, thebrutal truth is that they are simply too poor to be very good or very important customers ofthe industrial Powers,” and it is still reflected today in the perception, a takeoff from GeorgeOrwell’s Animal Farm, that “all states are equal (but some states are more equal than oth-ers).”49 In a world of superpowers and great powers, small states have traditionally opted—or been expected to opt—to bandwagon, that is, to ally themselves with a larger benefactorfor security as well as economic protection. If they preferred not to, then neutralism was agood strategy. Thus a power politics approach as applied to these states highlights foreignpolicies oriented toward alliance behavior, neutrality, or at best, strategic bargaining with thegreat powers.

A liberal approach offers the small state analyst the opportunity to examine both theeffects of political and economic openness that is often characteristic of such states (althoughsmall states can just as easily be authoritarian as democratic), and the small-state penchantfor organizational activity and coalition building, a necessity for states with limited capacityto act on their own. Constructivism can enhance this by reflecting on the historical, cultural,and normative origins of small-state identity and how this generates particular interests ontheir part.

In the positivist mode of comparative foreign policy, James Rosenau’s pretheory of foreignpolicy cited earlier suggests that foreign policy outcomes are impacted by five sets of vari-ables: individual-level (values, beliefs, personality of decision makers), societal, governmen-tal, role (the functional positions occupied by decision makers), and systemic (externalenvironmental). The hierarchical impact of these factors would vary according to severalattributes: size, level of development, and type of political system (open or closed), to which

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Rosenau later added the level of “penetration” (participation of outsiders in the decisionmaking) of the system.50 In a large open developed state, role factors would be most impor-tant, followed by systemic factors. Individual-level influences would be the weakest. How-ever, in a small, open, developing state, individual-level factors would be most influential,followed by systemic factors. Although Rosenau’s entire schema proved difficult to opera-tionalize—for example, his dichotomous attributes did not sufficiently differentiate amongcountries—and even though many changes have occurred in the global system since he wrotein the late 1960s, the impact of leadership as well as international factors is still considered aprimary factor in understanding small states.

The comparative foreign policy research that followed Rosenau’s pretheorizing is nowseen as having produced much (quantitative) brouhaha with few results. However, amongthe few findings, a consistent one is that size does have an impact on state behavior: smallerstates are found to participate less in international affairs; focus more on international andregional organizations; and through lack of information, they were more inclined towardhigh-risk behavior.51

In the 1980s, scholars studying small states turned away from focusing on size itselftoward studying the impact of the economic dependence that results from smallness. Primar-ily using UN voting as a proxy for foreign policy behavior, researchers posited two importantmodels as explaining the stances of dependent states: a bargaining model in which votes weretraded for economic assistance, and a related compliance model in which small states acqui-esced to the dominant partner for economic reasons; and a consensus model that claimedthat countries acted on the basis of ideological affinity or shared values engendered by depen-dency. Unfortunately, neither approach could be fully confirmed via quantitative analysis.52

Moreover, there was enough evidence of noncompliant or counterdependent behavioramong so-called dependent states to suggest that other factors, in particular regime orienta-tion or individual-level factors, were intervening variables.53

A review of studies of dependence leads to the conclusion that dependence itself is not ahighly determinative factor. If some so-called “dependent” countries acquiesce and others donot, while some change their behavior over time, then dependence is not particularly helpfulin explaining their behavior. Furthermore, there is great variation in capabilities, resources,strategic importance, and domestic economic and political configurations among the coun-tries deemed “dependent,” such that it would be difficult to single out dependence as thedefining characteristic.

In the 1990s and 2000s, the stagnating study of small states has seen a moderate resur-gence as new small states have emerged in eastern and central Europe. In this respect, someof the findings of a recent study based on a range of contributions about small-sized devel-oped as well as developing states may be applicable as well to the newer states. These findingsare as follows:

1. Small state foreign policy is heavily constrained by systemic factors . . . interna-tional and regional dynamics are always at the top not only of small states’ foreignpolicy agendas, but also of the list of forces that explain those agendas and thebehavior directed at them.

2. Level of development influences the impact of certain domestic and internationalfactors. Specifically, less developed small states are more likely than developedones to have regime security as a foreign policy goal. Similarly, they must contend


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with international financial institutions, on whom [sic] they rely for access tocredits and aid.

3. Level of development influences the role of the leader . . . leaders in less developedsmall states are more likely to put a personal imprint on foreign policy than aretheir counterparts in more developed countries. . . . In the more developed ones,foreign policy traditions and experienced diplomatic corps provide foreign policybehavior with a consistency not seen in less developed countries.54

Very Small States, Caribbean States

Although very small states were the subject of some policy research in the 1960s and 1970s,the foreign policy and international relations literature did not really distinguish them fromthe general category of “small states,” except for a few investigations into their performanceat the United Nations.55 In fact, however, very small states did and do have special problemsthat distinguish them from other small states, and that pertains to their vulnerability.

Despite the fact that wealthy Luxembourg was accepted as a founding member of theUnited Nations in 1945, and tiny Iceland joined in 1946, other very small European states—Monaco, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Andorra, and the Vatican—were relegated to observerstatus on the grounds that they were too small to be able to carry out the responsibilities ofUN membership.56 But with the third world push for decolonization and the passing of thelandmark Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoplesby the General Assembly in December 1960, the prioritization of self-determination oversize brought many small new states into the United Nations.

Unlike the debate over smallness in general, there was a consensus of sorts in the 1960sthat a very small state (ministate or microstate) could be defined as a state having a popula-tion of less than one million inhabitants, even if some authors added subgroupings belowthat level.57 In every way, the independent English-speaking Caribbean states—Jamaica,Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and Guyana—fell into that category in the 1960s. By thelate 1970s, these four states were joined in the UN by their even smaller peers. TheseCaribbean ministates, along with their island counterparts in the Pacific as well as a few othercountries elsewhere, were initially seen by many as incapable of fully carrying out theirresponsibilities as members of the international community. Proposals were even mooted bysome for a kind of associate status for these small states. As one author summed up, “Perhapsthe time has come to consider adding to the current modes of government—dependence,self-government without full international statehood, and independence within sovereignequality—another category: independent self-management of internal and external policyand relations without full status and rights in the councils of the collective global commu-nity. This would mean that the family of nations would place some restraints on such statesand exclude them from particular diplomatic forums and agencies. . . . Alternatively, smallstates may find it advantageous voluntarily to limit their active involvement to their imme-diate regions.”58

By the 1970s, such talk had faded as ministates became valuable sources of votes for theUnited States (which was losing the influence it had in the 1950s) and former colonial powers

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on various issues in the United Nations, and indeed, they were participating relativelyactively in that forum.59 These states not only helped lead the way for other small states,including older European small states, to gain entry into the United Nations later on, butthey also helped establish the principle that it was the responsibility of the global communityto put special measures in place to help small states, including island states, least developedstates, and landlocked states.

In the rigid bipolar world of the 1960s and 1970s, Caribbean states were economicallyand ideologically dependent on the West, to the point that the question arose as to whetherthey really exercised any choice in foreign policy. Indeed, the region has traditionally beenseen as peculiarly open and reactive to international systemic dynamics. An important studydone by the Commonwealth in 1985 and reviewed in 1997 outlined the particular vulnera-bilities of small former British colonies in the South Pacific, Africa, the Indian Ocean, theMediterranean, and Brunei, as well as the Caribbean. According to the report(s), the smallstate is, among other things, inherently vulnerable to external intervention by, and pressurefrom, larger powers, and from international financial institutions; is highly vulnerable to var-ious transnational threats (now increasing with globalization); and is economically weak as aresult of undiversified economic structures, high infrastructural costs, remoteness, highdependence on external trade, vulnerability to the forces of nature, and limited access toexternal financing.60

Studies of Caribbean Foreign Policy

As with Latin American foreign policy, external factors as well as internal economic andpolitical weaknesses have generally been placed at the center of analyses of Caribbean foreignpolicy. (Although this book is focused on the non-Hispanic Caribbean, a similar orientationappears in studies of Cuba and the Dominican Republic.)61 By 1976, as one Caribbeanscholar noted, the debate among scholars about size and sovereignty in the region had beenreplaced by a concern about “autonomy” as follows:

[That is] the question whether in acting as a formally sovereign unit at the level of engag-ing in necessary relationships in the international environment, the state finds that it pos-sesses sufficient instruments from its “sovereignty arsenal” to cope with the complexities ofthat environment. The further questions then arise of, in what locus or loci are suchinstruments to be sought, what institutional relationships are to be established betweenthe sovereign state and the locus or loci in which such instruments are to be found; inother words, whether a new system is to be established and the extent to which system require-ments will determine unit behaviour.62

Issues of autonomy and dependence were analyzed both in terms of foreign policy and polit-ical economy, which, as elsewhere, became the more popular focus of Caribbean researchers.With regard to foreign policy, the fact was highlighted that Caribbean foreign as well asdomestic economic policies tended to reflect changes elsewhere in the international system.63

The nationalist experiences of Jamaica in the 1970s spawned many studies, among themworks showing that regime factors can lead to noncompliant behavior in dependent states,64


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that foreign policy positions are determined by the degree of a state’s autonomy framed by amatrix of relationships between the interests of the local bourgeoisie and those of interna-tional capital,65 and that foreign policy can be the result of counterhegemonic resistancefrom mass elements.66 Studies of Haiti stress the role of the United States, including itschange in policy during the 1990s to support for a neoliberal and democratic agenda facili-tated by the return of President Aristide.67 Many other studies of the region in the politicaleconomic mold contain implications for foreign policy in that they deal with the pressuresplaced on the region by the international financial institutions, the challenges posed bychanges in the global political economy, and the importance of regional integration.68

On the other hand, the domestic sources of foreign policy in the Caribbean have beengiven hardly any attention since a few articles appeared in the 1970s. In the 1970s, topicstackled included the role of leadership in foreign policy decision making, the role of parlia-ment, and the effects of the lack of information and consultation on foreign policy mak-ing.69 Crisis and security studies gained momentum as the region was convulsedideologically in the 1970s and 1980s, but few studies undertook more than to describeevents or offer prescriptions.70

How then can very small states be studied as foreign policy actors in a highly complex world?The many different theoretical strands described earlier obviously need to be culled for insights.In an attempt to do so, I set the following assumptions as a guide to the description and analy-sis in this book. The first undertaking is a detailed outline of what constitutes the interests ofCaribbean states as well as the strategies used to achieve associated goals. Recapping a bit, thevarious IR approaches differ in their view of interest. To a realist, national interest is seen onlyin terms of power or influence and security: all states seek security as their priority, and otherinterests—economic or status—are ancillary to the goal of national security. Since states are pri-mary actors, state-to-state military and economic strategies will be pursued with minimalreliance on nonstate actors. To the liberal, on the other hand, interests are arrived at by groupinvolvement; states seek a variety of goals laid out in different issue-areas, and strategies willinvolve bilateral, multilateral, organizational, and transnational linkages. To a constructivist,interests are variable and socially constructed, and a state’s cooperation or conflictual relationswith the variety of international actors will depend on normative and value considerations.

Caribbean interests are described in this book as continually changing, generated by con-ditions at home, in the region, and in the international system, and influenced by changingevents and norms in the system as well. Yet interests can be organized within some commonissue-areas that have general credibility in foreign policy analysis; these are the issue-areas ofnational security, economic development, and status. A general hierarchy of attention to theresolution of problems in these issue-areas is presumed as follows:

• Where military-political security issues are perceived or manifested as cohesive majorthreats that are likely to affect not only physical integrity but also developmentprospects (for example, a military challenge by a neighboring state, or a major threatfrom transnational sources), the resolution of security issues will supersede attention toall other issues.

• In the absence of direct territorial and internal security threats to the regime’s survivalor to common cultural values, socioeconomic (“human”) security will always be at thetop of the foreign policy as well as domestic agendas. Apart from identifiable economicissues, this usually involves today dealing with environmental decay, immigration,

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crime, and other matters that also have indirect political effects. Where territorial andinternal security problems exist but in fractionated and manageable form, socioeco-nomic concerns will also be prioritized.

In then seeking to explain why Caribbean states act as they do (discussed in Chapter 5),the following factors will be stressed: first, that the region’s states unanimously identify assmall states and that that carries with it certain objective inherent vulnerabilities; second,that they also identify themselves, however, as having many positive attributes and contri-butions to make regionally and internationally; third, that their foreign policy is derivedfrom the perception of these vulnerabilities and attributes and is geared toward devisingways to overcome the first and take advantage of the second; fourth, that interpretation andstrategy are generated mainly by the leadership, who look for cues in the international envi-ronment above all; and fifth, that, however, societal and bureaucratic influences on foreignpolicy decision making are increasing and must be taken into consideration by policy mak-ers and analysts.

The Caribbean Community: Scope and a Foreign Policy Sketch

Although up to this point the term “Caribbean” has been used loosely, the subjects of thisbook are quite narrowly defined. They are the members of the Caribbean Community(Caricom), an integration movement that dates back to 1973 and began before that as theCaribbean Free Trade Area (Carifta). From 1967 to 1994, Caricom had exclusive English-speaking membership: Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica,Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts-Nevis (also known formally as Saint Christopher/Nevisor Saint Kitts and Nevis), Saint Lucia (also written as St. Lucia), St. Vincent and theGrenadines (also written as Saint Vincent and the Grenadines), and Trinidad and Tobago.Montserrat is an original member of Caricom, but as a dependent state, its foreign relations,other than its policy on regional issues, continue to be handled by the United Kingdom.These English-speaking countries share a common history of British colonialism, of mem-bership—except for the Bahamas, Belize, and Guyana—in the British-imposed WestIndies Federation of 1958–1962,71 and a cultural and social commonality, despite the factthat Belize and Guyana are on the mainland of Central and South America respectively,and Belize, in particular, is also very much a part of the surrounding Latin bloc. In 1994,Suriname, a former Dutch colony that gained independence in 1975, became the firstnon-English-speaking territory to be admitted to Caricom. In 1997, Haiti, which had heldobserver status, was accepted for membership, and the country finally acceded to Caricomin 2002. Though a full member, the Bahamas chose not to join the economic marketwithin Caricom. As well, Haiti’s accession to the economic community will depend on aconsiderable improvement in its economy, a relatively far-off project as of 2007. BothSuriname and Haiti have political and cultural histories that differ from those of the coreEnglish-speaking region, and this adds another dimension to the normal danger of gener-alizing about a subregion as a whole. The following description will therefore sometimeshighlight differences between the core English-speaking nations and the two more uniquecases.


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Table 1.1 gives relevant introductory data on the members of the Caribbean Commu-nity—size (territory and population), per capita gross domestic product (GDP), economicstructure, and human development rank. Most Caricom countries are very small, and fallinto a middle income and middle-to-high human development category. As described in theforeign policy sketch below, they came to independence in separate waves: Haiti of coursebecame the first independent Latin country in the Western hemisphere in 1804. Jamaica andTrinidad and Tobago were the first English-speaking countries to gain their independence in1962. They were followed by Barbados and Guyana in 1966, the Bahamas and Grenada in1973 and 1974 respectively, Suriname in 1975, Dominica in 1978, Saint Lucia and St. Vin-cent and the Grenadines in 1979 and 1980, Antigua and Barbuda and Belize in 1981, andSt. Kitts-Nevis in 1983.

The Core English-Speaking Caricom Countries: A Foreign Policy Sketch

The more developed territories of the English-speaking Caribbean, often also called theCommonwealth Caribbean—Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Barbados—emerged to independence in the 1960s, a time when the global debate on the external as wellas internal viability of small states was still in full swing. In addition, the options open tothese small states were, or at the very least appeared to be, very limited. Colonialism hadbequeathed to them a parliamentary system of government, an orientation toward moderaterather than radical change, and economic structures that fostered dependence on a few prod-ucts and a few trading partners. As independence was not achieved through any long anti-colonial struggles, there was no strong antagonism toward the British (Western) model ofpolitics and development. Caribbean leaders generally opted for the Puerto Rican “open”economy model, dubbed “industrialization by invitation,” which achieved early growth inthat island, although at enormous social cost.

Leaders were also faced with the important reality that they were in the United States’sphere of influence at a time when the anticommunist concerns of the United States wereheightened by events in Cuba. In one of the Caribbean states, Guyana, the ideological com-petition had already reared its head. In 1950, the Marxist Cheddi Jagan and the avowedsocialist Linden Forbes Burnham had formed the People’s Progressive Party (PPP). The partywas victorious in the first general election held under adult suffrage in 1953. However, thegovernment it formed lasted only 133 days, as British troops were sent in to prevent theestablishment of a “communist-dominated state.”72 The U.S. Central Intelligence Agencywas also, on its own admission, involved in fostering racial and economic disturbances in thecountry in the early 1960s. In the mid-1950s, Burnham formed his own party, the People’sNational Congress (PNC), and under the system of proportional representation institutedwith Jagan’s approval, he was able to achieve power in 1964 and hold on to it by dubiousmeans until his death in 1985.

With an eye on geopolitics and history, the Commonwealth Caribbean territories thatgained independence in the 1960s adopted the conservative strategy of continuing the tradi-tional patterns of external economic and political ties. The United Kingdom remained theirmost important trading partner, although, except for Barbados, the United States soon out-stripped it in importance. Foreign aid was received primarily from the United States and the

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16•

Small States in G

lobal Affairs

Table 1.1 Caricom countries, basic data

Country Year of Area sq. km Population Per capita GDP, % GDP agri- % GDP manufac- % GDP ser- Human develop-independence (approx. sq. mi.) (thousands, mid-2004) $US 2004 culture 2003 turing/industry 2003 vices 2003 ment rank 2004a

Antigua/ 1981 442 (171) 80.5 8,594.6 3.2 19.8 70.1 59Barbuda

Bahamas 1973 13,878 (5,000) 318.8 15,099.3 3.2 13.0 71.8 52

Barbados 1966 430 (166) 268.9 10,538.1 3.0 18.5 64.5 31

Belize 1981 22,696 (8,666) 264.3 3,594.1 14.3 26.9 55.3 95

Dominica 1978 751 (270) 78.5 3,466.3 15.4 24.5 55.8 68

Grenada 1974 344 (133) 102.3 3,871.7 9.3 23.4 60.4 85

Guyana 1976 214,969 (83,000) 750.2 1,037.0 32.1 20.7 35.4 103

Haiti 1804 27,750 (10,714) 8,406.9 471.1 28.3 29.0 47.2 154

Jamaica 1964 10,990 (4,111) 2,639.2 471.1 5.2 42.5 62.9 104

St. Kitts- 1983 261 (101) 42.2 9,268.5 2.4 31.6 62.2 51Nevis

Saint Lucia 1979 539 (238) 159.5 4,505.8 4.5 19.4 71.5 71

St. Vincent 1979 388 (150) 118.4 4,505.8 7.4 26.3 59.3 88

Suriname 1975 163,265 (63,039) 446.5 2,475.9 10.4 23.9 67.8 89

Trinidad 1962 5,130 (1,980) 1,301.3 8,771.6 0.9 63.6 53.7 5and Tobago

Source: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Handbook of Statistics 2005; United Nations Development Program, Human Development Report 2006.a The Human Development Rank is based on an index that includes many social factors and ranges from 0–1. In terms of rank, countries ranked from 1–63 were considered as having high

human development; 64–146, medium human development; and beyond that, low human development.

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United Kingdom. Security and defense arrangements centered on the same two countries, anddiplomatic ties were primarily with Western developed and pro-West developing countries.

In the 1970s, most of the Caribbean experienced major changes. At the level of the inter-national system, the rapprochement between the superpowers and the rise of the third worldincreased the choices open to the Caribbean countries. Third world and nonaligned ideasand concerns permeated the Caribbean, first at the popular level (except for Guyana, wherethe leadership undertook changes on its own), and then among the governing elite. In thecase of Guyana, the leadership moved the country toward “cooperative” socialism in 1970,proceeding to transform the economy into a state-run one and the polity into one in whichthe party was “paramount.”73 In Trinidad and Tobago, popular agitation in 1970 led to thegovernment’s adoption of a policy of localization of the economy. In Jamaica, the tide ofchange brought to power the Michael Manley government, which introduced socialisticreforms. Barbados was the only country not to undergo significant change.

The result of these changes, as far as the external dimension is concerned, was the emer-gence of new foreign policies. There was a general diversification of diplomatic ties in thedirection of Afro-Asia and the socialist bloc, especially by Guyana and Jamaica. Ties withLatin America were already cemented through Caribbean participation in the Organizationof American States (OAS), although Guyana and Belize were excluded from the organizationbecause of their border disputes with Latin American members. Caricom countries estab-lished relations with Cuba in 1972 and helped found the Latin American Economic System(Sistema Latinoamericano Ecónomico, SELA) as an organization that excluded the UnitedStates while including Cuba. Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago joined the Non-aligned Movement (NAM), with Guyana assuming a particularly active role.

A new group of countries came to independence in the l970s—the smaller countries ofthe eastern Caribbean. The first of these to gain independence was Grenada, which achievedindependence only after considerable popular agitation targeted against the authoritarianleadership of Eric Gairy. Between 1974 and 1979, Grenada, still led by Gairy, maintained apro-West stance, but the resurgence of the anti-Gairy opposition led in 1979 to his over-throw and replacement by the socialist People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG). This pro-duced a reorientation in external emphasis toward the socialist countries, including Cubaand Nicaragua.

The Bahamas achieved independence in 1973, but it maintained a consistent pro-Weststance despite periods of disagreement with U.S. policy. Conservative external and internalstances also characterized the eastern Caribbean countries that emerged to independenceafter 1974. Still, the Bahamas, Barbados, and Saint Lucia, along with Belize, which gainedindependence in 1981, joined the NAM in the early 1980s.

All the Caribbean states moved closer to the third world or global south in terms of theirparticipation in international economic forums, including their support for the economicreforms embodied in the landmark United Nations Declaration and Action Program on theEstablishment of a New International Economic Order (UN General Assembly Resolutions3201 and 3202, May 1974). Other south-oriented actions included Jamaica’s leading role inthe creation in 1974 of the International Bauxite Association, a cartel modeled along thelines of the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC); the south-south coop-eration embodied by Caribbean participation in 1975 with African and Pacific countries innegotiations to establish preferences for their agricultural products in the markets of theEuropean Community; and, regionally, Caribbean support cited earlier for the formation of

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SELA in 1975. Meanwhile, Trinidad and Tobago, its wealth having increased as a result ofOPEC actions, assumed a new role as aid donor to the rest of the English-speakingCaribbean.

The 1970s also saw another facet of Caribbean policy emerge, that is, a closer relationshipwith nearby Venezuela. Until then, Trinidad and Tobago had been the only country with rel-atively close relations with Venezuela, based on geographical proximity. In the early1970s,Venezuela began to perceive the Caribbean as important to its security interests andembarked on a political and economic thrust into the area just as the decolonization processwas accelerating in the eastern Caribbean. Initial Caribbean suspicions about Venezuelanintentions, primarily asserted by Trinidad and Tobago’s prime minister Dr. Eric Williams,were replaced by diplomatic, economic, and cultural ties.74

As the English-speaking Caribbean moved into the late 1970s and 1980s, furtherchanges occurred. In the international system, East-West tensions increased once more, andthe new U.S. administration took a harder line toward militant socialist-oriented national-ism. By the time the Reagan administration assumed power in the United States, the Man-ley regime in Jamaica had already been voted out of power by a people tired of the economichardship and violence engendered by misguided if well-meaning domestic policies andexternal economic pressures. Jamaica then turned to the right, an orientation reflected in itsreturn to pro-West policies. Guyana, also suffering from economic malaise caused by mis-management, a repressive political and social climate, and the effects of the worldwiderecession, turned back (beginning in the late 1970s) to the West for economic and militaryassistance. Economic liberalization was affirmed after the death of Prime Minister Burnhamin 1985. Economic stagnation also led Trinidad and Tobago to seek a somewhat more openeconomy in the 1980s. In Grenada, internal elite instability led to U.S. intervention and theinstallation of a pro-U.S. regime. At the same time, the eastern Caribbean–U.S. relation-ship was cemented by the fact that it was these states that requested U.S. intervention inGrenada in the crisis of 1983. Barbados, in particular, having moved closer to the UnitedStates in the late 1970s, affirmed its solidly pro-West orientation by playing a leading rolein this intervention. Meanwhile, Belize experienced a change of government in 1984 thatbrought a more conservative government to power. At the same time, for most of thesecountries, relationships with the global south or third world remained important, and sup-port for third world political and economic causes continued.

In the late 1980s and 1990s, the end of the cold war brought new changes in Caribbeandomestic and foreign policy. Internally, the region saw the end of the era of postcolonialnationalist or ideological leadership and the rise of pragmatic, more technically orientedleaders. Even Michael Manley, who returned to power in 1989, and the Marxist CheddiJagan, who finally succeeded in wresting power from the PNC in 1992, adopted pragmaticapproaches both domestically and internationally. This pragmatic orientation, continuinginto the 2000s, was fostered by an international environment in which there remained onlyone superpower. Absent the East-West ideological competition, global economic and socialissues became a high priority for all states and societies. The changed environment forcedCaribbean countries to revisit the “open economy” model and devise national and regionalstrategies for greater economic competitiveness. The foreign policy of the English-speakingCaribbean was dominated by efforts to delay and adjust to the ending of preferential accessto traditional markets, to enhance regionalism both within Caricom as well as in the context


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of new arrangements with Central America and South America, and to search for newsources of trade, aid, and investment.

In the 2000s, adaptive policies accelerated. Other issues high on both the global andCaribbean agenda today are poverty alleviation, reduction in crime, containment of theHIV/AIDS epidemic, and continued efforts to deal with narcotrafficking and its effects.“High politics” political crises, however, have not been entirely absent from the post–coldwar regional agenda, among them conflicts in Panama, Haiti, and Cuba. Global terrorismhas also constituted a new issue demanding response from Caricom states like all otherstates in a highly integrated world. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the UnitedStates on September 11, 2001, Caricom countries, under external pressure, set aboutdevising counterterrorist strategies that led in turn to greater security cooperation in theregion.

Table 1.2 provides a schematic representation of the broad outlines of the foreign policychanges that have taken place in the English-speaking region.

Suriname75

The first non-English speaking country to be admitted into Caricom was Suriname. Asshown in Table 1.3, however, Suriname’s foreign relations history, if not its political history,is relatively similar to that of the eastern Caribbean countries that emerged to independencein the 1970s. Having gained its independence in 1975, Suriname, like the English-speakingstates, continued its economic and financial dependence on the former colonial power, inthis case the Netherlands. Suriname’s South American identity was affirmed by membershipin the OAS, SELA, the Latin American Energy Association (Organización Latinamericanade Energía, OLADE), and the Amazon Treaty of Cooperation. But Suriname also empha-sized its third world identity by joining the NAM.

This first period of Suriname’s relations ended in 1980, when a military junta took con-trol of the country. Initially Dutch aid continued, but the junta’s increasing domestic harsh-ness led to an eventual cutoff of assistance. Suriname’s relations were then shifted in thedirection of Cuba and other socialist partners, with limited success. This period of reducedSurinamese global involvement ended with political liberalization in 1987. Even though themilitary returned to power briefly in 1990–1991, Surinamese foreign relations remainedmore or less consistent. Still, relations with the Dutch, primarily focused on issues relating topromised economic assistance, fluctuated—they were renewed and strengthened under theNational Front regime that held power in the early 1990s and again in the early 2000s, butthey deteriorated under the National Democratic Party (NDP), which held power between1996 and 2000. (The NDP government had been criticized for its poor economic adminis-tration, and as a result, Dutch aid was halted.) Suriname has since sought to diversify its rela-tions by joining global Islamic institutions, deepening its ties with Latin America,particularly the neighboring states of Venezuela and Brazil, engaging in various economicand development initiatives with Far eastern partners, and initiating links with the nearbyCaribbean states, resulting in membership in Caricom and the Association of CaribbeanStates (ACS).

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Haiti76

Among the current members of Caricom, Haiti, the newest member, stands out as having alonger and very unique history. Haiti was the first Latin American country to achieve itsindependence in 1804. A rough scheme of the periods of Haiti’s foreign relations since inde-pendence is given in Table 1.4. The first period was characterized by forced isolation andinternal consolidation. Independence occurred as a result of slave revolts at a time when slav-ery was still the norm in the world. The United States feared the effect of Haitian indepen-dence on its own slave-holding states, particularly Louisiana, which had been newly acquiredfrom the French in 1803, and as a result, did not recognize Haiti until 1862. Meanwhile,Haiti continued its conflictual relations with the former colonial power France, which still


Table 1.2 Major aspects of English-speaking Caribbean foreign policy

Time period Operational environment Foreign policy orientation Major linkages

1962–1969 Peaceful transition to Conservative: United Kingdom,independence in a bipolar pro-West United States, international system: cold war Carifta, active in

UN

1970–1979 “Black Power” nationalism; Nationalist and United States,socialist experimentation in militant nationalist: United Kingdom,the region amid détente socialist Europe, Caricom,between the superpowers; experimentation Afro-Asian, Latin United States is preoccupied America.with Vietnam and domestic civil rights unrest, and later, Sovietbloc/Carter administration relaxes Cuba/Nicaragua,tensions with the Soviet militant MiddleUnion; rise in influence of East; nonalignedthe nonaligned; influence ofOPEC and other cartels; Britain joins European Community

1980–1989 Independence of eastern Conservative to moderate West, Caricom,Caribbean completed; rise of nonalignedconservative regimes cemented by Grenada invasion; restructuring ofeconomies; conservative Reagan administration in power in United States; promotion of liberalization affects Caribbean

1990–2007 Continuing economic Conservative to moderate United States, liberalization amid Europe, enhanced globalization; rise of Caricom, enhanced pragmatic leadership; end of relations with Latincold war increases concerns America, some about marginalization diversification

toward Asia

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maintained control of the eastern side of the island. France recognized Haiti in 1825 butforced it to pay an indemnity of 150 million francs, lowered in 1838 to 90 million francs.Ironically, Haiti paid for this with a succession of exploitative borrowings from Frenchbanks.77 Meanwhile, Germany sent naval vessels on several occasions to intimidate Haiti intopaying indemnities to its nationals in Haiti. Haiti also had tense relations with Britain, whichhad previously occupied Haiti/St. Domingue, and with Spain, which had previously held theeastern territory and eventually returned to that area, with British help, in 1809.

Up to the 1870s, conflict continued to dominate Haiti’s relations with Santo Domingo:Haiti ruled its neighbor from 1822 to 1844 and later helped that country defeat the Euro-peans. But Haiti also remained a perceived military threat to its neighbor at least until 1895,when a shaky border accord—replaced with a stronger one in 1930—was reached. As forHaiti’s relations with the other Latin American states that came to independence during thisperiod, their weakness can be judged by the fact that Haiti was not invited to attend the Boli-varian-inspired Spanish American congresses held between 1826 and 1883, despite the factthat these congresses were held in the context of the struggle against recolonization by boththe Spanish and French. And this, despite the fact that Simón Bolívar had spent some timein exile in Haiti.

In the second period from the late nineteenth century up to the U.S. occupation, Haitiwas opened up to European and U.S. investment. France and Germany, in particular, con-trolled banking and loans to the island. Britain also maintained trading relations with theisland. Indeed, the U.S. intervention of 1915 was precipitated by the economic competitionbetween the Europeans and Americans, aggravated by concerns about Haiti’s chronic politi-cal instability and Germany’s aggression during World War I. At this time, too, Haiti began

Introduction • 21

Table 1.3 Major aspects of Suriname’s foreign policy


1975–1979 Peaceful transition to Conservative to Netherlands,independence;Suriname emerges moderate: pro-West Europe, Unitedin a bipolar international States, Latin system but with détente America, nonbetween the superpowers; aligned (toward therising influence of the nonaligned end of period)

1980–1983 A military coup; civil strife; Nationalist Europe, Soviet bloccivil strife; military and military- /Cuba/Nicaragua,civilian rule; influence of militant Middlethird world; socialism in nearby East; nonalignedGrenada as well as Nicaragua

1984–1987 Continuation of military rule; Nationalist to status quo Europe, nonalignedcivil instability; U.S. invadesGrenada; conservative Reaganadministration

1988–2007 Economic and political libera- Conservative to moderate United States,lization amid end of cold war Netherlands/and rise of globalization and Europe, enhancedand liberalization Caricom links,

Latin America,and Asia

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Table 1.4 Major aspects of Haiti’s foreign policy


1804–late Struggle to consolidate indepen- Forced isolationism Relations (with 1800s dence; indemnities paid to France, periods of conflict)

Germany; takeover/ceding of with France, Dominican Republic; ostracism Germany, Domini-and/or conflict with United States, can RepublicEuropeans, and Latin Americans

Late 1880s– Economic and political instability; Consolidation/expansion France, Germany, 1914 gradual recognition/investment by of relations Britain, United

Europe and the United States; States; period endsWorld War I concerns with U.S. domi-

nance; relationswith Latin America grow

1915–1934 U.S. intervention and occupation Conservative United States; Dominican Republic (conflict as wellas cooperation)

1936–1985 Rise of dictatorship; Pro-West; anticommunist United States;slight liberalization after 1971 France;(death of “Papa Doc” Duvalier; Dominicanhuman rights and refugee issues; Republic (butWorld War II; cold war major conflict in

1937); some links with Cuba; links with Latin America through OAS; linkwith the Bahamas and Jamaica

1986–1990 Liberalization, instability, free Nationalist Europe, United elections; military coup; end of States, Canada, cold war; U.S. dominance; Latin America,global promotion of economic and Caribbean and political liberalization; rise (but deteriorationof human rights concerns in relations with

United States)1991–1993 Instability: military rule; human Status quo Some assistance

rights issues; acceleration of refugee from Dominican outflow; international sanctions Republic

1994–2003 Restoration of President Aristide; Moderate; ends with status quo North American,initial period of stability followed European, Latin by political impasse and violence; American support;economic stagnation; UN and Haiti joins other external assistance; aid halted Caricom andwith impasse Association of

Caribbean States;period ends with stagnation in rela-tions with North America and Europe

2004–2007 Opposition brings down Conservative Relations with allgovernment; elections; restoration partners restored; of external assistance Caricom breaks

relations but renews them in2006

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to play a greater role in international affairs, participating in the Pan-American Conferencesbeginning in 1889 that led to the formation of the Union of American Republics/Pan Amer-ican Union in 1910. Haiti also participated in the second of two major global conferencesheld at The Hague in 1907, and it joined the League of Nations at its inception.

The third period of Haiti’s international relations is delineated by the U.S. occupation,which lasted from 1915 until 1934. Not only did Haiti’s military security come to dependon the United States but the United States also took over Haitian customs collection andbudget management, officially in order to ensure timely repayment of large accumulatedEuropean debts. At this time, Haiti’s external relations were concentrated not only on theUnited States but also on Cuba and the Dominican Republic.78 With respect to Cuba, rela-tions centered on the ill treatment of Haitians who had migrated to work in the sugar plan-tations; with regard to the Dominican Republic, apart from similar issues of migration,Haiti’s president at the time (1929), Louis Borno—who began his career as a diplomat in theDominican Republic—negotiated a frontier treaty ending a dispute over Haiti’s right to thecentral plateau, dating from the separation of the Dominican Republic from Haiti in 1844.Demarcation issues persisted, but the treaty was amended agreeably in 1935 and 1936.However, settling the border did not halt Dominican-Haitian border incidents. Dominicanill-treatment and violence—with racial overtones—against Haitian migrants has been arecurring theme in the relations between the two countries. The situation came to a head in1937, when Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo sanctioned the massacre by his army of sometwenty thousand unarmed Haitians, most in border areas. After U.S.-mediated negotiations,the Dominican Republic was asked to pay an indemnity of $750,000 to Haiti, a sum laterreduced to $525,000.

After the disruptions of World War II, Haiti, like the rest of the region, was caught in thecold war geopolitics that dictated close relations with the United States. Internally, Haitisuccumbed to dictatorship, first under François Duvalier (1957–1971), and then under hisson Jean-Claude Duvalier (until 1986). Despite the lack of basic human and civil rights inHaiti during this period, the United States was Haiti’s main economic supporter, especiallyduring the slightly more liberal era of Jean-Claude Duvalier. Haiti engaged in occasionalflirtation with socialist countries, but it was seen by the United States as an anticommunistbulwark against Cuban influence. France and Germany also continued their role as Haiti’smajor European partners. In other spheres of foreign activity, Haiti was a founding mem-ber of the United Nations as well as the OAS, which in 1948 institutionalized the inter-American partnership begun in the late 1880s. During the cold war, Haiti’s relations withthe immediate Caribbean region beyond the Dominican Republic were weak, thestrongest—mainly consular and cultural—ties being with nearby Jamaica and the Bahamas.In the 1970s, Haiti was admitted as an observer to several Caricom committees, but a per-manent observer role was not accorded until democratization began in 1989. As for rela-tions with the Dominican Republic during the postwar period, these were generallyofficially correct, both under the dictator Rafael Trujillo (1930–1961) and under theauthoritarian but elected Joaquin Balaguer during his first term from 1966 to 1978.79 Rela-tions were not, however, cordial during the brief interlude of the liberal Juan Bosch presi-dency in the Dominican Republic (1963). Bosch supported the efforts of Haitian exilesagainst the dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, and the violation of the Dominican embassy inPort-au-Prince during Haitian disturbances almost led to war between the two countries.The situation was resolved by OAS mediation.

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A new period of global involvement in Haiti began with the exile of Jean-Claude Duva-lier after serious domestic protests. Between 1986 and 1991, Haiti began a process of democ-ratization characterized by military rule interrupted by two short, imperfect civilianexperiments—the presidency of Leslie Manigat, elected in military controlled elections in1988, and the selection of Ertha Pascal-Trouillot as a compromise, temporary president in1990. Initially, Haiti’s foreign relations were invigorated by tangible support from the UnitedStates and the European Community, which Haiti became associated with by joining theAfrican-Caribbean-Pacific Group (ACP) in 1989. However, international aid was cut off fol-lowing canceled elections in 1987 and was not fully restored until after the free election ofPresident Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1990. Aristide’s overthrow in 1991 led to renewed inter-national sanctions, first imposed by the OAS and then by the United Nations. In the initialstages, Haiti could still count on some economic support from Europe, since the EuropeanCommunity did not immediately initiate an embargo against Haiti. Interestingly, linksbetween Haiti and the Holy See, which had been alarmed by the liberation theology of Pres-ident Aristide, were also maintained.80 Moreover, the Dominican Republic, which underPresident Aristide had experienced heightened tensions with Haiti over the treatment ofHaitian workers, enforced the embargo half-heartedly at best. Haiti’s ostracism increased,however, in 1993–1995. This period was characterized by intense diplomatic maneuveringsbetween Haiti and the United Nations, OAS, United States, and a group of concerned“friends” (France, Canada, and Venezuela), all hoping to resolve the stalemate between theHaitian military regime and the president-in-exile Aristide. Haiti’s ousted president was rec-ognized by the international community as the legitimate head of state, traveled extensivelyduring this period of exile to seek help in removing the military regime, and was a frequentinvited participant, as Haitian president, at regional (including Caricom) and internationalconferences.

A new stage in Haiti’s foreign policy was marked by the end of international ostracismachieved by the U.S. invasion and the restoration of Aristide in 1994–1995, and also thepeaceful transition in 1996 to a new president, René Préval. Haiti was accepted as a memberof the newly established ACS in 1994 and as a full member of Caricom in 1997. Military,financial, and economic relations with the United States remained strong, while major tradelinks with Europe, France in particular, were resumed at precrisis levels. Aristide was returnedto power in 2000–2001. However, after legislative elections that were deemed not to be “freeand fair” by international observers, domestic as well as external opposition to Aristideincreased, and foreign aid to Haiti was halted. With the country in a state of continued inse-curity and economic decline, opposition elements—both the formal opposition elite as well asrebels comprising disillusioned former supporters and other longstanding enemies—managedto force Aristide to resign in 2004, with the United States playing a major role in bringingabout his departure and facilitating his temporary exile to the Central African Republic. (Aris-tide later settled in South Africa, a country whose president joined with Caricom nations inopposing his forced departure.) Caricom played a major but unsuccessful role during theseyears, seeking to bring an end to the impasse between the Haitian government and opposi-tion. Caricom efforts were, however, overtaken by events. After the exile of Aristide, U.S.troops entered Haiti to secure order, later handing over operations to a UN peacekeepingforce. An interim government was put in place in 2005, and elections followed in 2006. Cari-com, which had suspended Haiti from participation in 2004, renewed its relationship afterthe election. A new phase of increased international interaction began for Haiti.


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CHAPTER 2

Political-Security Interests

Caricom Perceptions

Given their small size and small armies (where they exist), the Caricom states—excluding the unique case of Haiti, which, as discussed in the last chapter, early inits history occupied the Dominican Republic—have not had the capacity to engage,

and do not desire to engage, in external military adventurism. The gains to be had from anysuch adventurism, presumably targeted on neighbors that share a common history, culture,and identity, would be hard for them to envisage. As a Barbadian minister of external affairsonce noted, “We have neither the resources nor the desire to exercise military power. We havelittle land but we do not (like some with even more than they can properly handle) want toacquire others. We have no quarrels to pursue and do not regard any state as a natural oppo-nent.”1 Nevertheless, the fact that these states have not engaged in any overt hostilities doesnot mean that they have not had to deal with military and political threats from others. Asnoted in the last chapter, small states are particularly vulnerable to external pressures.

In this regard, none of the larger states have, like Costa Rica, opted to do without an army.While the retention of an army is at least partially attributable to reasons of prestige, experi-ence has also shown that there are enough threats in the environment to support the need forsome defensive military capability. It is true that for some states, the military presence hasbeen politically problematic. Successive regimes have struggled to keep Haiti’s army in check,and Suriname’s army has intervened in its politics with unhappy results. But the armies of thecore English-speaking states have overall played the positive roles for which they weredesigned: to be “symbolically” defensive—able to resist until international help shouldarrive—as well as to provide help to the government in internal security matters.2 Moreover,the military’s role has expanded to meet modern demands posed by transnational threats, aswell as humanitarian contributions in regional crisis situations.

Caricom states have also been proactive in supporting the redefining of security to gobeyond military aspects. In the 1970s and 1980s, they supported third world conceptualiza-tions of economic security,3 and by the 1990s, they were in the forefront of promoting theimportance of “human security.” Human security, on which a consensus emerged in theglobal community, recognizes that broad issues of social development must be dealt with if

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the benefits of globalization are to be shared by all. Caricom states endorse the view that securityis multidimensional, including economic and social aspects as well as political, and that it is indi-visible, that is, that the security of the region depends on the security of the individual states.

In this chapter, both historical or traditional security challenges as well as newer transna-tional threats confronting the region are described. In the next, issues of human security andeconomic development are outlined.

Traditional Threats

A number of Caribbean countries have faced threats in one form or another emanating fromunsettled border disputes and territorial claims.

Border Problems

HaitiHaiti’s exceptional history is also one of constant concern about territorial challenges. Asnoted in Chapter 1, independent Haiti, ruled by former slaves, spent much of the first halfof the nineteenth century battling France, Britain, and Spain for control of the eastern partof the island. Haiti did succeed in ruling Santo Domingo (the Dominican Republic) from1822 to 1844. It is not surprising, then, that Haiti’s relations with the Dominican Republicshould evolve in a highly conflictual manner well into the twentieth century and be a centralfocus of its security concerns. History has colored these relations with deep distrust andantagonism, and this has been reflected in border disputes and ill-treatment of each other’snationals. According to Dominican researcher Rubén Silié and Haitian diplomat GuyAlexandre, “The relations between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, as happens withmany countries that share a frontier, have remained in a state of constant turbulence, fortheir proximity has forced the constitutive bases of both states to be established in a contextof territorial disputes, political struggles and a sea of prejudices derived from those con-frontations.”4

Haitian-Dominican border arguments centered on who owned the central plateau thathad originally not been on the French side when the Treaty of Aranjuez was drawn up in1777. Because at the time of Haitian independence, Spain had ceded the entire island toFrance (1795), and since the Haitians overran the French troops during the war, the plainwas incorporated into Haiti. With the subsequent unification of the island under Jean-PierreBoyer, the issue became moot until 1844. However, by the Treaty of Paris (1814), France,which did not yet recognize Haiti, gave Spain the eastern part of the island up to the borderof 1777, and in 1865, Spain recognized this as the border in giving the Dominican Repub-lic its independence.5 After 1844, the dispute came to the fore, with both sides adamant intheir claims. In 1895, the two sides agreed to submit the dispute to papal arbitration with thestipulation that if the ruling were favorable to the Dominican Republic, the central plateauwith its Haitian population would still remain in Haitian hands but Haiti would pay com-pensation to its neighbor. The pope decided not to arbitrate, and it was not until 1929 thatan accommodation was reached by which Haiti kept the central plain but gave a few con-cessions to the Dominican Republic. Despite some domestic opposition on both sides and


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subsequent difficulties in actually demarcating the frontier, the dispute was settled after someamendments in 1935 and 1936.

Unfortunately, this did not prevent further border problems. The border was a porous oneand Haitians had settled along it, crossing to work in the Dominican Republic. Not longafter the settlement, in 1937, the dictator Rafael Trujillo, a strong proponent of “anti-Haitianism,” condoned a horrendous attack by the Dominican military on thousands ofHaitian peasants and their families near the border. G. Pope Atkins puts the number of deadat “at least 12,000 and perhaps as many as 25,000.”6 The Dominican Republic recognized18,000. The issue was settled with the help of the Organization of American States (OAS),which ordered the Dominican Republic to pay a relatively small indemnity of $750,000,later reduced by a third.

The border has continued to be the scene of ill-treatment and often outright violenceagainst Haitians. Hundreds of Haitians working in the Dominican Republic are returnedregularly across the border. In 1963, Dominican troops mobilized on the border after adomestic crisis erupted in Haiti. Also in 1963, Haitian dictator François Duvalier, afraid ofan invasion of exiles from the Dominican Republic, cleared a large stretch of border. AsSamuel Martínez notes, Duvalier “came to fear that an armed invasion of anti-Duvalieristswas poised to attack his regime from camps across the border. To meet this threat, he orderedthat a strip of three or four miles be cleared of all human habitation across the entire lengthof the Dominican border. . . . Several migrants attempting to return home were put to deathby hanging, and their bodies were displayed near the border as a warning to any others whowould cross.”7 On the other hand, observers note that the border is also the scene of cordialinterchange between Haitians and Dominicans. Persons living along the border generallyspeak both Spanish and Creole, the two sides trade informally with each other, and theDominican Republic has permitted this trade even during periods of internationally imposedisolation of Haiti.

Haiti also has a muted border dispute with the United States over the tiny island ofNavassa, which lies between Haiti and Jamaica and is under U.S. jurisdiction. The island isa wildlife refuge and is uninhabited; however, Haitian fishermen fish in the surroundingwaters.

Guyana, Belize, and SurinameGuyana and Belize have had the misfortune to have to deal with very serious threats to theirphysical survival emanating from Venezuela and Guatemala respectively. Guyana and Suri-name also are engaged in a sometimes rancorous contest over a strip of land along their riverborder as well as related contention over the limits of their territorial seas. In addition, Suri-name has a more muted conflict with French Guiana over the boundary formed by the Litaniand Marouini rvers.

In Guyana’s territorial dispute with Venezuela, Venezuela has claimed almost two-thirdsof Guyanese territory (called the Essequibo area), a claim rooted in alleged British expan-sionism into Spanish territory during the Gold Rush era, and irregularities during the arbi-tration process of 1899, specifically claims of a deal made among the arbitrators, with U.S.assent.8 Guatemala’s claim to Belize is based on British noncompliance with the terms of atreaty—specifically, a provision to allow Guatemala’s access to the Atlantic—by whichGuatemala formally recognized the existence of the British settlement on its eastern coast.Mexico had also claimed part of Belize on historical grounds but dropped its claim in the

Political-Security Interests • 27

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mid-1970s when it was seeking a major third world role. Guyana’s border dispute with itseastern neighbor Suriname centers on the true course of the Corentyne river that defines thefrontier. Both the sovereignty of the river itself and that of an area bordering it known as theNew River Triangle are in dispute. However, although this dispute has been periodicallytroublesome, it has not generally presented as dire a threat to national security as the onewith Venezuela.

The peak periods of conflict in the Venezuela-Guyana dispute were in 1966–1969 and in1982–1983. In 1966, Venezuelan troops occupied what the Guyanese regarded as their sideof Ankoko Island, an island in the Cuyuni river along the disputed frontier. In 1968,Venezuelan president Raúl Leoni issued a decree annexing the marine areas bordering thedisputed Essequibo zone. In 1969, Venezuela was implicated in an unsuccessful rebellion ofranchers seeking the secession of the southern Rupununi region of Guyana. In addition,throughout this period, Venezuela publicly tried to dissuade international companies frominvesting in the disputed zone, and it insisted on including the Essequibo zone in its consti-tution and maps. All this had the desired effect of creating difficulties for the young Guyanaanxious to exploit its resources to further its development.

In 1970, Trinidad and Tobago offered its good offices to Guyana and Venezuela in thesearch for a resolution of the dispute. The parties met in Port-of-Spain, where they signed aprotocol freezing the dispute for twelve years. But in 1982, when the Protocol of Port-of-Spain ended, Venezuela revived the dispute and conflict again intensified between the twoparties. Venezuela refused to include Guyana in the San José Accord, an oil-purchase schemein which it was a partner with Mexico, and made strenuous efforts to dissuade the WorldBank from giving Guyana a much-needed loan for development of the hydroelectric poten-tial of the Essequibo. Venezuelan aircraft frequently violated Guyanese airspace, and therewere a number of incidents caused by Venezuelan military personnel crossing the frontier.Amid the heated atmosphere between the two countries, ultranationalists in Venezuela begancalling for a seizure of the disputed territory by force. The atmosphere was not improvedwhen Guyana detained some Venezuelan fishing boats in late 1983 and the Venezuelanambassador to Georgetown was shot during a robbery in early 1984. At last, the appoint-ment by the United Nations of a mediator in the dispute eased tensions in the late 1980s and1990s, although Venezuela continued to publicly oppose any foreign investment in the ter-ritory. In 1998, it was the turn of the opposition in Guyana to express alarm at theannouncement of the imminent signing of a draft environmental treaty between the twocountries. Because the signing was to take place under the aegis of the UN good officerprocess under which border negotiations have proceeded, there was concern that this wouldgive legitimacy to Venezuela’s territorial claim.

When the left-leaning Hugo Chávez took power in December 1998, it was assumed thathe would let the dispute lie. But Chávez, a nationalist and a military officer at the time whenthe dispute was active, instead resurrected the dispute by reiterating his support for the claimnot only to the Essequibo but also to Bird (Aves) Island off Dominica (discussed furtherlater). Venezuela publicly opposed cessions by Guyana to foreign investors in oil and timberin the disputed zone and announced plans to issue its own oil concessions in the maritimearea. In 2000, Venezuela intensified its opposition when Guyana agreed, despite Venezuela’sloud objections to the project, to lease some of the disputed territory to Beal, a private aero-space company that wanted to use the property for launching rockets. (The project was laterabandoned by Beal for financial reasons.) Much-needed investment continued to be scared


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away from the Essequibo. Fortunately, in 2004, relations between the two countries took ona calmer tone when Chávez visited his counterpart in Guyana and, notwithstanding opposi-tion from militant quarters at home, agreed to permit Guyana to develop the zone for thebenefit of the area’s inhabitants. Guyana interpreted this as broadly as possible.9

While the Guyana-Venezuela dispute has been more contentious, the Suriname-Guyanadispute has also occasionally produced tension and hostilities. Peak periods of hostility have,not entirely fortuitously, paralleled periods of conflict on the Venezuelan border. Between1967 and 1970, as Guyana attempted to reinforce its territorial sovereignty, there were inci-dents arising out of the Guyanese expulsion of some Surinamese from the disputed area. Inthe mid-1970s, in the wake of Suriname’s independence and charges of Guyanese militarycollaboration with Cuba, and in the early 1980s, when Guyana blocked a Surinamese hydro-electric project in the disputed area, reports of troop mobilizations and border violationsheightened tensions between the countries. Suriname occasionally arrested Guyanese fisher-men working in the river and sought to publish maps showing the disputed New River Tri-angle as Surinamese territory. There was some thought that Guyana might try to blockSuriname’s entry into Caricom in 1994, but Guyana chose not to do so. In 1998, whenGuyana granted a concession to a Canadian company to explore the potentially oil-richmarine areas on the border, Surinamese authorities hinted that they might submit the dis-pute to the United Nations for settlement,10 but again restraint prevailed. However, in May2000, Surinamese patrol boats forcibly prevented the same Canadian company from drillingin contested waters, leading the two countries to engage in a mini–naval build up thatalarmed Caricom. Bilateral talks to resolve the issue failed inasmuch as Suriname rejectedGuyana’s offer to share in the returns from drilling. Similarly, intervention by Caricom failedto resolve the issue. This led Guyana to submit the dispute to UN arbitration under the prin-ciples established by the Law of the Sea Convention. Ironically, both Guyana and Surinamedesperately need the kind of economic boost that successful oil exploitation can bring.11

Turning to Central America, the Belize-Guatemala dispute was waged so determinedly byGuatemala that it prevented Britain’s granting of independence to Belize until 1981, andthen only with British security guarantees. In 1975, Guatemala was rumored to be preparingfor an invasion, and in 1977, the Barbadian government intercepted a planeload of armsbound for Guatemala.12 In 1982, Guatemalan army officials allegedly ventured across theborder, creating another minicrisis.13 Through the 1980s, there were periodic reports ofGuatemala mobilizing its troops along the border. Levels of verbal hostility were even higher.Attempts to resolve the dispute were inevitably derailed by strong domestic opposition. Thusin 1968, when a U.S. mediator suggested that Belize be granted independence in return forcertain Guatemalan rights over defense, foreign affairs, and the Belizean economy, there wereriots in Belize. Similarly, in 1981, when a Heads of Agreement plan gave Guatemala accessto the sea through Belizean territorial waters as well as free port facilities and the use of theseabed around two cays, widespread disturbances in Belize scuttled the agreement.

Depending on the sympathies and goals of changing governments, Guatemala, for its part,either focused on obtaining rights in southern Belize or reiterated its claim to all of Belize.Until 1987, Guatemala insisted on holding talks primarily with the United Kingdom, notBelize. Finally in 1987, Guatemala and Belize held their first direct talks, with the UnitedKingdom as observer. In 1988, a permanent joint commission was set up to draft a treaty thatwould encompass not only a border settlement but also cooperative projects for a joint devel-opment zone. In 1991, Guatemala finally recognized the right of Belize to self-determination


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and later normalized relations with Belize. Belize allowed Guatemala access through its terri-torial seas in the south in the Maritime Areas Act of 1992. Once again, however, oppositionin Guatemala to the recognition of Belize prevented Guatemala from dropping its claim ormoving toward any real settlement of the dispute. It was not until 2000 that the two sidesmet again in Miami (Florida), only to have those talks upset by an incursion of Guatemalantroops into Belizean territory.14 Later that year, the two sides finally agreed in talks at theOAS to an “adjacency zone” one kilometer on each side of the border. But incidents of bor-der incursions continued even as the negotiations also continued into the 2000s.15

DominicaBird Island (Isla de Aves) lies only about 70 miles from Dominica but more than 350 milesfrom Venezuela. Venezuela claims this island as the furthest of a chain of islands off itsnorthern coast. Since 1970, Dominica and Venezuela have conflicted over rights to marineterritory around this island, an issue that became extremely important with the endorse-ment in the Law of the Sea convention of 1982 of a two hundred–mile exclusive economiczone (EEZ) for states. Dominica, supported by Caricom countries, claims that Bird Islandis an uninhabited islet. On the other hand, Venezuela claims that this Isla de Aves is occu-pied year round by members of its coast guard and is an active scientific research and envi-ronmental station. The island is rich in guano deposits, is surrounded by coral reefs, and isalso one of the few places where the green turtle still nests. In 2004, Venezuela expanded itsscientific installation on the island, at which time the Venezuelan minister of the environ-ment asserted, “We should not forget that the Isla de Aves has an extraordinary geopoliticalimportance for Venezuela with its more than 200,000 kilometers of marine platform, exclu-sive economic zone in the Caribbean Sea and moreover, the possibility of having a presenceof both the Armed Forces and scientific equipment and research personnel on environmentand oceanographic issues.”16 Possession of the island allows Venezuela to extend itsCaribbean presence and territory as well as benefit from economic exploitation and envi-ronmental research. Venezuela’s rights are supported by France, the United States, and theNetherlands, whereas Caricom has reiterated its support for Dominica and other easternCaribbean states that might be affected by a Venezuelan claim to an expanded EEZ. Cari-com states have sought a settlement of the issue within the framework of the Law of the SeaConvention, but as of 2007 Venezuela’s offer of petro-aid to the region has led Antigua andSt. Vincent to soften their positions on the issue.

Trinidad and Tobago: Marine DisputesGiven the close proximity of Trinidad and Tobago to the South American continent, it is notsurprising that it has experienced disputes over marine territory with its neighbor Venezuela.A 1942 delimitation agreement of the Gulf of Paria—itself so unclear as to be the cause ofmany fishing disputes—was revised in 1989, in keeping with the realities of the third Law ofthe Sea Treaty, which affirmed the concept of EEZs. The 1989 treaty, however, became asource of argument between Trinidad and Tobago’s government and its opposition when thelatter claimed that under the treaty, Trinidad and Tobago had “given up” a significant portionof marine acreage to Venezuela as an “exit to the Atlantic” (though since that area was previ-ously undivided, it could not really be ceded). Moreover, the opposition claimed that someforty square miles of marine acreage in the gulf had been yielded in exchange for Trinidadand Tobago’s exercise of sovereignty in an area off its southeast coast where the countryalready had implied jurisdiction.


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Another cause of vexation for the opposition was the exclusion of Guyana from thetreaty negotiations, given the fact that the treaty delimitation line extended into areas dis-puted between Venezuela and Guyana. This was the more serious issue, since third partyinterests are considered highly relevant in cases such as these, as reflected in previous Inter-national Court of Justice rulings on delimitation lines between Tunisia and Libya (1982)and between Libya and Malta (1985). Although the domestic dispute ended when theTrinidad and Tobago government chose to ratify the agreement by cabinet rather than leg-islature, a companion issue resurfaced as a regional dispute in 2003–2004 when a fishingdispute with Barbados escalated into arguments about marine delimitation issues. Barbadoswas reluctant to use archipelagic criteria in delimiting the marine territory of Trinidad andTobago even though the latter claimed such status under the Law of the Sea Convention of1982. Moreover, Barbados’ noninvolvement in the delimitation with Venezuela raised theissue of the legality of that agreement. After failed efforts to resolve its concerns, Barbadossubmitted the delimitation dispute to the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea.Guyana, too, noting that the agreement infringed on a large part of its marine territory, hadalready submitted the dispute to the same agency. In 2006, the tribunal ruled on the Bar-bados submission: while rejecting Barbados’ claims to waters around Tobago, the tribunalgave Barbados additional marine acreage on the east that could, incidentally, boost itsattempts at oil exploration.17

Fishing Disputes

The prevalence of conflicts over fishing rights is a natural consequence of Caribbean geogra-phy—most states are islands. These disputes, though occasionally surfacing between most ofthe island nations, have been particularly common in the resource-rich southern Caribbean.For example, Guyana and Suriname have both complained about the illegal operation of for-eign fishing vessels in the Atlantic waters comprising their exclusive economic zones. Shrimpand other types of fish are the foundation of important industries in these countries; how-ever, their meager coast guard resources limit their capability at interdiction. In 1998, Suri-name acquired state-of-the-art equipment and boats with a generous loan from the Spanishgovernment, vessels that would also allow Suriname to more effectively patrol the disputedCorentyne. Guyana, too, has over the years allocated more funds to the coast guard andincreased patrols of its marine areas.

Trinidad and Tobago has also had a history of fishing disputes with Venezuela. Despite thedelimitation agreements already mentioned, Trinidadian fishermen regularly face harassmentand capture in the Gulf of Paria by Venezuelan national guard personnel who claim that thefishermen are in Venezuelan waters. High-level and middle-level talks notwithstanding, theproblem remains a constant source of irritation in Trinidadian-Venezuelan relations.

Some of the angriest exchanges have also taken place between Barbados and Trinidad andTobago. The contention over the delimitation of waters accelerated between 2000 and 2004with frequent arrests of Barbadian fishermen in what Trinidad and Tobago maintains are itsterritorial waters off the coast of Tobago. Barbados has claimed rights to migratory flying fishand also has claimed that a fishing agreement signed by Trinidad and Tobago with Venezuelain 2003 violated Barbados’ rights in its EEZ, thus raising the issue of maritime delimitationdiscussed earlier. Meanwhile, Trinidad and Tobago claimed that Barbados had unreasonablyrefused to renew a 1991 agreement granting limited access to its fishermen and also grantingaccess to preferential imports. After a fruitless round of talks, the fishing issue remained


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unsettled in 2004, when the maritime delimitation matter was referred by Barbados to the UNLaw of the Sea Tribunal. In its ruling in 2006 (cited earlier), the arbitral tribunal did not ruleon the fishing dispute per se, but rather urged the countries to negotiate an agreement thatwould permit Barbadian fishermen access to fisheries within the EEZ of Trinidad and Tobago.

Grenada, too, has periodically complained about illegal activity by both Barbadian andVenezuelan fishermen in its waters. Fishing disputes have also occasionally dampened rela-tions between the Bahamas and its neighbors the United States, Cuba, and the DominicanRepublic, given its approximately seven hundred islands and limited resources with which topatrol its borders. In addition, its maritime border with the United States is still disputed.Some major incidents between the Bahamas and its neighbors have occurred over the years,including a serious incident in 1979 when the Bahamas intercepted thirty-five U.S.-basedboats for illegally fishing in its waters; in the ensuing gunfire, one Cuban-American was shotand several other Americans were captured.18 In 1980, Cuban fighter aircraft fired on aBahamian patrol boat that had apprehended Cuban fishermen for poaching in the watersbetween Cuba and the Bahamas. Cuba later apologized for “involuntary violation” ofBahamian sovereignty and agreed to pay the Bahamas compensation of $5.4 million.19 ButCuban fishing boats still frequently bring Cuban defectors to the island. In 1996, the Bahamasand Cuba signed a repatriation agreement under which most defectors are returned to Cuba.The Bahamas also has a continuing problem with poachers from the Dominican Republic. Aserious crisis occurred in 1983 when the Dominican Republic accused the Bahamian coastguard of firing on a Dominican fishing boat. The crisis ended when the accusation proved tobe without substance because it occurred in an area not frequented by Bahamian boats.20 How-ever, Bahamian fishermen’s complaints only increased in the 1990s and 2000s: the Bahamiansfrequently accuse the Dominicans of trying to ram their boats and otherwise intimidate themeven as they deplete Bahamian fishing resources by not adhering to regulations limiting yields.The two sides have engaged in bilateral talks to try to resolve these issues.

External Interventions

As small countries, Caricom states have been acutely aware that domestic instability or pol-icy choices deemed unfriendly to a large neighbor can easily be a prelude to intervention.While it is true that historically most interventions have been undertaken by the hemisphericsuperpower, the United States, within the region there have been occasions when otherneighbors have intervened or been accused of interference in the domestic affairs of Caricomstates. It is important here, even though the boundaries can sometimes be blurred, to makea distinction between interventions undertaken unilaterally and those undertaken at therequest or with the backing of regional and international organizations even if national inter-est considerations may be implied. Except for a discussion of Haiti, this chapter deals withthe first, and not with global or regional humanitarian interventions. (Economic pressures,which can be just as destabilizing, are dealt with in the next chapter.)


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Haiti: Interventions by the United States and the Dominican Republic

Prior to the U.S. intervention of 1915, Haiti had become quite familiar with gunboat diplo-macy. When France recognized Haiti in 1825, it sought an indemnity of 150 million francsand delivered its demand by warships and cannons. Later, foreigners living in Haiti oftencalled on their embassies for help each time they had a difference with the police or Haitiancustoms,21 and this was often done by the sending of a warship to intimidate the leadershipin Port-au-Prince. In 1872 and again in 1897, Germany sent such warships, in the first caseeven making sure to desecrate the Haitian flag before leaving.22 Such interventions usuallybrought the demanded results, with Haiti apologizing or paying indemnities.

The 1915 intervention by the United States was undertaken at a time when the unilater-ally conceived Monroe Doctrine was a cornerstone of U.S. policy toward Latin America. In1915, Haiti was in dire economic straits and in the midst of political disorder after the assas-sination of President Vilbrun Guillaume. Guillaume was accused of ordering the massacre ofpolitical prisoners before fleeing to the French ambassador’s residence, where he was killed byan angry mob. The United States used the opportunity to establish a quasi-protectorate overHaiti (as it did as well the next year in the Dominican Republic) for an extended period, upto 1934.23 During that time, the United States controlled Haiti’s customs, oversaw paymentof debts and budgets, and managed Haiti’s security, though the condominium governmentalarrangement allowed Haiti’s leaders some limited input.

The 1915 unilateral intervention in Haiti can be contrasted with the 1994 U.S.-ledmultinational intervention, which also followed a period of political and economic disarrayin Haiti but was judged to be a “humanitarian intervention.” After the fall of the dictatorJean-Claude Duvalier in 1986, a transition followed in which a military-dominated nationalcouncil undertook various reforms. The holding of free elections was, however, thwarted byviolence, and later by the nonparticipation of major candidates because of perceived suspectelection procedures. Under subsequent military governments, human rights violationsincreased. A brief period of civilian government led eventually to the holding of free electionswon by populist Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Aristide was, however, ousted by the military inDecember 1990. Considerable effort by the international community—including sanc-tions—produced only recalcitrance on the part of the military regime led by Raoul Cédras.It took three years and the threat of a UN-supported U.S. invasion to finally remove Cédras.Last-minute negotiations by a team led by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter were suc-cessful in forcing his departure under an amnesty and hence forestalling an actual invasion.Instead, U.S. troops entered as peacekeepers, leading a multinational force of some twenty-thousand personnel who were later replaced by a UN peacekeeping mission that lasted from1993 to 1996.

Although the 1915 intervention was undertaken to restore order, it was a unilateral actionand one that reflected and benefited the economic and political interests solely of the UnitedStates. In contrast, the 1994 “humanitarian intervention” was undertaken multilaterally,though with U.S. forces in the forefront. Haiti was by then of little economic interest to theUnited States and no longer had utility as an ally in the cold war. In this case, although therestoration of democracy was an important goal, the populist Aristide was not strongly sup-ported by the United States. On the other hand, multilateralism does not necessarily implyan abnegation of national interest. U.S. intervention in Haiti—the end-product of its


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broader efforts to resolve the situation—was also the product of self-interested calculationsintended to deal with the huge inflows of unwanted refugees into the southern United States.

Importantly, the 1994 intervention highlighted the fact that very little had changed inHaiti since the 1900s in terms of the continuing reliance on the United States to resolveHaiti’s problems. This continued into the 2000s when, after a short period of democraticpromise under Presidents Aristide and René Préval, an impasse developed between the for-mal Haitian opposition and the government over the validity of the 2000 reelection of Aris-tide and his Lavalas party legislators. Over time, the organized opposition wascomplemented by an informal rebel group made up of former military elements as well asformer Lavalas supporters who had grudges of various kinds against the president and hisparty. In mid-2004, with this rebel army poised to take over the country, President Aristidewas urged to resign by the United States and France. U.S. forces facilitated his safe conductout of the country, but Aristide claimed to have been deceived into resigning. The forced res-ignation was particularly vexatious for Caricom states that had been trying hard for sometime to broker an agreement between the Haitian government and opposition.

If the interventions of the United States are the most prominent interventions in Haitianaffairs, neighboring Dominican Republic—itself historically often the target of interventionsby Haiti—has on occasion also posed a threat to various Haitian regimes by supportingrebellions against the government. This was the case in 1949, when the country was impli-cated in antigovernment disturbances in Haiti, a crisis that eventually brought down the gov-ernment of Dumarsais Estimé. In 1963, Juan Bosch lent support to Haitian rebels in theirefforts to overthrow the dictator François Duvalier. Earlier, the Dominican Republic hadcome close to invading Haiti after Haitian police had entered the Dominican embassy inPort-au-Prince in pursuit of anti-Duvalierists: they had withdrawn quickly but Haiti laterrefused to allow safe passage out of the embassy for persons accused of plotting against theregime. (These events resulted from an incident in which a car carrying the dictator’s chil-dren was shot at, unleashing various disturbances and reprisals.) War between Haiti and itsneighbor was only averted through the timely intervention of the OAS.24

In the 1990s, the Dominican Republic’s president Joaquín Balaguer, who cared little forthe populist Aristide, reportedly went so far as to provide refuge to some former Haitian mil-itary officers.25 Moreover, the Dominican Republic continued to trade with Haiti despite theinternational embargo intended to bring down Haiti’s military leaders. Although Balaguerleft power in 1996, such is the Haitian distrust of its neighbor that there was reportedly fearby some Haitians that the Dominican Republic would invade Haiti in order to prevent Aris-tide from being reelected in 2000.26 As indicated earlier, however, Haiti has also intervenedin its neighbors’ affairs, from outright invasion and control in the nineteenth century to har-boring Dominican rebels plotting to overthrow their government in the twentieth. In 1947Haiti sympathized with Cuba, Venezuela, and others in supporting an aborted anti-Trujilloinvasion of the Dominican Republic from Cuba. In the 1963 incident that almost led to war,the Haitian government was implicated in a plot to assassinate Bosch and bring the Trujillosback to power.

Fidel Castro’s Cuba also became a haven for refugees and rebels from various neighboringcountries, including Haiti. Even though official involvement was naturally denied, a smallgroup of Haitians and Cubans launched an unsuccessful invasion out of Cuba in 1969, andCastro indicated that he had forestalled several other attempts. Haiti has also been the targetof independent exile plots not backed by any hostile government per se. One widely reported


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case was a planned invasion by Cuban and Haitian exiles and U.S. mercenaries operating outof the United States in 1967. American authorities uncovered the plot and arrested the mainparticipants.

The United States and Trinidad and Tobago

Until the late 1980s and even into the 1990s, Trinidad and Tobago maintained a wary dis-tance from the United States in security affairs. In large part, this wariness was attributableto the difficulties experienced before and during the early independence period whenTrinidad and Tobago sought to recover its sovereignty over the U.S. naval and air base estab-lished at Chaguaramas during World War II. For strategic reasons, during the war, theUnited States had leased this base from the British for ninety-nine years in return for fiftydestroyers.27 The terms and size of the Trinidadian base were more extensive than agreementsfor other bases in Bermuda, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Antigua, Saint Lucia, and British Guiana.

When the nationalist anticolonialist leader Dr. Eric Williams came to power, first as pre-mier in 1956, he was determined to have the base returned to Trinidadian hands. Moreover,Chaguaramas had been chosen as the capital site for the West Indies Federation. It took yearsof agitation and negotiation before the base was finally returned, except for a tracking stationand a navigational station, in 1967.28 At one point, this fight over sovereignty was describedby Williams as a war of “military power . . . [versus] political power . . . war of weaponsagainst principles, of military discipline against political discipline, of armies and navies ver-sus people—or, more simply, of might versus right.”29 This was Trinidad and Tobago’s mostserious battle over its sovereignty, one that defined Williams as a charismatic nationalist andone that continued to color the way in which Williams and the country dealt with theUnited States in the first decades of Trinidad and Tobago’s independence. Even thoughTrinidad and Tobago adopted a firmly pro-West, anticommunist stance after independence,its political stances during this period reflected its leader’s strong belief in the anticolonialistand anti-imperialist cause.

Cold War Interventions: Guyana, Jamaica, Grenada

Caricom states’ attempts at ideological experimentation during the cold war led to a numberof conflicts with the United States, which perceived the region as a geopolitically importantone within its hemispheric “sphere of influence.” Ideological differences also spawned con-flicts within the region. Guyana, Jamaica, and Grenada engaged in major socialist experi-ments and therefore were the countries targeted for destabilization by the United States.Only in Grenada did this lead to a U.S. military intervention: instead, political and eco-nomic destabilization were usually the favored tactics. Guyana did, however, endure a mili-tary intervention on the part of the United Kingdom prior to independence.

In 1953, in the rigid early cold war years, British troops landed after Prime MinisterCheddi Jagan’s government passed what seemed like alarming socialist-sounding legislation.The intervention turned out to be embarrassing for the British, since the troops found noth-ing more than a cricket match in progress when they entered the capital.30 Then, in 1964,Guyana endured months of ethnic and labor agitation in the sugar belt, which later provedto have been part of a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) plan to destabilize the country. Inthe 1970s and 1980s, when the United States resorted to various economic pressures, Forbes


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Burnham charged that the United States was engaged in a destabilization campaign. TheU.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983, strongly opposed by Guyana, only increased Guyana’s fearof destabilization. The Guyanese vice president told a rally that “any internal disturbance inGuyana can now be used as an opportunity to intervene militarily.”31 In the next fewmonths, Burnham expelled two U.S. embassy employees and rejected the Americanappointee as ambassador to Guyana. Before he died in 1985, however, he bowed to eco-nomic realities and began to adopt a more conciliatory tone toward the superpower.

Similarly, under Michael Manley, Jamaica too was the target of intense U.S. pressure.Manley came to power in 1972, and by the mid-1970s had initiated various socialistic poli-cies accompanied by the development of close relations with Cuba. At the time, there wereallegations of CIA involvement in the growing internal violence in Jamaica. In the end, theUnited States gave open support to the opposition led by Edward Seaga. When Seaga’sJamaica Labor Party succeeded in coming to power, it quickly broke relations with Cuba andreturned Jamaica to a close relationship with the United States.

In Grenada, where the People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG) came to power by acoup in 1979 and chose to align itself with Cuba, the eastern bloc, and progressive thirdworld countries, there were continual charges of U.S. involvement in counterrevolutionaryactivities. Certainly, there were stepped-up U.S. military maneuvers in the Caribbeanregion.32 The Grenadian experiment in socialism ended with the U.S. invasion of 1983,facilitated by PRG infighting over the pace and nature of political transformation, which inturn led to a breakdown in government, a military takeover, and the arrest and execution ofPrime Minister Maurice Bishop and some of his cabinet members.

Concerns about Venezuelan “Imperialism”

Overtones of large-country dominance over the small have also colored Venezuela’s relationswith the Caribbean. Venezuelan threats against Guyana in their border dispute have alreadybeen described, as have Venezuelan disputes with Trinidad and Tobago and with Dominica.The issue of Venezuelan expansionism was a public peeve of Trinidad and Tobago’s foundingprime minister, Dr. Eric Williams. Most notably, in the 1970s, Trinidad and Tobago devel-oped strained relations with Venezuela after the latter had begun to define the Caribbean asan area of crucial strategic interest and, given the vacuum left by the pullout of Britain, hadbegun to engage in various economic initiatives in the region. Even though the Venezuelanoutreach was well received by Jamaican and eastern Caribbean leaders, Eric Williams, whosecountry was engaged in its own economic drive in the area, was suspicious of what he saw asVenezuelan imperialism. He openly expressed his concerns, which he based on a variety offactors, with an emphasis on “oil politics” and ongoing discussions on marine limits. In var-ious speeches made at the time, he pointed to the Venezuelan history of claims againstGuyana, against Trinidad (with respect to its offshore islands), and the Dutch Antilles, andalso to Venezuelan claims to Bird Island, and he related these claims to law-of-the-sea con-siderations and to the Venezuelan redefinition of the Caribbean as the “Caribbean Basin,”then a new concept. He also referred to the exclusion of Belize from a Venezuelan-Mexicanagreement (the San José Agreement) to sell oil to Central American countries, and toVenezuelan intransigence in deciding its fishing disputes with Trinidad and Tobago. He con-cluded that the bilateralism being pushed by Venezuela in the Caribbean “[had] all the hallmarks


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of the colonialism implicit in all the statements of Venezuelan publicists—the new Venezuelathey preach of in the context of the old colonialism of the Caribbean.”33

Venezuela reacted quickly to these verbal assaults, emphatically denying any expansionistambition in the Caribbean, and in time, tensions diminished. Nevertheless, despite the closeCaricom-Venezuela relations that were subsequently developed in the 1980s and 1990s, andthat continue today in the 2000s, some analysts and policymakers continued to be wary ofVenezuelan motivations. Venezuelan claims to Bird Island remained a sore point, andTrinidad and Tobago continued to frown on various Venezuelan attempts to engage in vig-orous petrodiplomacy, including, in the 2000s, an accord (PetroCaribe) promoted byVenezuelan President Hugo Chávez in an effort to increase his influence in the region.34

Concerns about Cuban and Libyan Interventionism

At certain points in time, the intrusions of Cuba (as a Soviet surrogate) and of Libya in theregion have also raised suspicions among Caricom nations. In the case of Cuba, Haiti,Panama, and the Dominican Republic were early targets of armed expeditions supposedlysupported by Castro. In the English-speaking Caribbean, the wariness toward Cuba in the1960s was described by Roy Preiswerk as follows:

Because of Cuba, the rejection of Communism is not simply accomplished by ignoring theexistence of the sources of Communist power. Jamaica, a close neighbour of Cuba, andTrinidad, aware of Castro-inspired subversive activities in Venezuela, display extreme vig-ilance in matters of Communist penetration. Both countries have banned the importationof Communist literature and the Jamaican government has acquired notoriety for with-drawing passports from University lecturers who visit Castro’s island. One of the majorelements which accounts for the close relationship between Trinidad and Venezuela is therecognition of mutual interest in the control of Communist infiltrators using Trinidadeither as a springboard or as a retreat from their activities on the continent.35

Venezuelan president Rómulo Betancourt (1959–1963) was another particular target of Cas-tro, who supported antigovernment guerrillas in Venezuela. In 1963, a Venezuelan airlinerwas hijacked by Castro-inspired guerrillas of the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional(FALN). When nearby Trinidad refused to give the hijackers asylum, the residence of itsambassador in Caracas as well as the British embassy were bombed. In 1966, Castro-inspiredsubversion was a major topic during the general election campaign in Trinidad and Tobago.Trade union agitation had led to the introduction a year earlier of a rigid Industrial Stabi-lization Act, and the government implicated labor activists who had visited Cuba in theunion unrest. In a campaign speech, Prime Minister Williams warned “Castroites” to

go out and finish with this Marxist ideology, which goes to Havana, Cuba and dares to sitdown and take part in subversive resolutions against the lawful Government of Trinidadand Tobago. To hell with Castro.

. . . Castro has no right to interfere with Trinidad and Tobago Affairs. . . . Castro hasno business setting up any revolutionary organization in order to interfere with and dis-rupt the normal development of Trinidad and Tobago.36


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However, by 1972, relations between Cuba and Trinidad and Tobago had improved so muchthat Trinidad and Tobago joined Jamaica, Barbados, and Guyana in establishing diplomaticrelations with their communist neighbor, to the chagrin of the United States. Still, after thisnormalization, Trinidad and Barbados kept a respectful distance from Cuba even as the gov-ernments of Jamaica and Guyana, and later Suriname and Grenada, moved to deepen theireconomic and political ties. In 1976, Barbados was the scene of a major terrorist act when aCuban airline flying out of Guyana blew up over Barbados. Anti-Castro Cuban exiles wereimplicated, apparently undertaking the action in retaliation for Guyana’s assistance to Cubathe year before in the ferrying of military equipment and troops to Angola. Barbados hadalso given the Cubans logistical support on their way to Angola.

By the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Caricom region was polarized between govern-ments that were socialist-oriented and, in the process, close to Cuba, and those that were not.The former were targets of Western destabilization; the latter feared destabilization and con-tagion from domestic elements linked to, or from admirers of, Cuba and its allies. In Jamaica,in particular, the political divisions between the parties helped bring about the deteriorationin the general social order and led to the fall of the government of Michael Manley. One ofthe earliest actions of the Seaga government was to break off relations with Cuba. Similarly,Suriname expelled Cuban diplomats after the invasion of Grenada. In the 1990s, Cuban rela-tions with Caricom states warmed as Cuba lost its Soviet sponsorship and reached out to theregion. A Cuba-Caricom cooperative mechanism was developed, and close relations contin-ued into the 2000s.

During the 1970s and early 1980s, another perceived threat emerged for a brief while—this time from faraway Libya. After Colonel Muammar Qaddafi came to power in 1969, hepromoted the cause of Arab unity and pan-Islam as well as his particular brand of revolu-tionary socialism. He was a strong supporter of progressive third world causes and sought tohave a major role in the developing world. In this context, he gave financial assistance tosocialist regimes, including Nicaragua and Grenada. But Libya was accused by the SaintLucian government of providing funding for antigovernment elements, and similar allega-tions were made by the governments of Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Vincent andthe Grenadines, and the Bahamas.37 The military government in Suriname also developedlinks with Libya. Fears of the “Libyan connection” subsided with the end of the revolution-ary experiments in the Caribbean in the early 1980s; however, they were revived in 1990after an attempted coup by a group of Black Muslims in Trinidad and Tobago. This grouphad received military assistance, training, and other assistance from Libya, but there was noevidence that Libya supported the coup itself. During the 1990s, Qaddafi’s global ambitionswere thwarted by the international ostracism of his country after it was implicated in the1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. UN sanctions were imposedin 1992 and were only suspended after Libya extradited two persons considered to be the ter-rorists behind the bombing in 1999. UN sanctions were finally lifted altogether in 2003when Libya accepted responsibility and began to pay the families of the 270 persons killed.Shortly thereafter, Libya announced its abandonment of a program to develop weapons ofmass destruction and opened its facilities to international inspectors.

Foreign Adventurism: Barbados and Dominica

Outside of the cold war context, physical threats to the political sovereignty of the core Eng-lish-speaking Caribbean islands have been rare. Two incidents are, however, worth mentioning.


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In October 1976 the government of Barbados announced that it had thwarted an attempt byforeign mercenaries, including two Americans, to overthrow the newly elected governmentof Tom Adams. Then in 1981, a former prime minister of Dominica was implicated in afoiled attempt by U.S. and Canadian mercenaries, some allegedly with Ku Klux Klan ties, tooverthrow the government of Eugenia Charles. The U.S. businessmen who financed theoperation were said to be interested in setting up a free port in Dominica. During theattempted coup, confronted by fire bombings of police stations and other attacks by armedguerrillas, Prime Minister Charles negotiated with Britain and France, as well as Barbados,for army personnel assistance. Fortunately, Dominica was able in the end to resolve the situ-ation without external intervention except for some limited help from Barbados.38 Never-theless, these coup attempts demonstrated how easily very small countries could becometargets for external adventurism. They introduced another rationale for Caricom vigilance insecurity areas at a time when the focus had been primarily on cold war concerns.

Domestic Turmoil

While the members of the core English-speaking Caribbean region have traditionally beenknown for the stability of their political institutions and culture, there have been occasionalinstances, outside of the cold war context, of domestic collapse that have resulted in requestsfor external aid. Assistance has generally been sought first from regional sources, but occa-sionally other nations have been alerted as well. Such was the case in Trinidad and Tobagoduring attempted coups on two occasions, in 1970 and 1990. In 1970, there were major, sus-tained antigovernment protests by disaffected segments of society and by university studentsangry over what they saw as the deepening “neocolonial” structure of the economy. In thisinstance, Venezuela and the United States provided the beleaguered government with armsand military equipment. The United States sent a shipload of marines to the area, and theUnited Kingdom placed frigates in the region on alert.

In 1990, a Black Muslim group, citing concerns about increasing social inequalities andperceived government insensitivity to this and other problems, took over the Trinidadianparliament while the members were still in session. These “Muslimeen” members hadreceived military training in Libya as well as medical and pharmaceutical supplies and fund-ing for various projects.39 During the five days of the siege, offers of U.S. military interven-tion were turned down on the ground that Trinidad could deal with the situation itself withthe assistance of its Caricom neighbors. Nevertheless, the army received advice (by phone)from American and Canadian specialists trained in hostage negotiations. Technical aid in theform of listening devices, sophisticated telescopic lenses, and night vision binoculars wasgiven by the United States, and members of the U.S. Delta Force also came to the island toassist in negotiations.40 Caricom troops were placed on standby in Barbados but were notasked to help until after the crisis ended, at which time they entered as peacekeepers.

Some smaller conflicts involving Barbadian military intervention in the easternCaribbean can also be briefly noted. Specifically, in 1979, Barbados sent a detachment ofabout fifty troops to help quell a revolt by Rastafarians in one of the Grenadine dependen-cies, Union Island.41 Again in 1981, Barbados sent a few security forces to Dominica duringthe abortive coup attempt already described. Finally, in 1994, when the government of St.Kitts-Nevis found itself unable to deal with a major prison breakout and the subsequent


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disturbances, it requested help from Caricom nations and ended up receiving assistance fromBarbados.

The Changing Global Environment: Transnational Challenges

Globalization, that is to say, increasing global integration in trade, finance, and information,has brought with it the rise in what the United Nations terms “uncivil society,” referring tocross-border illegal activities such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and trafficking inpersons.42 These problems, as well as other environmental and social challenges of atransnational nature, have broadened the security issues on the Caricom agenda since atleast the 1980s.

Narcotics

Since at least the 1980s, the issue of drug trafficking has been at the forefront of not just theregional but also the hemispheric agenda. As a foreign policy issue, it is a fact that the Cari-com region, once known mostly for its production and traffic in marijuana, has become amajor transshipment route for cocaine and heroin from South America. The ensuing heavypressure from the United States to interdict this traffic has prioritized this issue on thebroader foreign policy as well as the regional agenda. Caricom countries, however, have beenincreasingly worried since the late 1970s about the effects of narcotics production and traf-ficking on their own societies—that is to say, the social costs reflected in the increase incrime, unemployment, strained budgets, and assaults on the criminal justice system and onthe integrity of governments themselves.

The U.S. Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs has for sometime identified all Caricom nations as transshipment points in one degree or another fordrugs—primarily cocaine but also heroin and cannabis—headed to the United States andEurope, with European supplies transiting mainly though Suriname as well as Dominica andother eastern Caribbean countries. Over the years, the agency has consistently identified theBahamas, Haiti, and Jamaica as major transshipment points. Cocaine heading to the UnitedStates from South America and the Caribbean travels through the Jamaica-Cuba-Bahamas“vector.”43 Belize has often been listed as a major transshipment point, as well.

Jamaica is known as a major producer of cannabis, but the weed (marijuana) is also grownin lesser amounts in Belize, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and most of the easternCaribbean islands, in particular St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Some ecstasy (MDMA),primarily European-produced, also transits from the Netherlands through Suriname, andthrough the islands up to the United States. In addition to this drug traffic, the region is rel-atively open to money-laundering activities. Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, andDominica are among those cited for such activities, primarily as a result of the presence ofuncontrolled offshore banking or, in the case of Dominica, weak enforcement. In the early1990s, Antigua and Barbuda was a particular concern, not just because of money-launder-ing and drug-trafficking activities but also because of a general climate of corruption underthe administration of Vere Bird.44 St. Kitts-Nevis, Haiti, Jamaica, and Belize have also oftenbeen cited by the United States for money-laundering activities, and Trinidad and Tobago


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is considered to be a potential risk because of its well-developed economy and financial sec-tor. Trinidad and Tobago’s petrochemical industry is also viewed as a source of precursorchemicals for Colombian cocaine production.

Of the countries identified as major transshipment points by the U.S. Narcotics Bureau,Jamaica has been described as the “preferred” or leading transshipment point for cocainecoming from South America to the United States, as well as the largest Caribbean producerand exporter of cannabis (which has been produced in Jamaica for medicinal and religious,as well as the usual profit motives). Colombian drug cartels have established command andcontrol centers in Jamaica. Evidence of a “drugs, arms and alien-smuggling” ring operatingbetween Jamaica and Haiti surfaced in the early 2000s.45 Moreover, the adverse impact ofnarcotics activity on Jamaican society has been apparent for many years, reflected in wavesof crime, law enforcement, and judicial operations that have been undermined by corrup-tion, as well as “garrison” politics in which drug lords or “dons” play an unusually impor-tant role. Jamaica has been reluctant to conduct aerial spraying of marijuana fields, citingenvironmental and health concerns, and has therefore sometimes been threatened withdecertification—shorthand for the process by which the United States automatically cutsoff economic aid to countries that are deemed not to be cooperating on drug issues—forthis and other perceived failures to end interdiction. In addition, fines have been leviedagainst air carriers, including the local Air Jamaica, that have been found to be transportingdrugs out of Jamaica. Relations with the United States became particularly contentious in1995 when Jamaica refused to sign a maritime interdiction cooperation (“shiprider’) agree-ment with the United States, citing sovereignty issues. After tense negotiations, a compro-mise was finally reached.

In the case of Haiti, given the chaotic economic and political situation over the years,drug trafficking has become a major source of revenue, apparently not only for the moredeprived segments of society but also for those in positions of power. The Haitian militarywas allegedly engaged in narcotics trafficking as far back as the Duvalier era, but its involve-ment seems to have deepened after the fall of President Aristide. More recent high-profilearrests (for example, the arrest in 2003 of the police chief who served from 2001 to 2003)highlight the fact that drug running has continued unabated into the 2000s.46 In fact, thebureau’s report for 2003 estimated that some 8 percent of cocaine destined for the UnitedStates transits through Haiti or the Dominican Republic, and later reports have recordedincreases in cocaine transit from South America. Although Haiti has a maritime agreementwith the United States, signed in 2002, it has consistently failed to meet U.S. criteria forcounternarcotics operations. Very few seizures, very few arrests, and very few successfulprosecutions are made. Nevertheless, Haiti has earned waivers against decertificationbecause of its ongoing political and economic crises.

Since the 1980s, Belize has had sometimes contentious arguments with the UnitedStates on the issue of whether Belize is doing enough to deal with drug production and traf-ficking. In the 1980s, Belize complained about U.S. pressure to use aerial spraying to erad-icate marijuana crops. The Belize government, citing health and environmental concerns,stated that it preferred to use manual methods. Belize has been threatened several times bythe United States with decertification, but the country has been granted a number ofwaivers to allow it to improve its relationship with the United States. By the 1990s, thatcountry was more concerned about the transshipment of cocaine by Mexicans and Colom-bians through the border and jungle areas of Belize. In 1992, Belize signed a “shiprider”


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agreement with the United States, allowing for a waiver of jurisdiction in favor of the UnitedStates in the interdiction of suspects pursued in territorial waters and airspace. Additionalenhancements were added later.

The Bahamas was one of the first Caribbean countries to feel the deleterious effects of thedrug trade. In 1985, Prime Minister Pindling was among the first Caricom leaders todescribe the drug problem as a threat to the “peace, stability and security of small islandstates.” As he noted then, “The islands of the Caribbean and the Bahamas . . . have foundthemselves, by . . . geographical circumstances, especially vulnerable to exploitation as trans-shipment centers for international drug trafficking operations. Archipelagic nations like theBahamas have been pressed to the outer limits of their financial and security resources in theattempt to sustain effective interdiction and law enforcement measures against this nefariousscourge.”47 At the time, the prime minister estimated that as a result of the drug problem,expenditure on law enforcement had increased by more than 100 percent in the five years to1980. But in the 1980s, relations with the United States on this issue became highly con-tentious. One author describes the Bahamas of the late 1970s and 1980s as a paradise fordrug smugglers and money launderers who used the proceeds of their illegal operations toinvest in casinos and tourist properties while high Bahamian officials and friends of PrimeMinister Pindling served as middlemen, “selling protection and a resting place for contra-band, permitting transporters for a fee to establish headquarters on different islands and cays,tipping them off about D.E.A. raids and informants, and bringing together American pilotsand Colombian producers.”48

In 1983, U.S. officials discovered that Robert Vesco, a fugitive American financier wantedfor the theft of $224 million from a Swiss-based mutual fund, as well as a Colombian drugbaron, Carlos Lehder, had turned one of the Bahamas’ many islands into a transit station fordrugs.49 Charges of corruption and the involvement of Bahamian government officials in thedrug trade, revealed by the U.S. news media, led to investigations and governmental shake-ups over the next few years. Despite angry denials from the prime minister and minister ofexternal affairs and denunciations of the U.S. “imperialist” communications media, a com-mission of inquiry appointed in 1983 by the Bahamian government to investigate thecharges implicated several officials in the drug trade, leading to the resignation or firing ofseveral top cabinet ministers, including the deputy prime minister.50

In the process of the inquiry, Bahamian problems with the U.S. Drug EnforcementAgency (DEA) were highly publicized. One issue cited was the infringement by the agencyof the sovereignty of the Bahamas by conducting, without the consent of the government,drug searches and other operations, including helping drug smugglers so that they couldthen be caught in Florida. Another revelation, made by the U.S. media, was that the U.S.ambassador, in an effort to improve relations with the Bahamas, had personally intervened tostop a DEA plan to entrap a Bahamian minister in a drug payoff scheme. Alleged U.S. vio-lations of Bahamian sovereignty spilled over into the elections of June 1987. During thecampaign, Prime Minister Pindling accused the CIA and the DEA of “running drugsthrough the Bahamas in pursuit of their own nefarious objectives,” and he stated, “[TheU.S.] ought to stop trying to run our country for us.”51 The appeal of the Progressive LiberalParty (PLP) to Bahamian nationalism helped it win reelection handily. However, after theelection victory, Foreign Minister Clement Maynard charged that the United States had“interfered” in the election, and the party chairman clarified this to mean that “there wereright-wing Republican interests in the United States who did, in fact, give aid and comfort,”


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presumably to the PLP’s opponents. As the New York Times reported, in the weeks before theelection, U.S. officials in the Bahamas and in Washington had stepped up their criticisms ofthe government’s efforts against drug smuggling, actions that could be construed as attemptsto influence the outcome of the elections.52

Despite these hostilities, the Bahamas was actually cooperating with the United States indrug interdiction throughout the 1980s and had received U.S. assistance in coast guardtraining and equipment. However, after the Bahamian government discovered the clandes-tine drug operations involving the DEA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, itdemanded that the United States cease its operations and, in the future, obtain prior per-mission for any activity carried on inside Bahamian waters. The drug scandal and its sugges-tion of U.S. interference in the country’s internal affairs continued to affect U.S.-Bahamianrelations through most of Prime Minister Pindling’s tenure, which ended in 1992. Relationswith the United States improved rapidly thereafter, and in the 1990s and 2000s, theBahamas and the United States conducted many joint counternarcotic operations andengaged in a wide range of cooperative activities.

Though not major transshipment points, Suriname and Guyana are areas of concern notonly to the United States but also to Europe and nearby Brazil because they form part of anAmazonian drug route that is difficult to patrol. Guyana’s drug interdiction efforts are seenas ineffective and plagued by a lack of capability. In the 1980s and early 1990s, high-rankingmembers of Suriname’s military junta were found to be involved in drug trafficking, andthere were indications of connections as well to civilian political groups.53 In 1999, the for-mer military leader Desi Bouterse was convicted in the Netherlands on drug-traffickingcharges and sentenced in absentia to eleven years in prison. By becoming a member of theNational Assembly in 2000, he managed to escape prosecution, given Suriname laws pro-hibiting extradition of nationals. Suriname is a transit point primarily for Europe but asnoted earlier, ecstasy from the Netherlands has transited on the way to the U.S. and LatinAmerican markets. In one report, the U.S. narcotics bureau noted alarmingly that theColombian paramilitary group, the Revolutionary Armed forces of Colombia (FARC), wassaid to be engaged in arms-for-drugs activities in Suriname.54

At least until the mid-1990s, the United States was expressing concern about the extentof drug-related corruption in Trinidad and Tobago and the perceived lack of cooperationwith U.S. agencies. A change of government in 1995 resulted in greater cooperation so thatin 1998, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright described the country as a “leader in thewar against drugs,” an example that other Caribbean countries should follow. By then,Trinidad and Tobago, like Jamaica, had signed three cooperation agreements with the UnitedStates: a mutual legal assistance treaty, a shiprider agreement, and an extradition treaty.55 Thecooperation in narcotics training and development of a viable witness protection programhad begun earlier. In the 2000s, a major spike in criminal activity, including kidnappings, inTrinidad and Tobago was attributed by government officials to the intensified drug trade,and the country has continued to seek technical help from the United States and Britain incountering this threat.

The geography of both the island and mainland Caribbean countries makes the interdic-tion of narcotics very difficult. From the Bahamas with its hundreds of islands and cays, toBelize with its forests as well as cays, from Haiti with its relatively unpoliced border with theDominican Republic, to Guyana and Suriname with their rivers and dense Amazonian forests,and with all countries serving as bridges between North and South America, geography is


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clearly a major facilitating factor.56 Another handicap for the Caricom small states is the factthat a lack of resources in these economically stressed nations reduces interdiction expendi-tures and capabilities. Caricom governments with limited resources can only devote partialresources to this problem, despite the threat not only to the large recipient countries such asthe United States but also to their own social fabric. The narcotics issue, it should be noted,is also one that involves human security, tied as it is to domestic political and socioeconomicconditions, employment opportunities, and life choices. Internal instability and economicdeterioration in places such as Haiti and Guyana only facilitate drug trafficking, as channelsare opened to corruption and institutional decay even as governmental attention is turned toother urgent problems. Also, where there is poverty, there will always be those who find sur-vival opportunities in trafficking in drugs and arms.

It is ironic that narcotics trafficking, recognized by the region as a clear security threat toits societies and institutions and one that requires cooperation with North America andEurope as well as international institutions, has, as mentioned earlier, also often become achannel for U.S. threats to Caricom sovereignty. The United States has frequently accusedCaricom states of not doing enough to stem the drug traffic and clean up related corruption,despite U.S. recognition that Caricom states have limited resources to address such a majortransnational problem. Throughout the Caribbean, the United States has pressed for eradi-cation, greater cooperation in interdiction, quick implementation of legislation againstmoney laundering—including controls on offshore banking operations that some countrieshave been unwilling to implement—and the strengthening of institutional capabilities. Thethreat of decertification has been a constant provocation for many countries.

In the mid-1990s, negotiations over the U.S. shiprider agreements were particularly tenseand brought on new threats of decertification. Because Belize already had an agreementallowing for U.S. patrols and jurisdiction in its territorial waters and contiguous sea, and theBahamas already had an informal agreement (later formalized), the U.S. focus was onextending its jurisdiction southward. Essentially, what the United States sought was the rightof “hot” pursuit and the boarding of suspect vessels and a waiver of jurisdiction in its favorwhen vessels were detained in coastal waters—that is, the United States could hold and for-ward suspects for prosecution under U.S. laws. Trinidad and Tobago, along with the easternCaribbean countries, agreed to these or similar terms without much ado, citing the gravethreat drug cartels posed to their countries. However, Jamaica, Barbados, and Guyana balkedat what they saw as a threat to their sovereignty. Jamaica’s case was particularly problematicfor the United States because Jamaica sought to link the negotiations to issues such as thecommerce in guns between the two countries and the U.S. policy of returning immigrantsaccused of felonies to their country of citizenship (discussed later). The eventual outcome ofthe negotiations was hailed as a victory for Jamaica, a case of a small state standing firmly andexacting an equitable compromise: in this case, Jamaican concerns about sovereignty wereassuaged when the United States agreed to allow the pursuit of suspects by Jamaica in U.S.waters (unlikely as that is), and reciprocal pursuit only with the ad hoc permission of thecountry targeted.

In the case of Barbados, before a diplomatic agreement could be reached, Barbadosaccused the United States of undue pressure and implied that the United States was involvedin what appeared to be a sudden downgrading of the Barbadian airport by the InternationalAviation Transport Administration. The issue was eventually resolved through incorporatinglanguage in the agreement that preserved the sovereignty of Barbados. Guyana, however,


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arguably less open to U.S. pressure than most and anxious to maintain sovereignty in arrestand prosecution, did not sign an agreement with the United States until 2000.

The United States has also focused on negotiating extradition treaties with Caricomstates. As of 2007, treaties were in place with all countries, even though neither Haiti norSuriname can by law extradite nationals. Caricom countries have also entered into mutuallegal assistance agreements for sharing information with the United States. In the case ofSuriname, a mutual assistance agreement exists with the Netherlands, and in the case ofGuyana, with the United Kingdom.

Refugees and Migrants: Issues and Rights

The Caricom region has been fortunate in not having to deal with the massive internal andoutward flows of people experienced by other regions in crisis. Still, a few cases involvingon the one hand, refugee flows and on the other, migrant issues, deserve mention in anydiscussion of the region’s security. By 2007, all members of Caricom, except for Barbados,Grenada, Guyana, and Saint Lucia, had acceded or ratified the UN Convention Relatingto the Status of Refugees (1951) and the Protocol of 1967. The convention’s definition ofa refugee is universally recognized: it is a person who, “owing to well-founded fear of beingpersecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular socialgroup or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owingto such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, nothaving a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as aresult of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it” (HumanRights Convention, Article A.2). From a human rights perspective, perhaps the mostimportant provision of the convention is that no country can return a refugee without hisor her consent (refoulement). In 1984, Latin Americans expanded the definition of“refugee” to include “persons who have fled their country because their lives, safety or free-dom have been threatened by generalized violence, foreign aggression, internal conflicts,massive violation of human rights or other circumstances which have seriously disturbedpublic order.”57 This is a broader definition than the criteria used globally to determinewhether refugee status can be granted. “Migrants” is an even broader category, coveringpersons who voluntarily flee desperate conditions, either political or economic, or whosimply desire a better quality of life. The International Convention on the Rights ofMigrant Workers and Members of their Families was drawn up in 1990 and came intoforce in 2003, but as of 2007, of Caricom members, only Belize has acceded to it. Guyanasigned in 2005 but has not yet ratified it.

Two situations in the Caricom region have produced flows of refugees as well as migrants:the Central American conflicts in the 1970s and 1980s, and the many Haitian crises over theyears. Moreover, in terms of the treatment of migrants, the situation between Haiti and theDominican Republic is of major importance. In the case of the Central American conflictsof the 1970s and 1980s, the flow of refugees from the turmoil in Central America had par-ticular repercussions for one Caricom state, Belize. The foreign minister at the time outlinedthe threat in this way:

My government has a particular concern in this matter [of violence in Central America]because the trans-border migration of those fleeing the conflicts has produced an influx of


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refugees into Belize which strains our already thinly-stretched social and economicresources, and threatens to produce serious ethnic and demographic tensions.

Furthermore, Belizeans with our history of peaceful and stable development, cannotforever remain immune to the inherent hostility and mistrust that characterise the evolu-tion of conflict in the region. We cannot ignore the attempts being made by outside pow-ers to exploit historical and prevailing conditions in an effort to gain advantage in theglobal East/West confrontation.58

Caught in this cold war proxy conflict, Belize resettled refugees from El Salvador under anofficial scheme, but others from Guatemala and Honduras slipped in illegally, severely strain-ing Belize’s resources.59 Anxious to find a solution to the fundamental problem, Belize triedto actively seek a peaceful settlement of the larger political problem. Its ministers wereinvolved in discussions with the “Contadora” governments of Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia,and Panama, the “friends” involved in the Central American peace initiative, and Belize alsoparticipated in U.S.-sponsored initiatives intended to contribute to the search for solutionsto the region’s problems. By the end of the 1980s, the refugee situation had eased as the var-ious conflicts were resolved in the wake of the end of the cold war, but by that time, Belizefound itself having to deal with a new influx of Haitian refugees.

In the case of Haiti, the outflow of refugees accelerated in the 1980s as a result of politi-cal changes on the island. The treatment of these refugees by the United States was andremains a point of contention for human rights groups. In particular, these groups focusedon the disparity between the treatment of Cuban refugees, who are given automatic asylumonce they reach the shores of the United States, and Haitians, most of whom were and areconsidered to be economic refugees rather than political refugees meriting asylum.

Haitian “boat” refugees had fled to the United States since 1972, and by 1981, more thanfifty-five thousand had been officially counted by U.S. authorities. An agreement betweenHaiti and the United States in 1981 authorized the U.S. authorities to interdict and returnrefugees caught in international waters.60 However, illegal immigration continued, though infewer numbers. In the two years following the coup against Aristide, some forty-three thou-sand undocumented Haitians attempted to reach the United States by boat before theUnited States decided to revert to a policy of interdiction and return. In 1993, the U.S. coastguard stationed ships around Haiti to prevent a massive migration.61 Despite considerablecomplaint about this policy from human rights groups and supporters in the U.S. Congress(particularly the Black Caucus), the policy was not changed until May 1994, not long afterRandall Robinson, the director of TransAfrica, a highly visible U.S. lobbying group, went ona hunger strike to protest U.S. policy toward the refugees. In 1994, the policy was changedto allow Haitian refugees to apply for asylum at sea or in a third country. However, theincreased flow of refugees led to yet another change: Haitians were no longer eligible to applyfor asylum in the United States but would instead be held in refugee camps in GuantánamoBay, Cuba and other countries.62 Preparations for an invasion of Haiti began to be madeshortly thereafter. The need to resolve the refugee situation was cited as one of the justifica-tions for the intervention in Haiti.

In the Caribbean, the outflow of illegal Haitians to the Bahamas and Belize placed enor-mous burdens on limited resources for both interdiction (the Bahamian policy) and resettle-ment (Belize). The Bahamas, in particular, because of its proximity, was already a haven forHaitians fleeing their country, and this new outflow added hundreds more to a populationestimated today as high as seventy-five thousand (2000 census). At the height of the crisis in


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Haiti, the overburdened Bahamian coast guard was simply unable to deal with the problem,and refugees successfully entered the islands despite the fact that the Bahamian policy wasone of repatriation rather than assimilation. The refugee issue is also a human rights issue andquestions have sometimes been raised about the Bahamian treatment of Haitians in deten-tion as well as “stateless” Haitians, inasmuch as Bahamian law does not grant automatic cit-izenship to Haitians born in the islands. In 1996, however, the Bahamas passed a lawgranting permanent residence to Haitians who had lived in the country for at least ten years.Citizenship can be acquired after twenty years’ residence, and children born in the Bahamascan opt for citizenship at age eighteen.

After the coup against President Aristide, other Caricom nations were invited by theUnited States to accommodate small numbers of refugees. Trinidad and Tobago refused onthe grounds that the assimilation of refugees would be too difficult socially and economically.Jamaica, Saint Lucia, and Dominica proved more amenable, agreeing to take in small num-bers of Haitians.

A few other cases of refugee outflows are worth noting. Like the United States, theCaribbean countries close to Cuba have had to establish policies to deal with Cuban refugeeswho usually are headed for southern Florida or Puerto Rico. Prior to 1996, the Bahamianpolicy was generally to try to resettle Cuban refugees in the country, but since signing a repa-triation agreement with Cuba, the Bahamas has returned refugees who do not meet the cri-teria for refugee status as determined in consultation with the office of the UN HighCommissioner for Refugees. Jamaica’s policy is similar, although it has been somewhat vari-able depending on the party in power: the People’s National Party, especially under MichaelManley, has been more sympathetic with respect to asylum than its more conservative coun-terpart, but in either case, exceptions are sometimes made. Still the Bahamas, in particular,has endured complaints from Cuban exiles and other sympathetic groups about ill treatmentand lack of due process of asylum seekers. In 1998, Cuban exiles in Florida even threateneda tourism boycott of the Bahamas.63

In the case of Suriname, political conditions deteriorated rapidly in the 1980s as the mil-itary government waged a vicious war against a Maroon (Bush Negro) guerrilla group in theinterior. In 1982, the military rounded up and executed fifteen prominent citizens—jour-nalists, labor leaders, and opposition politicians. The climate of repression generated a largerefugee-migrant outflow as well as significant internal displacement. Sedoc-Dahlberg affirmsthat between 1980 and 1986, approximately thirty thousand people (7.5 percent of Suri-name’s population) fled their homes, fearing threats to their lives or property. “Thousands ofSurinamese refugees were accommodated in neighboring French Guiana and in the Nether-lands, and around 15,000 displaced persons from the Surinamese countryside [where Ron-nie Brunswijk led the Jungle Commando guerrillas] sought refuge in Paramaribo, thecountry’s capital.”64 Those who fled to Holland stayed there, those who went to FrenchGuiana ended up in refugee camps and were repatriated or resettled. A few also ended up inneighboring Curaçao. The situation eased with the restoration of civilian rule in the 1990s,but investigations into the various killings are still ongoing in the 2000s.

In terms of “normal” migration patterns, among the English-speaking Caribbean nations,Guyana’s high level of migration is notable even for a region that traditionally sends out ahigh proportion of migrants. A few Guyanese migrants have claimed to be political refugeesfleeing from poor treatment by the Afro-based or Indo-based party, depending on the era,but most Guyanese have seen themselves as economic migrants. (Some Indo-Trinidadians


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have also sought refugee status, particularly in Canada in the 1980s, citing fear of discrimi-nation under the Afro-Trinidadian government.) Indeed, the outflow of people from Guyanagrew only gradually as the political and economic situation there deteriorated. The countrylost a substantial amount of its population in the 1970s: figures from the Ministry of Eco-nomic Development Statistical Bureau show that out-migration increased from a net migra-tion of –4,756 in 1970 to –8,000 in 1979. The outflow slowed in the first part of the 1980s,but it picked up again thereafter, with the net population decreasing annually by about 0.1percent before stabilizing in the late 1990s. The population growth rate for 2004 was esti-mated at –0.1 percent.65 While most Guyanese left for the United States, Canada, and otherdeveloped countries, there was a significant influx into neighboring Caricom countries aswell, particularly nearby Trinidad and Tobago. As a result, there were consistent Guyanesecomplaints about poor treatment meted out by immigration and customs authorities inTrinidad and Tobago as well as in Barbados, where some Guyanese settled or visited.Although Caricom countries clearly did not welcome the influx of refugees or migrants, theydid little to address Guyana’s deteriorating political and economic conditions of the 1980s,presumably out of misplaced concern for that country’s sovereignty. Most Guyanese immi-grants were absorbed into the societies of the receiving countries, especially Trinidad andTobago, where there was already a very large indigenous Indian population.

Issues of migration obviously loom large between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.Migration scholars note that Haiti became the main source of Dominican labor on sugarestates by the 1930s.66 Earlier bracero (that is, migrant labor) inflows from the West Indiesdeclined by the late 1920s as migrants began to move to the oil fields of Curaçao and Aruba.In their place, Haitian migration was regularized beginning in 1915 when Haiti was underU.S. occupation. The bracero program, which has been implemented with a few interrup-tions since then, has been unofficially complemented by various methods of forced laborrecruitment employed by the Dominicans (for example, the transfer to the sugar estates ofHaitian aliens caught crossing the border illegally and the fraudulent transfer of Haitiansworking in nonsugar areas). Human rights advocates have for many years complained aboutthe very poor conditions experienced by contract workers on the sugar estates (bateys). Vex-ation by one side or the other over migrant outflows have also led to a number of negativeactions on the part of both governments. Samuel Martínez cites the following threeinstances: the Haitian government’s destruction of small boats in an attempt to interdictmigrants in the 1940s, François Duvalier’s clearing of the border in 1963 (discussed in the“territorial” section earlier in this chapter), and the mass deportations of Haitians by theDominican government in 1991. These deportations have, in fact, continued into the 2000s.In the 1991 incident, the government of the Dominican Republic reacted to criticism byU.S. and other international human rights activists by expelling perhaps as many as fiftythousand Haitians, many of them documented immigrants or citizens. In 1997, Dominicanpresident Leonel Fernández, despite having improved relations with Haiti, permitted theexpulsion of twenty-thousand Haitians after implicating illegal Haitians in a network of for-profit beggars and street people uncovered by law enforcement officials.67 Human rightsadvocates reported an intensification of monthly round-ups in the early 2000s.

Dominican policies have been investigated and criticized by the OAS’s Inter-AmericanCommission on Human Rights as well as by the United Nations Human Rights Commis-sion, but the reports have had little real effect. In fact, the expulsions of 1997 were actuallysparked by criticism from the OAS and other groups. At issue is the interpretation by the


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Dominican Republic of international law governing “in transit” persons. The Dominicanshave extended the normal meaning of the term (that is, persons staying temporarily in acountry, with no intention of remaining) to most Haitian migrants, including their childrenborn in the Dominican Republic, even though the country’s constitution recognizes jus soli,the right to citizenship by birth. As a result, human rights groups estimate that of some sevenhundred thousand persons of Haitian descent living in the Dominican Republic, most haveuncertain status.68

Finally, the Caribbean region is highly vulnerable to natural disasters that normally areresponsible for temporary internal displacement of segments of the population, especiallythose living in rural areas. However, the violent eruption of the Soufrière volcano inMontserrat in 1995 produced a displacement with international implications. The small ter-ritory of about 10,000 people suffered such severe devastation that more than one-third ofits population became refugees. By 1999 its population was only 3,400, although thisincreased by double digit percentages in the 2000s (the population in 2004 was estimated at4,700).69 Some Montserratians went to other islands, especially Dominica, but about 3,500were given refuge—after some hesitation—in the United Kingdom, Montserrat being a UKoverseas territory. In 2004, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that itwas returning 292 Montserratians who had received temporary refuge in the United States.U.S. spokesmen indicated that the status granted to these refugees in 1995–1996 was tem-porary, and that since the island showed no sign of near recovery, the status had expired.Given the shortage of housing on the island, the government of Montserrat argued againstthe return, while the UK government offered a “sympathetic hearing” to anyone renderedhomeless by the decision.70 Also in 2004, after a hurricane devastated the island of Grenada,various Caribbean countries as well as Canada, in particular, opened their doors to tempo-rary migrants from that island.

Crime

As already implied in our discussion on drug trafficking, Caricom countries have had to copewith increasing transnational organized crime, including drug trafficking, money launder-ing, and small arms trafficking, all of which are to some degree related. Tax havens such asthe Bahamas and Cayman Islands have been attractive to persons seeking to hide illegalfinancial transactions or move money gained illicitly into legitimate outlets. Casino-relatedorganized crime has also been alleged in Antigua and Barbuda. In one notorious case, boththe Bahamas and Antigua gained unfavorable international publicity when they gave sanctu-ary to Robert Vesco, usually described as a “fugitive financier” but one who was also con-victed of drug trafficking and suspected of arms violations. The Bahamas has also attractedmajor drug smugglers such as Carlos Lehder, who purchased an entire island, Norman Cay,to build a resort and marina.71

The popularity of newer offshore financial centers (OFCs) in the Caribbean has broughtintensive scrutiny from North America and Europe: these facilities, important as they are asincome earners for small countries, can also invite illegal activities, especially money laun-dering and tax evasion. Offshore facilities in Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, and theBahamas may be the most popular, but there are smaller operations in all of the easternCaribbean islands. Caribbean countries have therefore been subjected to heavy pressure andthreats of economic sanctions by developed countries pushing for the implementation of


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laws against the bank secrecy that traditionally is the attraction of these OFCs. With a viewto preventing money laundering, a unit of the Organization for Economic Cooperationand Development (OECD) called the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) was created in1989 to identify and pressure noncooperative countries to share information. The OECDespoused the creation of national Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) for this purpose.FATF efforts were successful in pressuring Caribbean countries to revise their laws, asreflected in the fact that the Bahamas, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts-Nevis, and St. Vin-cent and the Grenadines—initially identified as noncooperating—were all removed fromthe list by 2004.72 A Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (a regional group of theFATF) was formalized in 1996 and comprises all countries save Guyana. In addition, by2006, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, St.Kitts, and St. Vincent all had established FIUs or similar offices accredited by the EgmontGroup.73

On the broader issue of tax evasion, OECD countries also were effective in threateningsanctions against tax havens and OFCs whose secrecy laws facilitated such evasion. Despitetheir opposition, Caricom countries bowed to the developed countries and made commit-ments to the OECD on information sharing. Most have also signed bilateral tax informationexchange agreements (TIEAs) with the United States. These replaced the older tax treatieswith the smaller Caribbean countries, treaties that were terminated by the United States,Canada, and European countries (except the United Kingdom, which kept its treaties withmost countries) in the 1980s, on the grounds that their generous tax concessions to foreign-ers had fostered a great deal of abuse. Tax treaties were, however, maintained or renewed withBarbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana in the case of Canada. The newTIEAs are limited agreements, providing mainly for information sharing, and often pro-hibiting disclosure to third parties.74 By 2006, TIEAs had been signed between the UnitedStates and Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana,Jamaica, Saint Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago. Interestingly, initially, in its money launder-ing legislation, Antigua and Barbuda had exempted tax evasion, but under pressure from theUnited States and Britain, it ended up amending its laws. (All the countries of Caricom,except Haiti and Suriname, have also signed with the United States agreements for multilat-eral legal assistance in criminal matters.)75

Two other aspects of crime can be described as having foreign policy implications. One isthe issue of lax immigration laws, and the other is the effect of laws implemented in theUnited States requiring the repatriation of felons. While immigration is usually thought of asan issue involving Caribbean migration to other lands, especially the developed North, thesecurity and/or political problem for Caricom comes rather from movement into and aroundthe region. Certain Haitian, Guyanese, and Surinamese problems have already been dis-cussed. Beyond those, within the core English-speaking region, there has been a traditionalpattern of strong migration to the more developed areas, particularly from the easternCaribbean islands to Trinidad and Tobago.76 Some of this migration has been illegal; most ofit has been managed through national policies that more and more have to conform as wellto Caricom initiatives governing freedom of movement. From a foreign policy perspective,these movements have not in themselves been problematic, except where criminality leads todeportations or in the past when political elements deemed undesirable (“left wing”) wereexpelled to their home countries. Some of this continued sporadically in the 1990s in thedenial of visa renewals for journalists on political grounds.


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Of more security concern, however, has been the laxity and corruption in immigrationareas that in the 1970s allowed Robert Vesco to enter Antigua, allowed a suspect Europeangroup to try to buy Barbuda to set up a sovereign state (the Sovereign Order of New Aragon),and in the mid-1990s allowed allegations of corruption to be made in the granting of visasto mainland Chinese hoping to settle in Trinidad and Tobago. Moreover, both Dominica andSt. Kitts-Nevis have economic citizenship programs that are seen as susceptible to abuse. InDominica, all an individual needs to do to obtain economic citizenship is pay a one-timecontribution of seventy-five thousand dollars (U.S.). In St. Kitts-Nevis, a cash payment ofthirty-five thousand U.S. dollars is needed, plus an investment in real estate of at least twohundred fifty thousand U.S. dollars. The problem with these programs, as suggested by U.S.officials, is the following: “Unscrupulous individuals, including suspected members of crim-inal organizations, can take advantage of [these] programs to ease border police checks andto modify/create multiple identities. Such individuals have also used false identities to helpcreate offshore entities used in money laundering, financial fraud, migrant smuggling andother illicit activities, as well as to facilitate travel of the perpetrators of these crimes.”77 Moreresources and training are needed to adequately monitor these abuses.

Finally, on the issue of crime, one of the most contentious issues in the 1990s and 2000shas been the change in the U.S. immigration law in 1996 mandating the deportation of non-U.S. citizens convicted of misdemeanors and felonies that merit more than a year in prison.As of late 2005, more than six hundred thousand persons had been deported to more than160 countries.78 Jamaica has been one of the countries receiving the most deportees—in theCaribbean, it is second only to the Dominican Republic. Police there reported in 2003 thatthe majority of the over seventeen thousand deportees sent back to Jamaica within the pastseven years were members of U.S. street gangs. An analysis by the Jamaican police concludedthat deportees were involved in 600 murders, 1,700 armed robberies, and 150 shoot-outswith police, and were the backbone of 70 criminal gangs operating on the island. They werealso involved in drug and gun trafficking with Haiti.79 In contrast, figures released aroundthe same time in Trinidad and Tobago indicate that deportees were not a major source ofcrime. Only 19 of 142 deportees (from Britain, Canada, Colombia, Jamaica, and Barbados,as well as the United States) were charged with crimes—violent and nonviolent—in 2001,and only 8 of 111 deportees (from the United States, Switzerland, Canada, Britain, and Bar-bados) were charged in 2002.80 Trinidad and Tobago had received more than one thousanddeportees between 1997 and 2003. Mixed results notwithstanding, the deportation laws ofthe United States and other countries that have been following suit have resulted in thereturn of many persons who have never actually lived in the country of their nationality orhave not done so in a very long time. Many have no relatives left in the country to which theyare returned. In search of a solution, Caricom countries have tried to get the United States tochange its law or to help financially with the resettlement of these returnees. The UnitedStates has expressed only a willingness to give aid to police forces in monitoring the activitiesof deportees.

By 2004, Guyana has also received a large number of deportees—1,414—beginningslowly but accelerating in 2003. The large majority of these were from the United States(1,235), with the rest from Canada.81 Smaller numbers of deportees arrived from the UnitedKingdom. Guyana’s slowness in arranging to receive these deportees caused diplomatic inci-dents with both the United States and Canada. Canada threatened to, and the United Statesdid, impose a visa ban on Guyanese government employees and their immediate families. In


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addition, Guyana was upset when Canada returned some deportees without approval in1999. After lengthy negotiations between 2001 and 2004, a memorandum of understandingwas signed with the United States, establishing procedures for handling deportee cases andalso ensuring deportees legal rights to their property. Canada and Guyana had already agreedon a method of returning deportees gradually.

Haiti and the Bahamas have also received relatively large numbers of deportees (between1998 and 2005, deported criminal aliens from Haiti in the United States alone numberedsome 2,987, and those from the Bahamas numbered about 778, according to the U.S.Homeland Security Department’s Yearbook of Immigration Statistics 2005). Since so manyHaitians live in the Bahamas, it should be noted that many noncitizen Haitians resident inthe Bahamas are returned to Haiti, not their country of residence. Both these countries havebeen cooperating closely with the United States with regard to deportations. Haitian deten-tion and the poor treatment of deportees after they arrive has also been a particular focus ofboth local and global human rights and civil society groups.

Terrorism

After the events of September 11, finding ways to counter Islamist terrorism became a globalpriority. Although the Caricom states were on the margins of the issue, global interdepen-dence, geopolitical location, and economic dependence all placed pressures on these coun-tries to conform to the demands of the new global environment. Caricom countries, whichthemselves lost about one hundred immigrants in the 9/11 attacks, were quick to react insympathy with the U.S. government and those affected by the attacks. Later, to offset theanticipated decline in travel and tourism, several countries launched promotions, emphasiz-ing the region’s safety and the opportunities for rest and relaxation in a tense global environ-ment. Some islands offered free vacation packages for 9/11 rescue workers and their familiesas well as the families of victims, an incentive also offered, perhaps more successfully, byhotels in Hawaii.

Terrorism has become a national security priority for all countries, not least because of itseffect on economic development. For Caricom states, the post-9/11 environment has had animpact in several ways. First, initiatives to secure borders (known as “smart border” initia-tives) have involved tightening immigration controls, including dealing with tighter U.S.requirements, as well as enhancing overall airport and port safety. With regard to immigra-tion, Caricom nationals, like those elsewhere who require visas to the United States, haveencountered longer lines and greater scrutiny by consular officials, including interviews andpersonal appearances where none were needed before. In 2003, the United Kingdom intro-duced visas for Jamaicans, and even though this was not only or even primarily for the sakeof controlling terrorism, it was clearly facilitated by the general climate of tighter controls.Canadian immigration was also tightened, and Caricom nationals holding resident statusin Canada found themselves requiring visas to enter the United States when previouslynone was needed, as well as needing additional documentation to reenter Canada. At thelevel of the Caricom governments, passport applications began to be more carefully scru-tinized to ensure that fraudulent information was caught. To provide more secure identifi-cation for nationals, in 2006, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago were the first to begin thecomplex process of introducing machine readable passports, a measure encouraged by theUnited States, which wanted all countries to adopt a common passport standard set by the


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International Civil Aviation Organization—that is, machine readable or more advanced bio-metric documents.

With the increased scrutiny of U.S. visa applicants, as well as the difficulty of travel ingeneral and reports of harsh detentions at airports, it might have been expected that Caricomvisitors to the United States would decline. Indeed, the evidence showed that holiday visitorsbegan to travel more regionally or to Europe and Canada rather than to the United States.82

U.S. data show that except for Guyana, there was a decline in both immigrant and nonim-migrant admissions to the United States in 2001 and 2002, after steady increases in the late1990s. Nonimmigrant visas issued declined for all states thereafter, although moderateincreases are taking place since 2005 as the United States is engaging in campaigns to makevisiting the country more attractive.83 In addition, there has been a lengthening of the timefor processing “green card” requests to an average of almost two years.84

Apart from tightening immigration oversight, Caricom countries have had to investscarce resources in more sophisticated equipment and in training operators to carefullyscreen passengers and baggage.85 U.S. proposals to require sky marshals on planes flying intothe United States are still being debated by northern countries and, if implemented, wouldimpose additional burdens on struggling Caribbean airlines. Another major area of concernhas been the inefficient operations of many ports and the lack of tamper-proofing require-ments for port cargo. Caricom countries, especially a country such as Trinidad and Tobagowhere oil and energy-related industrial products are regularly shipped, have been anxiouslyputting in place measures to ensure more efficient port operations at home and the safety ofcargo leaving port. According to one analyst, the adoption of new measures under the U.S.Customs Container Security Initiative endorsed by the World Customs Organization wasexpected to significantly increase insurance and freight costs. The measures involve usingautomated information to identify and target high-risk containers, prescreening containersso identified using detection technology, and using tamper-proof containers.86

The issue of border controls is only one of a number of areas in which the impact of 9/11has been felt. Another area in which reforms have occurred has been that of informationgathering and the sharing of financial intelligence. In this respect, counterterrorist moveshave piggybacked on efforts already in process to strengthen anti–money-laundering initia-tives. Actions against the financing of terrorism have been an added responsibility for theFATF and the Caribbean subgroup, CFATF. The monitoring of onshore and offshoreresources has been expanded to include heightened oversight of wire transfer services com-monly used by immigrants to transfer money abroad, informal banking systems, and chari-table donations.

A third area (but related to the second) has been the tightening of domestic surveillanceand the sharing of criminal intelligence information both regionally, between countries, andbetween the region and intelligence services abroad. Again, this sharing predated 9/11: aRegional Task Force on Crime and Security was established by Caricom governments in July2001 with a mandate to facilitate regional collaboration in dealing with the many criminalissues affecting the region, including drug trafficking, money laundering, small arms traf-ficking, and domestic terrorism. New counterterrorist initiatives have simply been an addedresponsibility.

In 2002—2003, there were rumors of an Al Qaeda link to a Muslim group in Trinidadand Tobago (apparently an offshoot of the “old” Muslimeen). News reports pointed to asecret location where biological agents were being concocted. Investigations did not turn up


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any concrete evidence, even though the ensuing hype, publicized by the political opposition,brought a UK ban on travel to Trinidad and Tobago. The government felt compelled to sendthe foreign minister to the United Kingdom, and other foreign affairs officials to the UnitedStates, to contain any adverse publicity. In fact, the Muslimeen have not been linked to ter-rorism but have, however, been tied by U.S. investigators to drug and gun running throughFlorida.87 In addition, in 2004, the United States publicized its search for a major Al Qaedaoperative, born in Saudi Arabia, who had visited Trinidad and Tobago on several occasionsand was possibly traveling on a Trinidadian or Guyanese passport. Later, in 2005, UK agentswere brought in to investigate a detainee suspected of ties to persons responsible for bomb-ings of the London subway earlier in the year. Trinidad and Tobago has not been the onlycountry where such preemptive investigations have occurred. Among other cases, Guyanesenationals were accused in 2007 of masterminding a plot to blow up JFK Airport. These inci-dents, though certainly not pointing to the Caricom region as a major link in the schematicof global terrorism, were nevertheless reminders of the depth of global interdependence, andas such, they lent support to the move toward greater information sharing and intelligencecollaboration beyond the traditional areas of narcotics trafficking and the illicit arms trade.

Nuclear Concerns

Beginning in the 1990s, Caricom nations, concerned both about possible marine pollutionand the need to keep the region free from nuclear activity, have vigorously protested thesending of shipments of nuclear material—plutonium, high-level waste, and plutonium-ura-nium oxide—between France and the United Kingdom and Japan through the PanamaCanal and the Caribbean Sea. (Two other routes go through South America and SouthernAfrica.) The ships carry spent nuclear fuel from Japan to the United Kingdom and France forreprocessing and return the reprocessed material to Japan. There are major concerns aboutaccidental spillage and possible terrorist actions inasmuch the ships carrying this material arearmed. In their efforts to stop this trade, Caricom countries have been supported by globalenvironmental groups, including Greenpeace, and by an increasingly large number ofaffected nations in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Caricom nations were successful in get-ting the route changed for the first shipment sent in 1992, but subsequent shipments weremade in the late 1990s and in 2002–2004. Nations involved claim that the shipments meetall necessary international standards and are safe. However, Caricom states argue that notonly is there the potential for a major environmental disaster but also the shipments violatethe region’s non-nuclear status: Caricom nations are members of the hemispheric denu-clearization treaty, the Treaty of Tlatelolco, and have also declared the region to be a zone ofpeace and sustainable development. Appeals to Britain, France, and Japan as well as to theUnited States have, however, proved unproductive.

In the next chapter, the focus shifts to Caricom’s economic and social interests. So long aspolitical concerns do not threaten the survival of the state or the regime, economic interestswill normally be given priority in both domestic as well as foreign policy.


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CHAPTER 3

Economic and Social Interests

Foreign economic policy has assumed a level of importance in the 2000s comparable tothe position long held by military and political policy. For the global south, the worldattention to economics should have come as a relief inasmuch as these nations’ primary

goal has normally been economic development, with foreign policies keyed to achieving thisdomestic aim. However, the turn to economic goals has carried certain pitfalls for southernstates: beginning in the late 1980s, the thrust toward economic liberalization forced them toopen their weak economies to greater penetration and competition from economic interestsin the north. In the case of small dependent states like those in the Caribbean, the impera-tive to liberalize heightened their inherent vulnerability by fostering changes in their rela-tionships with their major economic partners in Europe and North America. In the 2000s,these changes are presenting Caribbean Community (Caricom) decision makers with someof the most challenging issues on the foreign policy agenda.

While economic liberalization brought increases in production to the global south, it alsobrought deepening social inequity as some social sectors benefited more than others, even asthe state moved away from vigorous intervention in the market and society. By the 1990s,national and global concerns about the social and political fallout from liberalization weretied by the global south to the environmentalism that has drawn world attention since the1970s. As a result, the ecological thrust embodied in the embrace of “sustainable develop-ment” was broadened to include attention to issues of human development or “human secu-rity.”1 The articulation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) in 2000 reflected aconsensus that a global commitment to poverty alleviation and social development is a press-ing necessity.2

The Vulnerability Challenge

The landmark 1985 Commonwealth study of small states, followed up by a second study in1997, highlighted the fact that small states such as those in the Caribbean are not only easy vic-tims for “external aggression in all its guises,” but are also economically weak as a result of “undi-versified economic structures, a narrow resource base, relative openness, high infrastructural

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costs, remoteness, high dependence on external trade, vulnerability to the forces of nature,and limited access to external financing.”3

A 1994 UN conference on the sustainable development of small-island developing states(SIDS) also concluded that, along with unique ecological problems, SIDS suffer from arange of economic and social problems, including a narrow range of resources, which forcesundue specialization; excessive dependence on international trade and hence vulnerabilityto global developments; high population density, which increases the pressure on alreadylimited resources, but small absolute populations with limited scope for full utilization ofcertain types of specialized expertise, and high levels of migration of skilled humanresources; overuse of resources and premature depletion; costly public administration andinfrastructure, including transportation and communication; limited institutional capaci-ties and domestic markets that are too small to provide significant scale economies whileincurring high freight costs and reduced competitiveness as a result of limited export vol-umes; and limited access to concessionary financing because of classification as middle-income countries on a per capita basis.4 Since the mid-1990s, in large measure due to theefforts of SIDS to draw attention to their special problems, both the United Nations andthe Commonwealth Secretariat have been working on building a “vulnerability index fordeveloping countries.” The index, which includes measures of trade openness, export diver-sification, capital openness, access and reliance on external financial flows, export depen-dence, international transportation costs, and vulnerability to natural disasters, is intendedto reflect susceptibility to exogenous shocks, and it can be used to identify countries thatneed special multilateral assistance and to develop programs to reduce their exposure tothese.5 The index uses concrete measures such that it is difficult to argue that vulnerabilityis a managerial policy rather than structural issue.

On the index, countries’ dependence and ecological vulnerability are mediated by grossdomestic product (GDP) as a measure of resilience. Thus, of the Caricom countries, Antiguaand Barbuda ranks as most vulnerable (in fact, the second most vulnerable nation after Van-uatu), followed closely by the Bahamas (rank 4 of the 111 developing countries surveyed).Guyana and the eastern Caribbean countries all rank below thirty. Suriname and Haiti arethe least vulnerable, with Trinidad and Tobago in the middle, reflecting primarily the factthat they are not as susceptible as the smaller islands to the adverse effect of natural disasters.6

Trade Partner Dependence

As was the case for most former colonies, after independence, the Caricom states hewedclosely to their dependent relationships previously established with the former “mother”countries. Two widely used economic indicators that closely reflect the postcolonial tradingrelationship are the degree of commodity concentration of postcolonial economies and theextent of their partner dependence. As Table 3.1 shows, Caricom countries are primarilyexporters of agricultural products—sugar, bananas, citrus, cocoa, nuts and spices, fish, andwood (the last in the case of Guyana and Suriname). Jamaica, Suriname, and Guyana areexporters of bauxite; Trinidad and Tobago is an oil and natural gas exporter and has usedthis base to become the most industrialized economy in the Caribbean. But although everycountry has developed an industrial or light manufacturing sector, manufacturing remainsa relatively small contributor (under 10 percent) to GDP except for Jamaica, Belize, and


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Trinidad and Tobago. In terms of GDP contribution, most countries depend on tourism andservices.

The UN’s index of commodity concentration—the ratio of major commodities in totalmerchandise exports normalized to a figure between 0 and 1—shows improvement over theyears but is still moderate to high (0.3 to 0.6) for countries other than Barbados and Haiti.(But Haiti exported only forty-nine commodities in 2003; the average for developingeconomies is over two hundred.) Apart from the inherent market vulnerability arising fromthe lack of export diversification, commodity concentration has also fostered a continueddependence on reliable traditional markets. Based on Caricom Secretariat data, Tables 3.2and 3.3 focus on export and import partner percentages. The tables point to Caricom states’movement over the years toward increased trade with the United States, and away from highdependence on the markets of the “mother countries” (Britain, France, and the Netherlands),even though these clearly continue to play a major role. Import reliance on the United Statesis quite high, generally above 30 percent (less for Suriname), but even with respect to exports,except for the small primary producing countries—Dominica, Saint Lucia, and St. Vincent,which have since independence depended heavily at first on the UK market and later onEurope—the United States has become a major export partner for Caricom. (In terms of dol-lar values, not shown in the table, the U.S. market far outranks individual European mar-kets.) For Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Kitts-Nevis, and to a lesser extent, Belize, the U.S.market is the predominant market for exports.

The change from reliance on the former colonial countries to the United States can beexplained by the geographical proximity and sheer size of the U.S. market, by increases in U.S.investment in all economic sectors of Caricom countries over the years, and also by the impactof aid programs, including geostrategic assistance, implemented by the United States. Suchprograms—such as the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI)—have had the effect of increasingexports to and imports from the donor country. However, the data also show that most Cari-com countries have managed to maintain a balance in trade between Europe and North Amer-ica, with Asia playing a more limited role, as well. Specifically, most countries now have adiversified range of import partners: Japan deserves special mention, having replaced Canada asa tertiary partner. In exports, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Suriname maintain an almostequal balance of trade between Europe and the United States. A notable drop in Caricomexports to Canada has been experienced over the years, with only Guyana and Jamaica show-ing double-digit percentages of exports in 2004. Canada’s export role has been taken up pri-marily by Latin America. Diversification efforts are discussed in more detail in the next chapter.

It is important to note that the intraregional market has been important to most Caricomcountries since the inception of formal regional integration in 1967. In this respect, the fig-ures show that while the dominant exporter in absolute terms to the region is Trinidad andTobago, the region is proportionally a very large market for Barbados and the easternCaribbean countries.

Aid Dependence

In terms of foreign aid, Caricom countries at independence benefited primarily from assis-tance from the United Kingdom and Canada; France, in the case of Haiti; and the Nether-lands, in the case of Suriname. Over the years, these sources were diversified to include Japan,

Economic and Social Interests • 57

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58•

Small States in G

lobal Affairs

Table 3.1 Economic and social indicators for Caricom countries

Country Main exportsa Export commodityConcentration

index, 2003–2004b

GDP per capita2004 (US$) GDP

per capita 2004 (US$)

Adult literacyrate,%c

Life expectancyat birth (years)

Infant mortality

rated

Population poor/indigent (%)e

Gender: GDI/GEMf

HIVrate, adultsg

Human development

indexh

Petroleumproducts,manufactures,machinery

Fish, crustaceans,plastics, mineral products, rum,salt, chemicals

Petroleum products, sugar,rum, electronicequipment,pharmaceuticals

Crustaceans,fruit and vegetablejuices, sugar,bananas,apparel

Soaps,bananas, perfumery andcosmetics

Antiguaand Barbuda

Bahamas

Barbados

Belize

Dominica

0.8 8594.6 85.8 73.9 11 — — — 0.81

0.3 15,099.3 95.0i 67.1 10 — 46/17j 3.3 0.83

0.2 10,538.1 100.0i 75.3 10 14/9 29/25k 1.5 0.88

0.4 3,594.1 75.1 71.8 32 33/13 76/57k 2.5 0.75

0.4 3,466.3 88.0 75.6 13 39/15 — — 0.79

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Economic and Social Interests

•59

Cocoa, spices,boat products,flour products,fish, bananas

Sugar, gold,shrimp, rice,wood, bauxite/alumina,

Apparel, oilsand cosmetics,fruit, coffee,cocoa

Alumina,bauxite, sugar,rum, coffee,bananas

Electronicequipment,sugar, machinery,books, rumand beverages

Bananas andfruit, rum,electronicequipment,oils, paper

Grenada

Guyana

Haiti

Jamaica

St. Kitts/Nevis

SaintLucia

0.3 3,871.7 96.0 66.3 18 32/13 — — 0.76

0.3 1,037.0 96.5 63.6 48 35/28 79/—k 2.4 0.73

0.1 471.1 52.0i 52.0 74 — 123/—j 3.8 0.48

0.6 471.1 79.9 70.7 17 14/— 77/— 1.5 0.72

0.5 9,268.5 97.8 70.0 18 31/11 — — 0.83

0.3 4,505.8 94.8 72.6 13 25/17 — — 0.79

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60•

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lobal Affairs

Table 3.1 Continued

Country Main exportsa Export commodityConcentration

index, 2003–2004b

GDP per capita2004 (US$) GDP

per capita 2004 (US$)

Adult literacyrate,%c

Life expectancyat birth (years)

Infant mortality

rated

Population poor/indigent (%)e

Gender: GDI/GEMf

HIVrate, adultsg

Human development

indexh

Bananas, fruit,millingproducts,cereals, edibleroots

Alumina,crude oil,shrimp, cereals,wood

Petroleum/petroleum products, fertilizer, iron and steel,chemicals, rumand beverages

St. Vincent

Suriname

Trinidad/Tobago

0.4 4,505.8 83.1 71.3 18 38/26 — — 0.76

0.6 2,475.9 89.6 69.3 30 — — 1.9 0.76

0.4 8,771.6 98.0i 69.8 18 16.7/1.2 48/22 2.6 0.82

Sources: UNCTAD, Handbook of Statistics 2005; UNDP, Human Development Report 2006; Caribbean Development Bank, Country Poverty Assessments; WHO/UNAIDS, 2006 Report on the GlobalAIDS Epidemic.— data not availablea Main exports are primarily compiled from United Nations Comtrade/SITC data and for Haiti date to 1997.b This export index ranges from 0 to 1 (maximum concentration). For details on its calculation, see the UNCTAD Handbook of Statistics. Data for Barbados, Dominica, and Guyana are for 2004; data for theother countries are for 2003. The average index for developed countries in 2004 was 0.11; for developing economies, it was 0.28.c This is the percentage of people age fifteen and above who can read and write. Data are reported by UNDP with the following explanations: data for Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica,Grenada, Guyana, Saint Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines are Caricom statistics used by the UNDP; the figure for Saint Kitts-Nevis is from the OECS; for Suriname and Bahamas from UNESCO;and for Belize from census data. Figures may be for years other than 2004. Data for Jamaica are for the most recent year available between 1995 and 1999.d Per 1,000 live births.e Data on poverty are from national poverty assessments surveys, and they vary from 2005 for Trinidad and Tobago to 2002 for Dominica. Assessments are based on survey data that include expenditures onfood and nonfood items. These data are not comparable to the global data on population living on US$1 or $2 (purchasing power parity). Estimates are that the Caribbean data translate into poverty lines ofnil to 10 percent using that criteria.f These indexes, developed by the UNDP, range from 0 to 1. The GDI is the gender-related development index based on female-male life expectancy, literacy, education, and income. The GEM refers to thegender-empowerment measure, which emphasizes female and male shares in political and economic participation.g Estimated number of people living with HIV, adults aged fifteen to forty-nine, 2005.h The Human Development Rank, developed by the UNDP, is based on an index that includes many social factors and ranges from 0–1.i Estimated used by UNDP based on UNESCO data. The data should be interpreted with caution.j From Human Development Report 2004.k From Human Development Report 2005.

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Economic and Social Interests • 61Table 3.2 Caricom historical trade with selected partners, exports (percentages)

From:Country

Year UnitedStates

Canada U.K. EU Caricom ALADIa Japan

Antigua andBarbuda

Barbados

Belize

Dominica

Grenada

Guyana

Jamaica

St. Kitts-Nevis

Saint Lucia

St. Vincent

Suriname

1986

2000c15.3b

15.7

2.8

2.03.5b

19.9

14.9b

21.6

20.3

43.80.2b

0.0

0.2b

30.3

1986

1996

2004d

23.7

13.2

15.9

4.2

4.4

2.7

7.6

16.6

16.8

13.8

19.0

21.0

10.2

35.8

51.8

0.1

8.9

0.2

1.2

0.2

0.0

1986

1996

2004d

56.5

44.6

55.2

0.2

2.8

0.2

27.6

38.3

19.6

28.4

44.1

29.8

1.5

3.0

11.3

11.4

4.7

1.6

0.1

0.0

0.8

1986

1996

2004d

4.7

4.3

2.6

0.7

0.0

0.0

56.9

35.6

19.0

59.0

35.7

19.0

23.7

46.7

61.5

0.6

0.0

—

0.0

0.0

—

1986

1996

2004d

4.0

21.1

26.2

6.2

2.0

1.7e

27.0

8.1

1.4e

61.5

36.4

33.8

22.8

29.1

32.1e

1.4

4.1

1.7

0.4

—

0.7

1986

1996

2004d

20.3

…

16.4

4.3

31.4

18.7

28.7

…

11.9

46.4

…

34.1

6.4

…

20.6

4.7

…

0.6

5.5

…

0.0

1986

1996

2004

34.0

36.8

20.6

16.2

11.8

19.5

19.0

13.2

11.3

27.0

30.8

31.0

7.0

30.8

31.0

0.5

0.8

0.5

1.1

2.3

2.5

1986

1996

2004d

61.9

17.4

71.5

0.2

0.0

0.0e

19.4

36.5

24.9

19.4

36.5

24.9

12.4

4.2

1.8

0.0

0.1

—

0.0

0.2

1.0

1986

1996

2004

12.1

14.8

9.1

0.0

0.1

0.2

67.4

67.7

46.8

69.2

69.5

47.0

14.6

13.4

42.5

0.2

0.2

0.2

0.0

0.3

0.0

1986

1996

2004

9.4

7.7

2.1

0.5

0.2

0.3

31.2

38.5

36.4

31.2

40.1

36.6

57.6

48.7

59.0

0.0

0.1

—

0.0

0.0

—

1986

1995d

2004d

—

18.2

—

0.4

—

1.8

—

26.5

—

2.0—

4.3

—

5.0

Trinidad andTobago

1986

1996

2004d

61.0

43.9

69.3

2.9

2.2

1.2

4.8

1.9

1.5

14.8

6.3

3.4

8.8

24.4

12.9

0.8

8.2

3.0

1.1

0.3

0.0

Exports to:

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Germany, and other European countries, but as in trade, the largest inflows have tended tocome from the United States. U.S. bilateral assistance is complemented by multilateral assis-tance through the international financial institutions and regional banks. (The region’s lessdeveloped countries are particularly dependent on multilateral assistance.) At the same time,gross inflows of foreign direct investment, targeted heavily to Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica,and the Bahamas, are to a large degree inflows from U.S. corporations. Data provided by theOrganization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) give the best overallpicture of financial flows to Caricom countries over the years (Table 3.4).7 Looking at aggre-gated net inflows in a selected time series (Table 3.4), the Bahamas, Jamaica, and Haiti havehad the most consistently high net inflows of aid from all sources, private as well as public.However, the Bahamas, as an advanced developing country, receives no official developmentassistance and only a small amount of official aid. Other significant net recipients of total aidare Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.8 Again, Trinidad and Tobago receives rel-atively little official aid. The figures point to increased bilateral inflows into Barbados in the2000s. (These changes in assistance patterns are discussed in more detail in the next chapter).

A key channel of multilateral assistance to many countries in the region has been theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF). In the 1970s and 1980s, several Caricom countries


Table 3.2 Continued

From:Country

Year UnitedStates


Haiti

Bahamas 1986

1996

2004

94.9f

30.9f

*

(3.0)g

*

*

*

*

1.8

48.4

31.3

*

*

*

0.6h

2.8h

2.0

0.5

0.0

1986

1996

2004

74.5f

77.4f

*

(4.2)g

*

*

*

*

22.8

17.1

3.4

*

*

*

1.6h

3.9h

0.0

0.3

0.2

Non-commonMarket

Sources: Caribbean Community Secretariat, Statistics Sub-Program. Data for Antigua and Barbuda and Suriname in 2000 and

2001 are from Free Trade Area of the Americas, Hemispheric Data Base (FTAA-IDB) Trade Statistics; data for the Bahamas and

Haiti are from United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Handbook of Statistics.

— means nil

… means missing data* Data not reported separately (see United States; see EU).a ALADI members are: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and

Venezuela.b Percentage is for 1987; 1986 not available.c Data are from the Free Trade Area of the Americas, Hemispheric Data Base (FTAA-HDB) Trade Statistics Database. This is the

last year for which data on Antigua and Barbuda was recorded. Antigua and Barbuda does not report statistics to Caricom.d Export data are based on domestic exports, not total exports as in the rest of the table.e Data are for 2003.f Data are for the United States and Canada.g Extrapolated from Canadian data (Statistics Canada, Trade Data Online).h Percentages are for Latin America and the Caribbean (“Developing Economies: America”)

Exports to:

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Table 3.3 Caricom historical trade with selected partners, imports (percentages)

From:Country

Year UnitedStates


Antigua andBarbuda

Barbados

Belize

Dominica

Grenada

Guyana

Jamaica

St. Kitts-Nevis

Saint Lucia

St. Vincent

Suriname

1986

2000c29.1b

47.6

3.4

3.710.4b

7.5

40.7b

11.1

9.9

12.53.2b

1.4

4.1b

3.1

1986

1996

2004

39.8

37.7

36.3

6.6

5.1

3.8

10.8

8.3

5.9

20.8

16.3

13.9

10.7

14.9

24.7

6.6

5.1

3.8

5.6

5.1

4.5

1986

1996

2004

57.1

54.9

39.9

3.4

1.6

1.6

8.1

4.6

3.0

16.4

8.0

6.7

2.2

4.2

3.4

3.4

1.6

1.6

2.4

1.6

2.1

1986

1996

2004

20.2

37.2

35.3

6.0

2.0

2.8

21.1

13.0

6.7

27.9

17.6

13.5

25.6

24.7

29.6

6.0

2.0

2.8

6.7

5.6

4.7

1986

1996

2004

25.0

42.2

41.2

7.8

3.1

2.3d

17.0

9.7

6.0d

24.2

15.0

16.6

21.7

26.7

23.9

7.8

3.1

2.3d

7.0

3.7

4.5

1986

1996

2004

26.8

37.5

29.5

2.3

4.0

1.6

11.2

8.6

4.6

21.5

13.7

8.6

15.5

12.1

29.3

2.3

5.2

1.6

6.8

3.6

6.2

1986

1996

2004

50.3

52.0

39.6

5.3

3.0

2.7

6.8

4.0

2.5

12.3

11.2

8.2

3.3

9.9

14.6

14.1

8.0

14.4

3.8

5.6

4.5

1986

1996

2004

40.1

42.5

53.3

2.8

2.6

3.6

15.1

9.5

7.7

20.3

11.7

10.2

18.3

17.9

20.0

0.6

1.1

1.1

4.1

5.5

3.2

1986

1996

2004

34.1

36.1

35.9

3.1

2.8

2.1

15.9

10.4

7.4

24.6

17.6

15.5

15.7

21.8

21.8

2.4

3.3

3.0

6.9

4.9

3.5

6.9

4.9

3.5

34.1

32.4

36.8

7.2

17.7

2.7

16.5

8.9

10.5

25.5

16.1

16.0

18.6

22.4

28.6

2.5

3.4

3.2

4.1

2.6

3.7

1986

1995

2004

—

50.9

22.4

—

0.6

1.3

—

1.2

0.7

—

29.1

23.9

—

10.3

20.1

—

12.3

5.9

—

2.6

13.0

Trinidad andTobago

1986

1996

2004

41.8

37.5

33.9

6.1

3.6

2.2

9.6

6.0

5.5

21.6

17.0

22.5

4.4

3.8

1.9

5.8

24.7

17.0

10.2

4.0

3.8

Imports from:

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experienced severe balance of payments shortfalls, particularly after the increases in oil prices,and resorted to borrowing heavily from the IMF from the regular and extended funds—standby arrangements, compensatory financing facility, extended facility, and enlarged accesspolicy. Jamaica and Guyana were among the largest borrowers: at the peak of their borrow-ing, they were lent more than 360 percent and more than 100 percent respectively of theirquotas. These borrowings, and later borrowings by a number of Caricom countries for struc-tural adjustment purposes, were heavily critiqued by various domestic constituencies becauseof the adverse effect of the IMF’s conditionalities, which included cutbacks in governmentspending for social programs, a reduction in imports, and the removal of the subsidies thatkept prices at reasonable levels. In 1980, the Jamaican government’s refusal to continue todeal with the IMF even became the key electoral issue, deeply dividing the electorate andleading to the defeat of the incumbent government. Countries borrowing in the 1970s,1980s, and 1990s included Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, and Jamaica (all under theExtended Fund Facility), Grenada and Haiti (from the IMF Trust Fund), Dominica, Haiti,and Guyana (Structural Adjustment [SAF] and Enhanced Structural Adjustment [ESAF]Facilities), and Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Kitts-Nevis, and Trinidad and Tobago under standby arrangements. The ESAF was replaced in1989 by the Poverty Reduction and Growth Fund (PRGF), targeted at low-income countries


Table 3.3 Continued

From:Country

Year UnitedStates


Haiti

Bahamas 1986

1996

2004

26.1e

21.3e

*

(0.0)f

*

*

*

*

15.4

29.1

15.9

*

*

*

6.7g

6.6g

0.9

20.9

7.6

1986

1996

2004

58.7e

60.7e

*

(2.5)f

*

*

*

*

11.3

11.1

7.5

*

*

*

18.8g

15.1g

6.3

2.7

2.8

Non-commonMarket

Sources: Caribbean Community Secretariat, Statistics Sub-Program. Data for Antigua and Barbuda and Suriname in 2000 and

2001 are from Free Trade Area of the Americas, Hemispheric Data Base (FTAA-IDB) Trade Statistics; data for the Bahamas and

Haiti are from United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Handbook of Statistics.

— means nil.

… means missing.* Data not reported separately (see United States; see EU).a ALADI members are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and

Venezuela.b Percentage is for 1987; 1986 not available.c Data are from the Free Trade Area of the Americas, Hemispheric Data Base (FTAA-HDB) Trade Statistics Database. This is the

last year for which data on Antigua and Barbuda was recorded. Antigua and Barbuda does not report statistics to Caricom.d Data are for 2003.e Data are for the United States and Canada.f Extrapolated from Canadian data (Statistics Canada, Trade Data Online).g Percentages are for Latin America and the Caribbean (“Developing Economies: America”).

Imports from:

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and enhanced in 1999 by the Initiative for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs). By2005, only Haiti (borrowing a reserve tranche), Dominica (receiving funding from a standbyarrangement as well as the PRGF), and Guyana (borrowing from the PRGF) were listed asactive borrowers from the IMF. Most Caricom countries had repaid their loans by 2000.9

Nevertheless, Caricom countries’ heavy past borrowing has resulted in a high externaldebt and corresponding debt service obligations for many countries of the region. In 2004,Jamaica, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago all had outstanding debts of over $1 billion,Belize had a debt of $956 million, and Barbados, the Bahamas, Belize, and Antigua and Bar-buda stood at more than $500 million. More importantly, the debt service ratio to exports atthis time was 51 percent for Belize, 22 percent for St. Kitts-Nevis, and 21 percent forJamaica.10 In 2004, Grenada’s debt had to be rescheduled because its economy was devas-tated by a category five hurricane, Ivan. Meanwhile, Guyana has frequently requested debtreschedulings from both extraregional donors and from its neighbor, Trinidad and Tobago.Fortunately, its low-income status has allowed it to benefit from the enhanced World Bank-IMF HIPC initiative. By 2004, individual DAC countries had canceled the debt of the leastdeveloped HIPCs, and in 2005–2006, agreement was reached for broad debt relief to poorercountries, an initiative that would benefit Caricom’s poorest.

Among Caricom countries, Haiti’s situation is unique in that pledges of aid have oftenbeen left unfulfilled with the onset of political crises, including the electoral impasse in theearly 2000s. With a new government in place in 2004, a pledging conference brought indonor pledges of more than one billion dollars in bilateral as well as multilateral aid over twoyears, and by 2005, this aid had begun to be disbursed. Table 3.4 shows this clear increase inOfficial Development Aid to Haiti.

In 2004, Haiti had an external debt of more than $1.3 billion, 286 percent of exports,with a debt service ratio at 8.6 percent in 2003 and 10 percent (projected) in 2004.11

Although this is not enough for consideration under programs for highly indebted countries,successive crises have hurt Haiti’s capacity to repay its debts. In an unexpected move, in 2002and 2003, President Aristide announced that his government would seek twenty billion dol-lars in reparations from France because reparations paid by Haiti to France in 1825 (dis-cussed in earlier chapters) had been unjust and indeed had set the stage for theimpoverishment of the island nation. However, the claim was expeditiously dropped by thenew government in 2004.

For the Caricom countries, aid dependence has sometimes been a clear constraint onpolitical and economic freedom. Developed countries, in particular the United States, haveoften resorted to threats of cutoffs of economic aid (as well as trade sanctions) and issue-link-age policies to secure their political and economic goals or to prevent countries from adopt-ing policies deemed hostile. Haiti as well as non-Caricom Cuba present the clearest cases ofthe use of sanctions and embargoes across the years, but there are examples from the English-speaking Caribbean as well. U.S. aid to Jamaica, for example, declined to almost nothingduring the Michael Manley administration after heavy taxes were imposed on bauxite multi-nationals and friendly links with socialist nations were deepened. The United States alsopressured the international financial institutions to deny loans to Jamaica, and particularlypushed for tough IMF conditionality vis-à-vis Jamaica. Once the conservative Edward Seagagovernment came to power, substantial economic assistance was immediately proffered. Sim-ilarly, in Guyana, U.S. aid and investment were reduced in the 1970s when Guyana turnedto socialism. In the early 1980s, IMF loans were suspended, and the United States worked to


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Table 3.4 Net receipts, private and public, to the independent Caricom nations, and main bilateral and multi-lateral contributors (US$million)

AntiguaandBarbuda

Barbados

Belize

Dominica

Grenada

Guyana

Bahamas

1980

1990

2005

6.5

6.4

122.5

3.9

1.7

0.1

Canada, UK

Germany

Japan, Canada

CDB, UNDP

ECEC5.0d

1.7

–5.4

5.6

4.7

6.9

CDB, Canada

UK, Canada, EC

Japan, Canada

1980

1990

2005

71.6

251.05

229.6

4.6

30.1

–12.0

United States,Switzerland,e

Japan, UnitedStates, UK

United States, UK

IBRD, UNDP

IDB, CDB

—

471.5

376.1

1,408.8f

2.1

3.5

3.9f

UNDP

CDB

United States

1970

1980

1990

2005

3.4

22.4

–6.5

223.1

0.3

13.9

9.6

–15.01

U.K, Belgium

UK, Canada

Netherlands,

United States,Japanh

UNDP

IDB Sp., CDB

IDB

UNDP

–0.0g

4.0

–13.6

–8.6

2.4

13.9

2.9

6.1

UK, Canada

IDB Sp., CDB, UK

IDB Sp.h

CDB, UK

1985

1990

2003

29.14

35.55

6.66

5.51

15.46

20.15

United States, UK

United States, UK,Canada

UK, France

IBRD

CDB

IDB, EC

–0.0

0.2

–3.7

22.0

30.4

12.1

UK, Canada

United States, CDB,UK, EC

EC, United States

1980

1990

2005

17.4

37.1

13.6

9.4

8.6

–14.2

UK

Japan, UK, France

Canada, France

EC, CDB

CDB, EC

CDB, IMF

4.8d

6.0

–7.1

17.7

19.7

4.5

EC, UK, CDB

CDB, France,Canada, UK, Japan

SAF+ESAF+PRGF(IMF), CDB, IMF,CDB, EC

1980

1990

2005

3.7

20.9

85.2

3.2

8.9

33.8

USSRi

Germany, Japane

Netherlands, France

EC, IMF TrustFund

CDB, EC

–0.0

2.1f

16.0

3.9

13.8

20.0

USSRi

CDB, EC, Japan,UK

EC, UKB

1970

1980

1990

2005

19.5

43.5

223.8

465.2

1.5

41.2

114.1

100.5

UK, United States,Canada

United States,Canada


UK., United States

UNDP

IDB Sp., CDB,Arab ags.

SAF+ESAF,EC, IDB

IDP Sp., EC

1.1

–0.2

7.9

10.0

17.0

42.6

168.8

38.7

UK, United States,Canada

IDB, CDB, Canada

SAF+ESAF,EC, UK,Canada, Germany

Canada, CDB, IDBSp., EC

Country Year Total Of which Multi-lateral

Top bilatera donorsa Top multi-lateral donors

Net FDIb

Net ODA/OAc

Top net ODA donorsa

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Table 3.4 Continued


Jamaica

St. Kitts-Nevis

SaintLucia

St. Vincent

Suriname

Haiti 1970

1980

1990

2005

7.2

120.7

154.0

547.0

2.4

42.3

50.8

160.5

United States

United States,France, Germany

United States,France

United States,France, Canada

IDB Sp.,UNDP

IDA, IDB Sp.,UNDP, IMFTrust Fund

IDB, EC,UNDP

IDB Sp., EC

0.0j

0.91

–0.16

31.0

7.9

105.2

168.5

354.4

IDB Sp.

United States, IDA,Germany, IDB Sp.

United States,France

United States, IDBSp., France

1970

1980

1990

2005

142.5

256.4

3010.0

–66.2

8.2

93.2

36.5

–1,541.

United States,Canadae

Arab Sts, Netherlands

United States,Japan, Canada

United States,France, Canada,Netherlands,Switzerland

IBRD

IBRD. IDBSp., CDB

IDB, EC, CDB, EC

116.9

3.1

68.8

–1,356.2

10.7

126.0

271.0

United States,Canada, UK

Netherlands, UnitedStates, IDB Sp.,

Arab Sts.

Japan, Canada,Netherlands

UK, United States,EC

1985

1990

2005

4.7

7.4

2.9

2.2

3.0

–16.0

UK, Canada


Germany, UnitedStates, Canada

CDB

CDB

CDB

0.2

-0.0k

–13.2

4.5

8.1

1.6

CDB, UK, Canada

CDB, UK, Canada

CDB, Canada

1980

1990

2005

9.7

17.2

27.6

6.2

9.8

5.5

UK

Canada, France,

Netherlands

EC, CDB

EC, CDB

IDA, CDB

0.0

2.0

0.2

8.6

12.4

6.5

EC, UK

CDB, UK, Canada

IDA, France,Canada

1980

1990

2005

10.7

14.7

1.9

7.8

9.7

–13.0

UK, United States

UK, Canada,United States

Japan

CDB, EC

CDB, EC

EC

0.0l

0.5j

–3.6

9.7

15.4

5.7

CDB, EC, UK

CDB, EC, UK

Japan, Canada

1980

1990

2005

80.1

127.5

19.0

5.1

14.5

9.5

Netherlands

Japan, Netherlands

Netherlands

EC, UNDP

EC, IDB

EC, GFATM

–0.4

–0.6

–7.2

82.2

61.6

33.5

Netherlands

Netherlands, Belgium

Netherlands


Top bilateral donorsa Top multi-lateral donors

Net FDIb

Net ODA/OAc

Top net ODA donorsa

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deny Guyana loans from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). With respect toGrenada, the United States excluded it from aid allocations until 1983, denied it participa-tion in the Caribbean Basin Initiative preferential trade program, and pressured the IMF, theInternational Development Association, the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), and theEuropean Community (EC)—unsuccessfully in the case of the last two—to deny aid toGrenada. In the case of the CDB, the United States focused on trying to persuade its per-ceived allies Jamaica, Dominica, and Antigua and Barbuda, but in the end, Caricom coun-tries decided as a bloc to forgo the loan rather than allow the superpower to sow the seeds ofregional disunity. The United States has also used decertification threats against countriesperceived to be noncooperating in drug interdiction, including threats against Jamaica andother countries that initially refused to accept “shiprider” agreements in 1995 (see Chapter2). Barbados also felt that its initial noncooperation in this area was linked to a decision todowngrade its airport in terms of safety. Finally, in a noneconomic example, the UnitedStates cut off military assistance to countries that refused to sign “Article 98” agreementsexempting it from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

In the post–cold war period, assistance from the developed to developing nations, includ-ing Caricom, has been closely linked to moves toward economic and political liberalization,


Table 3.4 Continued

TrinidadandTobago

1970

1980

1990

2003

13.89

92.82

77.77

–99.5

3.2

3.45

40.3

–25.8

UK, Canada

UK, Canada, Italy

Germany, Canada

United States,Netherlands

IBRD

UNDP, EC

EC, IDB

IFC

6.95

54.11

–88.56

113.8

5.78

4.67

18.19

6.1

Canada, UK

UNDP

EC, Canada,UNDP, Japan

Japan, Canada,France

Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), International Development Statistics (online), 2005.

Key: Arab ags: Arab agencies; Arab Sts: Arab states; CDB: Caribbean Development Bank; EC: European Commission; GFATM:

Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis, and Malaria; IBRD: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World

Bank); IDA: International Development Association; IDB: Inter-American Development Bank; IDB Sp.: IDB Special Fund; IFC:

International Finance Corporation; IMF: International Monetary Fund; SAF+ESAF+PRGF (IMF): Structural Adjustment,

Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility-Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility; UNDP: United National Development Pro-

gram.

— indicates only very low values for all donorsa Usually no more than three are listed, except where some donors share almost the same rank.b Foreign Direct Investment.c Official Development Assistance; Official Assistance (loans) in the case of the Bahamas, which is not eligible for ODA.d 1981e Secondary donor’s inflow is significantly less than the primary’sf 2004g 1973h Value less than $1 millioni Not included in the totalj 1992k 1995l 1982


Top bilatera donorsa Top multi-lateral donors

Net FDIb

Net ODA/OAc

Top net ODA donorsa

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to transparency in financial transactions, and in many cases, to environmental citizenship.After September 11, 2001, U.S. efforts turned toward rewarding supporters of its policiestoward Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as pressuring countries to take various counterterrorisminitiatives, as discussed in Chapter 2.12

One economic area in which the Europeans have been as proactive as the United States inpressuring Caricom countries has been the curbing of tax haven and offshore center activi-ties. Despite much protest from countries hosting such investment and dependent on theincome from such activities, the economic move to control the flight of European and U.S.investment to these havens was given added impetus by political concerns about moneylaundering and terrorism. The basic argument against these havens is, however, economic:for example, in 2004, it was estimated that the United States’ biggest corporations, in fun-neling profits to tax havens to avoid high corporate tax rates, had deprived the United Statesof ten to twenty billion dollars in tax revenues.13 Therefore, Caribbean low-tax havens havebeen pressured by OECD threats of sanctions into signing what may not be the most bene-ficial tax information exchange agreements. Critics have noted that these agreements do notcontain reciprocal benefits other than mutual information exchange and that, in particular,the sharing of revenues from taxable income has not generally been addressed.

Economic threats against smaller countries are not the province of the developed countriesonly. In the Caricom region, Venezuela has often used economic disincentives to intimidateGuyana because of their territorial dispute. Since the 1960s, changes in governments notwith-standing, prospective investors in the disputed Essequibo zone have been deterred by Venezue-lan warnings that their contemplated investment is inadvisable. In the early 1980s, Venezuelaplaced pressure on the World Bank to deny aid to Guyana for a major hydroelectricity project,and it sought to influence the IDB and the EC countries to deny such assistance. Even if tech-nical problems were usually cited as the ultimate reason for denial of aid from these sources,there is no doubt that Venezuelan tactics also had some influence. Venezuela expressly excludedGuyana from the San José Accord and from a later agreement, the Caracas Energy Agreementof 2000 (which in any event Guyana could not access once it was designated as HIPC).Between 1999 and 2001, Venezuela publicized its opposition to the proposed establishment bya U.S.-based company of a commercial rocket launch facility in the Essequibo, a plan laterabandoned for other reasons; it opposed the granting of a forestry concession to a Chinese firmand advised the Chinese government against it; and it responded to concessions granted byGuyana for oil exploration in the marine territory of the Essequibo by warning off ExxonMobil and Century oil companies, and also by suggesting that it (Venezuela) would grant itsown oil exploration concessions. However, after a visit by the Venezuelan president to Guyanain 2004, tensions were defused. President Chávez agreed to allow Guyana to proceed with itsdevelopment plans, and since then, relations have warmed considerably.

Energy Dependence

One of the issues preoccupying all countries today is that of energy (in)dependence. In the1970s, the oil producing countries of the global south discovered that they could use oil notjust as a political weapon (used for a relatively brief time by the Arab producers during theMiddle East crisis of 1973) but also as a way to increase their revenues and speed up theirdevelopment efforts. At the same time, non–oil producing global south countries shared


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with the northern countries the adverse effects of higher oil prices, notwithstanding effortsby the oil producers to provide them with concessionary financing. Since then, the ups anddowns of the oil market have been a major factor in facilitating or hindering the developmentprospects of the nonoil south.

Within Caricom, Trinidad and Tobago is the only oil producing country, althoughGuyana, Suriname, and Barbados have been pursuing marine oil exploration. In 2004, 21.7percent of Caricom total imports and a huge 55.2 percent of interregional imports consistedof mineral fuels, lubricants, and related materials.14 In the early 2000s, Trinidad and Tobagohas been refining some sixty thousand barrels of oil each day for export to the rest of Cari-com. In addition, as a major natural gas exporter, the country has mooted plans for estab-lishing a natural gas pipeline to supply the region. On the other hand, a number of Caricomcountries benefit from the San José Agreement signed between Venezuela and Mexico on theone side and Central American and Caribbean countries on the other, to supply oil at dis-count prices to designated beneficiaries. Within Caricom, these are Haiti, Jamaica, Barbados,and Belize. Barbados also refines crude sent from Trinidad. In 2005, Venezuela initiated anew arrangement with the Caribbean countries, termed the PetroCaribe Accord, underwhich oil financing would be arranged, and preferential access by Venezuela to the region’sagricultural products could substitute for energy payments.15 While most Caricom countriesare eager to reduce their vulnerability by securing multiple sources of oil, Trinidad andTobago’s need to preserve its traditional markets means that it is subject to a different type ofvulnerability. The energy sector accounts for more than 80 percent of domestic goods exportsso that market or domestic problems in the sector can have highly adverse consequences.16 Inaddition, since oil and gas are nonrenewable resources, Trinidad and Tobago not only has todiversify into “downstream” production but it is also confronted with the issue of sustain-ability.

Energy experts have recommended that Caribbean countries look to other renewablesources of energy such as solar energy (used to some degree in Barbados), wind, biomass,cogeneration, small and mini hydro energy, and geothermal energy. The possibility ofethanol production has been mooted. Since 1998, the Caricom Secretariat has been chargedwith working on energy initiatives, and in 2004, it launched the Caribbean RenewableEnergy Development Program, whose aim is “to remove barriers to the increased use ofrenewable energies and reduce implementation costs, thus reducing the Caribbean region’sdependence on fossil fuels and contributing to the reduction of green house gas emissions.”17

According to the secretariat, petroleum products account for an estimated 93 percent ofcommercial energy consumption in the Caribbean, and average electricity prices in theregion are as much as seven times higher than those in the United States and Europe, thusgiving urgency to the search for alternative renewable sources.

Social Vulnerability

Piggybacking on the economic vulnerability index being developed, the development of asocial vulnerability index has had some support in the Caribbean region. The index isfocused on vulnerability in education, health, security and social order, resource allocation,and communications architecture.18


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The United Nations Development Program (UNDP)’s Human Development Index(HDI) has become a well-used instrument for assessing social progress since its inception in1990. The Caricom countries have usually fared well on the combined measure: at the timeof the index’s inception, HDI assessments for 1990—based on life expectancy, adult literacy,education, and GDP per capita-purchasing power parity—placed Barbados, the Bahamas,Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda, and Dominica in the category of high humandevelopment (Barbados being the highest developing country at number twenty-two), andSuriname, Jamaica, Grenada, St. Kitts-Nevis, Belize, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent, and Guyana inthe medium category. Only Haiti ranked in the low category.19 Comparing those figureswith the HDI for 2004,20 Barbados still ranked high at number thirty-one, behind onlyHong Kong (Special Administrative Region of China) and Singapore; St. Kitts-Nevis wasupgraded to the second most developed Caricom country (number fifty-one), and theBahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, and Antigua and Barbuda completed the high human devel-opment list (see Table 3.1). Over the years, Dominica was downgraded to the medium cate-gory, where indeed all the other Caricom countries, save Haiti, can be found. Haiti wasplaced in the low human development group. In other words, despite some movement upand down, most Caricom countries remain in the high or high-medium categories onhuman development. Some countries—Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica,Guyana, and Saint Lucia—ranked higher on HDI than on GDP per capita (purchasingpower parity) in 2004.

The addition of gender categories to the UNDP’s analyses has further emphasized theregion’s relative progressiveness compared to many other areas of the developing world.Between 2002 and 2004, Barbados, the Bahamas, and Trinidad and Tobago ranked in thetop fifty of all countries on the UNDP’s gender-related development index (GDI), whichincludes consideration of female life expectancy, literacy, education, and income, whileJamaica, Belize, and Guyana scored in the top one hundred. Haiti ranked in the low cate-gory; data were missing for the other countries during these years. Moreover, on the UNDP’sother index of gender empowerment (GEM), which focuses on female participation in poli-tics and the economy, the Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados again do well, listedin the top quartile, with Belize ranking somewhat lower (fifty-seven to fifty-nine). Again,unfortunately, there are no data for the other countries.

On the other hand, these good figures mask a number of problems faced by Caricomstates, including the inequitable distribution of wealth within Caricom countries, the relatedincreasing numbers of people living in poverty, the high levels of unemployment, the trou-bling prevalence of HIV/AIDS, and the adverse impact of ever-increasing crime. TheCaribbean Development Bank has been sponsoring national poverty assessment surveyssince 1995, and some countries have also conducted their own surveys. The data so far indi-cate that between 14 percent (Barbados) and 39 percent (Dominica) of people live below thenational poverty line and between 1.2 percent (Trinidad and Tobago) and 28 percent(Guyana) are classified as indigent. The Gini index of inequality ranges from .35 (Dominica)to .56 (St. Vincent). In 2004, unemployment ranged from 8.4 percent in Trinidad and Tobagoto a high 21 percent for Saint Lucia.21 Moreover, perhaps the most problematic concern in theregion has centered on the high incidence of HIV/AIDS. The region has the highest rate of thedisease (1.2 percent in 2006, down from 2.3 in 2003) behind sub-Saharan Africa (5.6 percentin 2006, down from 7.5 in 2003).22 Three countries have ranked particularly high over theyears—Haiti (5.6 percent in 2003, down to 3.8 percent in 2005, and an estimated 2.2 percent


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in 2006); Trinidad and Tobago (3.2 percent in 2003, down to 2.6 percent in 2005), and theBahamas (3.0 percent in 2003, and 3.3 percent in 2005).23 The prevalence of HIV/AIDSconstitutes a strain on health resources and budgets, and a drain on the economy and soci-ety, and it undermines the goal of achievement of a measure of social sustainability.

Environmental Vulnerability

In a sense, the ultimate threat to Caricom countries comes from the fact that the region isone of the most vulnerable to natural disasters: hurricanes and floods, earthquakes, droughts,and volcanic eruptions. The Red Cross/Red Crescent chose to include in its 1997 World Dis-aster Report a special section on the Caribbean in which it was estimated that some 719,000people are affected by disasters annually, making it one of the most disaster-prone regions inthe world. The Barbados Conference on Sustainable Development of SIDS (a follow-up tothe United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development, held in Rio deJaneiro in 1992) identified several ecological problems pertaining to SIDS, including smallwatersheds and threatened supplies of fresh water; high degrees of endemism and levels ofbiodiversity, but high risks of extinction; fragile coastal ecosystems; possibilities of seriousharm due to climate change or variability and sea level rise; vulnerability to natural and envi-ronmental disasters; and problems arising from classification as high-risk entities by insur-ance companies.24 At this conference and a follow-up in Mauritius in 2005, Caricom statescommitted themselves to implementing sustainable development programs locally, and theyasked for financial and technical assistance from the global community to meet their needsin capacity building, institutional development, and the transfer of technologies, as well astrade, economic diversification, and finance. Prior to the Rio conference, Caricom countrieshad pressed for the formation of an Alliance of Small Island Developing States (AOSIS),which was established in 1990 and expanded to include Pacific, Indian Ocean, and Mediter-ranean island nations as well as Guinea-Bissau.25 After Barbados, the SIDS formed a networkto interact with epistemic communities around the globe on issues such as the threat ofozone layer depletion and sea level rises. In addition, they have been proactive in subscribingto the various international conventions on the environment, including the Kyoto Protocol,which was signed and ratified by all except St. Kitts-Nevis and Suriname as of 2006.26

Two particular issues of sustainability carry particular importance for economic develop-ment in these countries. First, as already noted, the region is highly vulnerable to natural dis-asters, in particular hurricanes but also earthquakes and volcanic eruptions such as the onethat devastated Montserrat in 1995. The costs of these disasters are reflected not only in thehuman toll—deaths, injuries, and damage to housing stock—but also in the revenue lossesto the countries both in tourism and agricultural exports. For example, Hurricane Ivan(2004) completely devastated Grenada, damaging 90 percent of the housing stock and theentire crucial nutmeg crop, while also damaging buildings and infrastructure in Barbados, St.Vincent, Jamaica, and Cuba. In the same season, hurricanes Frances and Jeanne did majordamage to the Bahamas. During the 1980s, Hurricane Gilbert (1988) caused losses of over$300 million to Jamaica’s agricultural sector and also severe damage to housing. HurricaneHugo (1989) totally destroyed crops, forests, fishing vessels, beach facilities, housing, andinfrastructure in Montserrat. In 1995, Hurricane Luis devastated Antigua and Barbuda,


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damaging 85 percent of the housing stock. The fact is that even a category one hurricane cancause severe damage to these islands. Flooding problems are already endemic in areas whererainforest conservation has been secondary to human habitat and living needs.27

Both the Caricom region and the subregional Organization of eastern Caribbean States(OECS) are institutionally structured to handle disasters, through the Caribbean DisasterEmergency Response Agency (CDERA), on the one hand, and the OECS natural disasterunit of the Environment and Sustainable Development Unit (ESDU), on the other. Pro-grams originally centered on relief are now focused on mitigation and preparedness, as theregion learns from each disaster. However, much remains to be done in areas such as build-ing code enforcement, citizen mobilization and communication, and post-disaster recon-struction. International institutions, in particular the UNDP, which usually coordinatesrelief efforts through its resident representatives, play a large role in all areas of disaster man-agement. But perhaps the most important development in the last decade has been the mobi-lization of the aid-granting community—the World Bank, the International DevelopmentAssociation, the General Environmental Facility (GEF) of the UN, the Organization ofAmerican States, and others—in providing technical and financial resources to Caricomcountries to assist in implementing disaster preparedness and mitigation programs.

Another area of particular interest for Caricom countries is the tourism sector. Naturaldisasters are, of course, one factor affecting the tourism sector both in terms of damages tohotel stock and damage to beaches and coastal systems. However the tourism sector is facedwith a broader dilemma—that of reconciling the need for tourist revenues with the fact thatmore tourists mean more harm to delicate ecosystems, both in terms of traditional beachtourism and the newer ecotourism. (In both cases but especially the latter, pollution andpopularity also can adversely affect the desirability of the destination in the eyes of the trav-eler.) Lesley France and Brian Wheeller divide the Caribbean region into four types: unde-veloped places such as Dominica and St. Vincent; increasingly popular “up market” spotssuch as Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands; newer mass market destinations such asAruba, St. Kitts-Nevis, and Saint Lucia; and mature centers such as Antigua and Barbuda,the Bahamas, and Jamaica.28 According to them, prospects for changes toward sustainabledevelopment models depend on the level of tourist development already reached. Eco-tourism, for example, “may not be such a realistic proposition in the more developed parts ofindividual islands where mass package tourism has emerged and dominates. These geo-graphical areas show evidence of irreversible change as charter air travel and the tour opera-tors have organized large number of visitor movements from America and Europe.”29

Unfortunately, hotel density and tourism activities in the more mature areas have alreadycaused damage to and pollution of coastal ecosystems, including coral reefs. In the case ofecotourism, the prevailing business standpoint that “green is good . . . if it can be employedto sell the product”30 is hardly conducive to conservation. Local fauna and flora in some areashave already been adversely affected. However, in less accessible areas such as Dominica andSuriname, ecotourism is developing slowly enough for expectations of conservation to beraised.

While Caricom governments are increasingly describing projects as environmentally sus-tainable, nongovernmental groups are wary of such proclamations. In Jamaica, for example,the Ministry of Tourism’s description of a project to open up the south coast as “small scale,ecologically sensitive” was countered by local groups that maintained that the growth wouldbe no different than the rampant resort growth of the north coast.31 In Trinidad and Tobago,


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whereas the prime minister described a proposed north coast highway as “an eco-highway,”groups called that an oxymoron, maintaining that the highway would endanger some of therarest flora and fauna.32 In Trinidad, environmental groups are also increasingly opposinggovernmental plans for industrial development. For example, groups mobilized both locallyand transnationally in 2006 to try to prevent the location of two proposed (low-emissions)aluminum smelter plants in the fisheries-oriented southwest peninsula of Trinidad.

Cruise tourism should also be mentioned as a particularly problematic form of tourism asit relates to environmental management. Cruise ships are growing larger and more numerousevery year as the industry caters to aging baby boomers and wealthy retirees, as well as thosemiddle-income earners with somewhat less discretionary income looking for quick getaways.Although the Caribbean accounts for over 50 percent of the world’s cruise market, analyseshave generally shown that the countries benefit little, proportionally, from cruise shiptourism, because most such tourists are more engaged on the ships themselves than outside.However, taxes on stopovers and organized tours provide important revenues. The ecologicalproblems arise primarily from the pollution caused by the dumping of ballast and sewage inthe oceans, but some of the mass-market problems already cited are also present. Despiteglobal laws to stem marine pollution and rewards for whistle blowers, unscrupulous opera-tors are still willing to take the chance to avoid disposal costs and, of course, accidentaldumping is also always possible. Cruise ships can harm coral reefs and other ecosystems, andcoastal erosion may occur when countries decide to dredge harbors to accommodate largevessels. While environmental taxes are routinely levied on hotel operators in some Caribbeancountries, the cruise industry has bred such interisland competitiveness that the cruise sectorlargely escapes heavy taxes and other responsibilities.33

Special Trade Challenges

Preferential Trade Programs and Liberalization

Liberalization has brought a special challenge to the Caricom region: how to adjust to theending of trade preferences extended to the region by a number of northern countries dur-ing the cold war. These preferential programs have been crucial to the economic develop-ment of many Caricom countries that are now being forced to open their economies toglobal competition. After a period of resistance and a dedicated push to preserve these pref-erences, Caricom countries moved to try to delay full liberalization through the promotionof the norm of “special and differential treatment.” In this, as reflected in the discussion tofollow, they have only been partially successful.

U.S. Trade Programs

Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI)The Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), initiated in 1982 as the Caribbean Basin EconomicRecovery Act (CBERA) and effected in 1984, was financed by the U.S. Economic SupportFund (ESF) for strategically important countries and was promoted as a mini–Marshall Planresponse to ideological turmoil in the Caribbean and Central American region. At the time


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it was proposed, of $350 million in emergency economic aid allocated to the region, theEnglish-speaking Caribbean received only $75 million, of which $50 million was for Jamaica,the country selected by President Reagan as a showcase for the private enterprise model. Theremaining $25 million went to the eastern Caribbean, Guyana, and Belize. Under the pro-gram, U.S. businesses were encouraged to invest in the Caribbean, but the 10 percent taxcredit originally proposed was not included in the act signed into law in 1983, thus limitingthe impact of the program. The centerpiece of the act was trade provisions allowing Caribbeancountries to send their products duty free to the United States for twelve years. Excluded weresome crucial products: textiles and apparel, canned tuna, petroleum and petroleum products,footwear, and certain leather goods. Also, duty-free exports of sugar were limited by the com-petitive-need criteria of the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP).

CBERA I, as it was called, was disappointing to the Caribbean because of the technicalrestrictions contained in the agreement. The English-speaking states also complained about theexclusion of Grenada, which was then viewed as hostile to the United States. The second ver-sion or expansion of the act, CBERA II, passed in 1990, eliminated most of the product exclu-sions (but not the exclusion of apparel), despite opposition from labor groups in the UnitedStates. The CBI was also converted into a permanent program. Then, after the establishmentof the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Caricom countries, suffering fromincreased competition from Mexico, lobbied hard for “NAFTA parity,” that is, equivalent pref-erential treatment. In response, in 2000, the U.S. Congress passed the Caribbean Basin TradePartnership Act (CBTPA), expanding CBI benefits to include textiles and apparel and ensuringthe continuation of preferences through September 30, 2008; by then negotiations on the FreeTrade of the Americas were expected to be completed. CBTA was passed as a complement to amajor plan for African recovery, the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).

The effect of CBERA across the years has been mixed. Table 3.5 shows that U.S. importsfrom the CBERA region grew steadily over the years—from a mere $577.7 million in 1984to just over $1 billion in 1990 and $3.2 billion in 1998, but fell to $2.6 billion in 1999before increasing as a result of the introduction of CBTPA. In the 1990s, analysts tended tocompare the growth in U.S. imports unfavorably with the growth in U.S. exports to theregion. However, since U.S. imports from Central America and Panama almost doubled overthe same period, and certain countries—Costa Rica, Guatemala, and the Dominican Repub-lic—showed what one analyst describes as a “spectacular” performance, the deficit that per-sisted in U.S. trade with Caricom (the balance of trade went from a positive $683 million in1981 down to $128 million in post-CBI 1985 and continued a downward trend after that)34

was more likely attributable to the region’s own weak performance.35 While the CentralAmerican countries continued to have a healthy trade balance with the United States in thelate 1990s and early 2000s, Caricom countries finally turned to a surplus only in 2002. Thisalso means that the real improvement in CBERA imports into the United States after theintroduction of the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA) or “NAFTA parity” billin 2000, was not attributable so much to Caricom increases in exports. U.S. imports wentfrom $2.6 billion in 2000 to $10.9 billion in 2004, but most Caricom states witnessed con-tinued declines or only mild improvements in CBERA exports. The exceptions were Haiti(58.8 percent of exports entering under the CBERA in 2004, up from 10.4 percent in 1998),Jamaica (52 percent, a substantial jump in exports from the 1998 level of 13.9 percent), andBelize (41.6 percent, up from 29.7 percent). Trinidad and Tobago improved from 19.1 per-cent in 1998 to 27.5 percent in 2004 on the basis of strong methanol exports. St. Kitts-Nevis


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and St. Vincent, too, are approaching pre-1998 levels (see Table 3.7). However, in contrastto the performance of Caricom exports under CBERA and CBTBA, in the late 1990s andearly 2000s, exports under the “Most Favored Nation (MFN) free” or Normal Trade Rela-tions (NTR) category have been rising for all Caricom countries except Haiti. (Figures forAntigua and Barbuda are somewhat variable.) Given the growing trend toward global andhemispheric liberalization, normal trade is expected to supplant preferences in the future.

Over the years, the CBERA program was boosted by two other U.S. incentive programs:the 807(A) and 936 tax incentives. Under the 807 trade provision, U.S. companies do notpay duty on reimported goods assembled overseas from components manufactured in theUnited States. The 807(A) program extended liberal import quota (guaranteed access levels)and duty (paid only on the value added) treatment to textile and apparel goods manufacturedin CBI beneficiary countries. The other important CBI-related program, no longer in exis-tence, was the extension to other Caribbean countries of the tax incentives granted to U.S.companies investing in Puerto Rico. Specifically, U.S. companies investing in Puerto Ricobenefited under section 936 of the U.S. tax code from substantial tax relief. In 1985, PuertoRico’s government lobbied for an extension of the program in order to forestall proposedcongressional revisions. As a result, Puerto Rico’s twin plant initiative, under which U.S.companies could take advantage of Puerto Rico’s financial and administrative base as well asthe 936 tax incentives while accessing low-wage labor in other Caribbean countries, wasexpanded to allow funds generated by U.S. corporations benefiting from the 936 tax creditto go toward financing a Caribbean development program. That program offered loans atrates of 0.5 percent to 2 percent less than prevailing interest rates.36

A number of Caricom countries benefited under this program, which was phased out in1997 after it came to be perceived as a drain on the U.S. treasury. The program was replacedby a wage credit benefiting labor-intensive industries. By the time Puerto Rico stopped dis-bursing funds to the rest of the Caribbean in 1993–1994, a total of $1.3 billion had beeninvested under 936 in 123 projects in the CBI countries.37 Only the Bahamas, Antigua andBarbuda, Montserrat, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines had neglected to sign the neces-sary tax information exchange agreements that would have allowed them to participate in theprogram. When the program ended, William Steif summed up the benefits as follows:

US$960 million was in 936 loans, the rest was in coordinated private investment. The projectscreated 1,873 jobs in Puerto Rico and 30,191 jobs elsewhere in the Caribbean. Nearly half theprojects were “twin plant” projects, with a “finishing” plant in Puerto Rico and a labour-intensiveplant outside the island. Biggest investments: Jamaica, US$419 million; Trinidad, US$377 mil-lion; Costa Rica, US$159 million; Dominican Republic, US$158 million; Honduras, US$95million. There were projects in telecommunications, oil refining, hotels and agribusiness; elec-tronic, pharmaceutical and wood products plants.38

Steif also added that about $900 million more worth of projects were scheduled to be com-pleted by the end of the program.

Enterprise of the Americas and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)In June 1990, President Bush announced the Enterprise for the Americas Initiative (EAI),intended to “create incentives to reinforce Latin America’s growing recognition that free-market reform is the key to sustained growth and political stability.”39 A major part of theinitiative was the offer to Latin American and Caribbean nations of the option of negotiating


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free trade agreements either bilaterally or collectively with the United States. Talks with Mex-ico that eventually resulted in Mexico joining the North American Free Trade Agreement wereongoing at the time. Also in the initiative were proposals for investment and debt relief. TheEAI led to the conclusion by Caricom of a framework agreement on trade and investment,and it also helped foster a renewed thrust toward integration in the Latin American andCaribbean region, including the signing by Caricom of free trade agreements with Venezuela(1992) and Colombia (1994). Caricom put into place negotiating machinery for collectiveentry into a free trade agreement with the United States, although the largest countries,Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, also moved ahead and prepared, just in case, for individ-ual entry by meeting certain U.S. demands with respect to investment arrangements andintellectual property rights. These bilateral initiatives were, however, set aside as the U.S.Congress balked at new free trade agreements after NAFTA went into effect.

Between 1992 and 1993, the NAFTA was signed and ratified by Mexico, the UnitedStates, and Canada as an extension of the U.S.-Canada free trade agreement of 1988.


Table 3.5 Comparison of U.S. imports under twopreferential schemes: Caribbean Basin Recovery Act(CBERA) and Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), 1984–2005 (dollars in thousands)

Year CBERA GSP

1984 577,704 13,020,891

1985 497,645 13,362,167

1986 689,776 14,883,543

1987 906,144 16,479,448

1988 830,958 18,407,854

1989 915,281 10,026,898

1990 1,022,742 11,131,360

1991 1,120,697 13,681,004

1992 1,528,690 16,769,195

1993 1,903,613 19,593,867

1994 2,050,158 18,385,867

1995 2,261,407 18,464,932

1996 2,791,055 16,992,111

1997 3,207.842 15,575,760

1998 3,224,564 16,336,046

1999 2,637,204 13,681,020

2000 2,794,174 (2,635,549)a 16,438,872

2001 8,308,171 (2,706,287)a 15,726,239

2002 10,003,260 (2,918,396)a 17,662,756

2003 10,429,629 (2,965,205)a 21,277,752

2004 10,936,621 (2,901,832)a 22,708,764

2005 12,336,272 (3,421,567)a 26,747,100

Sources: U.S. International Trade Commission compiled from U.S. Department of Com-

merce statistics and published in “Value of U.S. Imports for Consumption, Duties Col-

lected, and Ratio of Duties to Values 1891–2005” (March 2006) and The Year in Trade

2005: Operation of the Trade Agreement Program, 55th Report (August 2006): Table A-18.a Figure in parenthesis represents total under CBERA only, not CBTPA.

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NAFTA went into effect in 1994. The agreement was strongly opposed by labor groups inthe United States, and to secure ratification, U.S. negotiators were forced to add two ancil-lary agreements on labor and environmental standards. For Caricom and other CBERA ben-eficiaries, even though they were themselves preparing to enter into free trade negotiationswith the United States, the agreement with Mexico brought fears that in the interim, invest-ment and trade would be diverted from the CBERA region to Mexico. Caricom countrieswere particularly concerned about the possible adverse effects on sugar and on the textile andapparel industry inasmuch as Mexican sugar quotas would be increased and eliminated afteryear fifteen. In fact, if Mexico achieved the status of surplus sugar exporter in any two con-secutive years, it could export its entire surplus to the United States, disadvantaging othersugar producers. As for the textile and apparel industry, the entry of these products duty freeinto the United States would clearly have adverse effects on those still laboring under CBIquotas, no matter how generous.


Table 3.6 U.S. merchandise trade balance with Central American and Caribbean Countries, 2000–2004

Country 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

Central ($2,696.3) ($2,065.5) ($2,026.5) ($1,547.8) ($1,783.7)Americancommon market

Costa Rica ($1,101.8) ($390.7) ($10.1) $52.7 ($29.2)

El Salvador ($158.3) ($110.5) ($317.5) ($195.6) ($184.8)

Guatemala ($709.8) ($712.5) ($758.0) ($671.7) ($606.3)

Honduras ($515.5) ($689.5) ($699.4) ($466.6) ($564.6)

Nicaragua ($210.9) ($162.3) ($241.5) ($266.5) ($398.8)

Other: Panama $1,301.8 $1,040.4 $$1,105.4 $1,546.8 $1,503.9

Caribbean $1,424.4 $1,230.3 $1,029.1 ($586.3) ($1,919.4)Communitya

Antigua and $136.4 $92.2 $77.9 $114.6 $120.9Barbudaa

Bahamas $789.6 $708.9 $517.1 $604.9 $544.7

Barbados $267.0 $246.7 $234.2 $258.3 $310.7

Belize $114.7 $75.5 $59.5 $98.0 $44.6

Dominica $30.4 $25.5 $40.4 $29.1 $33.0

Grenada $52.2 $35.7 $49.7 $60.8 $64.8

Guyana $17.9 $0.7 $12.7 ($1.1) $13.0

Haiti $279.1 $287.2 $327.5 $307.4 $292.4

Jamaica $729.9 $946.3 $1,028.3 $974.9 $1,111.3

St. Kitts-Nevis $21.1 $5.1 $1.1 $14.5 $18.7

Saint Lucia $83.1 $59.8 $78.9 $108.2 $89.0

St. Vincent $28.4 $16.9 $24.1 $42.3 $41.3

Suriname ($4.3) $15.5 ($7.9) $52.8 $37.8

Trinidad and ($1,131.5) ($1,291.4) ($3,257.7) ($4,647.1) ($4,647.1)Tobago

Source: U.S. International Trade Commission. Parentheses indicate a negative balance.a Caribbean Community data include Bahamas and Haiti, not members of the common market.

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As a result of these and concerns about rum, footwear, and petroleum, among other prod-ucts, CBERA countries strongly supported the “NAFTA parity” bill already mentioned. Thisbill, HR1403, remained in limbo during the 1990s, opposed by U.S. labor groups and man-ufacturers of competitive products, and turned back by congressional representatives atten-tive to the possible effect on employment in their constituencies. However, given theintegration of the U.S., Caribbean, and Central American economies in the textile, apparel,and footwear industry, the bill was strongly supported by manufacturers who had moved


Table 3.7 U.S. imports from CBERA countries under selected import programs (percentage of the totalimported)

CBERAa GSPb NTR freec

Country 1998 2004 1998 2004 1998 2004

Antigua and 11.1 1.2 0.0 2.5 68.1 56.8Barbuda

Bahamas 24.3 14.5 — — 68.8 35.7

Barbados 58.1 9.5 5.8 2.2 17.9 79.8

Belize 29.7 41.6 1.0 1.1 38.2 52.0

Costa Rica 27.6 32.3 1.9 3.0 36.9 56.2

Dominica 29.1 12.8 1.5 0.0 29.2 48.6

Dominican 29.1 56.8 1.0 2.1 8.4 26.4Republic

El Salvador 3.5 54.8 1.4 1.5 0.0 10.4

Grenada 68.3 0.2 0.4 0.0 23.0 88.8

Guatemala 13.0 37.5 2.0 2.2 26.2 20.1

Guyana 20.9 17.2 2.3 1.9 65.4 76.2

Haiti 10.4 58.8 0.5 0.4 5.9 4.9

Honduras 9.3 63.7 0.8 1.0 15.7 15.8

Jamaica 13.9 52.0 0.3 1.5 27.5 30.8

Nicaragua 16.1 33.4 — — 31.9 18.7

Panama 25.9 10.4 1.6 2.0 64.8 70.6

St. Kitts-Nevis 79.8 71.1 1.2 1.9 7.4 23.5

Saint Lucia 34.9 40.7 0.4 4.8 5.3 34.8

St. Vincent 74.0 70.8 0.0 0.1 19.2 24.6

Trinidad and 19.1 27.5 0.2 0.0 51.4 67.7Tobago

Sources: U.S. International Trade Commission, fourth and sixth Reports to Congress on the Operation of the Caribbean Basin Eco-

nomic Recovery Act (2001, 2005): Appendix 1 and Appendix 2, respectively.

— not a GSP beneficiary. Nicaragua lost its benefits in 1987, the Bahamas was graduated in 1995.a Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act benefits are extended to twenty-four territories including Montserrat, the British Virgin

Islands, Aruba, and the Netherlands Antilles. Suriname is not a member of the program. The 2005 data include trade under the

enhanced program, the Caribbean Basin Trade Promotion Act (CBTPA). The Central American countries as well as the Domini-

can Republic will cease to be eligible for benefits once their free trade agreement with the United States comes into force.b The U.S. Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) provides duty-free treatment to eligible merchandise imports from benefi-

ciary developing countries. This program began on January 1, 1976.c Normal trade relations, that is. goods enter free under the Most Favored Nation principle.

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their operations to the CBI countries to take advantage of cheaper labor and CBI incentives.These spoke forcefully about the loss of U.S. as well as Latin American and Caribbean jobsthat could result from denying NAFTA parity.40

But other footwear manufacturers just as strongly opposed the parity bill: despite recog-nizing the reciprocal benefits to some U.S. companies that coproduced with Caribbeanplants, the industry felt that the Caribbean had benefited enough and that footwear importswould flood the U.S. market. Dual arguments were also made in the apparel industry. U.S.garment workers were against the bill, citing the unfair competition it produced and alsoclaiming that Asian companies were taking advantage of the CBI preferences by relocating inthe Caribbean. In addition, knitwear and sportswear manufacturers expressed strong oppo-sition. On the other side, textile importers and marketers, and companies benefiting from807 provisions, supported the bill as one that would contribute to liberalizing trade equi-tably. Unfortunately for Caricom, in general, congressional sentiment favored the opposingforces. As “NAFTA parity” remained elusive, the garment sectors in Jamaica and some east-ern Caribbean islands began to feel the anticipated adverse effects of competition from Mex-ico. The passing of the CBTPA in 2000 finally brought some relief to this sector.

As the Caricom countries prepared for the eventual phasing out of CBI preferences, animportant summit was held in 1994 to enshrine the new mood of democratic and economicliberalization that had swept through the hemisphere and had been endorsed in regional andsubregional fora. The Summit of the Americas, held in Miami, brought together thirty-fourheads of state from democratic governments in the hemisphere. The summit produced aDeclaration of Principles and Plan of Action based on the principles of democracy, free trade,and sustainable development. The plan’s twenty-three sections dealt with measures tostrengthen democracy and protect human rights, combat drugs and terrorism, promote freetrade and functional cooperation, eradicate poverty through the strengthening of social pro-grams, and conserve the environment through partnerships for sustainable energy use, bio-diversity, and pollution prevention. Most importantly, the decision was made to establishhemispheric free trade by the year 2005. In the Declaration of Principles, the heads of stateagreed that “continued economic progress depends on sound economic policies, sustainabledevelopment, and dynamic private sectors. A key to prosperity is trade without barriers,without subsidies, without unfair practices, and with an increasing stream of productiveinvestments.”41 A free trade area of the Americas (FTAA) would be based on the progressiveelimination of barriers to trade and investment. Moreover, in the plan of action, the leadersdirected the Organization of American States’ Special Committee on Trade to arrange a seriesof ministerial meetings. In the follow-ups to the first summit, all major regional organiza-tions as well as nongovernmental actors were incorporated into the liberalization process.

In endorsing these principles and actions, the Latin American and Caribbean govern-ments were not only responding to changes in the international system reflected in the newmood of economic liberalization, but also were attempting to seize the initiative in courtinga United States that needed to counter the increased integrative power of the EuropeanUnion and the dynamic Asia Pacific region. But the free trade process lost much of thisdynamism when the U.S. Congress rejected any more free trade arrangements and did notrenew the president’s “fast track” authority when it expired in 1996. (It was finally grantedonce more to President Bush in 2002.) Europe proved to be less intimidating than some inthe United States might have expected, especially after the common currency, the euro,weakened in 1999, and Asian economies went into crisis in 1995 (that is, Japan) and 1997


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to 1998 (that is, east and southeast Asian countries). The Asian financial crisis of 1997 hadan adverse effect on major Latin American economies that were forced to devalue and defendtheir currencies against Asian “contagion.”

Despite these problems, the free trade preparatory negotiating process forged ahead.Trade ministers met in Denver (Colorado), Cartagena (Colombia), Belo Horizonte (Brazil),and San José (Costa Rica) to report on the work of twelve working groups established to dealwith trade, investment, services, intellectual property rights, and dispute settlement, amongother things. Four years after the first summit, in 1998, a second was held in Chile at whichthe heads of government endorsed the process and negotiations were launched. The twelveworking groups became nine negotiating groups, and between then and 2005, trade minis-ters met regularly to move the process ahead. A third summit was held in Quebec City in2001, and a special summit was held in Monterey, Mexico, in 2004. A final summit was opti-mistically expected at the closing of negotiations.

For the smaller economies of the region, fearful of the effects of an integration process thatwould open them to competition from the larger countries, it was important that the processtake into account differences in size and levels of development. Indeed, countries agreed thatspecial attention should be paid to the needs of these countries and to their integration on anequitable basis. A working group on smaller economies was established, with Caricom play-ing a dominant role. But formal commitment to special and differential treatment for smalleconomies was not forthcoming. Instead, in 2002, a hemispheric cooperation program wasapproved to lend technical assistance and training to these countries in the negotiations andin the preparation of their economies to meet the responsibilities of integration.

Arrangements for the FTAA threatened to be derailed not so much by the objections ofthe small as by the reluctance of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) countries, par-ticularly Brazil, to open their economies to North American competition. Moreover, prob-lems encountered in parallel World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Round negotiationsalso threatened to have an adverse effect on the completion of the FTAA agreement. In Octo-ber 2003, the informal coalition leading the global south in WTO negotiations in Cancún,Mexico, staged a walkout to protest industrial countries’ refusal to discuss reducing the sub-sidies paid to farmers in North America and Europe. WTO negotiations were temporarilyput on hold at a time when the WTO-compliant FTAA negotiations were supposed to beaccelerated. Moreover, Brazil was both a prominent leader of this global south coalition andthe joint chair, with the United States, of the last stages of the FTAA negotiations. At theirmeeting in Miami in November 2003, however, the trade ministers skirted WTO and otherproblematic issues and agreed to what some termed “FTAA Lite,” in that countries wouldbe allowed to negotiate and assume different levels of commitments within a commonframework.

For many Caricom countries, the lack of resources and skills prohibited individualinvolvement in FTAA negotiations. Instead, the smaller countries in particular relied on aregional negotiating machinery (RNM) established to analyze pertinent issues, formulatenegotiating stances, and engage in actual hemispheric negotiations. The RNM is headquar-tered in Jamaica and works in tandem with a high-level regional negotiator.

In a speech by Caricom’s assistant secretary-general Byron Blake after the November 2003meeting, the disappointment of Caricom states was clear. Blake noted that although the minis-ters avoided a breakdown of talks in Miami, the 1994 vision of the FTAA was hardly reflectedin the process as carried forward in 2003. He noted that issues of sustainable development and


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economic cooperation had not been followed through and that, given the dominance of thepowerful economies, the principle of proportionality that should have guided free trade dis-cussions among unequals was jettisoned in favor of balance and equality.42

Meanwhile, some countries were simply looking to enhance their strength for bilateralnegotiations inasmuch as the FTAA does not preclude countries entering into bilateral andregional free trade arrangements. He noted that successful integration movements such as theEU, Caricom, and the Central American Common Market had been careful to build in spe-cial arrangements for less developed members. Not only had the FTAA not done so in anyfundamental way but the “buffet” approach of selecting commitments could also disadvan-tage smaller countries if they chose not to join in arrangements entered into by largereconomies.

In 2004, the FTAA negotiations continued to falter, and the proposed signature date ofJanuary 2005 passed without an agreement. Instead, the FTAA was put on the back burnerin most countries, especially the reluctant southern cone. Meanwhile the United Statesunveiled a new strategy: negotiating bilateral and regional agreements rather than waiting forthe hemispheric negotiations to bear fruit. By 2007, agreements had been made with Chile,Central America, and the Dominican Republic, and they were in process with Andean gov-ernments even as the hemisphere leaders moved to concentrate on other social issues begin-ning with the Fourth Summit in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in November 2005.

European ProgramsCaribbean trade with Europe has been governed since 1975 by the Lomé Accords, namedafter the capital city of Togo where the first accords were negotiated. What pushed theCaribbean into a negotiating alliance with African and Pacific nations in 1973–1974 was theentry of Britain into the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973 and the need topreserve preferences extended by Britain to its former colonies. Under the Yaoundé conven-tion, similar preferential arrangements had existed between the EEC and African producers,so the Lomé convention was able to build on this foundation. Under the first Lomé conven-tion and its four successors (1975–1980, 1980–1985, 1985–1990, 1990–2000, extended in1995), the European Community granted nonreciprocal duty-free access to all industrial andmost agricultural products of African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) countries (seventy-ninemembers in 2007). Certain sensitive products were covered by additional protocols thatestablished quantitative and price arrangements. These protocols were for bananas, sugar,rum, and beef/veal, the first three being highly important for the Caribbean countries.(“Caribbean” here refers not only to the original English-speaking ACP members and Suri-name but also Haiti and the Dominican Republic; these two signed the fourth convention in1989 and were formally approved by way of the ratification process in 1991. All the coun-tries together form the CARIFORUM group.) Another product, rice, had also been coveredby special quota, tariff, and financial aid arrangements. The Lomé convention includeddevelopment assistance from a European Development Fund (EDF) and two commoditystabilization schemes—STABEX, an export stabilization system, and SYSMIN, a mineralproduct support system, under which the community granted financial assistance to ACPmembers experiencing commodity earnings shortfalls.

In the wake of the creation of the WTO, the entire EU system of preferences was deemedincompatible with the principles of global free trade. Some EU regimes, in particular bananasand sugar, were vigorously opposed by the United States and some developing countries—for


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example, Central American countries in the first case, and Brazil in the second. In 2000,the EU and ACP signed the Cotonou Partnership Agreement, a twenty-year accord aimedat providing a transition to free trade as well as promoting democracy, respect for humanrights, poverty reduction, and development in the ACP countries. All countries exceptCuba have signed these accords.43 Specifically, the EU agreed to continue preferences tothe ACP until 2007 while negotiating WTO-compliant Economic Partnership Agree-ments (EPAs) with designated regions. For the time being, the least developed countries ofthe ACP were granted “everything but arms” (EBA) access, that is, duty-free access of alltheir products, without quota restrictions.

Mixed results are observed when analyzing the long-term pattern of ACP exports toEurope. One EU study of the period from 1988 to 1997 notes that ACP preferences hada restricted effect on trade: during those years, ACP total exports, excluding commodityprotocols, to the community grew by less than 4 percent in volume, compared to anincrease of 75 percent for the exports of other developing countries. Furthermore, ACPexports enjoying a preferential margin of over 3 percent (amounting to 29 percent of ACPexports) grew by 62 percent compared to 80 percent for the same products from all devel-oping countries operating under the more modest preferences of the Generalized Systemof Preferences (GSP).44 Manufactured goods from the ACP grew in volume by only 1.5percent, but agricultural products grew by 26 percent overall and 60 percent in those sec-tors granted more preferential access. That study also noted that textiles were the onlymanufactured products accounting for a significant share of ACP exports, increasing bynearly 70 percent in volume in 1988–1997. Changes were expected, however, with thedismantling of the Multifiber Arrangement (MFA), which took place in January 2005. Alook at the structure of EU-ACP trade in the 2000s under Cotonou finds that there has beena small increase, both in value and percentage, in EU imports from the ACP in mineral andmachinery sectors but that the percentage of imports in the food and manufactures category(which includes textiles and footwear) remains at about the same as in 1997 (about 17 per-cent of extra-EU imports).

Eurostat historical data show that ACP exports to the EU (or EU imports from the ACP)as a whole expanded considerably in absolute value under the entire preferential regime—from 6.5 billion (that is, US billion) euros in 1973 when there were nine EC partners, to17.2 billion euros in 1981 when there were ten partners, and 45.9 billion for the expandedunion in 2004; imports generally outstripped EU exports though only moderately so (seeTable 3.8). However, critics of the special preferential regime focus on the fact that the shareof ACP imports in extra-EU imports declined over the years: Eurostat data show declinesfrom 8 percent in 1973 to 6 percent in 1981 and only 4.4 percent in 2004. (Still, as alreadynoted, on the positive side, the EU-ACP balance of trade has generally favored the ACP,except for industrial goods, and there has been a slight increase in ACP exports since 2000.)Critics have also complained that preferences have fostered the continuation of ACP colonialdependency and hindered the diversification of ACP economies. Some have noted that manyACP countries—particularly the beef producers but also some sugar producers—have haddifficulty meeting the quotas set aside for them in the commodity protocols. On the ACPside, the cost of meeting the EU’s stringent health and veterinary standards has been cited asa contributing factor.45 At other times, however, the community has had to take measures toprevent market flooding, for example, measures with respect to rice imports in the mid- tolate 1990s. It has also been noted that some EU traders of ACP protocol products made


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“substantial” profits from importing products under the reduced tariffs allowed by the pro-tocol and reselling at a higher price in the import market.46

Yet, for the ACP countries, these preferences have been key to providing some stability inrevenues and employment. As was the case with NAFTA parity, the proponents and antago-nists of EU preferences have argued on the basis of self-interest. For example, constituenciesfavoring the status quo on sugar have included EU cane sugar refiners, beet producers andprocessors, and, of course, ACP exporters, whereas EU consumers, particularly in the UnitedKingdom and Portugal, industrial users, and third country producers have been opposed.47

It was third party Brazil, Thailand, and Australia that brought the case against the regime tothe WTO, with a positive ruling handed down in 2004. Similarly, in the case of the bananaregime, also ruled illegal by the WTO, U.S. multinationals and Central American producerswere pitted against ACP exporters, individual EU member states, and EU marketing com-panies and shipping lines.

Looking specifically at Caricom rather than the entire ACP, the region’s exports to the EUhave been mainly primary products (food and minerals), with agricultural products account-ing for 50 percent of EU imports from the region in 1990 and 28 percent in 2004 (see Table3.9). As opposed to the ACP as a whole, the EU has generally maintained a trade balance inits favor with the region, and the positive balances have been growing in the 2000s. However,various countries have sometimes maintained positive balances with the EU, includingAntigua and Barbuda, Belize, and Guyana, and Jamaica in 2004. Haiti has had the largesttrade deficit with Europe. The proportion of trade between the EU and Caricom hasincreased only marginally over the years: the EU share of Caricom’s total exports was 16.5percent in 1980, 20.6 percent in 1990, and, on the basis of both an expanded Caricom aswell as an expanded EU, 20.3 percent in 2003 and 18.1 percent in 2004. The EU share ofCaricom’s imports was 15.8 percent in 1980, 15.5 percent in 1990, 20.9 percent in 2003,and 19.5 percent in 2004.48

Caricom countries have been main beneficiaries of three of the four EU-ACP additionalprotocols: in rum, sugar, and bananas. The sugar protocol was not attached to the Lomé con-vention and was technically indefinite in duration. Tariff revisions were made from 1986through the 1990s, and the regime was renegotiated in 2001. By 2008, like other commod-ity protocols, this one will have to be made WTO-compatible. In 2004, the ACP countriesexpressed concern about the elimination of fixed quotas, declining market prices, and theeffect of EBA treatment of the least developed countries. However, a 2004 ruling by theWTO that the quotas violate trade rules complicated the picture for future preferentialarrangements.

The rum protocol was phased out in the 1990s: rum quotas were dismantled in accor-dance with a WTO agreement between the EU and the United States in 1997. Imports oflight rum (which comprises most of the world trade) were fully liberalized. The main ACPsuppliers, and therefore the most affected, have been Trinidad and Tobago, the Bahamas,Guyana, Barbados, and Jamaica.

As for bananas, in the 1990s, the fight to maintain preferences resulted in a major tradewar between the EU and the Caribbean on the one hand, and the United States and U.S.banana companies (primarily Chiquita company, the successor to United Fruit) and theirCentral and South American hosts on the other. The latter group pressured the U.S. govern-ment to, in turn, pressure the Europeans to remove their quota and tariff preferences. Sincebananas are the major revenue earner for many West Indian islands, as well as Suriname, even


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Table 3.8 Trade between the European Union and the African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) Group

Year 1973b 1981c 1990d 1995d 2000e 2005f

Exports 4.9 19.7 23.2 26.5 38.4 50.1(billion euro)a

Share of 6% 7% 5.9% 4.6% 4.1% 4.7%total extra-EU

Imports 6.5 17.2 28.5 27.7 43.3 53.7(billion euro)a

Share of 8% 6% 6.4% 4.8% 4.2% 4.6%total extra-EU

Source: European Commission, Eurostat, “Extra-EU-15 Trade by Main Trading Partners,” 2005; and External and Intra-European

Union Trade, Statistical Yearbook 200, Data 1958–2005 (Luxembourg, 2006).a ECU before 1999. ACP refers to the seventy-eight signatories of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement.b EC9.c EC10.d EU12.e EU-15.f EU-25.

Table 3.9 Total Caricom to EU-15 trade in goods (million euro)a

Year 1990b 1995 2000 2003 2004

Exports 1,095.3 1,772.5 3,478.7 3,393.0 3,187.2

Agricultural 197.2 204.8 307.2 306.9 286.8c

products

as % of 18% 12% 9% 9% 9%exports

Imports 1,304.1 1,405.2 3,002.6 2,585.6 2,665.8

Agricultural 657.5 649.5 1,076.5 940.6 746.4cproducts

as % of 50% 46% 36% 30% 28%imports

Source: Eurostat, Yearbook 2004; and European Commission, “EU-ACP Trade Fiches: Regions 2004.”a ECUs were used through December 31, 1998. Caricom data include Haiti and Suriname.b EU12 prior to 1995.c Calculated from percentage given in source.

though the Caribbean share of the world market is small, the conflict took on the characterof a battle for survival for Caricom producers operating with far higher production costs thantheir counterparts in Central America.

Interestingly, the original opposition to the banana regime came from within the EU itself,where Germany, the EU’s biggest banana consumer, as well as Denmark and the Beneluxcountries—all countries that rely on the “dollar banana” market—opposed the regime asincompatible with the Single European Market (SEM). In 1992, the EC proposed a regimethat would continue to allow ACP bananas to enter at prevailing levels while imposing a 20

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percent tariff on dollar bananas. Opposing European countries objected vigorously to this aswell as to a slightly modified proposal offered later that specified a two million ton quota fordollar bananas with any excess taxed at a much higher rate. Some licensing preferences wereoffered for dollar banana operators who market ACP produce. Nevertheless, the proposalwas adopted with some minor revisions, and the regime came into effect in 1993. Germanythen decided to take its case to the European Court of Justice, and at the same time, LatinAmerican countries led by Ecuador began agitating against the EU regime. Positions hard-ened when the United States, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Ecuador (later joined byPanama) brought the case to the WTO Dispute Settlement Body in 1996. Between then and1999, the WTO issued five rulings against the banana regime. In 1999, the EU changed theregime again to allow the ACP a tariff-free quota of 857,700 tons with a quota of 2.2 milliontons for others. The revised regime’s quantitative restrictions were, however, deemed dis-criminatory, given the fact that ACP countries had access to the MFN tariff quota whereasother third countries had no access in turn to the ACP quota. Moreover, responding toEcuador’s challenge, the WTO found the country allocations for third countries to beunfairly calculated.49 The WTO also ruled that the licensing arrangements of the regimewent against the General Agreement on Trade in Services. In response, the EU proposed a“first come, first served” licensing procedure, but that procedure raised ACP concerns aboutappropriate allocation. The ACP proposed instead a tariff quota based on historical trade.

In 1999, the conflict between the EU and the United States intensified when the latter,impatient with the EU’s perceived prevarications, announced that it was imposing unilateraltariffs of 100 percent on a list of European imports and began collecting them. For greatereffect, the U.S. Congress mandated “rolling” sanctions, that is, changing the sanctionedproducts periodically. The WTO subsequently permitted the United States to impose $191million in sanctions against European-made goods, down from the $513 million it hadsought.50 This bitter battle finally ended in a settlement reached largely without ACP input:the EU agreed to reduce ACP quotas, transferring some of them to open bananas importedfrom Latin America, and a “historical reference” licensing scheme replaced the “first come,first served.” A single tariff instituted by the end of 2005 essentially phased out the bananapreference.

The EU committed to financial and technical assistance to countries affected by this lib-eralization as well as to negotiating WTO-compliant differential treatment for ACP productsdepending on their level of development and structural circumstances.

Canadian ProgramsAs a fellow (British) Commonwealth member, Canada has had a long tradition of aid to andtrade with the English-speaking Caribbean. Sahadeo Basdeo traces Canadian-Caribbeanrelations to the presence of missionaries, bankers, businessmen, and tourists dating as farback as the early nineteenth century51 and trade links going back almost as far. In 1898,Canada offered a preferential tariff of 25 percent on Caribbean sugar and other products, atariff that was renewed over the years, continuing after World War II up to 1970. However,as Basdeo notes, increased competition from other industrial countries reduced Canada’sshare of Caribbean trade in the 1970s. From 17 percent in the 1950s, Canada’s share ofCaribbean trade declined to 9 percent in 1970.52

Caricom historical statistics—which excluded Haiti and the Bahamas, and, after 1989,Antigua and Barbuda—show that in 1980, only 1.7 percent of Caricom’s domestic exports


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went to Canada, going up to 4.4 percent in 1990, and in 2004, around 5.1 percent. Theshares for imports were 4.6 percent in 1980, 5.4 percent in 1990, and 2.5 percent in 2004.53

Supplementary IMF and Canadian figures for the Bahamas show that the Bahamas tradedonly minimally with Canada in 1985 (some 1.8 percent of exports, 0.9 percent of imports)and that that has changed little over the years: in 2004, exports amounted to about 2.9 per-cent and imports, 0.4 percent).54 Likewise, Antigua and Barbuda exported very little toCanada in the years missing in the Caricom data. According to Caricom statistics for 1989,the last year Antigua and Barbuda was included, Antigua and Barbuda imported 2.2 percentof its goods from Canada and exported a minimal percentage (0.0). Extrapolations fromCanadian data indicate that Antigua exported about 2.2 percent of its total to Canada in2004 and imported 2 percent. As for Suriname, it has not been historically linked to Canada,and according to Caricom statistics, it sent only about 1 percent of its trade to Canada in the1990s. While the percentage imported remains about the same (1.5 percent in 2004), Cana-dian data show that Suriname sent a relatively large 13 percent of its total exports to Canadain 2004 (there is no export data for Suriname in Caricom statistics for 2004). Lastly, Haitiand Canada are more closely tied than other countries through the Francophone tradition aswell as Canada’s long-term interest in assisting Haiti financially: it is thus noteworthy thatexports to Canada reached about 5.8 percent of Haiti’s total in 1995, before dropping off asthe political situation deteriorated. In 2004, exports rebounded to 4.1 percent. Imports sawa similar decline in the late 1990s but rebounded to 1.1 percent in 2004.

From the Canadian perspective, trade with all independent Caricom members, includingSuriname and Haiti, has constituted only a tiny percentage of trade, about 0.3 percent ofCanada’s total imports in the 2000s, and half of that for exports. Caricom exports to Canadahave increased marginally over the years, but imports have been declining since 1990. In theimmediate post-independence period, Canada used to rank third as an import partner forthe English-speaking Caribbean, behind the United States and United Kingdom; however,its rank has been eroded over the years by imports from Asia, especially Japan.

Low as they are, Caricom exports to Canada have been helped by important special pref-erential arrangements negotiated with the English-speaking members. In 1986, in responseto ideological problems in the region and following on the U.S. initiation of the CBI,Canada established the Caribbean-Canada Trade Agreement (CARIBCAN), a package oftrade preferences, under a WTO waiver, as well as investment support for the region. Underthis package, which was expanded in 1990 and continued since, all products, except textilesand methanol, were allowed duty-free access to the Canadian market. Canada also madeconcessions on rum, the export of which had until then been hampered by various nontariffbarriers, including limits on labeling rum bottled in the Caribbean. Although trade relationswith Caricom have not been affected strongly by Canada’s membership in the U.S.-CanadaFree Trade Agreement and its successor NAFTA, Canada’s preferential regime, like the CBI,will eventually be phased out to be replaced by freer trade.

In the next chapter, the analysis of both political and economic foreign policy continues,but with an emphasis on the main strategic linkages and choices Caricom states have madein order to preserve their security and achieve economic gains.


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CHAPTER 4

Strategic Linkages

In view of the security and economic issues that they have faced, what strategies and link-ages have Caricom nations opted for over time? This is the questions addressed in thischapter.

Security Strategies

Except for Haiti, where by 1915 French influence had been replaced by U.S. dominance,Caricom countries did not begin to be influenced strongly by the hemispheric superpoweruntil after World War II. Just before that war, Britain, the United States, France, and theNetherlands began to cooperate as members of a commission established after the LendLease agreement of 1940, which ceded Caribbean bases to the United States. Britain and theUnited States were the original members of the commission in 1942; France and the Nether-lands joined in 1946. The rise of U.S. security influence in the English-speaking Caribbeandates from this period. Linkages with the United States have come to dominate the securityenvironment of the Caricom nations in the postcolonial period.

Bilateral Links: The United States

In the English-speaking Caribbean, during World War II Britain leased bases in Guyana,Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica, Antigua, Saint Lucia, and the Bahamas. TheNetherlands also agreed to the presence of a U.S. base in Suriname for protection of thebauxite mines. Bases in Jamaica and Saint Lucia were deactivated in 1949, and the Surinamearrangement ended as well. In 1966 the Guyanese government renegotiated the base agree-ment, leaving the United States with the right to use temporary military facilities and tooverfly Guyana’s territory. Trinidad and Tobago’s base was a constant irritant in U.S. relationswith that country, especially after the base site at Chaguaramas was selected as the capital sitefor the West Indies Federation. The nationalist local government sought to relocate the

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Americans and then to remove the base entirely. In the wake of popular and political agita-tion, the main base was finally closed in 1967. In Barbados, the submarine base at St. Lucywas closed in 1979 after a dispute over payments. Antigua remained one of the few islandswhere bases were still in service in the 1980s. In 1977, an agreement was signed allowing theUnited States to continue to use the area for research and testing, and in 1985, it was agreedto put the base to use as a training center for the regional security system. However, after thecold war, the United States reduced its military operations worldwide, including in Antigua.As of 2007, only a small U.S. air presence remained. With regard to the Bahamas, indepen-dent Bahamas inherited several military bases, a naval base, an oceanographic research cen-ter, an air force missile tracking station, and a Coast Guard navigational radar station. Anaval presence on Andros Island has been retained despite some financial conflicts betweenthe two countries over the years. In fact, it was reported in 2003 that the Bahamas was seek-ing to host another U.S. base in Great Inagua.1 Of course bases are no longer sought fordefense against traditional aggressors; instead, they are used in the fight against drug traf-fickers, smugglers, illegal immigrants, and transnational criminal elements.

By the 1960s, the Caricom relationship with the United States was being strengthenedthrough various U.S. military assistance programs. Not unexpectedly, the strength of this rela-tionship varied by country ideology. For example, Guyana’s relationship with the UnitedStates, based on the U.S. aversion to the Marxist opposition, was continuous but oftenstrained. Unlike other countries, Guyana signed no defense agreement with the United Statesafter independence and its army received no U.S. help, but counterinsurgency communica-tions and transportation equipment were provided to the police by the United States Agencyfor International Development (USAID) between 1966 and 1970.2 In 1982, Guyana beganto participate in the U.S. International Military Education and Training (IMET) programunder which foreign military personnel are trained at military schools in and outside of theUnited States. As the relationship with the United States deteriorated in the 1980s, IMET aidwas discontinued in 1988, but it began again in the early 1990s, increasing in 1995 and hold-ing steady since. Commercial arms purchases, high in the early 1980s, did not decline untilafter 1985 and then only for a while before increasing rather spectacularly in 1989 ($15 mil-lion in that year), and leveling off in the 1990s, with a moderate increase again in the fiscalyears 2000 and 2003. (Tables 4.1–4.3). Foreign military sales to Guyana, a program thatgrants credits for the purchases of defense articles, have also increased in the 2000s.

Trinidad and Tobago was one country that sought in the 1970s and 1980s to keep a dis-tance from the United States. The nationalist government that came to power after indepen-dence not only succeeded in getting rid of the U.S. naval base but also tried to diversify itssecurity linkages, receiving arms and training from Britain, Canada, Venezuela, and others.U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA)3 figures show that Trinidad andTobago did not receive military aid from the United States in the 1970s, though a smallamount of arms was purchased commercially, particularly in 1975—not coincidentally, atime of industrial unrest. Relatively high purchases were made in the 1980s, probably attrib-utable to the general regional climate of instability and some internal concerns. A significantchange of orientation toward the United States took place in the late 1980s when small pur-chases of arms were made under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, and IMET train-ing was begun (in 1985). FMS purchases increased somewhat between 2004 and 2005, whileIMET was discontinued at the same time for reasons discussed later. Overall, as the figuresshow, Trinidad and Tobago remains a relatively minor recipient of U.S. security assistance.


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Strategic Linkages •

91Table 4.1 U.S. military assistance to Caricom: Foreign military sales and Military Assistance Programa (dollars in thousands)

FMS MAP MAP Merger

Country FYs FY FY FY FY FYs FYs FYs1950–1987 1990 1995 2000 2005 1950–2005 1950–2005 1950–2005

Antigua 3,595 329 152 — — 11,128 12,442 4,396and Barbuda

Bahamas — — — — — 730 — —

Barbados 893 46 87 — — 5,031 10,141 2,202

Belize 1,695 310 299 70 272 5,7791 405 2,729

Dominica 2,753 57 51 87 473 6,512 35 3,423

Grenada 6,365 533 91 3 505 11,688 54 7,762

Guyana — — 14 104 456 1,494 — —

Haiti 3,288 — — 105 734 10,204 58,427 2,933

Jamaica 21,810b 1,271 1,072 739 1,289 38,253 14,112 28,745

St. Kitts/ 3,253 57 15 70 225 7,466 76 4,145Nevis

Saint. Lucia 2,245 242 301 130 161 7,033 25 2,769

St. Vincent 3,162 130 47 130 — 6,404 341 4,959

Suriname 1 — — 75 — 121 — —

Trinidad and 112 96 245 208 87 4,6616 1,000 100Tobago

Source: U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency, Foreign Military Sales, Foreign Military Construction Sales and Military Assistance, Facts as of September 30, 1997, and September 30, 2005 (Washington, D.C.:

Department of Defense, 1998, 2006).a Figures for foreign military sales are for agreements; the figures for deliveries will be lower. FMS agreements represent the total dollar value of defense articles and defense services purchased with cash, credit,

and Military Assistance Program (MAP) Merger funds by a foreign government or international organization in any fiscal year. Military Assistance Program (MAP) funds represent the dollar amount of

matériel and services, other than training, programmed for a particular foreign country in any fiscal year for which the U.S. government received no dollar reimbursement. Beginning in 1986, drawdowns

reflect amounts authorized in presidential determinations, not the value of program directives issued against the presidential determinations as reported in previous fiscal years. MAP funds include Military

Assistance Service Funded (MASF) aid, emergency drawdowns, and other grant assistance. MAP deliveries are usually lower. MAP Merger funds are approved funds that are nonrepayable and are issued solely

to meet obligations of the recipient countries for payments of FMS and Foreign Military Construction Sales purchases (figures for the latter are not included in these tables). Almost all grants to Caricom were

given in the 1980s. Totals may not add up due to rounding.b Between 1950 and 1976, FMS amounted to only $157,000. Between 1977 and 1980, less than $500 was transferred. Aid began to increase in the 1980s.

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At the other end of the continuum from Trinidad and Tobago lies Jamaica. At indepen-dence, Jamaica opted to continue strengthening its relationship with the United Statesthrough the signing of a military assistance agreement in 1963. Under this agreement,Jamaica received counterinsurgency equipment, primarily for the coast guard and police. Inthe 1960s, the USAID lent money for the modernization of Jamaica’s army and police forcesand provided training under its Public Safety Program. Jamaica was an early beneficiary ofthe U.S. foreign military sales program, and its commercial purchases of arms between 1950and 1972 were high by Caribbean standards—$187,000 compared to $35,000 for the sec-ond best Caricom partner at the time, Antigua and Barbuda—albeit not as high as they havebeen since (Table 4.4).

Jamaica’s military relationship with the United States declined in the late 1970s when theManley administration antagonized the United States and charged it with destabilizingJamaica. U.S. Department of Defense data show no training funds for Jamaica between 1974and 1981 and foreign military sales to Jamaica tapered off after peaking in 1975. (However,commercial arms purchases from the United States have remained high since 1972). In the


Table 4.2 U.S. commercial exports to Caricom licensed under Arms Export Control Act (dollars in thousands)a

Country FYs FY FY FY FY FYs 1950–1987 1990 1995 2000 2005 1950–2005

Antigua 78 1 1 1 133 298and Barbuda

Bahamas 838 109 — 41 5,995 6,846

Barbados 656 50 67 — 553 1,340

Belize 738 8 41 25 2,671 1,333

Dominica 25 1 * — 41 1,150

Grenada 58 10 — 40 26 163

Guyana 1,718 80b 44 101 78 17,459

Haiti 2,521 104 489 31 622 3,434

Jamaica 2,898c 182 124 191 673 6,530

St. Kitts/ 3 ** 1 — 802 32Nevis

Saint Lucia 33 2 8 116 47 247

St. Vincent 10 — 105 — 15 136

Suriname 142 294 1,574 14 44 670

Trinidad 4,206 102 245 4 2,614 7,065and Tobago

Source: U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency, Foreign Military Sales, Foreign Military Construction Sales and Military Assis-

tance Facts as of September 30, 1997, and September 30, 2005 (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 1998, 2006).

* Less than $500.a These are the total dollar value of deliveries made against purchases of munitions-controlled items by foreign governments

directly from U.S. manufacturers. The data are compiled from shippers’ export documents and completed licenses returned from

ports of exit by the U.S. Customs Service.b Guyana imported a large amount, $15.1 million, in arms in the previous year, 1989.c Jamaica had $186,000 in arms imports between 1950 and 1972, but the average annual amount since then has been about

$200,000, with peaks of more than twice that in the early 1980s, as well as 1987–1994.

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1980s, the United States sought to boost the new more conservative Jamaican government ofEdward Seaga. Jamaica was the recipient of specially allocated amounts of security assistancefrom the United States, which also urged other allies, for example, Japan, to provide security-associated economic support. FMS and IMET programs were restarted and Jamaica receivedfunding under the Excess Defense Articles program. In the 1990s and 2000s, with securityredefined to reflect, in particular, the antinarcotics agenda, Jamaica, like all the other Cari-com countries, began receiving allocations from the MAP subprogram on narcotics. (MAPgives loans and grants for equipment, training, and administrative support.). In the 1990sand 2000s, Jamaica has been a consistent recipient of assistance from the drug control ini-tiative of the State Department’s International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL)department. In sum, despite the variability in Jamaica’s commitment to the United States, itis clear that even taking into account disparities in size, Jamaica has received more militaryassistance from the United States than have other Caricom countries. Far more Jamaicanshave trained under the IMET program (more than 2,200 in 2005) than have other nation-alities (compare Trinidad and Tobago’s 227 persons trained).

In the eastern Caribbean, the increase in U.S. military assistance dates to the period of ide-ological turmoil of the early 1980s. In fact, it was only in 1979 that Barbados transformed itslargely ceremonial regiment into an army and created an air force and coast guard. At thistime, the United States began its long-term assistance in training customs agents and narcotics

Strategic Linkages • 93

Table 4.3 U.S. military assistance to Caricom: IMET Programa (dollars in thousands)

Country FYs FY FY FY FY FYs No. of Students 1950–1987 2000 1995 2000 2005 1950–2005 Trained FYs

1950–2005

Antigua and 169 4 3 113 124 1,491 238Barbuda

Bahamas 132 44 13 112 341 2,038 595

Barbados 437 51 11 71 — 1,400 296

Belize 381 102 54 161 308 3,351 759

Dominica 209 22 39 58 69 1,71 230

Grenada 274 64 99 47 113 1,580 349

Guyana 39 — 97 168 292 2,770 311

Haiti 3,613 — 35 222 1391 5,472 1,201

Jamaica 1,379 283 174 461 726 10,566 2,288

St. Kitts/Nevis 143 60 39 67 154 1,495 332

Saint Lucia 187 43 46 79 133 1,325 295

St. Vincent 227 40 40 52 — 1,033 305

Suriname 128 — 28 102 139 1,369 366

Trinidad and 154 42 — 132 — 1,417 227Tobago

Source: U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency, Foreign Military Sales, Foreign Military Construction Sales and Military Assistance Facts as of

September 30, 1997, and September 30, 2005 (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 1998, 2006).a The International Military Education and Training Program; these are deliveries representing the dollar value allocated in any fiscal year for

the training of foreign military students both overseas and in the continental United States, and the cost of training aids and materials associ-

ated with such training. Includes military assistance service funded (MASF) and emergency drawdowns.

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officers. Assistance to the eastern Caribbean as a whole was extended not only under the var-ious military programs already mentioned but also under the Economic Support Fund, whichprovided security aid for socioeconomic purposes. The figures show fairly strong continuedU.S. assistance to the eastern Caribbean and the Regional Security System (RSS, formed inthe 1980s) in the 1990s and early 2000s, and a steady increase in trainees under IMET.

Grenada’s relationship with the United States tightened after the invasion of 1983. IMETtraining was quickly begun, foreign military sales agreements were negotiated, and by 2005the latter had increased to match (and exceed) most of the other eastern Caribbean countries.(Grenada’s and Antigua’s total of over $11 million can be compared to the total for Barbadosat $5 million). Funding for Grenada under this program went from nothing before 1984 to$3.4 million allotted in 1985. Antigua and Barbuda also received large inflows of coun-ternarcotics assistance in the late 1990s. Barbados was the recipient in 1996 of more than $8million in special MAP allocations as well as counternarcotics aid from this program in 1997and 1998. As the hub for the RSS coast guard, Barbados received substantial assistance fromthe United States for the training of customs agents and narcotics officers.

Belize and the Bahamas have also seen a rise in their assistance from the United States overthe years. The United States began to play a larger role in Belize after 1982, training Belizeansunder IMET (759 Belizeans had received training by 2005) and disbursing some MAPfunds. U.S. commercial arms sales to Belize increased moderately after independence in1981, and foreign military sales are on par with most of the eastern Caribbean countries. TheBahamas, on the other hand, takes relatively little advantage of military assistance programs.(As noted, however, there is a physical U.S. military presence in the country). With theheightened narcotics threat, participation in the IMET program began in the 1980s, and595 students had been trained by 2005. However, the country has participated only moder-ately in the foreign military sales program and only since 1997; it has not received MAPfunding. On the other hand, it has received substantial funding for antinarcotics activitiesfrom the INL’s narcotics control initiative. Moreover, cumulative commercial exports to theBahamas were, in 2005, the second highest after Guyana. As for Suriname, it has receivedvery little U.S. aid, preferring other traditional partners. In the 1990s, however, it has par-ticipated relatively strongly in IMET, sending a total of 366 students as of 2005.

It is well known that Haiti has had a long military relationship with the United States.Before leaving Haiti after their occupation of 1915 to 1934, U.S. marines trained the Hait-ian Guard, which became the Haitian military in 1947. Despite the uneven fortunes of theHaitian army, isolated by Duvalier as well as Aristide, its turn to interventionism in the1940s, and the army’s reputation for human rights violations, the United States continued toprovide support and training. However, relations soured during the dictatorship of FrançoisDuvalier. Data for 1950–1977 indicate that the total for IMET, MAP, and FMS programstogether amounted to only about $4 million. Military assistance remained low even as rela-tions improved in the 1970s after Jean-Claude Duvalier took power. On the other hand,IMET allocations increased steadily through the 1980s and FMS aid was renewed in 1987,Duvalier having fled in 1986. Like Jamaica, Haiti was one of the few countries that partici-pated in the Excess Defense Articles program. In the last years of the 1980s and up to 1995,no aid was disbursed to Haiti other than IMET assistance. After 1995, aid was restored in allareas. A MAP allocation of $50 million in 1994 was given to assist countries participating inpeacekeeping arrangements, including the Caricom countries. Haiti participated in the for-eign military sales program up to 2000 and has renewed its purchases since 2004. As may be


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expected, commercial purchases increased in 1995, ended in 2000, and were renewedstrongly in 2005. In addition, a relatively high level of aid from the INL to Haiti for coun-ternarcotics programs was requested for 2006–2007.4

In 2002 the International Criminal Court (ICC) came into force, with jurisdiction overcrimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. However, the United Statesopted not to join the court and vigorously sought to protect its military participating ininternational operations from being tried under the court. In 2002, the U.S. Congress passedthe American Service Members Protection Act under which countries that do not exemptU.S citizens from the court’s jurisdiction are prohibited from receiving military assistance.The United States has used bilateral agreements (termed “Article 98” agreements) to securesuch approval. As of 2007, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Guyana, St.Kitts-Nevis, and Trinidad and Tobago had joined the court. Of these, Barbados, St. Vincent,and Trinidad and Tobago had not signed Article 98 agreements and had initially been deniedassistance other than counternarcotics aid. In 2006, however, President Bush granted awaiver to these countries (as allowed for by the act) for reasons of national interest.

Trinidad and Tobago was one of the leading advocates of the creation of an InternationalCriminal Court. Since, as noted earlier, Trinidad and Tobago does not benefit from a sizableamount of U.S. military aid, the U.S. action to cut off aid had relatively little real effect. Allthree countries that received waivers are important to U.S. countertrafficking and bordersecurity.

Other Bilateral Links

Even if the United States has overall established itself as the dominant security partner of theCaricom countries, other countries have certainly played strong roles in the past in ensuringCaricom’s security. The colonial powers—Britain, France, and the Netherlands—have beenimportant in military areas as well as in the economic sphere.

Britain provided training and equipment after independence for the military and policeforces of all the English-speaking Caribbean countries, and this aid was supplemented by aidfrom Canada. Britain also assisted Barbados in developing its coast guard during the crucialyears of the early 1980s. It continued to be a major supplier of arms to the region in the1970s and 1980s, even to Guyana despite curbs imposed on such sales in the early 1980s.Barbados purchased almost all its arms, up to the mid-1980s, from Britain. In the smallereastern Caribbean nations, Britain also played a significant role, training the regional secu-rity forces since 1980 under its Military Loan Service Personnel Program at an estimated costof $1.3 million during the high point of the mid-1980s.5 Canada has also contributed to thetraining of the regional coast guard under the Regional Security System. Finally, Britainplayed a special role in Belize when it stationed a garrison there to guarantee Belize’s inde-pendence in 1981 in view of Guatemala’s claim. The garrison was finally withdrawn aftersecurity guarantees were obtained from Guatemala in 1994. Since the mid-1990s, Britainhas continued to provide assistance to the region in antinarcotics and border policing areas,and has even lent Scotland Yard officers to train police forces and assist in resolving theincreasing crime in some countries. According to data for the period of 1995–2005 providedby the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the UK sent $9 million in arms


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transfers to Trinidad and Tobago in 2000, $1 million in the same year to Belize, and $6 mil-lion in 2001 to Guyana.6

Canada’s significant role in Haiti should be mentioned. The country participated in the1994 intervention to restore democracy and has established itself as both a mediator and amajor donor of humanitarian and democracy-oriented assistance since then. France has alsocontinued its role as a traditional supplier of various types of assistance to Haiti.

In the cold war past, many Caricom countries received support as well from nontradi-tional sources. Cuba, the Soviet Union, North Korea, and eastern European countries pro-vided arms and advice to socialist allies during the 1970s and 1980s. Before the U.S.invasion, there were some one hundred Cuban military advisers in Grenada, and about onethousand technical assistantance personnel with paramilitary training.7 Members of theGrenadian army were being trained in Cuba and the Soviet Union, according to informationmade public after the invasion of 1983,8 and Grenada had military transfer agreements withthe Soviet Union, Cuba, and North Korea. Up to the mid-1980s, Guyana, too, was receiv-ing military equipment from the Soviet Union and eastern European countries.9 Guyana’smilitary relationship with Cuba, which included a limited Cuban military presence inGuyana, facilitated a Guyanese agreement to ferry Cuban troops to Angola in 1975—a deci-sion that provoked anti-Cuban militants who subsequently blew up a Cubana Airline jet thathad left from Guyana. In Jamaica, however, there is no evidence of the presence of Cubanmilitary advisers in the 1970s, although Cuban technical personnel were known to betrained in military techniques, and there is also no evidence of arms transfers from Cuba.Suriname also flirted briefly with Cuba in the early 1980s: between 1981 and 1983, Cubalent assistance to Suriname by training the military forces and people’s militia, supplyingequipment and personnel, and providing advisers on internal security.10

With respect to other nontraditional partners, Guyana has had a warm relationship withBrazil, beginning in 1969 when Guyana Defense Force personnel participated in a junglewarfare course in Brazil not long after a military cooperation agreement was signed. At thetime, Guyana felt threatened by Venezuela, which was involved in aggressive and subversiveattempts to lay claim to the Essequibo territory. Despite some Brazilian concern aboutGuyana’s pro-Cuban stance, Brazil extended various lines of credit to Guyana from 1971 on,some of which were used for military purchases. However, Brazil’s role as arms supplier wasonly clearly established in 1982 at the height of renewed conflict between Venezuela andGuyana. At the time, Brazil established a substantial credit line for military purchases toGuyana, agreeing to sell equipment including troop carriers and reconnaissance planes forpatrolling the disputed frontiers.11 Since then, Brazil and Guyana have cooperated in train-ing exercises. Brazil has given Guyana technical help in such areas as explosives disposal andhas made some equipment sales to Guyana. Guyana’s neighbor, Suriname, has traditionallyreceived its military assistance from the Netherlands but also received equipment and trainingfrom Brazil, beginning in the 1980s. It has also received assistance from France (which has aninterest in maintaining stability in and around neighboring French Guiana) and more recentlyhas been moving toward closer military cooperation with the People’s Republic of China.

As for Trinidad and Tobago, some military collaboration with Venezuela occurred begin-ning in 1963 when Trinidad and Tobago extradited the hijackers of a Venezuelan airliner.Venezuela provided arms and military equipment to Trinidad and Tobago during internaldisturbances in 1970, gave some training for Trinidad’s military in exchange for languagetraining for its own officers as well as for university students,12 and provided humanitarian


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relief in the aftermath of the 1990 attempted coup against the government. Finally, withrespect to nontraditional partners, both Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana initiated some col-laboration with India in the 1990s. Guyana, in particular, has sent members of its defenseforce for training in India. Trinidad and Tobago has also received some military equipmentfrom Israel in the 2000s.

Overall, however, the Caricom relationship with other military suppliers is dwarfed by itsrelationship with the United States. In this respect, the strengthened relationship betweenthe Caricom states and the United States is seen both as a geopolitical necessity as well as arealistic response to the rise of transnational and transborder criminal activities.

Regional Collaboration

Prior to the 1980s, there was some sporadic bilateral cooperation among the military andpolice organizations of the Caricom region. For example, Trinidad and Tobago helped trainthe Guyanese coast guard and the Antiguan army, nationals of the Bahamas and Trinidadand Tobago served in the high command of the Jamaican army, and Trinidad and Tobagolent its second-in-command to the new Barbadian army in 1980. Ad hoc arrangementsexisted among the eastern Caribbean islands—thus St. Kitts helped train personnel fromAntigua and Dominica—and between these islands and their larger neighbor Trinidad andTobago. But the treaty establishing Caricom contained no security mechanism, as waspainfully apparent during the Grenada crisis of 1983. The reasoning was that Caricom wasan economic arrangement, not a multifunctional or security organization. As opposed tothis, the 1981 charter of the Organization of eastern Caribbean States (OECS) incorporatedsecurity goals by including collective defense language in Article 8. This language was giventeeth in 1982 when the OECS countries and Barbados established a military mechanism, theRSS, under which Barbadian, Antiguan, and Kittitian defense forces as well as other easternCaribbean police units could collaborate and be deployed to meet domestic and externalthreats. (It may be noted that Dominica had an army after independence, but it was dis-banded after disturbances in 1981. St. Kitts’ army was also disbanded in 1981 but reinsti-tuted in 1997. The other islands provide Special Services Units [SSUs], essentiallyparamilitary forces, for work with the RSS.) The RSS units are trained to deal with regionaldomestic crises, to support drug interdiction efforts, counter illegal immigration, and con-duct humanitarian operations. In cases of major external threats, these forces cannot defendthe region alone; they can, however, assist foreign forces. They are also prepared for peace-keeping operations.

The RSS is headquartered in Barbados, and the Barbadian army chief is the RSS coordi-nator and adviser on security matters. The coast guard is centered in Barbados. The islandshandle their training individually—for example, U.S. forces visit and work with eachisland—but rely on a collective program for arms and equipment acquisitions. Forces fromthe other Caricom nations participate with RSS, as well as U.S. and UK troops, in variousannual training exercises and maneuvers intended to boost their skills and preparedness.

In the 1990s, the international community began to move toward giving regional organi-zations a larger role in meeting threats to the peace and security. Indeed, former UN secre-tary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali proposed just such a scenario in his Agenda for Peace in


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1992.13 Regional intervention in local crises has the advantage of being generally moreacceptable to the country in crisis in that it carries less of an appearance of “imperialism.” Ithas the advantage of facilitating a more immediate and rapid response to a crisis, and regionalparticipants tend to understand the local political nuances of the conflict better than troopsfrom outside.14 On the other hand, the culture of nonintervention and respect for sover-eignty tends to be stronger among regional governments, leading to a reluctance to interferein neighbors’ affairs, even when action is clearly needed. Also, regional action tends to belimited and less successful, and regional forces lack the necessary financial and logisticalresources to deal effectively with complex situations.

Among Caricom states, the tradition of nonintervention was well developed until thepost–cold war period. Cases of intraregional mediation were few, ad hoc, and generallyunsuccessful, except for Trinidad and Tobago’s facilitation of an agreement between Guyanaand Venezuela in 1970. In 1963, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and Jamaica offered tomediate during racial and political disturbances in British Guiana, but the Guiana govern-ment refused to comply with suggestions for a high-level, four-power meeting to discuss var-ious proposals, including a Trinidadian proposal for UN peacekeeping forces, if necessary, tosupervise upcoming elections.15 Again, in 1967, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados,and Guyana sent a fact-finding commission of civil servants to the British Associated StateSt. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla to investigate anti-St. Kitts’ disturbances on Anguilla. They subse-quently agreed to various proposals for a peaceful settlement, including sending in a peace-keeping force composed of police units from four countries. However, their attempt failedwhen Anguilla refused to accept the agreement and Jamaica changed its position on partici-pation in a peacekeeping force.16 Anguilla later chose to secede from St. Kitts and return toa colonial status.

Also, in 1969, the army chiefs of Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and Guyana met inGeorgetown, Guyana, to discuss questions of regional security in the wake of disturbances inJamaica. But this was their only meeting and no substantive results were produced. WhenTrinidad and Tobago sought arms from Jamaica and Guyana during the 1970 domestic dis-turbances, these were not forthcoming. The commander in chief of the Jamaican army vis-ited Trinidad, but nothing concrete came of the visit.17 Finally, in 1974, the Big FourCaricom countries—Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Barbados—offered tomediate Grenada’s (anti–Eric Gairy) internal disturbances, but their assistance was notaccepted; in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Barbados, Jamaica, and Guyana offered to par-ticipate in a multilateral force for Belize, but again, no action was taken on this offer.

The year 1979 was a turning point: for the first time, a Caricom government (St. Vin-cent) asked for military intervention and received it, from Barbados. Following up on this,Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago agreed to consult from time to time on security matters.Barbados lent assistance to Dominica in 1981. Later, the events in Grenada and their after-math precipitated more regularized regional collaboration. In the late 1980s, regular meet-ings of regional security personnel were initiated and joint troop maneuvers began. However,there was still only limited commitment in the region to regional intervention. In fact, thedebate over intervention led to polarization during the Grenada crisis when the easternCaribbean states, Barbados, and Jamaica took action without the concurrence of Trinidadand Tobago, Guyana, and the Bahamas. Moreover, nonintervention took precedence overhuman rights considerations in Guyana all through the Forbes Burnham era.18 Attitudes ofnonintervention also played a role in fostering Caricom’s disinterest in Haiti until the coup


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against Aristide, although the lack of action was also a consequence of a general perceptionof the English-speaking Caribbean societies—except Jamaica and the Bahamas—that Haiti’saffairs were remote from those of the core Caricom countries.

Similarly, despite the creation of the RSS, support for a regional defense mechanismproved to be relatively weak. St. Vincent and Barbados—both under new Democratic Partygovernments—expressed reservations about the need for, and use of, RSS units, and aboutthe major role being played by the United States in the regional security system. Prime Min-ister Mitchell of St. Vincent stated that he was more concerned about the people’s basicnecessities than about security.19 Meanwhile, a Barbados proposal made in 1984 under theprevious government of Tom Adams for the creation of a Caribbean defense force, a perma-nent regional army that could be called on if local units failed to put down disturbances,elicited no support from other Caribbean governments, including eastern Caribbean gov-ernments. Not only was the necessity and desirability of having such a force unclear but alsono one was willing to bear the cost. Prime Minister Adams had envisaged that the armywould be heavily subsidized by the United States, but the latter balked at the cost.20 But asconcern about narcotics trafficking grew, reservations about the RSS were eased. Also, as thenorms of sovereignty were eroded in the international community and humanitarian inter-vention grew in importance, Caricom states, themselves trying to become a more integratedcommunity, began to play a greater role in resolving their regional disputes.

The RSS and units from Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago gained some experience byparticipating in the peacekeeping force stationed in Grenada for some time after the invasionof 1983. Then in 1990, when the Trinidadian parliament was seized by Islamic dissidentsand widespread looting occurred in the capital, a Caribbean force, including RSS units, wasassembled in Barbados to await a call for assistance. Although their assistance was notrequested during the crisis, the force comprising about 150 soldiers from Jamaica, the east-ern Caribbean, Barbados, and Guyana entered Trinidad as peacekeepers after the crisis wasresolved, spending a month assisting the Trinidadian police in preventing further looting andsecuring banks and businesses. A third notable deployment of a Caribbean peacekeepingforce was in Haiti after the U.S. and multinational intervention of 1995. Units from Antiguaand Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, SaintLucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago all participated in the exer-cise and were reportedly well received by the Haitian populace.21 Some Caricom countriesalso participated in the subsequent UN mission. As for the use of peaceful settlement strate-gies short of force, Caricom states also became more proactive in the 1990s. The region sentelection observers to monitor the 1990 Haitian general elections and the 1992, 1997, and2001 Guyanese elections. At one point, the organization attempted to mediate the Haitianconflict by appointing a regional mediator, former Jamaican prime minister Michael Manley,and inviting President Aristide to Caricom meetings. Caricom supported the appointmentof a Caricom national as head of the OAS and UN human rights mission in Haiti, in thiscase a Trinidadian. The organization mediated postelection conflict in Guyana in 1997. Inthe early 2000s, a group of Caricom states, led by the Bahamas, was an active if unsuccessfulmediator during the impasse between President Aristide and the opposition in Haiti.Jamaica, historically a haven for deposed Haitian presidents, allowed Aristide to return theretemporarily from the Central African Republic after his removal/resignation in 2004.

Involvement in Guyana marked a particular departure from Caricom’s traditional nonin-terventionist stance toward that country. After the death of Cheddi Jagan, who had succeeded


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in breaking the People’s National Congress (PNC)’s monopoly on power in 1992, his wifeJanet Jagan was elected president in 1997. The PNC opposition alleged that there had beennumerous electoral irregularities and led its supporters in disruptive demonstrations thatthreatened to lead to racial violence. Caricom appointed a three-person mediation group thatmanaged to ease tensions by negotiating an accord, the Herdmanston Accord, that called foran independent audit of the election results, a moratorium on marches and demonstrations,and the appointment of a Constitutional Reform Commission that would, among otherthings, discuss measures for the improvement of race relations in Guyana. A Caricom repre-sentative was then appointed to continue to oversee the process. The audit that was duly pro-duced confirmed that the elections had been free and fair. In January 2001, a constitutionaljudge declared the elections void because 10 percent of the electorate had been disenfran-chised by a requirement that voters had to possess a special voter identity card. The judge alsonoted, however, that the outcome of the elections would not have changed. In any event,parties involved agreed on a date for new elections, and in March 2001, Jagan’s People’s Pro-gressive Party was returned to power. These elections produced a fresh outbreak of riotingwhen the results were disputed by the opposition, but in May, the PNC finally agreed todefuse racial tensions and work with the government.

In the case of Haiti, the resolution of conflict has primarily fallen to the OAS as well asthe United Nations. Still, Caricom sent a fact-finding mission to Haiti in 2002 after whichit urged Aristide to appoint a prime minister, called for an independent investigation of thecircumstances surrounding the 2001 elections, and offered assistance, through the OAS, instrengthening Haiti’s democratic institutions. But as conditions in Haiti worsened in 2004,a new fact-finding mission was sent to Haiti, after which three Caricom leaders—Jamaica’sas the chairman of Caricom in 2004, Trinidad and Tobago’s as the person in charge of secu-rity issues, and the Bahamas’ prime minister—met in the Bahamas with representatives ofthe Haitian opposition in January 2004. The Bahamas has been perhaps the country mostaffected by instability in Haiti, having received thousands of Haitian refugees over the years.The meeting in the Bahamas was also attended by observers from the United States, Canada,and the OAS. Caricom leaders later met with President Aristide in Jamaica, where the Hait-ian leader agreed to work to release political detainees, disarm all “strong arm” groups, estab-lish a neutral and impartial police force, appoint a neutral prime minister, establish abroad-based advisory council, and move toward elections. President Aristide was asked todeclare publicly that he would not seek another term. Unfortunately, despite the encourage-ment given to the Caricom initiative by the United States, Canada, and the members of theEuropean Union, Caricom’s proposals were out of step with the Haitian opposition’s per-spective that Aristide needed to resign. In the end, the United States, Canada, and Franceopted to support Aristide’s removal as rebels advanced on the presidential palace. Caricomcountries refused to recognize the new government of Gérard Latortue.

Apart from these most visible events, the Caricom of the 1990s and 2000s has also con-sistently offered support for Guyana, Dominica, and Belize in their disputes with Venezuela(in the first two instances) and Guatemala. It has offered to mediate other disputes, whetherinternal (such as an election impasse in Trinidad and Tobago in 2001–2002), or interstate(for example, Suriname and Guyana’s boundary dispute, or Barbados’ fishing dispute withTrinidad and Tobago). The organization regularly sends election observers and gives electoralassistance to member states when requested. In fact, Caricom states have been emboldenedto assist countries beyond the local region: for instance, Trinidad and Tobago was represented


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on a mediation group appointed by the OAS to resolve the situation in Panama in 1989—though the mediation ended when the United States invaded Panama—and also participatedin elections observation in Honduras and Nicaragua. In addition, regional police and defensepersonnel began to meet more regularly in the 1990s. The creation in 1990 of the CaribbeanFinancial Action Task Force to deal with money-laundering issues also served to bringtogether law enforcement officials from both Caricom and Central America.22

In 2007, the Caricom countries played host to the Cricket World Cup, the third largestglobal sporting event. For the success of this venture, which entailed matches held through-out the region and the establishment of a common visa for ease of movement from one venueto another, security cooperation was intensified. A security assistance treaty was put intoeffect and a Caricom Operational, Planning, and Coordinating Staff was formed bringingtogether police and defense forces as well as intelligence staffs, laying the groundwork fordeeper cooperation in the future. Even more importantly, in 2006, a regional architecture forthe management of crime and security, recommended by a regional task force since 2002,was finally put in place. The regional architecture brings together standing committees ofoperational heads of the police, military, immigration, intelligence, information technology,customs, and disaster preparedness, who report to various ministerial subcommittees andultimately to a council comprised of regional national security ministers. The Implementa-tion Agency for Crime and Security was quickly established, with a mandate to manage pro-jects, conduct research, mobilize resources, and help in enhancing regional capacity to dealwith security problems.23

In sum, a pattern of involvement in regional and circumregional conflict resolution, con-fidence building, and information exchange on transnational security issues has emerged inthe post–cold war period.

Hemispheric and International Organizational Initiatives

Beyond the immediate region, Caricom states have developed various international linkagesrelated to the their military and political security goals. In this respect, the most importantlinkages have been with the United Nations and the OAS, with secondary linkages with theCommonwealth and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

The United Nations—which Haiti joined at the organization’s inception and all otherstates joined at independence—has given small Caricom states a forum in which to air secu-rity concerns and has also provided mechanisms for resolving such problems. The same canbe said for the OAS, which, despite initial Latin reluctance to accept non-Latin countries andthe exclusion of Belize and Guyana until 1991 (discussed in Chapter 5), is today truly hemi-spheric in scope. The fourteen Caricom states form a strong bloc within this organization.Haiti (1947), Trinidad and Tobago (1967), and the Bahamas (1982) also are parties to theInter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (Rio Treaty), the collective security treaty ofthe OAS.

The Commonwealth, the “club” of former British territories, is a useful forum for discus-sion and debate and diplomatic support for the English-speaking members of Caricom. Inthe security sphere, the organization also offers opportunities for collaboration and trainingamong the security personnel of member nations, as well as military assistance. The NAM


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has also been an important forum for Caricom nations, even if only a diplomatic one. AllCaricom countries are members of NAM, some having joined quite recently. St Vincent andthe Grenadines joined in 2003, Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica in June 2006, and Haitiand St. Kitts-Nevis at the Non-Aligned Summit in Cuba in September 2006. Despite theoft-perceived waning significance of the NAM in the post–cold war era, the group has actu-ally increased its membership and remains a tricontinental channel for cooperation and coor-dination on economic and political issues.

Membership in these organizations has been particularly helpful to Belize and Guyana inthe context of border issues. The responses of these two countries to their territorial problemshave differed slightly, but both have at various times relied quite heavily on internationalorganizations. In the case of Guyana, in 1970, the parties met in Trinidad and Tobago andagreed to freeze the dispute for twelve years. However, in 1982, Venezuela refused to renewthe 1970 Protocol of Port-of-Spain, which brought back into effect the terms of the previousGeneva Agreement of 1966–1970, specifically the terms calling for the parties to resort tovarious methods of peaceful settlement. The dispute was then taken to the United Nations,where mediators appointed under the auspices of the secretary-general have since been over-seeing a process of confidence building and, it is hoped, a final resolution.24

The deferral of the dispute between 1970 and 1982 and also the minimization of the dis-pute with Suriname at this time allowed Guyana time to shore up diplomatic support in theCommonwealth, the United Nations, and the NAM. When it joined the NAM in 1970,Guyana began to engage in intensive networking. Thus, when Venezuela submitted itsapplication for admission to the NAM in 1983, Guyana took a cue from Venezuela itself,which had steadily resisted changes in the OAS charter that would allow Guyana to join,and objected to Venezuela’s admission to the NAM on the grounds that the country had notrenounced the use of force as required by the organization. Guyana’s objections delayedaction on the Venezuelan request for admission for many years, much to Venezuela’s chagrininasmuch as its leaders wanted the country to play a leadership role in the third world.Finally in 1989, as relations improved between the two countries, Guyana permittedVenezuela to join the organization.

At the United Nations, Guyana also used the members’ stated opposition to (neo)colo-nialism and external intervention to its advantage by bringing up the dispute with Venezuelabefore the General Assembly and the Security Council, portraying Venezuela as imperialisticand aggressive. This was done in the difficult period of the late 1960s before the Protocol ofPort-of-Spain was signed, as well as in the early 1980s when Venezuela refused to renew theprotocol.

Like Guyana, Belize benefited from “internationalizing” its territorial problems. In the1970s, a diplomatic offensive was launched that succeeded in gaining Belize firm supportfrom the Commonwealth and the NAM. Belize also reached out to its Central Americanneighbors, drawing the support of Panama and Nicaragua under the Sandinista government.By 1981, both the United Nations and the OAS were endorsing independence for Belizewith security guarantees. The United States, which had abstained on UN resolutions onBelize since the first one in 1975, now supported its independence. Belize was quick to jointhe NAM after independence in 1981, though it was not as active as Guyana in this forum.

In marine matters, the UN Law of the Sea Tribunal has become a preferred channel forthe settlement of intra-Caricom disputes. In the 2000s, Guyana submitted disputes withSuriname and with Trinidad and Tobago to the tribunal, and Barbados submitted its marine


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dispute with Trinidad and Tobago. In regard to refugees, the office of the UN High Com-missioner for Refugees has been involved in decisions on asylum involving the Bahamas andHaiti. In the crucial and interrelated areas of counternarcotics, countercrime and countert-errorism, all Caricom countries have ratified or adhered to the 1988 UN Convention onNarcotics, Drugs, and Psychotropic Substances, all ratified the 1961 precursor convention,and all but Haiti signed and ratified the 1971 protocol convention on psychotropic sub-stances (see Table 4.4). Jamaica has been proactive in seeking election to the UN Commis-sion on Narcotic Drugs and has served since 2001 (its current term ends 2009). But Caricomcountries have been slower to adopt a more recent (2001) protocol on illicit firearms, whichonly Grenada, Jamaica, and St. Kitts-Nevis had ratified by 2007. A UN anticorruption con-vention (2003) remains to be signed by Caricom members other than Barbados, Haiti, andJamaica, although it has been ratified by Antigua and Barbuda and by Trinidad and Tobago.Inter-American conventions on corruption and firearms have fared better, with almost allcountries signing or ratifying them by 2007. However, only Antigua and Barbuda,Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago have ratified the convention onmutual assistance in criminal matters (the Bahamas and Suriname are signatories). The 1981inter-American convention on extradition has been ratified by only two Caricom states,Antigua and Barbuda and Saint Lucia, and a 2002 convention against terrorism has beensigned or ratified only by Antigua and Barbuda and Trinidad and Tobago as of March 2007.Overall, the Caricom states have shown a readiness to work within the framework of themajor conventions on drugs and crime. In addition to collaborating within the framework ofthese conventions, Caricom states have been working closely with the Inter-American DrugAbuse Control Commission (CICAD), which gives technical assistance to countries and pro-motes hemispheric collaboration on the issue of drug abuse and control.

The United Nations, the OAS, and the Commonwealth have all been helpful in super-vising or observing elections in the Caricom region, with the Commonwealth notably activein Guyana. But the most publicized actions of the United Nations and OAS in this regardhave been in Haiti. The elections of 1990, conducted after a period of instability alreadydescribed, were overseen by a UN Observer Mission in Haiti (ONUVEH). The UN/OASrole was later expanded: after the coup against Aristide, a joint mission of human rightsobservers was sent into the country, and this mission, MICIVIH, the International CivilianMission, stayed in Haiti from 1992 to 2000. Initially its goal was to ensure that human rightsstandards were being met, but later the mission goals grew to include the active promotionof human rights and democratization, tasks that led to a prolongation of the mission andthat, arguably, did not produce long-lasting results. (A smaller technical mission, the Inter-national Civilian Support Mission or MICAH, succeeded MICIVIH, lasting until 2001.)On the negotiation front, the United Nations and OAS tried to pressure the Haitian militaryrulers to leave by imposing the “stick” of sanctions while offering the “carrot” through anofficial mediator. The long process of negotiations ended when U.S. peacemakers led by for-mer President Carter secured the resignation of the junta as the invasion was being pre-pared. Caricom countries participated in the peacekeeping mission that went into Haitiafter the U.S.-led multinational force had completed its work. These were replaced by theformal UN Mission in Haiti (UNMIH) in which Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Bar-bados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts-Nevis, Saint Lucia, Suriname, and Trinidad andTobago all participated.25 Mention should be made of the fact that in the case of Haiti, mul-tilateral assistance was not just provided by international organizations but also by an ad


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104•

Small States in G

lobal Affairs

Table 4.4 Caricom adherence to key international security and security-related conventions as of 2007

Country UN UN Protocol 1 Protocol 2 Protocol 3 UN Convention UN Protocol International International Convention on Convention (trafficking in (migrants) (firearms) Against Convention Relating to Convention Convention onNarcotic Drugs/ Against persons) 2000d 2000e Corruption Relating to the Status on Protection the Suppression

Psychotropic Transnational 2000c 2003f the Status of Refugees of Migrants of FinancingSubstances Organized of Refugees 1967 1990h of Terrorism

1988a Crime 1951g 1999i

2000b

Antigua A R — — — A A A — Aand Barbuda

Bahamas R S S S — — A A — R

Barbados A S S S S S — — — R

Belize A A A A — — A A A R

Dominica A — — — — — A A — A

Grenada A A A A A — — — — A

Guyana A A A — — — — — S —

Haiti A S S S — S A A — —

Jamaica R R R R R S SU A — R

St. Kitts/ A R A — A — A — — RNevis

St. Lucia A S — — — — — — — —

St. Vincent A S S S — — A A — R

Suriname R — — — — — SU SU — —

Trinidad R S S S — R A A — —andTobago

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105Table 4.4 Continued

Country Inter-American Inter-American Convention Inter-American Convention Inter-American Convention Inter-American Convention Convention on on Illicit Firearms against Terrorism Against Corruption on Mutual Assistance

Extradition 1981j 1997k 2002l 1996m in Criminal Matters1992n

Antigua and Barbuda R R R R RBahamas — R S R SBarbados — R S S —Belize — R S R —Dominica — A A A AGrenada — R R R RGuyana — S S R SHaiti S S S R —Jamaica — S S R ASt. Kitts/Nevis — R S R —Saint. Lucia A R S A —St. Vincent — S S A —Suriname — S S A STrinidad and Tobago — R R R R

A = accession; R = ratification; both have the same effect; S = signature; SU: successiona Adopted 1988; entered into force 1990. Adds to the Single Convention on Narcotics Drugs (1961) amended by the 1972 Protocol, and the Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971. All Caricomcountries are parties to the first, and all but Haiti to the second.b Came into force in 2003.c Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing Convention Against Organized Crime, November 2000, entered into force December 2003.d Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea, and Air; Supplementing Convention Against Organized Crime November 15, 2000; entered into force January 2004.e Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts, and Components and Ammunition, Supplementing Convention Against Organized Crime May 31, 2001; entered intoforce July 2005.f Opened for signature December 2003; entered into force December 2005.g Entered into force 1954.h Full title: International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families; entered into force July 2003.i Entered into force March 1992.j Entered into force April 2002.k Full title: Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials; entered into force July 1998.l Entered into force July 2003.m Entered into force March 1997.n Entered into force April 1996. None of the Caricom states has signed an Optional Protocol preventing states from denying requests for assistance in tax crimes.

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hoc group of friendly countries: clearly imitating the success of the “Contadora” group offriends—Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and Panama—that had helped end the CentralAmerican crises of the 1980s, the “concerned friends” of Haiti (France, Canada, andVenezuela) joined the UN and the OAS missions in seeking a viable solution to the politicalimpasse.

Economic Linkages

Changing Strategic Choices

The primary foreign policy objective of the Caricom countries, as with most developingcountries, has been development. But the idea of development, the definition of what theywanted to achieve, as well as the strategies espoused to achieve it were redefined over the yearsby the countries of the global south and, in tandem, by Caricom nations. In particular, thepostindependence emphasis on growth measures was quickly followed by a realization thatthe open-economy model fostered continued dependence on the north and that resultingsocial inequities endangered a primary goal: regime survival. Economic nationalism becamea rallying cry in the 1970s, accompanied by “basic needs” and socialist experimentation inmany countries.

Like other third world countries, Caricom countries opted at first to remain tied to tradi-tional metropolitan allies, but, as noted in the last chapter, these linkages were rather quicklysupplemented and in most cases, overridden by a web of linkages with the United States.Resistance to dependency followed, and in the 1970s, most Caricom states—Barbados beinga notable exception—experimented with the economic nationalism gripping other globalsouth countries, by placing controls on foreign investment, localizing or nationalizing keyindustries, and firmly supporting the goals of the New International Economic Order(NIEO) proposed by the UN General Assembly in 1974. The Declaration and Action Pro-gram on the Establishment of an NIEO suggested strategies for global reform, includingcommodity stabilization schemes, greater transfer of resources from north to south, greatercontrol by host countries over multinational operations, and strategies to promote collectiveself-reliance among developing countries. Regional integration was seen as one way to pro-mote self-reliance, and the formation of the Caricom in 1973 followed this trend. Anotherkey strategy espoused by the global south nations, including Caricom countries, was thediversification of trade away from a dependence on traditional partners and toward nontra-ditional socialist as well as other global south partners.

In the 1980s, as liberalization norms were diffused from the northern nations to thesouth, Caricom states moved to restructure and liberalize their economies, replace prevailingimport substitution industrialization strategies with export promotion, deepen and widentheir integration movement, and expand their trade globally. Since the 1990s, diplomaticactivities have been reoriented toward economic diplomacy as Caricom countries competefor trade, aid, and investment opportunities against countries that, in general, are betterendowed and less vulnerable than they are economically.

Caricom countries, with the exception of the Bahamas, had joined the General Agree-ment on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) between 1962 and 1994 and had been beneficiaries of


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GATT-compliant exemptions.26 But as barriers to trade were progressively dismantled glob-ally, and with the creation of the World Trade Organization—which Caricom members ofGATT acceded to between 1995 and 1996, except for the Bahamas, which began the appli-cation process in 2001—their attention turned to supporting efforts to make the new orga-nization more hospitable to the needs of developing countries. As part of this, even as theyhave accepted intellectual property, tax, and other restraints, they have also stronglyendorsed initiatives, led by the larger developing nations, for the reduction of invisible bar-riers to trade such as the subsidies still prevailing in the EU and North America. Oneimportant goal of these small nations is to work toward broad acceptance of the need forspecial and differential treatment for developing countries disadvantaged by the movetoward liberalization.

Trade Diversification

As shown in Tables 3.2 and 3.3 (Chapter 3), except for Dominica, Grenada, Saint Lucia, andSt. Vincent, and to a lesser extent, Guyana, by the mid-1980s, the English-speaking Caricomcountries were sending the majority of their exports to the United States, and the UnitedStates was clearly dominant as an import partner. The countries that did not send the major-ity of their exports to the United States continued to send them to the traditional metropole,the United Kingdom. Suriname’s export trade was dominated by Europe (in particular theNetherlands) in the 1980s and remained so until the 1990s, although imports have beenmore evenly divided between the EU and the United States. In terms of the noncommonmarket countries, the time series UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)data show that while in the 1950s Haiti’s exports were distributed more equally betweenEurope (France in particular) and the United States, by 1970, the United States was thedominant export partner, as indeed it already was on imports. The United States was by farthe dominant export partner of the Bahamas by the 1980s, and also was a major importpartner.

In view of these dependent patterns of trade, trade diversification was a stated priority ofmost Caricom nations. In the 1970s, the countries that were most tangibly committed todiversification were, not unexpectedly, the socialist countries Guyana, Jamaica, and Grenada.They actively searched for nontraditional trade and aid partners in both western and easternEurope, notably East Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, and also initiated trade linkswith the Soviet Union and Cuba. At the same time, diversification was a strategy initiated bythe nonsocialist countries as well. Trade data for the period up to 1983 (not shown in Table3.2 or 3.3) show that Jamaica, the Bahamas, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidadand Tobago all had some imports from the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. In par-ticular, this was the era when most Caricom countries established trade links with Cuba aswell as with the People’s Republic of China.

Apart from socialist links, some countries established trade with nontraditional partnersin western Europe: for example, Dominica and Saint Lucia traded and continue to trade withFrance through nearby Martinique and Guadeloupe; the Netherlands became a significantimport partner for Grenada and St. Vincent, and to a lesser extent, Saint Lucia and St. Kitts-Nevis; and (West) Germany developed export links with Jamaica, Grenada, and some of theother eastern Caribbean states. Jamaica’s exports to Norway, and Trinidad and Tobago’sexports to a number of countries, including Switzerland and Spain, were also illustrative.


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However, by the 1990s, the most significant success at diversification was clearly thestrengthening of relations with Latin America. Less strong but also significant linkages withAsia were also a sign of increasing diversification by the 1990s.

Latin AmericaTrade between Caricom and Latin America has grown significantly over the years. Despitetheir historical concentration on Britain and the United States, the English-speaking Cari-com states have been pulled by their geopolitical location into the Latin American orbit, ini-tially through membership in the OAS and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).At first, trade links were concentrated on the northern tier of South America, in particularVenezuela, with nearby Trinidad and Tobago having the strongest links. In the cases of Belizeand Guyana, however, the progress of normal geographically based linkages was handicappedby conflicts with Guatemala and Venezuela. But by the late 1980s and 1990s both—Belizein particular—were reclaiming their geopolitical partnerships despite the lack of a final set-tlement of their border disputes.

In the 1960s, Trinidad and Tobago-Venezuelan economic links developed mainly on thebasis of trade in crude petroleum sent from Venezuela to Trinidadian refineries. By the2000s, Trinidad was importing and refining more than half its total production fromVenezuela. The country also refined additional Venezuelan crude during disturbances inVenezuela that affected that country’s oil production. In the meantime, Trinidad has becomea significant natural gas exporter, supplying over 70 percent of the U.S. market in 2006.With much of Venezuela’s far larger natural gas reserves located in the area borderingTrinidad, the two countries signed a historic unitization agreement in 2003 under whichVenezuela would use Trinidad’s more developed infrastructure to transport its gas.27 Widertrade relations between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago date to 1968 when a privatemixed commission was established to explore various opportunities. In the 1970s, Venezuelasought to expand its relations beyond Trinidad and embarked on a major program of coop-eration with the entire Caricom region. This move was not simply an economic strategy butit was also a geopolitical strategy at a time of ideological ferment in the region. As a result,Jamaica’s exports to Venezuela rose considerably in the Manley years between 1972 and1981, particularly after 1976, declining thereafter, and imports increased enough to makeVenezuela Jamaica’s second largest import partner after the United States.28 Barbados, too,registered significant increases in imports from Venezuela in the 1980s. Its imports com-prised primarily petroleum and petroleum products, since both Jamaica and Barbados, alongwith Belize, were the initial beneficiaries of the San José Accord of 1980 under whichVenezuela and Mexico agreed to supply oil at preferential prices to Caribbean Basin coun-tries. Venezuela also launched an eastern Caribbean promotion, and exports to Saint Lucia,in particular, rose quickly in the 1980s. On the continent itself, Venezuela was an importantexport market for Guyana’s bauxite and alumina in the 1970s and 1980s, border disputenotwithstanding. Similarly, in the case of Belize, despite the territorial dispute, relativelystrong trade relations were maintained with Guatemala.

In the early 1980s, Caricom countries also began to explore links with other Latin Amer-ican countries. Belize developed close ties with Mexico, which dropped its claim to thenorthern portion of Belize in 1974, and trade with Panama, El Salvador, Honduras, andCosta Rica was strengthened. Jamaica began exports to Mexico; Guyana expanded its tradewith Brazil as well as Mexico, primarily in exports. The Bahamas exported to Brazil and


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Panama. Colombia also had begun to court the region in the 1970s, though with more lim-ited effect; and in the 1970s, Cuba, with which the English-speaking Caribbean states hadreestablished relations in 1972, developed moderate trade links with Guyana, Jamaica, andTrinidad and Tobago. Cuba was also a relatively significant exporter to St. Vincent after thelatter’s independence, and to Grenada between 1979 and 1983.

Certain institutional initiatives since the 1970s provide benchmarks for illustrating thedeepening of Caricom–Latin America relations. Venezuela and Colombia were admitted tothe Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) as nonborrowing members in 1973 and 1974,respectively. Then in 1975, the Latin American Economic System (SELA, SistemaEconómico Latinoamericano) was formed on Venezuelan and Mexican initiative, designed asan alternative to the U.S.-dominated OAS, at least in the economic sector. SELA’s role wasto assist members in marketing raw materials, seeking equitable arrangements with multina-tionals, and financing national development projects and programs. SELA was the firstmajor organization to include Cuba as a member while excluding the United States. Also in1975, the establishment of the Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee withinthe Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA) assured English-speaking Caribbeanstates as well as the Hispanic states, Haiti, and Suriname that they would not be lost withinthe wider scope of Latin America. Later, in 1980, Mexico and Venezuela established an oilfacility for Caribbean Basin countries. (In 2005, Venezuela extended a new oil facility, Petro-Caribe, to Caribbean countries.) In 1982, Mexico joined the CDB; in 1989, Mexico,Venezuela, and Colombia formed the Group of Three, and all three joined Caricom asobservers in 1990. At this time, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico were also grantedobserver status in various committees of Caricom. In 1993, an exploratory summit meetingwas held between the Group of Three and Caricom members and Suriname. In the same year,the Cuba-Caricom Commission was set up to explore areas of joint collaboration, Cuba alreadyhaving joined the Caribbean Tourism Association in 1991. Cuba later applied for admission toCaricom, but its admission was deferred and instead Caricom countries agreed in 1996 to worktoward signing a free trade agreement with their neighbor. Finally, in 2000, a trade agreementwas drawn up, and an investment cooperation agreement was added in 2001.

An important set of trading arrangements between Caricom countries and their LatinAmerican neighbors was signed in the 1990s. Venezuela signed a one-way (preferential) tradeagreement with Caricom in 1992 that came into effect in 1993; Colombia followed in 1994(agreement effective in 1995). Caricom also signed its first free trade agreement in 1998 withthe Dominican Republic, implemented by protocol in 2000, and its second with Costa Ricain 2004. Negotiations with the Andean Community, Central American community, andwith Mercosur continued or were planned into 2007. With regard to the Dominican Repub-lic, relations deepened after that country joined CARIFORUM, that is, the Caribbean groupwithin the African-Caribbean-Pacific Group, in 1989.

The West Indian Commission report of 1992 called for the widening as well as the deep-ening of Caricom integration. In this context, Caricom members initiated links with theCentral American Community, itself in the process of consolidating its economic integrationmovement. An initial meeting of foreign ministers held in Honduras in 1992 was encourag-ing enough to proceed with the creation of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), whichwas formalized in 2004. The ACS includes not only the Central American and Caribbeanstates (including Cuba) but also the Group of Three. It serves as a forum for consultation andcooperation on trade promotion and related issues.


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The results of closer Caricom–Latin American cooperation can be seen in the increase inCaricom imports from the Latin America Integration Association (LAIA or ALADI)29 from$352 million in imports in 1981 to $1.6 billion in 2004. Exports grew more slowly from about$115 million in domestic exports in 1981 to $208 million in 2004.30 In percentage terms,imports went from 5.6 percent of the total in 1981 to 12.4 percent in 2004. Exports, however,grew only marginally from 2.2 percent of domestic exports to 2.4 percent. A quick look at thetrade by country (Table 5.3) shows that the main countries importing from ALADI wereTrinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Belize, and Guyana. Trinidad and Tobago was by far the mainexporter (in dollar terms, $194.2 million in 2004). Grenada’s exports have also been relativelyhigh in percentage terms (1.7 percent of total domestic exports in 2004). The other easternCaribbean countries still have only a small amount of export trade with ALADI members.

Given the initial concentration of trade on Venezuela, a member of ALADI, it is interest-ing to note that time series data show that trade with Venezuela declined in the 1980s, moreso for the Caricom More Developed Countries than for the Less Developed Countriesamong which Grenada and Saint Lucia were active partners. In the 1990s, imports grew oncemore, peaking at $378 million in 1994 (cf. $227 million in 1981), and exports showed aneven stronger increase after the initiation of the one-way trade agreement in 1993, goingfrom about $14.6 million in 1993 to $37.7 million in 1994. Venezuelan statistics, which aremore complete than Caricom’s for the early 2000s, show that in 2005, the latest year avail-able, Venezuela exported $256.9 million in products to Caricom countries, including Suri-name, Haiti, and the Bahamas. Corresponding data for imports show $26.9 million inVenezuelan imports from Caricom in 2005. In sum, since the 1990s, Caricom imports fromVenezuela have increased while exports have declined somewhat. This trade is, of course,only a part of Caricom’s larger trade with Latin American countries.

Venezuela is also a member of the Andean Community (ANCOM), which also comprisesBolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Caricom-Venezuelan trade is thus also reflected inCaricom statistics showing that trade with ANCOM was a moderate $541.7 million inimports and $56.1 million in exports in 2004 (down from $755.5 million and $72.8 millionin 2002). With respect to another Latin partner, Cuba, Cuban imports from Caricompeaked at $91.7 million in 1999, and amounted to $30 million in 2004, the latest year avail-able, according to available ALADI statistics that include data for the Bahamas, Haiti, andSuriname. Exports to Caricom amounted to $24.3 million in 2004. Imports came primarilyfrom Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, and exports went to Haiti and less so Jamaica, theBahamas, and Trinidad and Tobago. Meanwhile, with the creation of the ACS, Caricom’strade with Central America climbed considerably: while imports were only $57.2 million in1996, they were $168.2 million in 2004. Exports went from $20.9 million to $47.2 in 2004.(The share of total Caricom trade has, however, remained at about 1 percent or less.)31

Because most of the data cited earlier do not include the Bahamas, Haiti, and Suriname,it is useful to provide a separate analysis of trade data for these countries, for the Bahamas,Puerto Rico, and Mexico are somewhat important export partners, along with the Domini-can Republic, Panama, and Brazil. Import partners include Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Panama,and to a lesser extent, Colombia. Suriname exports to Mexico and Argentina, with a smallamount of merchandise going to Venezuela as well. Import partners for Suriname includeBrazil, Panama, Mexico, Venezuela, and Guatemala.32 Data for Haiti over the years point toa trade focus on the nearby Dominican Republic, with imports coming from Mexico andCentral America, Brazil, and more recently, Venezuela and Cuba.33


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Asia34

The largest Asian presence within Caricom is that of ethnic Indians, who comprise half ofthe population in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, about 37 percent of Suriname’s popu-lation, and smaller percentages elsewhere. The ethnic presence has facilitated strong culturaland travel contacts between India and the three Caribbean countries cited, but this has nottranslated into similarly strong trade links. Still, trade with India grew in the 1990s. Thecountry with the highest level of trade with India is Trinidad and Tobago, averaging about $4million in imports from India in the 1990s. In those years, the Bahamas also had a higherlevel of imports from India than most other Caricom countries ($8 million in 1992), butmore importantly, it was one of the few countries to also export or reexport to India ($32million in exports in 1992). Trinidad and Tobago and St. Vincent were the other notableexporters, with St. Vincent averaging about $1 million and Trinidad and Tobago showingmore consistent exports ranging from $1 million to $8 million.35 Countries importing fromIndia (besides Trinidad and Tobago and the Bahamas) were Guyana, Suriname, Jamaica, andless so, Barbados, Dominica, and St. Vincent. Comparing this with trade in the 2000s andnoting that fairly strenuous efforts have been made in the last decade to improve trade withIndia, again Trinidad and Tobago emerges as the largest importer, with about $59.6 millionin imports in 2005–2006 (April–April). Guyana imported some $1.2 million in goods fromIndia, and Jamaica $1 million. Haiti, Suriname, and the Bahamas also ranked in the topquarter of India’s Latin American partners. On the other hand, India’s imports from theregion remain low: only Guyana managed moderate exports of $2.3 million in2005–2006.36

Trade with the Asia-Pacific region as a whole has been pursued more strongly than tradewith India alone. Caricom nations have historically had a trickle of trade with Hong Kong,reflecting the British legacy as well as the presence throughout the Caribbean of small butsignificant numbers of ethnic Chinese. These Chinese came as indentured laborers afteremancipation when some eighteen thousand migrated to Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, andBritish Guiana, coming primarily from Canton, Hong Kong’s neighboring province. A largernumber of Chinese immigrants, 125,000, settled in Cuba.37 Other than the Chinese pres-ence, the presence of ethnic Indonesians in Suriname is noteworthy, with Indonesians com-prising a significant 15 percent of Suriname’s population.

By the late 1980s, the high level of economic growth of Asia-Pacific states was attractingLatin American attention. Caribbean states also sought to court Asia, in particular Japan,which had already replaced Canada as a major import partner. According to Caricom figures,in 1985, 5.2 percent of Caricom imports came from Canada whereas the corresponding per-centage for Japan was 7.3 percent. In 2004, imports amounted to 4.7 percent of the expand-ing volume of Caricom imports compared to 2.5 percent for Canada. While Suriname hadthe highest percentage of imports from Japan in 2004 (refer to Chapter 3, Table 3.3), almostall Caricom countries received more than 3 percent of their total imports from Japan in thatyear. (In the case of Haiti, Japan’s exports have at times been tied to political and securityassistance in support of U.S. policy.)

Exports to Japan showed promising increases in the 1990s. In 1985, only 0.7 percent ofCaricom’s exports went to Japan. In the early 1990s, however, Caricom as a group as well asindividual countries, particularly the Bahamas and Jamaica, embarked on various initiativesto try to access the Japanese market. In turn, Japan, under pressure from other industrializedcountries to open its protected markets and reduce its balance of trade surpluses, liberalized


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to a degree, creating some opportunities for Caricom states. The bulk of exports to Japanconsists of foodstuffs (citrus, fish, and coffee) and some manufactures, with Jamaica by farthe largest supplier. As a result of these efforts, exports to Japan rose to nearly 2 percent oftotal exports in 2000. However, in 2003 and 2004, exports declined to only 0.4 percent,even as exports to other Asian countries rose. Dominica, Belize, Jamaica, Suriname, and St.Kitts-Nevis were the largest exporters in percentage terms in 2004.

The rise of the newly industrializing countries of east and southeast Asia has led toincreased Caribbean trade with those countries, including the Republic of Korea, China andTaiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines. In allcases, the increase in trade has primarily been seen in imports. Notably, Haiti registeredstrong increases in imports from Asia during some years of the 1990s, mainly from Malaysia,but also to a lesser degree from Taiwan and Hong Kong. Dominica at times had large importsin the 1990s, primarily from Korea and the People’s Republic of China, and moderateimports from Thailand and Hong Kong as well. In addition, Dominica had substantialexports to Korea in the early 1990s. Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago alsoincreased their imports from Asia in the 1990s, although these increases were not necessarilysustained in every year. Suriname maintained modest trade with Asia, focusing on Taiwan,Hong Kong, and Korea. Its main southeast Asian exports were (not surprisingly) to Indone-sia, which was also the main southeast Asian export partner for oil-exporting Trinidad andTobago. There were also sustained and at times large exports to Asia by Antigua and Barbudabeginning in the mid-1980s. In the 2000s, notable importers (Table 4.5) have been Antiguaand Barbuda, the Bahamas, Dominica, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines; among thenotable exporters are Antigua and Barbuda (2000), Jamaica, Belize, and Dominica.

Finally, Caricom statistics on trade with India and Japan as well as with China, HongKong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand show that exports to this groupremained at less than 1 percent of the total for Caricom in the 1980s and 1990s, rising to 3.3percent in 2004; however, imports rose much more dramatically from only 1–3 percent inthe 1980s to 10.1 percent in 2004. In sum, it is clear that Caricom countries have been suc-cessful in efforts to increase their trade with Asia. It bears noting that the Asian country withthe fastest growing exports to Caricom is China. For many countries, China ranked justbehind Japan in imports in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and as is the case for much of theworld, Caricom states, which have been signing various trade and aid agreements withChina, were expecting to deepen their trade with this country in the next decade.

AfricaTrade with Africa has been espoused by Caricom members both for its symbolic value in theeyes of the African populations of these countries and in the interest of diversification andcollective self-reliance. Yet there remains only very limited interaction between the tworegions. What trade there is, is in primary products and mineral fuels. An analysis of trendssince 1980 shows that there were occasional spurts of trade for some countries, but overall,percentages are less than 0.5 percent (Table 4.5). The most notable imports from Africa werefor the Bahamas in the 1980s; these peaked in 1985 when African trade accounted for 45percent of Bahamian imports. In 2004, imports were only 0.1 percent of the total for theBahamas. The only other consistent importer has been Trinidad and Tobago, with a steadytrickle of imports over the years, reaching 10.3 percent in 2004. Antigua and Barbuda alsohad some significant import trade in certain years: 6.5 percent of its total in 1990, and 3.8


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Table 4.5 Caricom trade with developing regions (percentages)

Exports Imports

Country Year Latin Africa West Other Latin Africa West OtherAmerica/ Asia Asia America/ Asia Asia

Caribbean Caribbean

Antigua

and

Barbuda

Barbados

Belize

Dominica

Grenada

Guyana

Jamaica

St. Kitts-

Nevis

Saint

Lucia

St.

Vincent

1986

1996

2004

1986

1996

2004

1986

1996

2004

1986

1996

2004

1986

1996

2004

1986

1996

2004

1986

1996

2004

1986

1996

2004

1986

1996

2004

1986

1996

2004

25.7

32.4

8.7

12.0

48.5

57.3

13.6

7.5

13.3

33.8

49.0

55.0

24.8

40.0

46.8

17.1

29.7

21.5

10.0

5.3

5.9

6.9

3.0

4.0

6.3

13.4

27.9

58.1

49.8

10.0

0.1

0.2

0.9

0.0

0.0

0.3

0.0

0.0

4.0

…

…

0.4

…

…

0.4

0.4

0.3

0.3

1.1

4.3

2.8

…

0.1

0.2

0.0

…

0.6

…

0.0

0.1

…

24.3

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.9

…

…

0.5

…

…

0.1

…

0.5

…

…

0.1

0.1

0.0

0.0

0.0

…

0.1

…

…

…

…

…

…

0.4

14.1

3.1

0.8

1.8

0.6

0.9

0.0

0.2

5.1

…

…

4.4

…

0.0

1.7

0.0

0.8

2.7

0.0

0.2

11.6

…

0.2

0.1

…

0.5

0.3

…

…

0.2

12.2

14.3

20.8

17.8

23.1

36.4

16.0

31.1

41.1

32.8

31.4

27.3

22.9

31.4

41.4

55.1

45.8

45.7

20.3

19.4

34.1

26.5

23.7

27.3

20.2

26.8

42.5

23.5

32.0

18.7

…

1.1

0.4

0.0

0.1

0.2

0.0

0.1

0.5

0.0

0.1

0.4

…

0.5

0.1

0.1

0.0

1.1

0.1

0.4

0.2

…

0.6

0.2

…

0.0

0.1

0.0

0.1

0.0

…

0.8

0.1

0.0

0.1

0.1

…

0.0

0.1

0.0

0.0

0.0

…

0.1

0.0

0.0

0.1

0.4

0.0

0.5

0.5

…

…

0.2

0.0

0.0

0.2

0.0

0.0

1.6

0.3

12.0

29.2

3.8

3.7

4.2

3.3

2.0

8.2

2.4

1.4

29.1

0

2.7

1.6

1.9

3.3

9.9

2.4

4.2

5.1

…

0.5

1.6

1.7

4.9

2.6

4.3

3.5

13.8

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percent in 1998 (not shown in the table). Occasional bursts of imports are likewise noted forSt. Kitts-Nevis (1995) and Saint Lucia (1994 and 1995). Exports reflect a slightly differentpicture: again, there has been generally a low level of trade; however, Jamaica has been thestrongest exporter, consistently sending 2–5 percent of its exports to Africa over the years.Some of this has been attributable to relatively long-standing trading arrangements withGhana. Antigua and Barbuda had persistent exports in the 1990s, up to 4.3 percent of thetotal in 1990 but declining in the 2000s. Matching its imports, the Bahamas, too, has hadconsistent exports over the years, with exports at 3.5 percent of the total in the best year,1995. Suriname also increased its exports to Africa, beginning in the late 1990s and into the2000s. The country has exported about 2 percent of its total to Africa in the 2000s. But therange of countries in Africa with which Caricom states trade is relatively limited—Nigeria,South Africa, and Morocco, along with Ghana for Jamaica, show up as the most importantpartners. In the 2000s, South Africa has become a prime economic as well as diplomatic tar-get in Africa, even if this relationship had not yet yielded significant results by 2007. Reasonsusually given for the still-limited trade with Africa are transportation difficulties, competitiveproduction, the development problems of African states, and the lack of information aboutAfrican opportunities.


Table 4.5 Continued

Exports Imports

Country Year Latin Africa West Other Latin Africa West OtherAmerica/ Asia Asia America/ Asia Asia

Caribbean Caribbean

Suriname

Trinidad

and

Tobago

Non

common

market

Bahamas

Haiti

1986

1996

2004

1986

1996

2004

1986

1996

2004

1986

1996

2004

17.3

13.9

7.4

13.3

40.8

24.0

0.6

2.8

16.4

1.6

3.9

8.2

…

0.4

1.8

0.0

0.3

0.2

0.4

1.7

0.3

0.0

0.0

0.7

…

…

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.1

0.0

0.2

0.0

…

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.5

1.5

0.6

0.1

0.4

0.1

4.5

1.8

0.2

0.0

0.5

29.3

25.1

22.9

9.2

28.9

24.9

6.7

6.6

20.5

18.8

15.1

26.2

…

0.1

0.3

0.3

0.8

10.3

25.2

0.6

0.1

0.2

0.1

0.2

0.1

0.0

0.3

0.0

0.1

0.1

9.0

0.1

1.6

0.7

0.1

0.7

6.0

3.3

9.2

4.6

5.1

4.9

16.1

12.8

27.8

2.6

9.3

10.5

Source: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Handbook of Statistics 2005.

… means data not available or not reported separately

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In 2007, Trinidad and Tobago moved beyond direct trade in goods in its outreach toAfrica. The country offered technical assistance in energy areas to several African countries,including Chad, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, andAngola, as a way to help these countries develop and manage their resources efficiently andeffectively.

Regional Integration

The Caribbean Community

Since the creation of the Caribbean Free Trade Area (Carifta) in 1968, later converted intothe Caribbean Community and Common Market or Caricom (1974), intraregional cooper-ation has witnessed a number of challenges, reflecting divisions among the group’s members.Nevertheless, Caricom is one of the oldest regional integration movements in the globalsouth and certainly one of the more successful overall. Historical data on regional trade isprovided in Table 4.6. Intraregional imports rose from 3.3 percent of all imports in 1970 to9.1 percent in 1980, declined to 5.8 percent in 1990, and rose again in the rest of the 1990sto 9 percent in 2004. Intraregional exports went from 4.1 percent in 1970 to 5.4 percent in1980, 8 percent in 1990, and 12.5 percent in 2004. An analysis of the dollar values of tradealso shows that there was a moderate increase in trade after the establishment of the commonmarket in 1973, declines in the 1980s, and strong increases in the 1990s, continuing into the2000s. The declines in the 1980s were substantial: by 1986, Caricom trade had plummetedto less than half its 1981 value due to intraregional political divisions.

Intraregional trade is of varying importance to member states: percentages range fromabout less than 5 percent of total imports for Trinidad and Tobago to 25 percent or more formost eastern Caribbean countries, including Barbados and Guyana. As seen in Table 4.3, in2004 Trinidad and Tobago received only 1.9 percent of imports from the region whileexporting 12.9 percent of its total to Caricom. On the other hand, Jamaica imported 14.6percent while exporting only 3.2 percent to Caricom. Barbados imported 24.7 percent of itstotal from, and exported 51.8 percent of its total to, Caricom. Dominica’s regional exportsamounted to 61.5 percent of its total, and St. Vincent’s, 50 percent. Such figures highlightthe uneven nature of the market. What is clear, however, is that Trinidad and Tobago isclearly the major Caricom trading partner for all countries while itself importing only a smallamount from the region. In value terms, in 2004, Trinidad and Tobago recieved $91 millionin products from the region while exporting $824.6 million, well above the second exporter,Guyana at $111 million.38

The Bahamas did not join Caricom until 1983, even though it was loosely allied with theregion before that. Even when it joined the community, it opted to remain outside the com-mon economic market, concentrating its trade on North America. Its trade with the regionremains low: it exports mainly to Jamaica and imports from Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica,and Barbados. Suriname’s significant regional trade partners are Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidadand Tobago, and Barbados; it received about 20 percent of its imports from the region in2004, but its exports are small. As with the other Caricom countries, Suriname’s dominantimport partner is Trinidad and Tobago.39


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Caricom has been relatively successful as an integration grouping, if success is measuredby survivability, functional cooperation, and some institutional development. However, aswith many regional movements established in the 1960s heyday of third world regionalism,progress in eliminating trade barriers has been slow. Regionalism developed as a strategy,endorsed by the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA) in the 1960s, toenable small economies to expand their markets and counter developed country protection-ism. After Carifta was established in 1967, Caribbean regional trade grew as expected, butthe perception of unequal distribution of the benefits of integration led to grumbling by theless developed countries (LDCs). When the time came to move on to a common market,LDCs hesitated. Antigua and Barbuda in particular was concerned that the anticipated com-mon external tariff would raise the price of imported Caricom products so that they wouldcost more than goods from North America and Europe. In the end, only the more developedcountries (MDCs)—Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago—signed theCaricom accord in August 1973. It took much debate, but the eastern Caribbean countriesfinally joined Caricom in July 1974.

Intraregional trade grew more slowly in the mid-1970s as nationalistic policies led toimport restrictions that were intensified when the 1973 oil crisis aggravated balance-of-pay-ments deficits. Both Guyana and Jamaica also searched for broader markets to alleviate bal-ance-of-payments problems. Moreover, several countries imposed foreign exchangerestrictions and currency changes—for example, Jamaica introduced a two-tiered system ofofficial-floating exchange rates—that gave their manufacturers a competitive edge whilereducing Caricom imports. As one analyst pointed out, the fact that there was duplication inproduction among regional manufacturers, some producing nonessential items, meant thatwhen foreign exchange crises arose, it was easier for governments to cut back on thesenonessential imports, even at the risk of breaking the regional agreement.40

In the late 1970s, Trinidad and Tobago’s enhanced oil wealth brought additional attentionto the structural imbalance within Caricom and led to complaints by other countries thatTrinidad and Tobago was not doing enough to assist them. This dissatisfaction was accom-panied by an intensification of Caricom interest in Venezuelan initiatives, which, as dis-cussed in the last chapter, was a source of annoyance for Trinidad and Tobago’s primeminister, Eric Williams. The prime minister complained that the oil facility established byVenezuela and Mexico to support Caribbean and Central American countries was actuallyless generous than a similar one Trinidad had established, yet it had attracted far more atten-tion. The turn to donors outside the region led to the failure of a smelter arrangement thatTrinidad and Tobago had been hoping to initiate using aluminum supplies from Jamaica andGuyana. This arrangement was effectively torpedoed when Jamaica decided to pursue theidea with Mexico instead. (Mexico later pulled out of the deal.) Trinidad and Tobago’s reac-tion to these perceived slights was to downgrade its participation in the integration move-ment, sending low-level officials, if any, to functional meetings.

The integration movement also suffered in the 1980s as a result of the economic deterio-ration of the three largest economies, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica, all ofwhich entered into a period of structural adjustment. In addition, the political-ideologicalpolarization of the region had a lasting economic effect. In the 1970s, the political difficul-ties of Jamaica and Guyana were not enough to disrupt the integration process; however, theunconstitutional takeover in Grenada proved to be more challenging. A counter-bloc com-prised of Barbados and the other eastern Caribbean countries as well as Trinidad and Tobago,


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117

Table 4.6 Share of intra-Caricom/intra-OECS trade in total trade (percentage)

Exports Imports Exports Imports Exports Imports Exports Imports Exports Imports

Group 1970 1980 1990 2000 2004

Caricom

Intratrade 4.1 3.3 5.4 9.05 8.0 5.8 14.4 8.1 12.5 9.0of group

Rest of 59.1 51.4 66.0 46.3 51.0 58.3 50.5 55.0 61.3 47.8the region

Rest of 95.9 96.7 94.6 91.0 92.0 94.2 85.6 91.9 87.5 91.0the world

Total trade 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100of group

OECS

Intratrade — — 9.0 5.6 8.1 3.8 10.0 1.9 8.9 2.9of group

Rest of — 47.5 30.0 55.1 29.8 58.9 35.2 51.0 20.1 49.0the region

Rest of — 100 91.0 94.4 91.9 96.2 90.0 98.1 91.1 97.1the world

Total trade — 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100of group


— means not applicable.

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and Jamaica after 1980, reacted in varied ways: by refusing to deal with the Grenadian regime(Trinidad and Tobago’s strategy); verbal onslaughts (for example, between Grenada andDominica’s prime ministers); open hostility (especially by Barbados); and eventually, theendorsement by the eastern Caribbean governments, Barbados, and Jamaica of U.S. inter-vention after Grenada’s government broke into factions.

Because of these economic and political differences, no Caricom heads of governmentsummit, normally an annual event, could be held between 1975 and 1982. There was nopossibility of implementing a common external tariff (CET) originally scheduled to come onstream in 1981. Functional cooperation was undermined as many territories sought theirown services, in particular air and educational services. Then in 1982, Caribbean leaders metand revived their commitment to the community, agreeing to accept ideological pluralism.In 1984, Caribbean leaders decided to salvage the community by returning to dealing withurgent economic problems. Between 1987 and 1992, the heads of government agreed toremove remaining tariff barriers, establish a common external tariff, create a regional stockexchange, and ease restrictions on regional labor mobility. In large part, the decision todeepen the regional movement was pushed by external events, in particular the impendingestablishment of a single market economy in Europe and the global spread of liberal eco-nomic norms. In 1989, therefore, the heads of government established a West Indian Com-mission (WIC) to review the progress made toward integration and suggest ways to move itforward. The report, presented in 1992 after widespread consultations with both state andnonstate sectors, endorsed deepening and widening the movement, stronger functionalcooperation, the establishment of a decision-making commission, and improvement in theoperations of the secretariat in Guyana. (However, a proposal to create a “super-bureaucratic”commission was turned down by leaders in favor of the creation of a three-leader politicalbody with the power to move the organization forward in selected policy areas. The idea ofa commission was being revisited, however, in the 2000s, even as some leaders were com-plaining that the secretariat had already too much power.)

From the economic standpoint, the focus from the late 1990s was on implementing theCaribbean single market economy (CSME) that was finally launched in 2006. By early2007, only St. Kitts-Nevis still had not implemented the fourth phase of the CET, whichlowered the tariff on extraregional imports to 20 percent for nonagricultural products and 45percent for the rest. Significant progress had been made in removing discriminatory exporttaxes and export and import duties as well as restrictions on the free movement of services. Aregional stock exchange comprised only Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, butnational stock exchanges were established in all countries except Belize (note that the easternCaribbean exchange is a subregional one). In the difficult area of labor mobility, by 2007,only Antigua and Barbuda still needed to implement legislation allowing the free movementof the region’s university graduates; Antigua and Barbuda also still needed to implement leg-islation allowing artistes, media workers, and sports persons free movement; moreover, allcountries except Jamaica still had to take action to remove barriers to mobility for self-employed service providers, entrepreneurs, and technical, managerial, and supervisory staff.On the other hand, all member states had implemented separate lines for Caricom nationalsat ports of entry, and, helped by the fact that the region hosted the World Cricket Cup in2007, all countries had either introduced or were about to introduce a common machine-readable Caricom passport to be used for intraregional travel. Major tasks remaining, includedthe removal of restrictions on capital, and the harmonization of laws governing areas such as


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consumer protection, antidumping, banking, and sanitary and phytosanitary measures.41

One measure not contemplated for any immediate introduction, even though it wasendorsed in the 1990s, was the establishment of a common currency. The varying rates of themembers’ currencies and the volatility of some currencies made this an unrealistic goal in theearly 2000s.

The Bahamas had not decided to join the CSME as of 2007. However, it continued toparticipate in deepening the community in functional and political areas. Cooperation hasproven difficult in transportation and higher education, areas in which states have tended topromote national or subregional initiatives, but there has been generally successful collabo-ration in areas ranging from health (the Caribbean Epidemiology Center in Trinidad,although an arm of the Pan-American Health Organization, has been Caricom-centric, andthe Caribbean Environmental Health Institute is based in Saint Lucia), to tourism (with theCaribbean Tourism Organization and the Caribbean Hotel Association taking the lead), andtrade promotion (the Caribbean Export Development Agency [CEDA], formerly theCaribbean Export Development Project [CEDP], was established in 1995 to assist theregion’s exporters). In the political sphere, the region’s states endorsed a charter on civil soci-ety in 1992, established the Assembly of Caribbean Community Parliamentarians in 1994,42

and in 2001 endorsed a Caribbean Court of Justice—first mooted by Jamaica in the 1980s—with both original jurisdiction on regional matters and appeal jurisdiction as a final courtreplacing the Privy Council in the United Kingdom. Ratification of that agreement followedbetween 2002 and 2004, and the court was launched in April 2005. By mid-2007, mostcountries had enacted domestic legislation to give effect to the court’s original jurisdiction.The notable exception was Trinidad and Tobago, where political differences between the gov-ernment and opposition delayed the process.

The Organization of eastern Caribbean States (OECS)

The island nations of the eastern Caribbean have maintained an enviable record of subre-gional cooperation based on historical, political, and social links. These countries, along withBarbados, formed the “Little Eight” after the breakup of the West Indies Federation. Afterthe independence of Barbados, the rest became British Associated States possessing internalself-government. Foreign affairs remained in the hands of Britain, but they were granted thecapacity to handle Caribbean affairs. Functional cooperation was promoted through theCouncil of Ministers of the West Indies Associated States (WISA) formed in 1966. In 1967,the islands formed their own eastern Caribbean Common Market (ECCM), and both theWISA and the ECCM were absorbed in 1981 into a new organization, the Organization ofeastern Caribbean States (OECS).

The OECS has been institutionally stronger than Caricom, having early established notonly a common market but also a common currency ($EC), a central bank, and a subre-gional stock market. In the legal sphere, a regional high court was formalized. The OECSsecretariat is located in Saint Lucia, with an Economic Affairs secretariat in Saint Kitts. Func-tional cooperation in areas such as transportation and education, where Caricom has fallenshort, has been generally more successful in the eastern Caribbean. However, financial diffi-culties have hindered the search for viable regional transportation links. Importantly, the


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eastern Caribbean governments have normally cooperated in foreign policy matters; perhapsthe most prominent example was their collective endorsement of the U.S. intervention inGrenada in 1983. They have for some years debated (but done little to implement) the ideaof eventual political union. Finally, unlike Caricom, which has no formal security arrange-ments, the OECS charter contains a specific collective defense mechanism (Article 8) thathas been given teeth by the creation of the RSS, as discussed earlier.

Historical statistics show that trade within the OECS has been stable at best—export val-ues have risen steadily but percentage increases have been minimal (Table 4.4). Imports havesteadily declined in percentage terms over the decades—from a high of 9.6 percent in 1977to around 3 percent in the early 2000s. The OECS market is very small, and as highlightedin earlier discussion, the OECS states rely more heavily on trade with the more developedCaricom states than with one another.

Aid Diversification

Bilateral Donors

Aid to Caricom countries has come from far more diverse sources than might be expected.The top bilateral donors of all aid, private and public, were listed in Chapter 3 (Table 3.4).Apart from the United States, United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, and Canada,major inflows have come over the years from Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Denmark, Italy,and Arab states. Top multilateral donors include the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB),the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the European Commission (EC), theInter-American Development Bank (IDB), the World Bank, and the International MonetaryFund (IMF).

However, the hierarchy of donors has changed somewhat over the years. Thus in the1980s, Japan, which was experiencing large capital surpluses, became a consistently largebilateral donor to the English-speaking Caribbean. Japan was followed closely in assistancelevels by the United Kingdom and Canada. Canada was a very important donor for most ofthe eastern Caribbean countries. The IDB and the World Bank were key multilateral donorsin the 1980s. Haiti stood out for its reliance on the United States, France, and the Interna-tional Development Association (IDA), while Suriname was cut off from its usual donor theNetherlands after a military coup and received inflows instead from Italy, France, and theIDB.

In the 1990s, the data indicate that the region’s financial partners were more varied,including the Netherlands (especially for Barbados), United Kingdom, Germany, UnitedStates, and Japan. The EC, IDB, and CDB were the main multilateral donors. France con-tinued to play a major role in Haiti, well behind that of the United States. It is Canada, how-ever, that suffered the largest decline overall.

In the early 2000s, the statistics pinpoint the increased prominence of the United States,while the CDB has become the most important institutional partner. The turn across theyears away from heavy reliance on the United Kingdom, Canada, and other primarily Euro-pean donors toward the United States is apparent for all countries except Belize, Jamaica, and


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Haiti, which have relied on the United States since the 1980s. An analysis of gross flows (notshown in Table 3.4) bears out this change.

Official development assistance (ODA) is an important commitment on the part of theindustrialized world to the developing nations. However, Caricom countries, with the excep-tion of the Bahamas, Haiti, and Guyana, have received relatively little ODA because they areranked among the middle-income countries of the world on the basis of their gross nationalproduct. Over the years, the Bahamas moved into the ranks of the “countries in transition”(that is, advanced developing countries) and was graduated from grant assistance; it nowreceives only official loans (OA).43 The two low-income countries, Haiti and Guyana are eli-gible for the most official aid as well as poverty reduction and other special funding. At var-ious times, significant amounts of ODA have also been disbursed to Jamaica, Suriname,Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and to a lesser extent, Dominica and Belize foreducational, health, environmental, and other social purposes.

The top donors of net ODA have been Japan, Canada, the EC, United Kingdom, UnitedStates, CDB, IDA (for Grenada and Haiti), Arab countries (for Jamaica), IMF (Dominica andGuyana), the IDB’s Special Fund (Barbados, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, and Suriname), France(for Haiti in particular but also Dominica and St. Vincent), and the Netherlands and Belgium(for Suriname). Aid from Arab sources dates to the 1970s, especially around 1979, when oilprices increased sharply for a second time. Within Caricom, the eastern Caribbean countries,including Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, andGrenada, as well as Jamaica, benefited from Arab bilateral and institutional sources of aid.Grenada, in particular, received relatively large inflows from 1977 to 1983, helping to reduceits dependence on European and North American agencies during the period of socialistexperimentation. Also serving to reduce this dependence was aid from the USSR: Grenada isthe only country in which Soviet sources played a significant role regarding official aid.

Thus at one end of the aid spectrum is high-income Bahamas, which received aid in rel-atively small amounts from the United Kingdom, the EC, the UNDP, the CDB, and UNagencies in the 1980s and 1990s, and in the early 2000s, primarily from the United Statesand from the CDB. At the other end is Guyana, with large inflows from the internationalfinancial institutions, IDB, the United Kingdom, United States, EC, and smaller inflowsfrom Japan and Canada. At that end of the spectrum, too, is Haiti, which has received a rel-atively large amount of aid over the years from a wide range of North American and Euro-pean partners—the United States, EC, Canada, France, Japan, Germany, Spain and theNetherlands—as well as the multilateral agencies of the United Nations and the IDB. Theother countries fall somewhere in between these two. The role of the CDB can be high-lighted; although not adequately reflected in the net figures, gross ODA figures rank it in thetop three donors for all countries except Guyana, Haiti, and Suriname in the 2000s. On theother hand, the role of Canada as a source of aid seems to have diminished over the years,with Canada ranking sixth or seventh behind other donors for most countries in the 2000s.

In the 1980s, some Caricom countries received aid not only from the Soviet Union butalso the eastern European countries and China. Socialist Guyana was the main recipient ofassistance from China and from the Committee for Mutual Economic Assistance in the 1970sup to the mid-1980s. After it established relations with China in 1974, Jamaica receivedimmediate aid from that country, and, through 1979, it also received relatively generous sumsfrom the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. During this period, some of the eastern Caribbean


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countries as well as Trinidad and Tobago also received small amounts of aid and technicalassistance from China and eastern bloc countries. Of particular note is the rise in Chineseinterest in and assistance to the region in the late 1990s and 2000s. China has acted partly tooffset Taiwanese interests (discussed later in terms of Caricom diplomacy), and also to secureraw materials for its growing industries.

The total financial flows presented in the last chapter (Table 3.4) included private directinvestment, portfolio investment, and net export credits. In terms of the total net privateflows (not shown in table), the Bahamas has considerably outpaced the rest of theCaribbean—it is after all a tax haven with strong banking and financial sectors. Barbados,Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Belize, and more recently Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica,and Suriname also appear on the list of main net recipients of investments over the years.Breaking the data down further to show only net foreign direct investment, the Bahamasonce again tops the list, with Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados also receivingmoderate to substantial net inflows over the years. Antigua and Barbuda, Guyana, Grenada,and Belize have all had positive flows in recent years. Most noteworthy is the inflow of $31million into Haiti in 2005.

Almost all Caricom countries’ private flows come from the members of the DAC.44 Interms of non-DAC flows, Suriname, Barbados, Jamaica, and Dominica are among the coun-tries listed as receiving a small amount of non-DAC capital in the 1990s and 2000s. A dis-aggregation of the sources of DAC private flows shows that whereas in the 1980s and 1990smost private inflows originated in traditional areas of Europe (except for the Bahamas,Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, which had more or as much investment coming in fromthe United States), by the 2000s, most Caricom countries were receiving more flows fromoutside the European Union (EU).

The data on net private direct investment do not give a good picture of actual grossinflows. However, complementary UNCTAD data based on transactions among transna-tional companies and their affiliates pinpoint Trinidad and Tobago, the Bahamas, andJamaica as the recipients of the highest levels of annual gross inflows (Table 4.7). Only Suri-name registered negative inflows in the 1990s and up to 2004.

Regional Financial Flows

The CDB was established in 1969 by the core English-speaking Caricom countries, but theagreement establishing the bank was also signed by the dependent territories of the BritishVirgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, Anguilla (then still linked to St. Kitts-Nevis),and Turks and Caicos Islands. Haiti joined the bank in 2007. Canada and the United King-dom were the initial nonregional, nonborrowing members, and the bank later expanded itsnonregional membership to include Venezuela (1973), Colombia (1974), Mexico (1982),Italy (1988), Germany (1989), and the People’s Republic of China (1998). France joined in1984 but withdrew in 2000. The bank’s total cumlative disbursements were $2.2 billion asof 2006, of which 56.8 percent was targeted to the less developed Caricom countries, that is,Belize, the eastern Caribbean countries, and various dependencies.45

The IDB is much larger than the CDB. Founded in 1959 as an agency within the inter-American system, it now has forty-six members. The larger Caricom states joined after inde-pendence, after initial fears, that Guyana and Belize would be disbarred because of theirborder disputes with Venezuela and Guetemala, were allayed. The bank gives loans, grants,


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and technical assistance to projects in support of social and economic development andregional integration in Latin America and the Caribbean. Even though it has targeted abouta half its operations to help the poor, 65 percent of its resources are given to the wealthierCaricom countries—the Bahamas, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago—and the rest toother countries including Belize, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, and Suriname. The CDB and IDBhave developed cooperative linkages, just as indeed both have links with the World Bank andInternational Monetary Fund. The IDB has twenty contributing, nonborrowing members:the United States, Canada, Japan, Israel, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Finland,France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzer-land, and the United Kingdom.

While both the CDB and IDB have been significant multilateral lenders to Caricomstates, Venezuela deserves special mention as a bilateral regional lender. In the 1970s,Venezuela began to perceive the Caribbean as its sphere of influence in the wake of the pull-out of Britain from the region and the increasing influence of Cuba. The fortuitous rise in oilprices gave Venezuela the chance to exert strong financial influence in the region. Beginningin 1974, it assisted the Caribbean through contributions to the CDB under its Programa deCooperación con el Caribe (PROCA). Venezuela gave loans to the bank’s Special Develop-ment Fund and established a trust fund in 1975 to be used for development projects.Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Guyana, and St. Vincent were the major beneficiaries ofthis trust fund. In addition, as noted earlier, in 1980, Venezuela joined with Mexico in agree-ing to sell oil at preferential prices to Caribbean Basin countries and to underwrite part of thecosts of oil imports through loans that could be converted to development loans. Barbados,Belize, Jamaica, and Haiti were designated as beneficiaries of this program. Also in 1980, afund was established to finance balance-of-payments deficits and development projects inthe Caribbean.

Of these initiatives, the oil pact, the San José Accord, was especially important inasmuchas it helped the subregion deal with its energy dependency and growing balance-of-pay-ments deficits. The pact has been renewed every year since its inception. Under its terms,Mexico and Venezuela sell one hundred sixty thousand barrels a day to the designated coop-erating Caricom countries as well as to the Central American countries, Panama, and theDominican Republic. (Haiti did not, however, participate during most of the 1980s.) In2000, President Hugo Chávez, eager to extend benefits to Cuba and others, expanded theaccord by guaranteeing additional low-interest financing for signatories including Cuba,Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama,and the Dominican Republic (this is the Caracas Energy Cooperation Accord). In 2001,Guyana, whose exclusion, apparently linked to its border dispute with Venezuela, hadannoyed Caricom, signed a hallmark agreement with Venezuela under which ten thousandbarrels of crude per day would be supplied to Guyana. This separate agreement was impor-tant because Guyana could not benefit from the expanded accord under the terms of its des-ignation as a Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC), which allows it to receive specialconcessional assistance from international donors. In 2004, Venezuela further agreed tonot only write off Guyana’s debt (amounting to more than $12 million) but also to workon ways to allow Guyana to benefit from the oil accord while still meeting its HIPCrequirements.46

In 2004, Venezuela offered another oil-based regional initiative as part of an attempt tocounter the U.S.-oriented Free Trade Agreement of the Americas and develop what its president


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called a “Bolivarian (integration) Alternative for the Americas (ALBA).” Under the “Petro-Caribe” agreement, oil financing was to be extended to the less developed Caribbean coun-tries on the basis of bilaterally fixed quotas. In certain circumstances, preferential access byVenezuela to the region’s sugar, bananas, and other goods could substitute for energy pay-ments. The agreement also called for the establishment of a PetroCaribe secretariat to facil-itate “the development of energy policies and plans for the integration of the nations of theCaribbean through the sovereign use of natural energy resources to directly benefit theirpeoples.”47 A development fund would be established and an affiliate of the Venezuelannational oil company would also be formed to implement various arrangements, includingtraining and professional development programs. By 2007, all the Caricom countriesexcept Barbados, which chose to continue its energy relationship with Trinidad, andTrinidad and Tobago had signed bilateral agreements with Venezuela. The pact also coversthe Dominican Republic and Cuba. For Trinidad and Tobago, the Venezuelan initiativewas a direct challenge to its status as the region’s primary energy supplier, and as a result,Trinidad’s prime minister warned its neighbors that once Trinidad had reoriented towardother markets, it would be difficult to return to previous arrangements in case Venezuelanfinancing fell through. Concerned about the impact of high oil prices, the Caricom coun-tries were, however, not disposed to reject Venezuela’s offers, which included help in build-ing the infrastructure and storage facilities needed to implement the program.48

With regard to the Venezuelan Trust Fund, of a net of $17.7 million (approved, net),$9.4 million was disbursed through 2003, primarily in the 1970s and 1980s when the fundwas active, and mostly to the Caricom MDCs. Venezuela continues to contribute to theCDB’s Special Development Fund, its net contribution amounting to about $37 million in2004–2005.49


Table 4.7 Foreign direct investment gross inflows to Caricom countries, 1970–2004 (US$million)

Country

Antigua and Barbuda

Bahamas

Barbados

Belize

Dominica

Grenada

Guyana

Haiti

Jamaica

Montserrat

Saint Kitts-Nevis

Saint Lucia

St. Vincent

Suriname

Trinidad and Tobago

World

1970

…

80.3

8.7

7.1

…

…

9.0

2.8

162.1

…

…

…

…

–5

83.2

13433.5

1975

…

17.6

23.1

…

…

…

0.8

2.6

61.4

…

…

…

…

1.2

92.96

27380.3

1980

19.6

4.1

2.8

…

…

…

0.6

13.0

27.7

…

1.0

30.9

1.1

18.1

184.5

55108.1

1985

15.6

–30.2

4.9

6.0

3.0

4.1

1.8

4.9

–9.0

…

8.0

17.0

1.8

21.3

1.2

57644.9

1990

58.8

–17.3

11.2

19.0

7.6

13.1

7.9

8.0

174.9

9.6

48.8

45.9

7.7

76.8

109.4

207878.4

1995

33.4

106.8

11.8

20.8

54.9

23.40

74.4

–2.2

147.4

3.4

23.1

35.4

30.6

–20.6

298.9

341085.9

2000

66.6

250.3

19.4

23.4

13.6

39.4

67.1

13.3

468.8

3.5

99.0

58.2

37.8

–97.2

679.5

1396539.0

2004

106.4

206.0

50.0

168.9

18.58

42.4

48.4

6.5

650.0

2.5

61.7

111.4

55.7

–60.0

1001.4

648146.1


… not available or not separately reported.

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While historically skeptical of Venezuelan involvement in the subregion, rival oil pro-ducer Trinidad and Tobago has for its part been a major subregional contributor to its Cari-com partners, particularly in the 1970s when oil price rises enabled it to give various types ofassistance including balance-of-payments support, project aid, technical assistance, purchas-ing of bonds and debentures of other member countries, granting of access to its domesticcapital market, and the floating of CDB and IDB issues in the domestic market with pro-ceeds going to Caricom countries.50 In all, Trinidad and Tobago disbursed about $190 mil-lion in aid to Caricom in the 1970s as well as about $140 million in balance-of-paymentssupport. Some of the bilateral debt, particularly to Guyana, continues to be rescheduled.

In 1978, Trinidad and Tobago established the Caribbean Aid Project under the CaribbeanAid Council (CAC) to assist Caricom members by providing concessionary financing fordevelopment-oriented projects. The CAC was disbanded in 1984, having disbursed $12.9million out of a total allocation of $22.5 million. CAC’s functions were then reassigned toTrinidad and Tobago’s Finance and External Affairs ministries. Then in 1980, the CaricomOil Facility was established to help members finance purchases of petroleum products.About $83 million was disbursed from this facility in the early 1980s and smaller amountsthrough the end of the 1980s. Altogether, Trinidad and Tobago supplied more than $400million (or TT$1 billion at TT2.40=US$1.00, the rate at the time) to Caricom during theoil boom. Trinidad and Tobago also provided special counterpart contributions to the CDB.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Trinidad and Tobago’s economy declined and it entered into aperiod of structural adjustment before rebounding in the mid-1990s to 2000s. In the early2000s, the skyrocketing world price for oil brought new benefits to Trinidad, which alsoembarked on development of its substantial natural gas reserves. Construction of an intra-Caribbean natural gas pipeline was approved, as was the construction of two long-overduesmelter plants that would source aluminum from Jamaica, Suriname, and Guyana. (These,however, were strongly opposed by environmental groups and construction was delayed as of2007.)

Apart from this assistance, Trinidad and Tobago has also given concessional assistance tothe less developed countries for social, infrastructural, and other projects. With respect to theinfrastructure, successive governments of Trinidad and Tobago have given heavy subsidies tothe eastern Caribbean airline Leeward Islands Air Transport. In social areas, in 2004, the gov-ernment established a $50 million Petroleum Fund to be used for poverty alleviation and dis-aster recovery efforts. Twenty million dollars was pledged (from the Petroleum Fund) for anew Regional Development Fund to strengthen regional economies, within the context ofthe single market and economy, by providing financial assistance to disadvantaged countries,regions, and sectors. Related to these efforts, in the same year, Trinidad and Tobago was theearly lender of choice to Caricom islands devastated by one of the worst hurricanes to hit theregion in several decades, Hurricane Ivan. In the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, asmall but needed relief package of $5 million (TT$30 million) was distributed quickly toGrenada, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the Bahamas, and Cuba.

While the choices Caricom states have made in security and economic areas lie at theheart of their foreign policy, addressing issues of immediate importance, these small states arealso hoping to reap both tangible and intangible benefits by being active and visible. Theirefforts at multilateral diplomacy are therefore the focus of the following chapter.


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CHAPTER 5

Diplomatic Interests and Linkages

Bilateral Diplomatic Linkages

Like all countries, Caricom states want and need for both political and economic rea-sons to form and deepen the relationships that make them global citizens. Small asthey are, these states maintain a long list of diplomatic friendships, with more than

one hundred countries in the case of the larger territories. Certain patterns in the establish-ment of relations are highlighted in this section as representative of their geographical inter-ests. Establishing and maintaining these ties have sometimes involved making challengingdecisions.

In the first tier of relationships are the essential ties that all Caricom countries maintainwith one another, an obvious priority reflected in the very establishment of the CaribbeanCommunity, as well as ties with the United States, Canada, and western European countries,and Japan. Such ties have sometimes been strained but never broken. The only significantexception came when Grenada downgraded its relations with the United States between1979 and 1983; however, relations were fully restored after the U.S. intervention. Withrespect to Europe, in addition to bilateral ties, important institutional links have consistentlybeen maintained through Caricom representation at European Union headquarters in Brus-sels. Of note also are the good relations these predominantly Christian Caricom states havehad with the Vatican or Holy See.

A second tier of relationships has been established with the broader subsystem, that is, thecircum-Caribbean and Latin American nations. Chief among the “Latin” ties has been rela-tions with Venezuela, which in the 1970s redefined itself as a Caribbean nation. Colombiafollowed with a number of initiatives, and later, so did Mexico. (These three nations formedthe “Group of Three” in 1994.) The result of these initiatives has been not only the estab-lishment of bilateral ties but also institutional relations through the mechanism of the Cari-com integration movement. Also at this institutional level, as described earlier, the push forfree trade in the 1990s led to the initiation of interaction, albeit not yet fully realized,between Caricom and Latin American integration movements, including the Central Amer-ican Integration System (SICA), the Andean Community (ANCOM), and the Southern

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Cone Market (Mercosur). Overarching these institutional links will be the hemispheric freetrade project (Free Trade Area of the Americas or FTAA), if it succeeds. At the political level,meanwhile, hemispheric cooperation has already been achieved by the successful incorpora-tion of the English-speaking countries and Suriname into the Organization of AmericanStates (OAS), and the region also participates in the consultative Rio Group formed in 1986.Finally, bilateral relations have grown to include linkages not only with Colombia, Mexico,and Venezuela but also with Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic,and Cuba, among the most prominent Latin American countries.1

A third, more removed tier of relationships for Caricom states is based on south-south tieswith developing Africa and Asia. Among these, India has been the most targeted Asian nation,both because of ethnic considerations—in the case of Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Suri-name—and on the basis of its strong position within the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) aswell as the probability of tangible assistance given its relative technological advancement. Tiesbetween Caricom states and Africa have been primarily symbolic, focused on Nigeria, thelargest African country, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and other west African states; Ethiopia (host tothe Organization of African Unity [OAU], now the African Union); and in particular, post-apartheid South Africa, now recognized as perhaps the major “player” in Africa. In the Mid-dle East, relationships have generally been established with Syria and Lebanon, the ancestralhomes of many early Caribbean immigrants, and since the oil boom of the 1970s, with someof the wealthy Arab states including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Relationswith Israel were established by all states after their independence; however, they were kept dor-mant during the 1970s and early 1980s out of respect for the Palestinian cause. Guyana wasthe only country to actually break off relations with Israel, renewing them in 1992 after thebeginning of Middle East negotiations in Madrid in 1991. Israel established residentembassies in Haiti and Jamaica, but these were closed for financial reasons in 1996.

Relations with socialist and left-leaning countries prior to 1989 were dictated by ideopo-litical commonality. Most Caricom states had relations with a group of socialist east Euro-pean countries, including Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Romania, during the 1970s. Guyanawas the first to establish relations with the Soviet Union itself in 1970, and Jamaica andTrinidad and Tobago did so in 1975. Not unexpectedly, when they adopted left-wing ide-ologies, Guyana, Jamaica, Grenada, and Suriname deepened linkages with socialist countries.For Suriname, relations that had been previously focused on the Dutch were broadened toinclude Cuba, Nicaragua, Grenada, the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China (PRC),and Libya. Guyana’s extensive links included Cuba, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia,Hungary, Romania, the Soviet Union, and the PRC with which it established relations in1972, even before U.S. President Richard Nixon’s historic trip to that country. Between 1972and 1980, Jamaica established diplomatic relations with the PRC, Cuba, Democratic Peo-ple’s Republic of Korea, Guinea, Iraq, Algeria, Hungary, the Soviet Union, Poland, Czecho-slovakia, Vietnam, Libya, Bulgaria, German Democratic Republic, Mozambique, People’sRepublic of Congo, and People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen. Relations with Nicaraguawere also established during this period, but this was done in 1975 when Nicaragua was stillunder the rule of Anastasio Somoza. Grenada too expanded its relationships with socialistcountries during the 1979–1983 period. Its long list of links included all the countries ofeastern Europe,2 the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Mongolia, Laos, Kampuchea,Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea, Algeria, Syria, Iraq, and socialist African states. Links withLibya had been initiated earlier under Eric Gairy and were vigorously pursued under the


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People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG). Although relations with Libya, the SovietUnion, and North Korea were downgraded by the post-1983 government, they were restoredin 2000. The post-PRG government also established relations with the PRC.

The establishment of relations by Caricom countries with Libya was done at a time whenLibyan leader Muammar Qaddafi was openly vying for influence in the third world andespousing a strong anti-U.S. ideology, positions that earned it U.S. accusations of support forterrorism and, eventually, the imposition of sanctions in 1986. In 1992, the United Nationsalso imposed sanctions on Libya as a result of its implication in the bombing of Pan Amflight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Despite claims of Libyan links to political problems inSuriname and Trinidad and Tobago in the 1980s and in 1990 (Chapter 2), Libya continuedto maintain an embassy in Suriname as well as ties with Jamaica and other countries. UNsanctions were lifted in 1999 after Libya agreed to hand over two suspects implicated in thebombing for trial in the Netherlands. Then in 2000, Dominica moved to deepen its relationswith Libya by way of a visit by Prime Minister Rosie Douglas to Tripoli. After Douglas’sdeath, new prime minister Pierre Charles also visited Libya early in 2001. Finally in mid-2001, in a decision that engendered some criticism by Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados,the Organization of eastern Caribbean States (OECS) members, anxious to diversify theirsources of aid in an era of dwindling attention by traditional partners, decided to collectivelyengage with Libya. Subsequently, the prime ministers of Grenada, Dominica, and St. Vin-cent and the Grenadines, along with a government official from St. Kitts-Nevis, togetherpaid an official visit to Tripoli, beginning a process that would lead to aid disbursementsamounting to several million of dollars.

Relations with Cuba have presented some challenges for Caricom nations. In 1972, the“Big Four” countries—Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Barbados—took thecontroversial decision to risk the anger of the United States and establish relations with theirsocialist neighbor. The Bahamas, Grenada, and Saint Lucia followed their example after theygained their independence. On the other hand, after the change in government of 1980,Jamaica cut off relations with Cuba, while Grenada downgraded links after the changes of1983. Jamaica normalized relations in 1992, and Grenada in 1995. Non-English speakingSuriname took a similar path and established diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1981, fol-lowing the country’s 1980 military coup. After the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983, Suri-name expelled all Cuban officials, but relations deepened once more in the late 1990s.Haiti, like most other Latin American countries, broke off relations with Cuba in 1961 butreestablished them in the post–cold war climate of 1996. By the 1990s, Caricom countrieswere not only diplomatically engaged with Cuba but the community had also established ajoint commission to explore deeper ties with their neighbor. The rationale for these deeperlinks was that Cuba was an integral part of the Caribbean region and a country that it wasin Caricom’s self interest to engage and reincorporate into regional diplomatic and eco-nomic forums.

The “China question” has also posed a decision dilemma for some Caricom states. In par-ticular, the smaller states have shown less of an interest in ideological or ideational solidaritythan in extracting tangible economic benefits from either the Republic of China (ROC orTaiwan), with its policy of “buying hearts,” and the PRC, with its policy of isolating Taiwanand also helping developing countries. After socialist Guyana became the first Caricomnation to establish ties with the PRC in 1972, the U.S. rapprochement with China and theUN decision to oust Taiwan from that body, led to the decision by Trinidad and Tobago and

Diplomatic Interests and Linkages • 129

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Jamaica to recognize the communist nation. In turn Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada,Antigua and Barbuda, and Suriname chose ties with the PRC over links with Taiwan. On theother side of the coin, in 1981, St. Vincent’s prime minister Milton Cato decided after a tripto Taiwan that it was in his country’s best economic interests to establish diplomatic relationswith the ROC. Later, Dominica’s Eugenia Charles and Saint Lucia’s John Compton took thesame approach, joined after independence by the leadership of St. Kitts-Nevis. But in therevolving door of economic diplomacy, later in the 1980s, Dominica, St. Vincent and theGrenadines, and Saint Lucia all switched to recognize the PRC, whereas the Bahamas andGrenada changed to Taiwan. By then, Taiwan had expressed itself willing to do business withcountries that recognized the PRC, but the PRC itself remained adamant that it would notwork with any country that recognized its “province.” The Bahamas returned to the PRCfold in the 1990s, whereas Dominica and St. Vincent reestablished relations with Taiwan.However, a renewed thrust by China into the region and into Latin America as a whole ledDominica to return to the PRC fold in 2004, in exchange for an aid package of $112 mil-lion. Then, in another blow to the ROC, Grenada decided to reestablish relations with thePRC in January 2005. Grenada had expressed dissatisfaction with Taiwan’s assistance afterthe island was ravaged by Hurricane Ivan, and it soon signed an economic agreement underwhich aid was provided for the reconstruction of the National Stadium and resuscitation ofthe agriculture sector, and multimillion dollar grants for housing, scholarships, and bud-getary support.3 By 2005, then, Taiwan had managed to retain diplomatic relations only withSt. Kitts-Nevis and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, in addition to long-standing links withHaiti.

The history of links between the Caricom states and the two Koreas is also worth a briefmention. In general, Caricom states were interested in ties to the Republic of Korea (ROK)because of its status as a relatively wealthy, newly industrializing nation. But the DemocraticPeople’s Republic of the north (DPRK) over time gained some status as a member of theNAM. In the 1970s, while the socialist Caricom nations established relations with NorthKorea for ideological reasons, many of the nonsocialists resolved the dilemma by establishingrelations with both Koreas. Among countries doing so even before the two Koreas offeredeach other uneasy recognition in 1991 were Barbados, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, and St. Vincentand the Grenadines. However, the North Korean embassies in Jamaica and Guyana wereclosed in the late 1990s when the DPRK was forced to close 30 percent of its overseas mis-sions for financial reasons. South Korean embassies, established in a number of countriesincluding Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Haiti, and Suriname, were also closed in the 1990sin the interest of financial efficiency.

Patterns in Sending and Hosting Embassies

For small states, the establishment of embassies is a major and costly undertaking, hence onethat must be limited to only a few key economic and political partners and international orga-nizations. The “Big Four” Caricom countries that gained their independence in the 1960sestablished their embassies selectively with a view to making the most of limited resources. Ascan be seen in Table 5.1 (asterisked missions), Trinidad and Tobago outpaced the other coun-tries in the early establishment of diplomatic missions. Along with the traditional northern


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Table 5.1 Caricom diplomatic missions, ca. 2005

Resident missions a

Country (country/organization) Consulates-General (city) b Resident missions hosted a,b

Canadac

United KingdomUnited Nations (NY)United States-OAS

CanadaCosta RicaHaitiUnited KingdomUnited Nations (NY)United States-OAS

Canada*Belgium-EUUnited Kingdom*United Nations*United States-OAS*United Nations/WTO(Geneva)Venezuela

AustriaBelgium-EUCubaEl SalvadorGuatemalaMexicoUnited Nations/WTO(Geneva)UNESCO (Paris)United KingdomUnited States-OAS

Belgium-EUc

Canadac

China-BeijingUnited KingdomUnited Nations (NY)United States-OAS

BelgiumCanadac

CubaUnited KingdomUnited Nations (NY)United StatesVenezuela

Antigua andBarbuda

Bahamas

Barbados

Belize

Dominica

Grenada

MiamiToronto

MiamiNew YorkHong Kong

MiamiNew York*Toronto

Los AngelesPanama City

New Yorke

New YorkToronto

People’s Republic of ChinaUnited Kingdomd

Venezuela

HaitiPeople’s Republic of ChinaUnited KingdomUnited States

AustraliaBrazilCanadaColombiaCosta RicaCubaDelegation of the ECGuatemalaPeople’s Republic of ChinaUnited KingdomUnited StatesVenezuela

ColombiaCosta RicaCubaEl SalvadorEC Resident AdviserGuatemalaHondurasMexicoRepublic of ChinaUnited KingdomUnited StatesVenezuela

People’s Republic of ChinaUnited Kingdomd

Venezuela

EC Resident AdviserChinaf

United KingdomUnited Statesg

Venezuela

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Table 5.1 Continued

Resident missions a


Belgium-EUBrazil*CanadaCubaChina-BeijingSurinameUnited Kingdom*United Nations (NY)*United States-OAS*Venezuela*

ArgentinaThe BahamasBelgiumBrazilCanadaCubaChileChina-RepublicColombiaDominican RepublicFranceGermanyItalyJamaicaJapanMexicoOASh

PanamaSouth AfricaSpainUnited Nations (NY)WTO (Geneva)UNESCO (Paris)United StatesVenezuela

Belgium-EUCanada*CubaDominican RepublicGermanyJapanMexico*NigeriaTrinidad and Tobago*United Kingdom*United Nations (NY)*United Nations/WTO(Geneva)*United States-OAS*Venezuela

Guyana

Haiti

Jamaica

New York*Toronto

Barahona (Dominican Republic)

BostonCayenne (FrenchGuiana)ChicagoDayabon (DominicanRepublic)MiamiMontreal (Canada)New YorkPointe à Pitre (Guade-loupe)Willemstad (Curaçao)

Belize CityTorontoManila (Philippines)Miami*New York*

BrazilCanadaColombiaCubaIndia

Delegation of the ECPeople’s Republic of ChinaRussian FederationSurinameUnited StatesVenezuelaBahamasBrazilCanadaChileColombiaDelegation of the ECDominican RepublicFranceGermanyJapanMexicoRepublic of ChinaSpainUnited StatesVenezuela(Panama)(Netherlands)(United Kingdom)

ArgentinaBrazilCanadaChileColombiaCosta RicaCubaDelegation of the ECDominican RepublicFranceGermanyHaitiHondurasIndiaJapan

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Table 5.1 Continued

Resident missions a


Belgium-EUc

Canadac

JamaicaUnited KingdomUnited NationsUnited States-OAS

Belgium-EUc

Canadac

United KingdomUnited NationsUnited States-OAS

Belgium-EUc

Canadac

United KingdomUnited NationsUnited States-OAS

BelgiumBrazilChina-PRCGuyanaMexicoNetherlandsTrinidad and TobagoUnited Nations (NY)United States-OAS

Jamaica(cont’d)

St. Kitts-Nevis

Saint Lucia

St. Vincent-Grenadines

Suriname

New Yorke

Fort-de France (Mar-tinique)Havana (Cuba)New YorkeToronto

New YorkToronto

AmsterdamCayenne (FrenchGuiana)MiamiWillemstad (Curaçao)

MexicoNetherlandsNigeriaPeople’s Republic of ChinaPeruRussian FederationSouth AfricaSpainTrinidad and TobagoUnited KingdomUnited StatesVenezuela

Republic of ChinaUnited Kingdomd

Venezuela

FranceUnited Kingdomd

Venezuela

Republic of ChinaUnited Kingdomd

Venezuela

BrazilEC Resident AdviserFranceGuyanaIndiaIndonesiaJapanLibyaNetherlandsPeople’s Republic of ChinaRussian FederationUnited StatesVenezuela(United Kingdom)

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Table 5.1 Continued

Resident missions a


Belgium-EU*Brazil*Canada*India*Jamaica*NigeriaSouth AfricaUnited Kingdom*United Nations (NY)United Nations/WTO(Geneva)*United States-OAS*Venezuela*

Trinidad andTobago

New York*MiamiToronto*

ArgentinaAustraliaBrazilCanadaColombiaCosta RicaCubaDelegation of the ECDominican RepublicFranceGermanyGuatemalaHoly SeeIndiaJamaicaJapanMexicoNetherlandsNigeriaPanamaPeople’s Republic of ChinaSurinameUnited KingdomUnited StatesVenezuela

Sources: Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Diplomatic and Consular Lists/Yearbooks and Web sites.Acronyms: FAO: Food and Agricultural Organization; UNESCO: U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organiza-tion; WTO: World Trade Organization. Resident embassies and missions may be accredited to a number of other statesand organizations.* Denotes resident embassies and missions and consulates as of 1970 for the four Caricom states that were then indepen-dent. In additrion, Guyana had an embassy in Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago had embassies in Guyana and Ethiopia.Trinidad and Tobago also had a consulate in Georgetown for Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles.Additional note: Barbados and Guyana were represented in the United Kingdom by one high commissioner until 1970;in the 1960s, Barbadian and Trinidadian ambassadors served both Washington, D.C., and the United Nations.a Note that in some cases the resident mission listed is headed by a chargé d’affaires with ambassador residing elsewhere orpost vacant. For example, Bahamas’ mission in Haiti was headed at this time by a third secretary. Consulates in embassiesare not listed separately: most “missions hosted” contain consular sections. Nonresident accreditations and missions basedat foreign ministry headquarters are not included.b Honorary consulates or consulates-general are not included. For “missions hosted,” consulates or consulates-general arenoted in parentheses.c Joint missions of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States.Grenada does not particpate in the Brussels arrangement.d Country has a UK government representative and consulate, but the high commissioner resides in Barbados.e Covered by the Permanent Mission to the United Nations.f Grenada had diplomatic relations with the ROC until 2005 when relations were established with the PRC. The ROCembassy was closed and replaced by the PRC’s.gMission headed by a chargé d’affaires with U.S. ambassador resident in Barbados.hListed separately because it is assigned to a separate ambassador.

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linkages, Trinidad and Tobago, so close to the South American mainland, formalized rela-tions with Venezuela and Brazil in the 1960s. For symbolic reasons, embassies were alsoestablished in India and Ethiopia, the headquarters of the OAU. The country also set upembassies in its Carifta partners Jamaica and Guyana. By contrast, Guyana set up only oneCaribbean embassy, in Jamaica, and Jamaica only one, in Trinidad and Tobago. Trinidad andTobago also established a commission to deal with the not-yet-independent easternCaribbean Associated States, and it was the first Caricom country to seek a formal residentrelationship with the European Community.

As in trade, so in diplomatic exchange the priority for these four English-speaking Cari-com states and the others that followed them to independence continued to be relations withtheir major economic partners: the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. ForSuriname and Haiti, these main diplomatic partners have been the Netherlands and France,respectively. Economic considerations also generated the need for a resident diplomatic pres-ence of all the Caricom countries at the European Union headquarters in Brussels. The needto participate in global and hemispheric affairs dictated a resident presence at the UnitedNations in New York (and, for some, Geneva as well, especially with the establishment of theWorld Trade Organization) and the OAS in Washington, DC. However, except for Haiti,which has separate ambassadors, ambassadors to the United States serve as ambassadors tothe OAS in Washington as well. While this arrangement has not been entirely efficientbecause of the attendant increased workload of ambassadors, it proved useful to revolution-ary Grenada in the late 1970s when the United States refused to accept its choice of ambas-sador. Washington affairs could nevertheless be covered through representation at the OAS.

As is to be expected, any differences encountered in the establishment of embassies reflectthe varying geopolitical, social, and ideological interests of the Caricom nations. Thus geo-graphical realities were an important consideration in Trinidad and Tobago’s early move toformalize links with Venezuela. The same applied to Guyana, despite (or perhaps as a neces-sary counterpoint to) its boundary dispute with that country. Later ties by both Trinidad andTobago and Guyana to Brazil also reflected geopolitical interests. Similarly, Suriname estab-lished early diplomatic linkages with these two Latin American countries, and Suriname andGuyana with each other, even though friendly relations were somewhat marred by their bor-der dispute. But it was only after Venezuela moved to increase its economic influence in thebroader Caricom region that countries slightly more removed, specifically Barbados,Jamaica, and Grenada, found it desirable to set up embassies in Venezuela. Meanwhile, onthe Central American continent, Belize’s choices of embassies in Mexico and Guatemala wereclearly dictated by its own geographic status as a Central American country, even if it isalso an English-speaking one with ties to the Caribbean region. Haiti’s embassy in theDominican Republic is an obvious priority for two nations that share one island and alsoshare a long and turbulent history. In this regard, consular relations are even more impor-tant, given the significant and often troubled presence of Haitian workers and residents inthe Dominican Republic. Jamaica’s establishment of a resident embassy in Mexico was fos-tered both by geography and by the similarity of interest between two third world activistcountries in the 1970s. Finally, the Bahamian decision to establish a resident embassy inHaiti in the 1980s was a rational choice in view of geopolitical considerations, that is,Bahamian proximity to a nation that was exporting large numbers of people during succes-sive political crises.


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Ethnic considerations have also played a role in decisions as to the location of embassies.Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, with large Indian populations, decided early to establishembassies in India. (Suriname did not, however.) On the other hand, the presence of smallerethnic groups of Chinese, Syrians, and Lebanese has not pushed governments in the directionof diplomatic representation beyond the honorary consul level. (Trinidad and Tobago didestablish an embassy in Lebanon in the 1970s, but it was closed shortly after.) With respect toAfrica, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago both first chose to locate missions in Addis Ababa.Guyana chose Zambia instead, reflecting Guyana’s early active involvement in the NAM andits open solidarity with southern Africa’s anticolonial and antiapartheid stances. This embassywas closed when Guyana’s economy declined in the 1980s. When Ethiopia entered into aperiod of political turmoil in the early 1970s, Trinidad and Tobago closed its Ethiopian mis-sion and settled instead for Nigeria, Africa’s largest state and, like Trinidad and Tobago, an oilproducer. A low but growing level of immigrant exchanges also made the choice a reasonableone. In the 1990s, Caricom states moved fairly quickly to establish relations and embassies inSouth Africa, more of a symbolic move than one that would bear immediate tangible results.In 2007, Trinidad and Tobago established an embassy in Uganda in view of increased globalattention to Africa, the revival of integration in east Africa, and a sentiment that a presence inthe west and south could usefully be complemented by one in the east.

Ideological interests underlay decisions by Jamaica, Guyana, and later, Grenada to estab-lish embassies in the Soviet Union and Cuba. As already noted, relations between Cuba andJamaica were broken off in 1981 after Michael Manley’s electoral loss to Edward Seaga, butthey were restored in 1995. Relations between Cuba and Grenada were downgraded butnever broken after the invasion of 1983. Although these chilly relations warmed considerablyin the late 1990s with an exchange of official visits, no resident relations were restored until1999, when embassies were established at the chargé d’affaires level, subsequently upgradedto the ambassador level in 2002. By that time, Belize had also joined Guyana and Jamaica inestablishing embassies in Cuba. Trinidad and Tobago also planned to do so in 2006–2007.Other Caricom countries have opted instead for nonresident relations. Turning to relationswith the PRC, Guyana, the first country to establish links in 1972, and Suriname were theonly countries with resident embassies in Beijing in early 2007. Jamaica, the only countrywith an embassy in Japan, accredited that ambassador to the PRC, and Trinidad and Tobagoaccredited its ambassador in India. As for ties with Russia, by the early 2000s, no Caricomcountry had an embassy in Moscow—Guyana, Jamaica, and Grenada had all closed theirembassies because of ideological changes or cost considerations. Jamaica was the last to do soin January 2000, leaving relations to be conducted out of Germany.

Haiti and Jamaica are alone in having embassies on site in Japan. Caricom heads of statetook a collective decision in 1987 to establish a joint embassy in Japan, but considerations ofcost and lack of will left the issue hanging until 1992, when Jamaica, already the leadingCaricom recipient of Japan’s aid and investment, opted to go ahead alone. The embassy inTokyo has been instrumental in intensifying tourist, cultural, and trade exchanges betweenthe two countries, and it has also served as a facilitator of the efforts of other Caricomnations. Other countries have opted for nonresident ambassadors, and some also supporthonorary consulates in Tokyo. Other than Japan and China, the only other Asian residentembassy planned as of 2007 wasTrinidad and Tobago’s in Malaysia.

Especially in this era of heightened regionalism, it is interesting to review the changes inthe structure of diplomatic interchange among the Caricom countries themselves over time,


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as a way of inferring interest and importance. There was a relative enthusiasm for the estab-lishment of such intraregional embassies and high commissions immediately after indepen-dence.4 Guyana established a high commission in Jamaica, Jamaica established one inTrinidad and Tobago, and Trinidad and Tobago established high commissions in bothJamaica and Guyana. On the other hand, when Barbados became independent, it chose tobe frugal and to handle Caricom affairs through foreign ministry headquarters. SubsequentlyJamaica also set up a high commission in the Bahamas, Guyana exchanged embassies withSuriname, and Trinidad and Tobago set up a high commission in Barbados. However, in thedifficult economic times of the 1980s, the Caribbean embassies were an easy target for costcutting. At that time, Jamaica closed its high commission in the Bahamas (as well as a mis-sion ambitiously established in Paris), Guyana closed its high commission in Jamaica, andTrinidad and Tobago closed its high commission in Guyana. Then came the Grenada crisisof 1983. After Trinidad and Tobago’s high commissioner pointed out that he had not beeninformed in advance of the plans for the invasion of Grenada, the Barbadian prime ministerdemanded his recall, and Trinidad and Tobago in turn asked Barbados not to send its highcommissioner as planned to Port-of-Spain. This bitterness halted the normalization of rela-tions between the countries, and full relations were not restored until 1986. In the aftermathof the crisis, the foreign minister of Barbados also argued that Barbados had failed in notaccording the wider Caribbean “the type of priority it merits” and announced that to remedythis, a high commission would be set up in Grenada and honorary consuls would beappointed in all the other twelve Caricom states.5 This proved to be a bit too ambitious, how-ever. Barbados later decided simply to accredit the Trinidad and Tobago high commission toGrenada and honorary consuls were sent only to the Bahamas and Jamaica. Headquarterscontinued to handle most Caricom affairs.

By 2000, Barbados had closed its high commission in Trinidad and Tobago, leaving (ofthe island nations) only Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago with missions in each other’s ter-ritory. Mainland Suriname and Guyana continued to host each other’s resident embassiesand Suriname had also established an embassy in Trinidad and Tobago. Ambassadors for theCaricom states remained primarily home based at headquarters or accredited from elsewhere(from Mexico in the case of Belize, and from Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana in the case ofSuriname). While geographical proximity has been a major factor in fostering decisions notto expend resources on a resident mission, it is also the case that intraregional rivalry and lackof will have also influenced policy. It should be added that new Caricom member Haiti hasembassies in the Bahamas and Jamaica, countries with which it is linked by geography as wellas political and consular interests. The ambassador to Jamaica is accredited specifically toTrinidad and Tobago, Saint Lucia, and Guyana.

At least Jamaica and Guyana make up somewhat for the lack of resident representationthrough the proliferation of honorary consulates and consulates general. (The only full con-sulates in Caricom territories in the early 2000s were Guyana’s consulate in Trinidad andTobago and Haiti’s in Suriname. Also notable, however, is the establishment of a consulateby Saint Lucia in Cuba in 2000.) Jamaica appointed honorary consuls in all the other Cari-com countries except Trinidad and Tobago. In turn, Jamaica plays host to the largest numberof resident regional consulates, including honorary consulates and consulates-general of theBahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Suriname, and St. Kitts-Nevis. Asof the early 2000s, Barbados had an honorary consulate in Trinidad and Tobago, replacingthe resident embassy. Guyana also had a relatively large network of honorary consulates in


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regional nations, including Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada,Jamaica, Saint Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago. Consular services are not confined to theindependent Caribbean countries, however. Dominica and Haiti offer consular services inthe neighboring dependent states of Curaçao and Guadeloupe, with Haiti also having a rep-resentative in French Guiana. Saint Lucia has also followed by establishing a consulate gen-eral in Fort de France, Martinique. Several countries also have representatives in theCommonwealth of Puerto Rico.

All these consulates have been established to serve areas where significant constituenciesof Caricom immigrants reside or to take advantage of tourism and trade-related investmentopportunities. This generally means that resident consulates will be located in key cities ofNorth America. In this, the predominance of New York, Miami, and Toronto is notable.Belize’s choice of Los Angeles and Panama reflects interests that diverge somewhat from theisland states. Of course, honorary consulates need no or little financial outlay, so their loca-tions are much more diverse, that is to say, any appropriate place where a willing, able, andrespected local representative can be found. For Caricom nations, these include—in NorthAmerica—honorary consulates in such diverse places as Vancouver (British Columbia), Dal-las (Texas), Louisiana, Chicago (Illinois), Atlanta (Georgia), and Ohio. Outside of NorthAmerica, the range is broad: for example, Belize, small as it is, has a network of honorary con-sulates spreading from Cyprus and Greece to Hong Kong, Japan, and the Republic of Korea.Jamaica has consulates from Australia to Finland to Chile, and Guyana, from Botswana toJordan to Pakistan.

As willing as governments may be to establish resident embassies and consulates abroad,the plain fact is that they are limited by the constraints of size and resources. The closing andcontraction of embassies for financial reasons was a common occurrence for Caricom coun-tries in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, although Trinidad and Tobago went against thetrend by expanding its missions in 2007. Belize was also an exception to the rule of contrac-tion: the country maintained only four key missions in the late 1980s but established addi-tional missions at the EU, in Central America, and in Cuba in the 1990s. But the number ofresident missions a country has (or sends, in the parlance of international relations) correlatesmore with size than wealth, perhaps because the larger the country, the more it wants to beactive on the world stage and the more it is willing to invest resources to gain visibility. ThusHaiti, though the poorest state, has a rather large number of resident missions (twenty-five),followed in number by Jamaica (fourteen), Trinidad and Tobago (twelve) with four morepending at the time of writing, and Guyana and Belize (ten). By the early 2000s, Surinamehad established nine embassies abroad; Barbados, seven; and the Bahamas and most easternCaribbean states, five or six.

The diplomatic capacities of the very small eastern Caribbean states are naturally lowerthan their larger counterparts, and their diplomatic arrangements have had to be tailored tothese realities. Very small states usually seek out cooperative arrangements to cover theheavy costs of diplomatic representation, and this is precisely what the OECS countrieshave done. Joint missions have been established in Ottawa, London, and Brussels. Ofthese, the Canadian arrangement has been a long-term success, with a single rotatingambassadorship for the bloc. Arrangements in Belgium have likewise worked, but Grenadahas its own representation and Antigua and Barbuda’s London ambassador is accredited toBelgium and the EU. In London, arrangements have been the most politically difficult.The idea of a single representative was cast aside early when Dominica and Grenada opted


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to have their own representatives while sharing facilities. Antigua and Barbuda set up its ownarrangements in 1985. The OECS High Commission in London became therefore a part-nership of only the three remaining countries. Finally, in 1998 these three countries decidedto go their separate ways while still sharing some facilities. Similarly, some pooling of spaceoccurs at the United Nations (notably by Saint Lucia and Dominica), and after years of goingit alone in several buildings, in the late 1980s, OECS countries decided to jointly buy abuilding to house their Washington facilities. The sharing of costs and facilities has workedout well there.

Another past eastern Caribbean strategy, even if a less than optimal one in terms of work-load, has been the sharing of personnel between Washington and New York. Well into the1980s, St. Kitts-Nevis personnel covered the United Nations out of Washington, DC, whileSt. Vincent’s UN personnel also covered Washington. Saint Lucia had the same arrangementas St. Vincent up to 1980. Similarly, in the 1980s, all the eastern Caribbean countries saveAntigua and Barbuda and Grenada had the same ambassador responsible for both the UnitedStates and the United Nations. In addition, the ambassadors of Dominica and St. Kitts-Nevis were for a long time resident in the home country. By the 1990s, however, all countrieshad finally established separate embassy personnel in the two cities, thus increasing theircapacity to be actively involved in both multilateral and key bilateral affairs.6

While the number of resident missions abroad is indicative of Caricom’s capacity to beinvolved in world affairs, it is also useful to consider the level of representation sent by othercountries to the region as a sign of the relative importance others give to the countries of theregion. In this regard, Caricom countries host a relatively diverse set of missions from NorthAmerica, Europe, Latin America, Russia, and a few from Africa and Asia (Table 5.1). EUcountries are involved in the region both through bilateral arrangements and through themultilateral European Commission delegations, which cover the region from main offices inBarbados, Jamaica, Guyana, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, and Haiti.

The data for missions received show, not unexpectedly, that Jamaica and Trinidad andTobago are the central foci in the Caribbean for other states. Among interesting observationsis the status of Trinidad and Tobago as the host of the papal nunciate; the presence of Russ-ian Federation embassies in Guyana and Jamaica; the growth in relations with Latin Amer-ica on the part of the larger countries, and the ubiquitous presence of Venezuela throughoutthe region; and Cuba’s continuing integration into the Caricom group. Not unexpectedly,Taiwan has been happy to maintain embassies in even the smallest state, St. Kitts and Nevis,whereas the PRC has established embassies only in the larger nations.

Despite the relative diversity of embassies, especially in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago,the U.S. embassy tends to overwhelm the others in sheer size. In Jamaica, for example, theU.S. embassy had forty-six diplomats (one resident in the Dominican Republic) and attachésin early 2006, not to mention twenty-two administrative and technical staff members. Incontrast, most of the global south embassies made do with two to six diplomats and perhapsone or two members of staff. Even China had only ten diplomats and one administrative staffmember. Canada, however, had a fairly impressive presence, numbering fourteen diplomatsand attachés, an honorary consul in Montego Bay, and seven administrative and technicalstaff members covering also the Canadian International Development Agency programs.Likewise, Britain, the former colonial power, had an embassy comprised of sixteen members,an honorary consul in St. James parish, and four administrative and technical staff persons.The difference in size between the U.S. and other missions remains proportionately sharp in


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the smaller countries. For example, the U.S. embassy in the Bahamas listed nineteen personsduring this period, many of them attachés and liaisons, whereas the British embassy listedonly three (one resident in Jamaica).

Multilateralism

Studies of small state behavior have affirmed, and sometimes confirmed by empirical dataand testing, that small states generally have low levels of participation in world affairs due tolimited resources, but high levels of activity in international organizations where visibilitycan be maximized at minimal cost, high levels of support for international legal norms, fre-quent use of moral and normative positions on international issues (that is, protective strate-gies given their inherent military weakness), and avoidance of the use of force as a techniqueof statecraft.7 Moreover, most small states are also economically dependent states and theexpectation is that they will exhibit acquiescent and compliant or dependency-induced con-sensual behavior vis-à-vis the great powers.8 Such behavior has usually been measured interms of voting patterns in multilateral forums. Again, small states are known to be coalitionjoiners and builders since such arrangements strengthen their voice and bargaining positionvis-à-vis the larger countries. The desire to increase influence or status by multilateral activ-ity thus cannot be divorced from expectations of tangible gains.

The rest of this chapter discusses Caricom’s international organization activity as reflectedin elective office holding and voting in the General Assembly of the United Nations(UNGA), as well as aspects of activity in inter-American organizations and the NAM. TheUnited Nations is widely recognized as the most important intergovernmental arena forsmall states that cannot afford the extensive diplomatic network established by larger, richernations. At the United Nations, small states not only are able to help shape the global agendaand influence global decisions by their equal voting status, but they are also able to meet andnetwork with government representatives of countries with which distance and lack ofresources prohibit resident representation or visits. At the same time, since the 1970s, theUnited Nations has sponsored a series of global conferences that have brought worldwideattention to certain important issues and have also produced key conventions and declara-tions with which governments have had to comply. For the small state, participation in theseconferences, though sometimes financially difficult and hard to justify to a public jadedabout “junkets” for officials, is important both as a knowledge-enhancing experience and asa way to join with like-minded others in influencing the development of global norms andprinciples.

Organizational Influence

The number of key international and regional organizations that locate themselves in a coun-try can provide some sense of that country’s importance within the global and regional sys-tem, especially vis-à-vis other neighboring countries. Countries relish the prestige of hostingthe headquarters of international organizations and often stage major diplomatic battles forthis privilege. In other instances, the location of an organization’s offices is an importantaffirmation of the organization’s attention to the country’s needs. Table 5.2 lists the main


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agencies located in Caricom states. The most ubiquitous presence is that of the OAS, whichhas offices even in the smallest island. Next in line is the European Commission, which hasoffices and resident advisers in Barbados, Belize, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Suri-name, and Trinidad and Tobago. Somewhat more limited is the presence of UN offices in theregion: the UN Development Program’s resident coordinators are located in Barbados (forthe OECS countries, Anguilla, and the British Virgin Islands), Belize, Guyana, Haiti,Jamaica (this last covering the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, and Turks and Caicos as well),Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. Another major presence is that of the World HealthOrganization (WHO)’s inter-American arm the Pan-American Health Organization(PAHO): offices are located in all the larger countries, and in addition, Trinidad and Tobagohosts the subregional Caribbean Epidemiology Center (CAREC). All the larger countries,but in particular Jamaica, Guyana, and Barbados, have a variety of UN agency offices,including the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN Children’s Fund(UNICEF), and the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).Jamaica won the location of the International Seabed Authority, and is also home to the UNEnvironmental Program (UNEP)’s regional offices. Trinidad and Tobago provides theCaribbean headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean(ECLAC) and the integrated Caribbean Development Cooperation Committee (CDCC),and hosts a regional UN Information Center. Barbados hosts the UN International DrugControl program. An International Monetary Fund (IMF) resident representative resides inGuyana and the World Bank has offices in Guyana and Jamaica. Suriname has a UNWomen’s Fund (UNIFEM) office and an office of the UN Volunteer Program. Haiti has anoffice of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

With respect to inter-American agencies other the OAS and PAHO, the Inter-Ameri-can Development Bank has offices in all member countries. Another all-inclusive presenceis that of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), which hasa presence in all countries except Grenada, Dominica, and Antigua and Barbuda. Finally,at the subregional level, institutions are quite carefully parceled out around the region.Guyana is the location of Caricom’s headquarters whereas Trinidad and Tobago hosts theAssociation of Caribbean States (ACS). (Port-of-Spain is also competing with Puebla[Mexico], Miami, Atlanta, and Panama City for the headquarters of the Free Tsrade Areaof the Americas, FTAA.) The Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (RNM) is head-quartered in Jamaica, with a suboffice in Barbados. The RNM’s Agricultural Trade Nego-tiating Program is located in Trinidad and Tobago and there are also units in theOrganization of eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and Guyana. The Caribbean Develop-ment Bank (CDB) is headquartered in Barbados, as well, as is the Caribbean ExportDevelopment Agency (CEDA), an important agency for the region’s exporters, theCaribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), and the Caribbean Disaster EmergencyResponse Agency (CDERA). Saint Lucia hosts the OECS secretariat and Caribbean Envi-ronmental Health Institute (CEHI). There are offices of the Caribbean Agricultural Researchand Development Institute (CARDI) in Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines,Antigua and Barbuda, and Belize, as well as Jamaica, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago. TheCaribbean Industrial Research Institute (CARIRI), devoted to scientific research, is locatedin Trinidad. The Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) is headquartered in Jamaica.Finally, eastern Caribbean Central Bank is headquartered in St. Kitts with branches in allmember states.


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142•

Small States in G

lobal Affairs

Table 5.2 Main intergovernmental and regional organizations hosted by Caricom states

Country

Antigua and Barbuda

Bahamas

Barbados

Belize

Dominica

Grenada

Guyana

Haiti

International organizations

Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA),UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF)a

Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), IICA, Organizationof American States (OAS), Pan-American Health Organization(PAHO)

Commonwealth Development Corporation, Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), European Commission, IDB,IICA, International Telecommunications Union, OAS, PAHO,United Nations Development Program (UNDP), UNICEF, UNDP, UN International Drug Control Program

European Commission, FAO, IDB, IICA, OAS, PAHO, UNDP,UNICEF

IICA, UNICEF

European Commission, IICA, OAS, UNICEF

Commonwealth Youth Program-Caribbean Regional Office,European Commission, IDB, IICA, International Monetary Fund, OAS, PAHO, UNDP, UNICEF

European Commission, FAO, IDB, IICA, International Organization for Migration, International Labor Organizaiton Project Office, OAS, UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF, World Health Organizatione

Regional organizations

Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI)b

Caribbean Center for Development Administration, CaribbeanDevelopment Bank (CDB), Caribbean Disaster Response Agency,Caribbean Export Development Agency, Caribbbean Institute for Metereology and Hydrology, Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery, Caribbean Tourism Organization

CARDI, Caribbean Fisheries Resources Assessmentand Management

OECS Export Development Unit

Caricom Secretariat, CARDI, CARIFORUM Technical Operations

—

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Table 5.2 ContinuedD

iplomatic Interests and Linkages

•143

Jamaica

St. Kitts-Nevis

Saint Lucia

St. Vincent and the Grenadines

Suriname

Trinidad and Tobago

European Commission, FAO, IDB, IICA, International Seabed Authority, OAS, PAHO, UNDP, UN Population Fund, UNICEF, UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization(UNESCO)d, UN Environmental Program, World Bank

IICA, OAS, UNICEF

IICA, OAS, UNICEF

IICA, OAS, UNICEF

European Commission, IDB, OAS, PAHO, UNDP (Sub-office),UNICEF, UN Development Fund for Women, UN Volunteer Program

European Commission, FAO, IDB, IICA, OAS, UNDP, UNInformation Center for the Caribbean, UNICEF,World Health Organization

CARDI, Caribbean Examinations Council

Eastern Caribbean Central Bankc

CARDI, Caribbean Environmental Health Institute, Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court of Appeal, OECS Documentation and Information Center, OECS Secretariat

CARDI

—

UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean-Caribbean Development Cooperation Committee and Caribbean Council for Science and Technology, Caribbean Epidemiology Center, Association for Caribbean States, CARDI, Caribbean Industrial Research Institute

Sources: Caricom diplomatic lists, Web sites and directories.a UNICEF maintains field offices in most Caricom countries.b CARDI is a unit of the University of the West Indies, the main campuses of which are in Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago (subsidiary programs exist in other islands).c St. Kitts hosts the ECCB headquarters; agency offices exist in each member state but are not noted.d There are UNESCO national commissions in all countries, but Jamaica hosts the regional field office.e Listing excludes office of UN/OAS humanitarian and support missions as well as bilateral aid agencies.

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Once again, not unexpectedly, the larger Caribbean states—Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados,and Trinidad and Tobago—host the greatest number and variety of agencies, followed closelyby Haiti, Belize, and Suriname. Not noted in the table is the fact that Haiti hosts a numberof bilateral and multilateral aid agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Devel-opment (USAID), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and Frenchand Chinese aid missions. Among the eastern Caribbean states, Saint Lucia is the location ofchoice for regional and subregional aid agencies.

As already noted, small developing states tend to join international organizations as a wayto counter the limitations posed by their size. In international forums, they can participatewith voice on major global issues and network inexpensively with countries from which theyare separated by geographic distance and lack of financial resources. Membership in interna-tional organizations is also a sign of good global citizenship, demonstrating desire to beproactive in global discourse and decision making, and a willingness to be bound by the deci-sions of the global community.

In this respect, Caricom countries are relatively high “joiners.” As can be seen in Table5.3, there is very little difference between large Caricom states and small ones in this respect.St. Kitts-Nevis, for example, the smallest independent state, is a member of thirty-threemajor organizations while Jamaica is a member of forty-five. These organizations range fromUN agencies, to inter-American and Caribbean associations, “clubs” such as the Common-wealth, the NAM, and powerful global functional groups such as Interpol and the Interna-tional Olympic Committee.

How influential are these small states within the international organizations they havejoined? In forums such as the United Nations and OAS, sheer numbers generate influencefor the region, given the organizations’ adherence to the principle of one nation, one vote.On the other hand, as will be seen, if a country has such limited resources that it cannot par-ticipate fully, the effect of numbers is diluted. It is clear that leverage for these small states isbest generated through bloc voting and bloc alliances, which in turn demand a level of coor-dination and diplomatic skill that is sometimes hard for these small countries to achieve. Togauge whether influence has been successfully exerted by a state, a researcher might chooseto consider a variety of factors, including sponsorship of successful resolutions in interna-tional bodies, lobbying strategies, the ability of states to get particular issues highlighted onthe global agenda, and so on. For example, certainly one of the major Caricom initiatives ofthe post–cold war era has been the region’s successful push to gain the international com-munity’s support for measures dealing with the unique environmental problems of smalldeveloping states. The formation of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in 1990, oneof the more effective global lobbies, and the hosting by Barbados in 1994 of the first small-island developing states follow-up to “Rio 1992” highlighted the key role being played by theCaricom states in the area of sustainable development.

Two other, quantifiable, ways of gauging international visibility as well as countries’ effec-tiveness in international organizations can usefully be considered here. First, whereas a largecountry has the financial wherewithal to staff a suitably large UN diplomatic mission, withsufficient personnel to ensure a high level of participation in the many diffuse activities ofthat body, it is clear that small states, and especially small poorer states, do not have suchadvantages. It is useful, then, to look at the capacity of small Caricom states in terms of avail-able personnel and based on that, to consider their level of participation in the UNGA (mea-sured here in terms of absences). Second, another measure of participation and visibility is


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office holding, particularly at the United Nations, where the sheer size of the membershipincreases the number of competitors for any position, despite the disaggregation intoregional blocs. Indeed, at the United Nations, the Caricom countries share one bloc withLatin America, the Latin American and Caribbean Group, GRULAC, and have had to com-pete for positions with countries that have a longer independent history, are larger andwealthier, and have generally assumed that they are better qualified for major offices. Until1993, for example, Caribbean candidates were turned down by the Latin Americans in groupelections for the prestigious post of president of the GA. In part Caricom countries werethemselves to blame for losing elections because of their lack of coordination and lack of con-sistent participation. Both their ability to unite as well as their relationship with Latin Amer-ica improved considerably in the 1990s, and this was reflected in 1993 when Guyana’srepresentative became president of the GA, Guyana having distinguished itself throughstrong diplomatic skills and commitment at the United Nations and within its agencies. In2003, Saint Lucia became the first OECS state and the smallest UN member to hold thepresidency. Nevertheless, although Caricom itself has improved in cohesiveness, there is stilla level of contentiousness within GRULAC, compared to other blocs at the United Nations.

Table 5.4 provides data on the size of the UN missions for the fourteen independent Cari-com states. As shown in the table, even the larger Caricom nations have a limited presence atthe United Nations, considering that the General Assembly alone has six main committees.Economic problems reduced Guyana’s UN staff from eleven in 1980–1981 to five in themid-1980s and six in 2006–2007. In the 2000s, Haiti and Jamaica have had the largest UNpermanent missions (eleven and ten staff members, respectively, in 2006–2007). Jamaica had


Table 5.3 Organizational memberships of Caricom states (number), 2006

Country Number of memberships

Antigua and Barbuda 35Bahamas 38Barbados 40Belize 41Dominica 39Grenada 37Guyana 45Haiti 42Jamaica 45St. Kitts-Nevis 33Saint Lucia 41St. Vincent and the Grenadines 37Suriname 39Trinidad and Tobago 44United States 73a

United Kingdom 74a

Venezuela 53a

South Africa 55a

Source: Yearbook of International Organizations, 2006/2007 (Brussels: Union of International Associa-tions; Munich: K. G. Saur Verlag, 2007); U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, World Factbook 2005; andavailable country data.a Includes observer, associate, guest status.

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barely enough professional staff to handle its responsibilities as a nonpermanent member ofthe Security Council for 2000–2001. Antigua and Barbuda and Belize had seven staff mem-bers in 2006–2007, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, only five. Dominica and St. Vincentand the Grenadines had the smallest missions comprising two people each. (The numbersinclude attachés who do not normally count as diplomatic staff.) Dominica has had chronicproblems raising the financial resources needed for a solid presence at the United Nationsand elsewhere. For Grenada, there has been a significant decrease from the level (six) of themid-1980s, itself a carryover from the global efforts of the revolutionary government. Themission of St. Kitts-Nevis is surprisingly large (four) compared to those of the other OECScountries, considering the fact the St. Kitts is the smallest Caricom country. However, in theearly 2000s, at least one member of the Kittitian UN staff also serviced Washington. Thesmall sizes of the Caricom missions can be compared with those of other developing coun-tries considered to be influential internationally. Cuba, for example, had a staff of forty-three,including seventeen attachés at the United Nations in 2006–2007.9 Venezuela has a staff ofnineteen, South Africa, twenty-four.10 Overall, as might be expected, Caricom states haverelatively few personnel at the UN, certainly not enough to cover the many and varied activ-ities of the organization. In that respect, without the ability to specialize in important issueareas, Caricom’s UN diplomats have to concentrate on specific issues while doubling ortripling up in committees. At the United Nations, this translates into a concentration onsocioeconomic affairs, targeted political issues, and administrative and budgetary affairs. For-tunately, their willingness to caucus and work together as a regional unit helps overcomesome of the disabilities related to size.

Even though the small country may not have the staff to service all the committees of theGA, if it is to be in any way effective it must at least be able to participate in most votes onthe floor of the plenary. Table 5.5 therefore also provides data on the number of absences ofeach Caricom country in representative years (1975, 1985, 1995, 2000, and 2005). By 1975,all but the smaller eastern Caribbean states were independent; 1985 was the fortieth plenary,a year after the last Caricom state, St. Kitts-Nevis, was admitted to the United Nations, aswell as a year in which an unusually large number of votes, 152, was recorded; and in 1995,the historic fiftieth session of the GA was held. Data are also presented for the historic mil-lennium session of 2000, and for 2005, the latest year for which such data was available atthe time of writing. A caveat regarding interpretation is in order: it is true that a country’srepresentatives may deliberately absent themselves from voting, either because of disinterestor to avoid having to cast a vote on a controversial issue. Still, this cannot explain the consis-tently high level of absences for the smallest states, Dominica and St. Kitts-Nevis.

As the table shows, the larger Caricom countries, with more diplomatic personnel andresources, have been able to participate quite fully in the UNGA. Even during Guyana’s mostdifficult years financially, that is the late 1980s and early 1990s, Guyana’s participationremained at a high level, reflecting this country’s interest in maintaining a high profile. Thesame applies to Jamaica, and to Haiti, despite the latter’s internal difficulties since the late1980s. The Bahamas also can be credited with a good attendance record in the GA. Amongthe eastern Caribbean states, Antigua and Barbuda stands out and Belize has improved itsattendance considerably since 1985. On the other hand,Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname(which began its first year with a very high level of absences) attended far fewer sessions thanthey normally do during the Millennium Summit. Overall, Caricom states appear to manageto participate in the GA at a relatively high level, notwithstanding their size. The exception is


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Diplomatic Interests and Linkages • 147Table 5.4 Caricom staff, office holding in the UN General Assembly, 1962–2007a

Country

Antigua andBarbuda

Bahamas

Barbados

Belize

Dominica

Grenada

Guyana

Haiti

Jamaica

Number of UN staffb

6(+1)

4

5

5(+2)d

1(+1)

2(+1)

5

11

6(+4)

Presidency,GeneralAssembly

—

—

—

—

—

93–94

—

—

Vicepresidency,GeneralAssembly

89–9004–05

96–97

6975

85–8602–03

91–9292–93

—

7784–8593–9499–00

6873–7479-8083–84

6272

74–7582–8300–0103–04

7082–83

SecurityCouncilmember

—

—

—

—

—

—

7582–83

—

79–8000–01

Economic andSocial

Councilmember

—

80–8289–9193–95

79–8107–09

87–8904–06

—

—

96–98

71–7385–8706–08

69–7174–7677–7986–8890–9295–9703–0506–08

Committee officer, main GA

committeesc

00–01(4)VC05–06(6), R

79–80(1)C82–83(6)VC89–90(3)VC98–9(5)VC

77(SP)VC78–79(5)VC82–83(5)VC84–85(5)C

89–90(4)VC90–91(5)C

05–06 (2),VC

80–81(2)R76–77(SP)R

—

—

67(4)VC71(6)VC72(4)VC74(6)R

76–77(SP)R80–81(2)R80–81(4)C

98–99(2)VC

64–65(SP)C01–02(6)C

69(1)R71(4)C77(3)C

86–87(6)C98–99(2)VC98–99(CR)

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Table 5.4 Continued

Country

St. Kitts-Nevis

Saint Lucia

St. Vincentand theGrenadines

Suriname

Trinidad andTobago

Number of UN staffb

4

3d

2

4(+1)d

3(+2)

Presidency,GeneralAssembly

—

03–04

Vicepresidency,GeneralAssembly

—

90–9195–96

87–8897–98

86–8792–9398–9900–01

6678–79

SecurityCouncilmember

—

—

—

85–86

Economic andSocial

Councilmember

—

82–8498–00

83–8595–9700–02

73–7578–8088–9091–93

Committee officer, main GA

committeesc

—

89-90 (SP)VC91–92(4)C

96–97(4)VC

88–89(4)C02–03(4)VC

80–81(1)R

72(5)R75(5)C

86–87(4)VC87–88(5)VC87–88(6)R

95–96(CR)C99–00(CR)

03–04(6)VC

Source: United Nations, Annotated Preliminary List of Items to be Included in the Provisional Agenda of The Sixty-First Regu-lar Session of the General Assembly (Annexes), 2007; UN Protocol and Liaison Service, Permanent Missions to the UnitedNations (updated March 5, 2007).a Years have been abbreviated to the last two digits. Number or abbreviation after the year represents the relevant commit-tee.Prior to 1978, most (but not all) General Assembly sessions ended in the same year they were begun. The norm sinceis for the session to end during the following year. In 1993, the Special Committee merged with the Fourth (Decoloniza-tion) Committee.b Number of attachés in parenthesis. Attachés are not diplomats.c Abbreviations: C: Chair; VC: Vice Chair; R: Rapporteur; CR: Credentials Committee. The main General Assembly Com-mittees are: First: Disarmament and International Security; Second: Economic and Financial; Third: Social, Humanitarian,and Cultural; Fourth: Special Political and Decolonization; Fifth: Administrative and Budgetary; Sixth: Legal.d Permanent representative included, although position vacant.

St. Kitts-Nevis, which is usually absent from the GA for two-thirds of the time. Dominicaand St. Vincent also have a large number of absences but have managed to reduce those quiteremarkably in the 2000s. Presumably, it is resource limitations rather than an absence of willthat have prevented some countries from participating fully.

Table 5.3 on staff sizes also offers office holding information for Caricom states in theUnited Nations General Assembly (GA) between 1962 and 2007. Overall, Caricom statesappear to participate at a level above what one would expect from a consideration of theirsize. Although the smallest states, Dominica and St. Kitts-Nevis, are altogether absent from

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this table of General Assembly committees, all the other states are represented, especially asvice presidents of the General Assembly. Guyana and Jamaica have both performed well atthe United Nations, but the former’s rate of participation slowed in the 1980s. Both havebeen elected twice to the Security Council. Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago alsohave held the highest number of committee offices overall, with Barbados following closebehind. In terms of participation, in subsidiary bodies not included in the table, Guyana hasserved on key committees such as the Special Committee to Review the UN Charter and theCommittee on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. To this must be added thefact that Guyana is the only Caricom state to have had a judge on the International Court ofJustice. On the other hand, Jamaica has served eight three-year terms on the Economic andSocial Council (ECOSOC) and has served on a number of subsidiary organs, including threeterms on the Governing Council of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP).In 2005, it ended a term on the Committee for Program and Coordination and was contin-uing to serve on the Committee on Conferences (through 2007). It is the only Caricom stateto have served on the International Law Commission.

Trinidad and Tobago follows Guyana and Jamaica in level of representation, serving oneterm on the Security Council, four on ECOSOC, and chairing several committees. It hasalso had consistent representation on the subsidiary Committee for Program and Coordina-tion. Barbados has also been visible, being elected four times as vice president of the GA,serving on ECOSOC twice, and also serving six terms on various committees. The Bahamas,too, has been relatively active for its size, serving on a wide variety of committees in the1990s, and on the Committee for Program and Coordination as well as the UNEP Govern-ing Council in 2003–2006. Suriname has begun to participate more in the late 1990s andearly 2000s. On the other hand, Haiti was moderately active in the 1970s and 1980s butceased its involvement in the 1990s, becoming more active again in the first few years of the2000s. Among the smaller countries, Saint Lucia tops the office holding list, serving once asGA president, twice as vice president of the GA, two terms on ECOSOC, and three times asofficers of the GA. Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda alsodisplay a moderate level of involvement. Overall, a rough ranking of Caricom visibility placesGuyana and Jamaica at the top but also highlights the efforts of almost all states to carve outa place for themselves in this global body.11

Certain visible leadership posts on the UN staff have also been held by Caricom mem-bers: among other positions, over the years, Jamaicans have been appointed by the UN sec-retary-general as under-secretary general and as the special adviser on Gender Issues andAdvancement of Women (assistant secretary-general level); a Trinidadian headed the OASmission in Haiti and another was appointed as the special adviser to the secretary-general onHaiti; a Guyanese has been assistant secretary-general and deputy and acting high commis-sioner for human rights; a Barbadian, former director-general of the Pan American HealthOrganization, has been appointed special envoy of the secretary-general for HIV/AIDS inthe Caribbean Region; and a Grenadian has served as deputy secretary-general and as assis-tant secretary-general as well as the secretary-general’s representative in the Guyana-Venezuela mediation process. Other outstanding achievements include the fact that aJamaican judge was appointed in 2004 to preside over the trial of Slobodan Milosevic at TheHague, and a Trinidadian lawyer was elected by GRULAC as one of the first eighteen judgesof the International Criminal Court (ICC), itself a product of relentless lobbying by, among


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others, Trinidad and Tobago’s former president A. N. R. Robinson. Trinidad also has a judgeon the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

Compared to the United Nations, the limited membership of the OAS would suggest thatCaricom states, comprising almost one half the membership, should be well represented inimportant positions. Indeed, Caricom nationals have held positions ranging from assistantsecretary general (Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname) to head of the OAS/UNmission to Haiti (Trinidad and Tobago). Also with respect to the OAS organs, Caricom stateshave gained in representation over the years as they have learned to make the most of thepolitical jockeying and quid pro quos needed to gain influence. However, Caricom gains didnot come easily: there was, and remains, a relatively large cultural gap between the English-speaking Caribbean and the Latin American nations. Conflicts concerning office holding atthe OAS have been more acute than at the United Nations because the validity and strengthof the Caricom presence have been accepted only gradually by the Latin American membersof the OAS.

The story of elective office holding in the OAS hierarchy, that is, at the level of the secre-tary-general and assistant secretary-general, is indicative. Although the first Caricom coun-try, Trinidad and Tobago, joined the OAS in 1967, it was not until 1980 that a representativefrom the region reached the post of assistant secretary-general. That person, BarbadianValerie McComie, happened to have served in the OAS since 1967 and was fluent in Span-ish at a time when few Caricom officials were. In the 1960s when the first Caribbean nations


Table 5.5 Absences of Caricom states in the UN General Assembly

Country 1975 1985 1995 2000 2005

Antigua and — 10 5 5 3Barbuda

Bahamas 33 4 4 1 4

Barbados 0 16 6 1 0

Belize — 102 3 7 4

Dominica — 11 34 51 7

Grenada 6 23 34 2 17

Guyana 9 4 0 0 1

Haiti 14 28 2 7 7

Jamaica 1 10 2 9 0

St. Kitts-Nevis — 103 60 40 68

Saint Lucia — 19 38 4 4

St. Vincent and — 24 57 33 4the Grenadines

Suriname 65 6 0 32 4

Trinidad and 5 2 3 20 7Tobago

Total recorded 69 152 71 67 77votes

Source: United Nations. Index to Proceedings of the General Assembly 1975, 1985–1986, 1995–1996, 2000–2001,2005–2006.— Countries were not yet UN members.

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joined, there was an existing gentleman’s agreement that the secretary-general would be fromthe United States and his assistant from Latin America, normally from a larger Latin Ameri-can country. In 1969, a deal struck with the United States and supported by the small statesled to the election of the first small-state candidate (from Panama) to the number two posi-tion, and a U.S.-supported Ecuadorian, Galo Plaza, to the number one position of secretary-general. This election paved the way for the election of someone from the even smallerCaricom group ten years later. Even so, the vote for McComie could hardly have been closer(fourteen to thirteen), even after heavy lobbying on the part of Caricom member states. By1985, however, Caricom’s integration into the OAS had progressed considerably: McComiewas unanimously reelected that year. In 1990, Christopher Thomas of Trinidad and Tobagobecame the second Caribbean person to hold the post, and in 1995, he, too, was reelectedunanimously for a second term, which ended in 2000. Then in 2005, Caricom states unitedto lobby successfully for a Surinamese candidate for the deputy position. Although the can-didate was initially expected to gain a large majority or a consensus vote, the late entry of aNicaraguan opponent divided the members along cultural lines, with only five non-Caricomnations eventually voting for Caricom’s Albert Ramdin.

As a significant bloc of fourteen countries, Caricom countries are thus capable of exertinginfluence at the OAS disproportionate to their size as long as they are united, which is notalways the case. They have begun to play a crucial role in elections to the top leadership spot,and their ability to work cohesively to secure quid pro quos has improved over the years. Thiscan be seen in the fact that their support was important in helping a Costa Rican candidatesecure the secretary-generalship in 2004, a time when Caricom was looking to secure Cen-tral American backing for the location of the headquarters of the FTAA in Trinidad andTobago. Caricom cohesion in 2004 could be contrasted with its actions in 1994 and 1999.In the first instance, the Costa Rican candidate lost to U.S.-backed César Gaviria of Colom-bia, and charged, among other things, that the small Caribbean countries had given in topressures from the United States. In the second instance, after the Costa Rican candidatewithdrew his candidacy, it was implied that the Caricom states had not moved quicklyenough to back him.12 Unfortunately, in 2004, the Caricom-backed Secretary-GeneralMiguel Angel Rodríguez demitted office after only three weeks in the wake of his implicationin a bribery scandal at home. Caricom then supported the successful candidacy of ChileanJosé Miguel Insulza, but St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Belize supported his Mexicanopponent who, after five deadlocked voting rounds, voluntarily withdrew. Insulza waselected near unanimously.13 Since the United States had initially opposed Insulza, althoughit helped broker the eventual compromise, Insulza’s election represented the first time in theorganization’s history that the United States had not gotten its way completely in choosing asecretary-general.

One early change that benefited the Caricom countries was the rule change made to allowthe chairmanship of the Permanent Council to be rotated, thus permitting even the smallestcountry greater involvement in the governance of the organization. Similar changes also hadto be lobbied for in other Latin American bodies that English-speaking countries joined. Forexample, in ECLA, the Caricom states, led by Trinidad and Tobago, fought first for consid-eration as a unique unit. In 1975, they succeeded in getting the commission to create aCaribbean Development and Cooperation Committee (CDCC) with membership from theHispanic Caribbean, Haiti, and Suriname, as well as the English-speaking Caribbean. Thisunit focuses on the problems of the small Caribbean states that would be lost amid the larger


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Latin American activities. Increased Caribbean pressure led to the addition of the “C” in theacronym ECLA in 1984 but did not diminish the struggles within the organization betweenthe two groups on issues of funding.

In the Inter-American Development Bank, Caricom members helped change the rules sothat Guyana and the Bahamas could be admitted in the 1970s. The Bahamas was not yet amember of the OAS, and Guyana was prohibited from joining because of its boundary dis-pute with Venezuela. Caricom members were also instrumental in getting a change in thecomposition of the board of directors that permitted them to have their own elected direc-tor. In the Latin American Economic System (SELA), where secretaries-general have gener-ally come from the southern cone countries, deputy secretaries-general have been chargedwith focusing, among other things, on programs that benefit the Caribbean. Indeed, partlythrough Caribbean lobbying, a special Caribbean program was put in place with financialassistance from the International Cooperation Agency of Spain.

Overall, the Caribbean has made much progress in making itself visible within the LatinAmerican fold and establishing needed linkages, given the imperatives of regionalization andglobalization in the 1990s–2000s. It is primarily through institutional efforts that a closerrelationship has developed. Nevertheless, historical, cultural, racial, and resource distinctionsstill lead to many differences in perspective and policy, and the two regions still have someway to go before they can overcome these obstacles to deeper cooperation.14

Caricom Voting Behavior at the United Nations

More than anywhere else, it has been at the United Nations that Caricom states haveattempted to project an independent voice in international affairs. Analysis of UnitedNations voting patterns can provide a good way to ascertain the position of the Caricomcountries with regard to important issues on the diplomatic agenda. As mentioned earlier,the United Nations permits small countries such as the Caricom states to have a say both onglobal political and security issues that do not directly affect them and on important issuesthat impinge on their own political, economic, and social development. While decoloniza-tion and antiracialism, disarmament, and nationalist strategies for economic developmenttook pride of place on the cold war agenda, the post–cold war agenda has been broadened toinclude human rights and humanitarian intervention, democracy and good governance,counterterrorism, environmentalism, drug trafficking, HIV/AIDS and other health con-cerns, habitat issues, and poverty alleviation and reduction, among other issues.

Caricom voting at the United Nations has reflected a strong commitment to all globalsouth norms and ideas but by no means a consensus on every issue. In examining data for theGA sessions of the years 1975–1976, 1985–1986, 1995–1996, 2000–2001, and2005–2006, it can be seen that Caricom states have been particularly consistent on antiracialissues but have had a mixed record with respect to specific decolonization cases.15 They havebecome more cohesive and consistent on disarmament issues since the 1990s, but while con-sistently espousing the cause of human rights, they have, again, sustained a mixed record onindividual human rights cases.


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Decolonization and Related Issues

In 1975, with the exception of the Bahamas and Barbados, the Caricom countries supportedall resolutions proposed on decolonization. However, the Bahamas abstained on generalissues relating to the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countriesand Peoples and to the related dissemination of information, as well as on the specific ques-tions of French Somaliland, western Sahara, and Timor. Barbados and Grenada abstained onthe questions of Samoa, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Barbados abstained on theDeclaration, wary, like the Bahamas, of its broad implications. Some of these votes presum-ably were pro-United States, but they also reflected a certain independent conservatism onthe issue of self-determination. On the question of Rhodesia, crucial at the time, the Cari-com states voted with the south, as also on the issue of South Africa. On the other hand, theBahamas abstained on two resolutions calling for a program of action and a world conferenceto deal with racism and racial discrimination, and the Bahamas and Barbados abstained onthree resolutions dealing with gender, objecting to the strong wording. Suriname and Haitiwere not then a part of the Caricom bloc, but in any event, Suriname was only present forfive votes—on financial and informational issues—in 1975. Haiti also abstained on the mat-ter of calling a world conference on racism. Notably, it was in 1975 that the UN GeneralAssembly passed a controversial resolution equating Zionism with racism. The Bahamas,Barbados, and Haiti voted against this resolution, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobagoabstained, and Guyana and (somewhat surprisingly) Grenada voted yes.

In 1985, there was greater unanimity in the assembly in general on decolonization issues.Only with respect to Mayotte, for which the United Nations favored independence eventhough the islanders voted for association in 1976, was there disagreement. On this issue,Grenada and Saint Lucia abstained, as did the United States. The Caricom states supportedthe independence of Namibia and voted in support of antiapartheid resolutions with the fol-lowing exceptions: Grenada voted with the United States against sanctions on South Africa,the only global south world country to do so, and abstained on most other resolutions,except for agreeing to an international convention against apartheid in sports. Belizeabstained on a resolution dealing with the program of work of the Special Committee againstApartheid as well as on (adverse) implications of South Africa–Israel ties, on which Barbados,Jamaica, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent, and Grenada also abstained. In deference to the UnitedStates, Grenada abstained on a resolution accepting the “Report of the Committee on theElimination of Racial Discrimination.” Grenada’s position was, of course, linked at this timeto the rise of a new postrevolutionary government.

By 1995, the Trusteeship Committee of the GA had been replaced by the combined Spe-cial Political and Decolonization Committee. Continuing colonial situations includedmainly Caribbean holdouts: Anguilla, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, British andU.S. Virgin Islands, and Turks and Caicos. The Caricom states all voted with the pro–self-determination majority on these issues, as well as on general resolutions concerning theimplementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countriesand Peoples, the provision of relevant training facilities, and information dissemination.With apartheid no longer an issue, general resolutions on measures to combat racism wereadopted without a vote.


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In 2000 and 2005, some broad resolutions against racism were brought to a vote andpassed with the concurrence of all Caricom states. Caricom states continued to vote for res-olutions concerning the implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Indepen-dence to Colonial Countries, on information dissemination, and on ensuring economicprogress in non-self-governing countries. With their agreement as part of the global southcaucus, the United Nations did succeed eventually in holding the World Conference againstRacism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance in 2001 in Durban,South Africa.

From the mid 1990s to the 2000s, one of the most important political issues for the Cari-com states has been the U.S. embargo on Cuba, which Caricom favors lifting. In 1995, allCaricom states except St. Kitts-Nevis were present to oppose the embargo. In 2000, all Cari-com states turned out to vote. They were part of an increasing majority of countries oppos-ing the United States: thus in 1995, there were three votes against and thirty-eightabstentions on the issue, with the United States, Israel, and Uzbekistan comprising the dis-senters. In 2000, abstentions were down to only four (Latvia, Morocco, Nicaragua, and ElSalvador), with three against (the United States, Israel, and the Marshall Islands). In 2005,the same three along with Palau voted no, while the Federated States of Micronesiaabstained. (El Salvador, Iraq, Morocco, and Nicaragua were absent.)

In the 1990s into the 2000s, the situation in Haiti was also extensively discussed in theUnited Nations. Resolutions were regularly passed, without a vote, on issues pertaining todemocracy and human rights in Haiti—extending the civilian mission, supporting economicand social efforts in Haiti, assessing human rights in Haiti, and efforts to strengthen Haiti’spolitical institutions. In 2000, an extension of the civilian mandate was approved, and in2005, a resolution to finance the UN Stabilization Mission was passed. Caricom states haveof course fully supported the UN’s work in Haiti.

A few other issues of an anticolonial or anti-imperial nature can be mentioned here. In theearly 1980s, during its revolutionary period, Grenada was one of only twenty-one countriesto support the Soviet Union’s actions in Afghanistan, an issue on which Guyana and Trinidadand Tobago abstained. In 1985, however, Grenada joined other Caricom countries in con-demning the Soviet occupation. Grenada had also been the only Caricom country to supportArgentina in the Falklands (Malvinas) war of 1982. In contrast, in the early 1980s (pre-1985), Caricom countries either abstained or voted against—in the case of Antigua,Dominica, and Belize—resolutions on the issue that were opposed by Britain. In 1985, how-ever, only Belize, in sympathy with Britain, voted against a resolution calling for negotiationson the Falklands. The Bahamas, St. Kitts-Nevis, Saint Lucia, and St. Vincent chose toabstain. One other issue that divided states in the GA during the 1980s was the Kampuchean(Cambodian) conflict. The GA consistently called for the withdrawal of Vietnamese forcesfrom the country and the restoration and preservation of Kampuchea’s independence. Insympathy with the pro-Vietnam Soviet Union, Grenada and Guyana usually voted no orabstained on resolutions dealing with this issue, but in 1985, Guyana cast the only Caricomabstention. Both the Afghanistan and Kampuchean issues were resolved by the 1990s. Alsoresolved was the “condemnation of the trade embargo against Nicaragua,” introduced in1985. Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, and St. Vincentand the Grenadines had abstained from condemnation of the United States, whereasTrinidad and Tobago and Guyana had supported this resolution, and Grenada and St. Kitts-Nevis had voted against it. In 1995 and 2000, resolutions on continued UN assistance in


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the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Nicaragua after wars and natural disasters, and onassistance to Guatemala and Central America as a whole, were taken without a vote.

Disarmament

With respect to another major global issue, disarmament, the Caribbean countries have gen-erally supported calls for denuclearization with a few exceptions. In 1975 they agreed withall such resolutions, ranging from cessation of nuclear testing to establishment of zones ofpeace in the Indian Ocean, Latin America, and Africa. In 1985 the pattern of voting wasmuch more complex. Grenada abstained or voted no on most of the resolutions, includingthe prohibition against chemical and bacteriological warfare (that is, it sided with the UnitedStates). It was the only third world country, and one of only four countries, to vote against aresolution citing the urgent need for a test ban treaty. The other dissenting countries were theUnited States, United Kingdom, and France. St. Kitts-Nevis also registered a relatively largenumber of abstentions and a negative vote on the issue of prohibiting chemical and bacterio-logical warfare. In fact, almost all Caricom countries abstained on some disarmament issues.Presumably in support of the United States, the Bahamas abstained more than a dozen timeson issues ranging from the prohibition of chemical and bacteriological weapons to curbing thenaval arms race, prohibition of the nuclear neutron weapon, actions with respect to a nucleararms freeze, and declaration of a nuclear free zone in South Asia. However, most of the othercountries had only a handful of abstentions, specifically on issues including the South Asianuclear free zone (a divisive issue for the nonaligned), a nuclear weapons freeze, curbing thenaval arms race, the use of the neutron weapon, and the wording of a resolution on strength-ening the security of non–nuclear weapon states. In contrast, Guyana enthusiastically sup-ported these resolutions, registering only one abstention, on the neutron weapon vote.

In 1995, there were fewer abstentions and fewer votes in general as the assembly soughtto reduce the agenda items as well as to pass more votes by acclamation. Antigua and Bar-buda, the Bahamas, and Barbados continued to abstain on resolutions dealing with the blan-ket prohibition of the use of nuclear weapons as well as the need for bilateral negotiations onnuclear disarmament. Belize (along with the three states mentioned) abstained only on the“anti-Israel” question of the risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. In 2000, onlythe Bahamas and Trinidad and Tobago registered any abstentions, both with respect to thepreservation of and compliance with the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and Trinidad andTobago on the risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East as well. On one issue, theestablishment of a nuclear-free zone in the South Atlantic, there were numerous absences,with only the Bahamas, Barbados, Grenada, Guyana, and Haiti present to support it. In2005, Caricom countries endorsed most resolutions, including declaring the Indian Oceanas a zone of peace and endorsing a nuclear weapon–free southern hemisphere. However, Bar-bados and Jamaica joined Cuba, South Africa, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela in abstaining ona resolution urging compliance with nonproliferation and disarmament agreements. St.Kitts-Nevis abstained on the issue of a “a nuclear free world.” Caricom states were particu-larly irked by a resolution urging strong efforts to trace small arms: Antigua and Barbuda,Barbados, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent, and Trinidad and Tobago abstainedwhile St. Kitts-Nevis was absent. They fully endorsed, however, a resolution emphasizing theadverse humanitarian impact of small arms.


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Economic Issues

Economic questions have usually been dealt with by consensus in the GA, but a few votes andissues are still worth noting. In 1975, all Caricom countries strongly supported the importantnonaligned resolution on the implementation of the Charter on the Economic Rights andDuties of States. In 1985, postrevolutionary Grenada abstained on affirming the same charterand on other resolutions dealing with the progressive development of international law relatedto the New International Economic Order, the indivisibility of economic, social, cultural, andpolitical rights, concern for “long-term trends in economic development,” and “economic mea-sures as a means of economic and political coercion against developing countries.” In 1995, theBahamas abstained on this last resolution dealing with attempts at coercion. In 2000 the onlyabstention on economic issues was by Suriname, concerned about the wording of a resolutionon the “right to development.” Another resolution of special interest to Caricom States hasbeen the ban on large-scale pelagic driftnet fishing. Trinidad and Tobago was among the firststates to protest driftnet fishing. Resolutions on this issue have normally been adopted withouta vote; however, in 2000 a vote was called. All Caricom states were present and voting yes (thatis, for the ban). In 2005, Caricom states endorsed resolutions focusing on the adverse impactof globalization on human rights, and on the acceleration of trade-related aspects of intellectualproperty rights and public health in order to address the problems of developing states(Trinidad and Tobago was absent). Finally, in all years, Caricom agreed with the general bodyon budgetary and financial issues including financing peacekeeping, although there were oftenabsences at these sessions where resolutions were adopted without a vote.

Middle East Issues

The situation in the Middle East continued to cause some vexation for Caricom states overthe years. In 1975, the Bahamas and Barbados voted no or abstained on a number of resolu-tions condemning Israel, and they were occasionally joined by Grenada. In 1985, Grenadaagain voted against or abstained on most resolutions, even when it was the only abstainer oronly joined by the United States, for example on resolutions dealing with the status of Pales-tinian refugees. Other countries were ambivalent on some issues: Antigua and Barbuda, SaintLucia, St. Vincent, Jamaica, Barbados, Dominica, and the Bahamas abstained at varioustimes, some on the issue of Israeli aggression against Iraqi nuclear installations, others onconvening an international peace conference on the Middle East, Israeli human rights prac-tices, conditions of peace in the Middle East, and the status of Jerusalem. Only Guyana,Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago voted with the global south majority on all Middle Eastresolutions. Haiti voted no on condemning “Israeli Practices in the Occupied Territories”and abstained on two other resolutions.

In 1995, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Dominica, Haiti, Jamaica, and Surinameabstained on some issues, including—again, not all countries abstained on all three—the sta-tus of Jerusalem, Golan Heights, and Israeli strikes against Lebanon (Trinidad and Tobagowas absent for these sessions). The highest Caricom abstentions, however, were on thehuman rights issue of Israeli practices in occupied territories, on which Antigua, theBahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Vincent, and Surinameall abstained. In 2000 there were no abstentions on any significant issue. However, in 2005divisions rose once again: Grenada voted no, with the United States, Israel, and some of thesmall Pacific states, on many issues involving Palestinian-Israeli relations and abstained on


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others. The Bahamas and Haiti abstained on various resolutions concerning Israeli practicesin the occupied territories, and Haiti (as well as Grenada), on Palestinian refugee issues; Haitiabstained on the status of Jerusalem. (Saint Kitts-Nevis was absent for all of these votes).Among the smaller Caricom states, changes in government have generally influenced theswing of votes from yes to abstain or no on this issue. Overall, however, Guyana has been themost consistent supporter of the Palestinian cause over the years.

International Law, Human Rights

The small Caricom states have historically been supporters of international law, viewing thelegal regime as protective of the rights of small states struggling to maintain their sovereigntyvis-à-vis their large neighbors. They have also strongly endorsed such newer creations as theinternational tribunals on Rwanda, former Yugoslavia, and Sierra Leone. One of the mostimportant judicial initiatives endorsed by these states in recent years has been the establish-ment of an International Criminal Court (ICC) to try cases of egregious human rights vio-lations during conflict. Trinidad and Tobago, in particular, was instrumental in reviving anolder Western proposal on the issue and promoting it at the United Nations in the early1990s. The ICC was finally established in 1998, with effect from 2002 when two-thirds ofthe necessary ratifications were received. UN resolutions on the creation, financing, and sup-port of the ICC have usually been adopted by consensus, but the United States officiallyopposed the removal of national jurisdiction over crimes committed by its military andrelated civilian personnel and, in the aftermath of the war in Iraq, persuaded the SecurityCouncil to accept bilateral exemptions. It is ironic that, as noted in an earlier chapter, anumber of Caricom states have not signed the Rome Statute while others have signed waiversexempting the United States from the court’s jurisdiction.

Human rights resolutions have caused division and controversy among the UN’s memberstates. In the post–cold war period, resolutions on democratic rights have been given addedvisibility even as the assembly continues to promote social and economic rights. The Cari-com states have always considered themselves to be strong upholders of human rights; yetthey have been divided on specific cases. In 1975, Chile was the specific case: the Bahamas,Barbados, and Grenada abstained from condemning the human rights situation underAugusto Pinochet. In 1985, the Bahamas, Belize, Grenada, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent, andTrinidad and Tobago all abstained on the call for nonintervention (by external powers) andrespect for human rights in El Salvador and in Guatemala, as well as restoration of rights inthe persistent case of Chile. St. Kitts-Nevis was absent for the vote on El Salvador but joinedthe abstainers on the second and third resolutions. As for nonhemispheric questions, withregard to human rights in Afghanistan and Iran, the Bahamas and Trinidad and Tobagoabstained from condemning these countries. On a general resolution concerning measuresagainst Nazi and fascist activities, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Belize, Grenada, andSt. Kitts-Nevis abstained. This resolution, sponsored by mainly East European states, called,among other things, for any dissemination of ideas based on racial superiority or hatred, anddissemination of war propaganda to be punishable by law. The Caricom states mentionedjoined many other countries that were concerned about the civil rights implications.

In 1995 yet again, on the situation in Chile, the Bahamas, Barbados, and Grenadaabstained, preferring a policy of noninterference. Dominica, Grenada, and St. Vincentabstained on two resolutions dealing—too strongly, in their opinion—with Palestinian


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rights. Belize voted no on a resolution affirming respect for the principles of national sover-eignty and noninterference in the internal affairs of states in their electoral processes, a con-tentious resolution on which the United States and fifty-six other countries voted no, withtwenty-one abstaining. Grenada abstained on the issue of human rights in Sudan, andJamaica and Trinidad and Tobago on the human rights situation in Kosovo. However, themost problematic votes for Caricom states came on a resolution criticizing Cuba, on whichevery Caricom member abstained, and also one focusing on “respect for the right to univer-sal freedom of travel and the vital importance of family reunification,” on which Antigua andBarbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, St. Vincent, Suriname, andTrinidad and Tobago all chose to abstain, concerned about some of its implications. (TheUnited States opposed this resolution.) By the 2000s, however, all the countries had satisfiedthemselves about the intent of the resolution and had changed their votes to yes.

In 2000 Jamaica cast the one abstention—on a resolution supporting the work of the spe-cial committee to investigate Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinianand other Arab people in the occupied territories. In this year, Trinidad and Tobago and Suri-name were noticeably absent, along with some of the smaller eastern Caribbean states, onmost resolutions dealing with human rights in the Palestinian territories. Votes on other indi-vidual cases were fairly contentious: the situation of human rights in Iran drew abstentionsfrom Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Haiti, Jamaica, and Saint Lucia, and a rare nega-tive vote from Guyana. Antigua and Barbuda and Saint Lucia also abstained with respect toa report on human rights in Iraq. On the issue of human rights in the Congo DemocraticRepublic torn by civil conflict, Antigua and Barbuda and Saint Lucia again abstained. Thedebate on human rights in the Sudan ended with abstentions on the resolution by Jamaica,Saint Lucia, and Suriname.16 In 2005, the Caricom states seemed more divided, even if theywere moving in the direction of some consensus toward abstaining on human rights issues.Saint Lucia was the only country that voted no (that is, against censoring) on any issue, inthis case the situation in Iran, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines took a surprisinglystrong route in voting for every resolution (that is, expressing concern about the situation).Meanwhile, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica,Saint Lucia, and Suriname all abstained on the situation in the Democratic Congo. Theywere joined by Trinidad and Tobago regarding the situation in Uzbekistan. On Iran, the samecountries except for Belize abstained; and on Turkmenistan, all the states mentioned exceptHaiti abstained. Regarding North Korea, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Guyana,Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago all abstained. (St. Kitts was absentfor all of these resolutions, Dominica for three of them, and Grenada was absent for two).The trend toward abstentions is noticeable: Caricom states are increasingly cautious aboutcondemning other states, particularly with regard to situations well beyond the region.

On the other hand, on more general human rights declarations, Caricom countries haveusually come out in full support. All states tend to be present and voting on key resolutionsthat are usually adopted without a vote, though occasionally a vote is called. In the 2000s,these have included crimes against women, the use of mercenaries as a means of violatinghuman rights, the right of Palestinians to self-determination, protection of migrants, protec-tion of democracy, and protection of human rights—all resolutions for which a vote wascalled in 2000. In 2005, Caricom states supported additional resolutions on protectinghuman rights in the fight against terrorism, elimination of all forms of religious intolerance,condemnation of religious defamation, elimination of racism, elimination of discrimination


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against women, rights of the child, respect for sovereignty as an important element in thepromotion of human rights, promotion of peace as a vital requirement for the enjoyment ofhuman rights, the right to development, the right to food, and the impact of globalizationon all human rights. Finally, in 2005, all Caricom states were present and voting yes on animportant resolution on the establishment of a new Human Rights Council to replace theineffective UN Commission on Human Rights. Before the vote, a compromise had beenobtained by developing nations, reducing the requirement for (direct) election of committeemembers to an absolute majority of GA members rather than the two-thirds originallysought by the United States.

In 1989, the General Assembly adopted the Second Optional Protocol to the Interna-tional Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aimed at the abolition of the death penalty.The protocol came into force in 1991. No Caricom state has, however, signed this treaty. Infact, the English-speaking Caricom countries have been censured by many developed statesthat have abolished capital punishment as inhumane. Haiti abolished the death penalty in1987, and Suriname is considered by Amnesty International to be an “abolitionist in prac-tice,” meaning that the death penalty has not been used since 1982. Of the English-speakingCaribbean countries, however, only Grenada is so listed, having had no executions since1978. These Caricom countries inherited from Britain the practice of hanging as capital pun-ishment, and even though executions are rare, they have gone to great lengths to ensureretention of the option, especially in view of the rising levels of crime that have plagued mostof them in the 1990s and 2000s. In the 1990s, rulings by the UK Privy Council, the courtof last appeal for all states but Guyana before 2005,17 against the constitutionality of keepingprisoners on death row for a long period of time led to a backlash in the region. If prisonerswere allowed to exhaust appeals, including appeal to international bodies, countries wouldautomatically be unable to implement the death penalty. As a result, first Jamaica, thenTrinidad and Tobago, announced their intention to withdraw from the Inter-American Con-vention on Human Rights and also from the Optional Protocol of the International Con-vention on Civil and Political Rights. In 1997, Jamaica followed through regarding itsdenunciation of the latter, but remained a member of the former. Trinidad and Tobagodenounced the Inter-American Convention in 1998 with effect in 1999. In a unique move,in 1998 it also denounced the UN protocol (which grants the Human Rights Committeecompetence to review cases), and then rejoined it a few months later with a reservation to theeffect that the government did not recognize the committee’s competence in death penaltycases. Guyana followed suit, denouncing the protocol and re-acceding in 1999. Both movesdrew criticism from the developed nations, and Trinidad and Tobago eventually denouncedthe protocol again, with effect from June 2000. Paradoxically, therefore, these Caricomstates, defenders of most political and socioeconomic rights, find themselves in the positionof being seen as violators of a norm that is beginning to find global acceptance. It should beadded that only Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Suriname, and Trinidad andTobago had bothered to adhere to the Inter-American Convention in the first place, and onlyBarbados, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad andTobago to the UN protocol on human rights.18


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Caricom and the United States at the United Nations

Inasmuch as the Caricom states are, as described in earlier chapters, oriented toward the UnitedStates in their economic affairs, they might be expected to vote closely with the United Statesin global forums. In Chapter 1, two academic models of small state behavior were discussed:the bargaining model under which states are compliant with a benefactor country and the alter-native consensus model under which states tend to agree with the larger states as a result ofdependency or closely intertwined economic and other interests.19 Unfortunately, quantitativestudies have yet to confirm either model as the predominant one. On the other hand, from apolicy perspective, like most great powers, the United States evaluates its relationships withother nations in terms of quid pro quos: thus the Department of State, for example, has sincethe 1970s analyzed data on U.S.-UN voting agreement in order to map the rise and decline ofits influence and determine the effectiveness of its economic policies. An analysis of such datacan provide insights into Caricom’s cold war and post–cold war orientations.

Cold War

The main concern of the United States during the cold war was to counter the influence ofits archrival, the Soviet Union. The first Caricom countries emerged to independence in the1960s, and at first, they developed foreign policies that were squarely aligned with the West.But was this manifested in their voting behavior? Although voting charts were not publishedby the United Nations until 1975 (and the State Department also did not yet publish itsannual “Reports to Congress”), some idea of how these countries voted can be gleaned fromthe United Nations Yearbook 1967, a date by which all four of the larger English-speakingCaricom countries were independent. Of nineteen votes listed as having been taken byrecorded vote, Barbados voted three times (15.8 percent) with the United States and sixtimes (31.6 percent) in accord with the Soviet Union; Guyana, three times with the UnitedStates and nine times (47.4 percent) with the Soviet Union in that year; Jamaica, six timeswith the United States and ten times (52.6 percent) with the Soviet Union; and Trinidad andTobago, five times with the United States (26.3 percent) and eleven times with the SovietUnion (57.9 percent).20 Thus a pattern of voting more closely with the Soviet Union thanwith the United States was already established in the 1960s.

However, during the cold war, it was well recognized that pro-Soviet votes were normallynot so much representative of agreement with the communist superpower as they werepro–third world votes, inasmuch as the Soviet Union sided with the third world on anti-colonial and economic issues. To gauge whether a third world focus was applicable to theCaribbean countries in 1967, it is useful to examine the issues on which votes were taken.On disarmament matters, Barbados and Guyana supported only one of the three resolutions,whereas Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago supported all three. On anticolonial issues, Bar-bados voted yes three out of eight times; Trinidad and Tobago, four; Guyana, five; andJamaica, six. (All the Caribbean countries abstained on the issue of the granting of indepen-dence to their fellow eastern Caribbean territories.) On the main issue of South Africanapartheid, all four newly emergent countries had perfect records. On the Arab-Israeli con-flict, no resolutions on that issue were noted in the limited data given in Yearbook 1967.However, there was an emergency session on the Middle East in the same year, in which fourresolutions were passed. Three resolutions were specifically targeted against Israel, and the


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fourth simply forwarded the records of the emergency session to the UN Secretary-General.Trinidad and Tobago voted yes on all resolutions, Guyana on three—the three that referredspecifically to Israeli actions—and Jamaica and Barbados abstained on three. Summing upthe votes in 1967, even without more systematic data, it appears that Trinidad and Tobagoand Guyana were already establishing a record of agreement with the third world.

The data for other years (Table 5.6) are clearly more reliable because they are derived fromcomprehensive charts of resolutions and decisions that began to be published by the UnitedNations in 1975. Voting coincidence with the Soviet Union (and third world) increased overthe years as the third world as a whole became more nationalist. Not unexpectedly consideringits socialist orientation, Guyana had the highest voting coincidence with the Soviet Union in1975 and 1985, but Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and surprisingly, Grenada, were not farbehind in 1975. In 1985, Trinidad and Tobago followed closely behind Guyana in coincidencewith the Soviet Union, but Jamaica’s votes with the Soviet Union declined as the country’s gov-ernment became more conservative. The largest drop in coincidence with the Soviet Union,however, was clearly Grenada’s, going from more than 50 percent in 1975 to 21 percent in1985. Although a higher level of absences accounts for some of the difference, a longitudinalanalysis (not provided in the table) shows a continuous increase in Grenada’s pro-Soviet votinguntil 1982 (when there was a peak of 67.7 percent of all recorded votes), followed by thisdecline to 21 percent in 1985, clearly attributable to political changes on the island.

A complementary change can be noted on the issue of voting similarity with the UnitedStates. For Caricom states, similarity declined overall between 1975 and 1985, except forGrenada, which increased from 13 percent to 19 percent. (A slight increase was also noted forTrinidad and Tobago. Suriname had too many absences in its year of independence, 1975, fora comparison to be made.) The Bahamas had a noticeably low percentage of votes with theUnited States in 1985, and the data (not shown) indicate that this decline began in the early1980s, perhaps because of an increasingly troubled relationship with the United States at thattime. However, the record has to be interpreted with caution because the Bahamas had a highlevel of abstentions that could be interpreted as favorable to the United States. Haiti also dis-played a major decline in voting with the United States: in 1975, Haiti actually voted moretimes with the United States than with the Soviet Union, but by 1985, with the relationshipwith the United States rocky, votes with the United States had plunged to a mere 5 percent.Overall, even though Caricom governments as a whole became more conservative in the1980s, this seems to have had only a slight effect on pro-Soviet voting, confirming the factthat such voting was indicative of pro–third world voting and suggesting that there was a limitto how much a third world country could agree with the United States during the cold war.

The data for the smallest countries, Belize, Dominica, and St. Kitts-Nevis, suffer from thehigh level of absences, but in the period under review, St. Kitts-Nevis seemed to display morebalance in its cold war votes than did the other countries. Of the other eastern Caribbeancountries, Antigua and Barbuda was the most participatory, and its votes were clearly alignedmore with the nonaligned and the third world. The same applied, with somewhat lower per-centages, to the voting of Saint Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The abstention question is a rather important one, for an examination of UN recordsquickly shows that “no” votes are quite rare and that the membership strives for consensus.During the cold war, abstentions by small states were often an attempt to avoid antagonizinga superpower patron while at the same time not taking an anti–third world stance. Hence therecords point to a correlation between high levels of abstention on crucial votes and high


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levels of pro-U.S. clientalism. As shown in Table 5.6, the highest level of abstention in sam-ple years between 1975 and 1985 was seventy-two for Grenada in 1985, compared to four in1975, zero in 1979, and thirteen in 1982. Interestingly, in 1982, the abstentions were onissues such as disarmament and financing, which the Soviet Union usually opposed. TheBahamas had the most abstentions in three of the four years and the second highest numberin 1985: fifteen in 1975, seven in 1979, twenty in 1982, and twenty-seven in 1985.

Post–Cold War

With the decline of the Soviet Union, the Caribbean found itself competing with other areasof the world for U.S. attention and economic assistance. As the overwhelmingly dominantworld power, the United States has also become the dominant force influencing the UnitedNations. Does this mean that Caricom states have moved more closely toward this super-power in terms of their votes within this organization? A look at U.S. statistics with regard tovoting coincidence between 1995 and 2005 suggests otherwise (Table 5.7). The U.S. StateDepartment notes that in the early post–cold war period, voting coincidence with the UnitedStates rose to levels not experienced since 1978, peaking at 50.6 percent in 1995 comparedto a low of 15.4 percent in 1988. However, after 1995, enthusiasm waned and voting coin-cidence declined. In 2000 there was a small rise, raising U.S. expectations that the declinehad leveled off, but after 2001 declines continued and quite dramatically so.

Note that the data in Table 5.7 are not compatible with the data in the other tablesbecause the U.S figures are calculated by omitting abstentions as well as absences. The U.S.data are calculated based on yes and no votes using the following formula: agree votesdivided by agree plus disagree votes. The U.S. data are also for all resolutions and decisionson which the United States voted yes or no in plenary, including paragraphs and motions. Incontrast, the data in the other tables are based on a more traditional calculation of all simi-lar votes (abstentions included), divided by total recorded votes on the final resolutions, pro-ducing lower percentages overall but eliminating some distortions. For example, in the U.S.ranking for 2005, St. Kitts-Nevis ranks as the Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRU-LAC) member with the highest voting similarity with the United States. However, this isbased on two identical votes only and a disproportionate seventy-nine absences (note as wellthat the U.S. data are based on eighty-five votes, but the available UN records show only sev-enty-five; the U.S. record includes votes on paragraphs). The table also includes percentagesfor 1985, when U.S. data became widely available. This allows for comparison of the U.S.data over the years.

As can be seen, according to the U.S. figures, all countries experienced strong declines invoting agreement with the United States between 2000 and 2005 as the United States pur-sued a unilateralist counterterrorism agenda. However, there were also declines between1995 and 1999, before a general increase in 2000. Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, andDominica actually rose above the 1995 level in 2000. Since these data exclude absences, theyare, for countries with a large number of absences in the 1990s such as Dominica, betterindicators of support for the United States than the figures given in Table 5.6. However,Dominica’s varying but generally large number of absences make comparative analysis as awhole unreliable. Most noticeable among countries with low absences is Grenada’s declinefrom more than 60 percent agreement in 1995 to only 33 percent in 1999 and 25.9 percentin 2005. But St. Vincent and St. Kitts-Nevis, high-absentee countries, exhibit even largerdeclines, even though St. Kitts-Nevis is the highest-ranking country in agreement among the


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countries of the Latin American and Caribbean bloc. The figures conform to the generalview that the U.S.–global south relationship had already cooled by 2000 in view of a risingresistance to U.S. policies. It may also be noted that U.S. reluctance to pay monies owed tothe UN also clearly reduced its standing in the organization between 1995 and 2000. Anagreement to pay the backlog of dues was put in place in 2000.

Regionalism at the United Nations

Earlier it was noted that in 1967, the four countries that belonged to the fledging Carifta did notseem to coordinate their voting at the United Nations. Through the 1980s, coordinated stanceswere not the norm for Caricom or even the smaller eastern Caribbean states. At the UnitedNations, despite a tradition of meeting at the beginning of the General Assembly to comparenotes, Caricom did not (and still does not) bind its members to a common position. But in viewof the ever-increasing importance of bloc strength for small, easily marginalized states, greaterefforts have been made over the years to work together in all international forums.


Table 5.6 Cold war voting coincidence of Caricom countries with the United States and USSRa

Country 1975 Abstentionsb 1985 Abstentionsb Abstentions 2005b

Antigua — — 7.2 (63.2) 14 6and Barbuda

Bahamas 10.1 (23.2) 15 7.9(61.8) 27 6

Barbados 21.7 (37.7) 21 9.9 (61.8) 10 7

Belize — — 5.9 (17.1) 7 3

Dominica — — 2.6 (17.8) 9 0

Grenada 13.0 (50.7) 4 19.1 (21.1) 72 3

Guyana 10.1 (56.5) 0 7.2 (73.7) 3 10

Haiti 27.5 (21.7) 11 5.3 (59.2) 14 7

Jamaica 11.6 (55.1) 3 8.6 (62.5) 15 5

St. Kitts- — — 18.8b (12.5) 15 1Nevis

Saint Lucia — — 12.5 (54.0) 25 5

St. Vincent — — 9.9 (51.3) 24 1

Suriname 4.4d (1.5)d 0 10.5 (69.7) 10 5

Trinidad and 11.7 (52.2) 3 9.9 (71.7) 8 5Tobago

Total recorded 69 69 152 152 77votes

Source: United Nations. Index to Proceedings of the General Assembly 1975, 1985–1986, 2005–2006.

— state not yet independent.a Calculations are percentages based on all similar votes (abstentions included) divided by total recorded votes. Figures in paren-

thesis represent agreement with the Soviet Union. Cases where the U.S. and Soviet votes coincided were excluded.b Abstentions could indicate a decision not to take sides between the superpowers. Data for 2005 are included for post–cold war

comparison.c Country had a high level of absences.d Suriname only voted five times in 1975, therefore data cannot be interpreted as indicating any voting preference.

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Despite cultural and historical similarities that favor cooperation, the states of theCaribbean region have often been highly competitive, dating at least as far back as the breakup of the West Indies Federation of 1958–1962. The tendency toward fragmentation andindividualism has made the harmonizing of foreign policy difficult. In the 1970s and early1980s, even functional cooperation was hindered by nationalism and extraregional initia-tives, and any community ambitions for political harmony—if not unity—were put on holdinasmuch as heads of government did not meet between 1975 and 1982. Even after Caricomwas revived in the 1980s, weak foreign policy harmonization was the norm: during impor-tant crises in Haiti and Panama in the 1980s, Caricom countries confined themselves to gen-eral statements of concern and support. More active intervention in foreign policy or,indeed, in intraregional conflicts, did not occur until the 1990s. Caricom states have since


Table 5.7 Voting agreement with the United Statesa

Country 1985 1995 1998 2000 2003 2005

Antigua and 25.0 50.0 31.5 35.7 17.9 15.4

Barbuda

Bahamas 18.6 52.3 37.5 39.0 23.0 11.9

Barbados 20.3 56.3 38.6 38.1 15.9 17.5

Belize 37.8 50.7 32.1 41.4 18.8 15.7

Dominica 24.2 46.7 0.0 39.3 22.9 14.7

Grenada 71.7 60.7 33.3 39.3 19.0 25.9

Guyana 8.4 48.6 33.3 35.9 18.8 17.7

Haiti 23.8 39.7 37.9 41.1 14.7 18.3

Jamaica 22.7 50.0 36.8 40.4 17.9 16.5

St. Kitts-Nevis 50.0 83.3 35.9 48.3 13.3 33.3

Saint Lucia 27.9 52.9 30.9 35.6 16.5 10.4

St. Vincent 32.7 84.6 50.0 54.3 17.5 21.6

Suriname 16.2 50.0 36.7 54.8 18.4 12.1

Trinidad and 17.9 48.5 35.8 50.0 18.4 15.7

Tobago

Average 28.4 55.3 33.6 43.4 18.2 17.6

LAC 23.7 48.8 38.6 39.7 20.7 19.7

Af. Grp. 15.1 30.3 34.5 33.9 16.2 13.5

Asian Grp. 17.0b 36.8 37.3 36.1 21.1 18.7

ASEAN 18.8 31.8 31.2 31.1 15.5 14.8

Arab Grp. 12.2 30.3 30.9 26.2 11.3 10.6

NAM 15.2 39.7 34.6 34.2 17.3 18.7

Source: U.S. Department of State, Voting Practices in the United Nations, relevant years.Acronyms and abbreviations: AC: Latin American and Caribbean Group; Af. Grp: African Group; Asian Grp: AsianGroup; ASEAN: Association of Southeast Asian Nations; Arab Grp: Arab Group; NAM: Nonaligned Movement.a U.S. calculations are percentages based on the following formula: agree votes divided by agree plus disagree votes. The U.S.data are for all resolutions and decisions on which the United States voted yes or no in plenary, including paragraphs andmotions.b Australia, New Zealand, and Japan were in the Asian Group in then 1980s. Without these three,the figure is 13.6 percent.

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been involved in Haiti, in peacekeeping as well as in diplomatic efforts, and it has becomethe norm for the organization to seek to resolve conflicts affecting its members, reflected, forinstance, in attempts to resolve Guyana-Suriname territorial issues and internal ethnopoliti-cal problems in Guyana. Furthermore, as the imperative of globalization has led to the deep-ening and widening of the organization, the realization that petty competitiveness willseverely hinder their ability to survive has fostered more concrete cooperation in terms ofboth institutional development and greater policy coordination.

Using an index of voting cohesion at the United Nations for various sample years, a cohe-sion percentage of 75.8 percent was obtained for 1975 (excluding nonmembers Haiti andSuriname; Haiti was relatively isolated from Caricom at the time and Suriname was presentonly five times for the vote in 1975).21 Even though the data for 1975 cannot be comparedwith the limited data compiled for 1967 for the four Carifta members, which pointed to anindex of 56.1 percent, it is still possible to intuit that coordination and cohesion hadincreased significantly by 1975, even among the original four states. Group cohesionincreased still further in 1979 (96.8 percent) before ideological differences came to a head inthe region, but declined in 1985 to a nadir of 62.4 percent. In the post–cold war period,there was a rise to 80.9 percent with Haiti and Suriname (which vote quite similarly to therest of Caricom) included, and 96 percent in 2000. However, the pattern of increaseschanged after 2001 when the core countries’ cohesion was reduced somewhat (to 92.7 per-cent in 2003). In 2005, cohesion dropped quite sharply to 78.2 percent. The drop is attrib-utable to the rising abstentions already noted with regard to human rights issues.

Caricom and the Nonaligned

Earlier it was said that Caricom states have supported the norms and activities of the globalsouth at the United Nations. Indeed they caucus with the NAM in this forum. As noted inChapter 1, most of these small states joined the NAM in the 1970s and early 1980s: Jamaica,Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago in 1970; Grenada after a new government took over in1979; Suriname also in 1979; Saint Lucia and Belize in 1981; and Barbados and theBahamas in 1983. Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, and Saint Vincent held observer status,but neither Haiti nor St. Kitts-Nevis sought membership until the 2000s. All the nonmem-bers became full members between 2003 and 2006. At the United Nations, most Caricomcountries have traditionally aligned their positions with the nonaligned or global south bloc,despite their trade and aid dependence on the north.

U.S. data provide the easiest way to compare the voting coincidence of Caricom with thatof the NAM and, for that matter, other global south groupings. Taking only the recent years,in 2000, State Department data showed an average for (all) the Caricom states of 43.4 per-cent voting coincidence with the United States, somewhat higher than that for GRULAC asa whole (39.7 percent; for the bloc without the Caricom states, voting agreement was at 38.5percent). The NAM average for 2000 was 34.2 percent, the African group’s average 33.9 per-cent, and the Asian group (which includes Japan) was 36.1 percent, with the subset Associa-tion of South East Asian States (ASEAN) at 31.1 percent. The Arab group had only a 26.2percent voting coincidence with the superpower. Thus the Caricom states were more likelyto vote with the United States than were other global south groupings.


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In 2005, the picture was somewhat different. The Latin American and Caribbean averagewas 19.7 percent, above the 17.6 percent Caricom average. So was the Asian Group’s averageat 18.7 percent, boosted by votes from Palau and Micronesia, publicly allied with the UnitedStates strategies, as well as votes by Japan. However, the Caricom average was still above thoseof the NAM (15.1 percent), ASEAN (14.8 percent), and the Arab Group (10.0 percent). Inboth 2000 and 2005, Caricom states appear to diverge somewhat from their Latin Americanneighbors. Indeed, the Latin American and Caribbean group has been less cohesive over timethan the Arab, African, and Asian groups.

To some, it is an anomaly that the NAM has survived the cold war. During the group’sheyday, questions were often raised as to the criteria for membership inasmuch as the move-ment included many states that were firmly oriented toward the Soviet Union (for example,Cuba) or the United States (for example, the Philippines). The original criterion of eschew-ing military alliances with the superpowers did not hold for many states. However, non-alignment never signified passive neutrality; on the contrary, the nonaligned were responsiblefor many norms that became accepted through UNGA efforts: decolonization, the right ofstates to freely determine political, economic, and social policies, the promotion of nucleardisarmament, and others. In the post–cold war period, however, the NAM did indeed loseits momentum for a time. But since 1998, when a successful summit was held in SouthAfrica, there has been a renewal of commitment to the basic goals of the NAM, especiallyreform of the international economic system (albeit within a liberal framework), and mem-bership has grown to include some East European states. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistanjoined the NAM, while Armenia, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Serbia andMontenegro, and Ukraine are observers. The fact that the NAM has become less strident hasallowed smaller Caricom states, which once refused to damage their geopolitically dictatedlinks with the United States by joining an organization that to many seemed pro-Soviet, tonow become full members.

The next chapter presents a change of focus, away from a description of the issues andpatterns of Caricom activity and toward a focus on the decision-making environment. Ana-lyzing the various internal and external influences on Caricom nations should lead to a fullerunderstanding of their foreign policy challenges.


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CHAPTER 6

The Foreign PolicyDecision Environment

In any society, decisions are made within an environment that is constrained by bothinternational and domestic factors. Decision makers who are less constrained domesti-cally are able to make external policy more freely—although in certain circumstances

they may wish to make it appear otherwise—whereas those who are more constrained willneed to strike more complex bargains with their international counterparts if their policiesare to be accepted by influential domestic sectors. This is the basic “two-level game.”1

The literature on foreign policy does, however, broaden the role of domestic factorsbeyond just group influence. From the 1950s’ focus on national capabilities, to the 1960s’decision-making analyses that emphasized decision makers’ rational assessments of the inter-nal as well as external “operational” environments, through developments in comparativeforeign policy, which directed attention to a hierarchy of systemic, individual, role, govern-mental, and societal factors that impact foreign policy, and to today’s stress on ideas, norms,values, and culture, foreign policy activity is seen as not just constrained but also determinedby a variety of factors.2 These include the type of international system and the country’s loca-tion within it, nonhuman factors such as history, culture, geography, military and economiccapabilities, and the more dynamic domestic bureaucratic, governmental, and societal fac-tors. Foreign policy theorists recognize that such factors are perceived, interpreted, and eval-uated by decision makers who may or may not be heavily influenced by various cognitiveconsiderations.3 In this chapter, the dynamics of internal and external influences on Caricomdecision-making and foreign policy outcomes are analyzed. Figure 6.1 distills the basic ideasof this chapter. In brief, it is maintained that:

• Caricom decision making and the resultant foreign policies are most impacted by thecountries’ identification as small nations. Other identities have been secondary.

• Smallness engenders for each nation somewhat different profiles of vulnerabilitydepending on resources as well as strategic political positioning vis-à-vis externalpartners.

• The international environment provides both constraints and opportunities for dealingwith vulnerability and achieving anticipated foreign policy gains.

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• The particular foreign policy that each country devises and the decisions adopted arethe product primarily of leadership considerations, since decision making in these smallstates remains dominated by “individual-level” considerations.

• The predominance of individual-level considerations is the result of the way in whichparticular institutional structures developed historically.

• As elsewhere in the globe, however, the personalistic nature of Caricom decision mak-ing is clearly being eroded by the rise of societal influences.

Smallness vis-à-vis Other Identities

Caricom states are united in perceiving themselves as “small” in the international context.While perception is normally seen as a subjective matter, in this case it is obviously reinforcedby objective realities: the largest state, Haiti, has less than ten million people, and the otherstates are ministates with populations of 48,000 (St. Kitts-Nevis) to 2.7 million (Jamaica).Even though the mainland Caricom states Guyana and Suriname are rather large in territory,215,000 and 163,000 square kilometers respectively, the fact is that their small populationsare distributed mainly along the coasts, leaving a vast underpopulated interior. The smallpopulation reinforces the sense of “smallness” that allows them to associate with the islandstates even as it gives these countries a somewhat separate identity as continental countrieswith the potential for greater development than their territorially confined neighbors. Onthe other hand, for the island countries, “smallness” is aggravated by the sense of limitedpotential as well as the very real threat of potential isolation. These island countries have,therefore, historically sought to preserve their integration into the world by adopting rela-tively open economies and societies.

History, culture, and practical realities have indeed imposed other identities on the smallCaricom states, but these identities differ from the core sense of smallness because they arederived rather than inherent. Caricom states were all colonized and their peoples subjectedto slavery and indentureship. Haiti prides itself on being the first country in the hemisphere(and first black republic) to revolt against slavery and declare its independence. As a result,Caricom countries clearly share with other former colonies a strong value commitment toanticolonialism, anti-imperialism, and racial tolerance. Since these are multiethnic societies,they have consistently supported respect for human rights and equality for all, regardlessof race, gender, or religion. Moreover, the core group of Caricom members, the English-speaking states, have inherited an “anglophone” identity that still, even decades afterindependence, is reflected in their institutions and values, in particular their commit-ment to democratic processes. Suriname also has sustained a democratic tradition, despitea period of military rule. In contrast, Haiti’s history of ostracism, intervention, and dic-tatorship sets it apart from the rest of Caricom insofar as democratic values are con-cerned: the lack of a democratic culture is also sometimes blamed on a fatalistic culture,where the elite look for solutions outside the country, and where a capacity and tolerance forviolence have developed.4

In terms of so-called practical realities, however, adopted identities have been and are beingtransposed on the Anglophone identity of the core Caricom states—for example, during the


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Figure 6.1 The Caricom decision-making environment

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cold war, socialist Guyana and Grenada (less so Jamaica) sought to impose new norms on theirsocieties. More instrumentally, today a number of countries, in particular Trinidad and Tobago,are seeking to strengthen their identities as part of the Latin American continent.

Nevertheless, smallness is a core identity, one that can never be escaped. The importanceof the self-perception of “small” is reflected in Caricom states’ core foreign policy focus onovercoming associated vulnerabilities in order to achieve economic, political, and statusgoals. As described earlier, a number of factors are seen as threatening their economic, eco-logical, territorial, and political security: as described in various studies, these include vul-nerability to external aggression and pressures from larger neighbors; ecological vulnerabilityresulting from fragile coastal ecosystems, as well as possibilities of serious harm due to climatechange or variability and sea level rise; and economic vulnerability stemming from undiver-sified economic structures, a narrow resource base, high infrastructural costs, high depen-dence on external trade, vulnerability to the forces of nature, and limited access to externalfinancing.5 Caricom states have tackled these issues by adopting a varied range of strategiesover the years: threats of external aggression has been countered by both bilateral and multi-lateral arrangements, by strategies of bandwagoning in some instances, and nonalignment inothers; economic problems have been attacked using strategies to preserve traditional mar-kets and sources of aid, by attempts at diversification of trade to reduce dependence, byregional integration to expand their small markets, by strong support for various third worldinitiatives to change the existing international economic order, by coalition building withlike-minded states and international organizational activity to publicize their concerns andincrease their bargaining power, and by promotion of the idea that certain categories ofstates, including very small states, deserve special and differential treatment in the devising ofliberal arrangements.

At the diplomatic level, “smallness” has meant that Caricom concerns would easily bemarginalized on the international agenda if these states were not highly proactive. Indeed,the evidence shows that rather than assuming a passive stance, Caricom states as a whole haveprojected themselves as models for other small states seeking visibility beyond the regionallevel and into the international arena. Judging from the figures cited in the last chapter,Caricom participation in the UN, as an illustration, is not at all weak, even though some ofthe smaller states (St. Kitts-Nevis and Dominica, in particular) have experienced some diffi-culty resulting from the lack of resources. It is instructive that the Caricom experience alsoshows that it is will rather than wealth that is key for small states in waging a proactive foreignpolicy. Thus Guyana and Jamaica as well as the poorest Caricom member Haiti have in gen-eral been very proactive at the UN, in many respects more so than their richer counterparts.In this respect, larger small states also assume that they have a right to regional leadership.

Size, then, has been both a constraint on Caricom states’ foreign policies as well as a deter-minant of the type of policies pursued. What stands out most, however, is that Caricomstates tend to have a positive view of their ability to reform and influence the internationalagenda. “Vulnerability” is not approached negatively but rather in most instances within apositive framework of proactive strategizing. In recent times, this attitude has been particu-larly visible in the actions of Caricom states vis-à-vis the environment: from the push for theformation of the Alliance for Small Island States, to the adoption of the Barbados Programof Action, Caricom states played the role of “norm entrepreneurs” in forcing the interna-tional community to pay attention to their particular concerns about climate change.6

Moreover, the view that “smallness” is also naturally equated with acquiescent or compliant


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behavior does not hold for Caricom states: although some Caricom states have indeed exhib-ited such behavior at times (for example, Grenada in the late 1970s vis-à-vis the SovietUnion, and vis-à-vis the United States after the U.S. invasion), figures on UN voting givenin the last chapter highlight the fact that these small states have taken quite independentstances on issues of importance to them on the global agenda.

On the other hand, Caricom states have sometimes misperceived their level of interna-tional influence, leading to strategic miscalculations. This was especially apparent during thecold war when both Jamaica and Grenada underestimated the resolve of the United States,which was thought to be in “hegemonic decline.”7 The belief that “imperialism was too weakto attack them”8 led Grenada’s People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG) to adopt stronglyanti-U.S. policies that eventually proved to be impossible to sustain. In the same vein,Jamaica’s Michael Manley was in the end unable to leverage his increased international influ-ence in such a way as to sustain his regime against the destabilization efforts of the UnitedStates. In the 1990s, the cold war leverage that the small states of Caricom were able to exertas allies of the one or the other superpower disappeared. Since then, the inability to exactquid pro quos from their dominant partner the United States has been reflected in ever-growing complaints, even by relatively wealthy Trinidad and Tobago, about the lack of reci-procity in their relations with that country.9

The International System

Small states have traditionally been seen as heavily impacted by systemic considerations, andindeed the foreign policy agenda of Caricom states, and many of the decisions made, arepartly determined by events in the international system. In this regard, three types of inter-related systemic influences on Caricom states can be elaborated: the structure of the interna-tional system in terms of the distribution of power, as well as the nature of key internationalinstitutions; international process factors such as interdependence, modernization, transna-tionalization, regionalization, and globalization; and the impact of dominant norms devel-oped by the international community.

In earlier chapters, it was shown that by virtue of their small-power status, colonial his-tory, and geopolitical location, the Caricom ministates have been overly influenced by devel-oped nations in Europe and, later, primarily by the United States. During the cold war, U.S.security interests were the overarching preoccupation of all, whether they aligned their poli-cies with the superpower—the dominant trend—or experimented with alternative strategies.Similarly, by virtue of being highly dependent states, most with nondiversified economiesfirmly tied to the United States and Europe, these states have been environmentally con-strained, dependent on trade and aid from a few industrial partners, and highly sensitiveto changes in those relationships. They have also been vulnerable to the dictates of theinternational financial institutions that are again dominated by the United States andEurope (with Japan a less vocal partner) and that have established the norms under whichcountries, especially those in dire need of assistance, must operate. Their choice of strate-gies to counteract that influence has also been attuned to events and changes in both thedeveloped and developing worlds.

The Foreign Policy Decision Environment • 171

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Specific examples in the Caricom region of the influence of the structure of and changesin the international system can be drawn from the earlier descriptive chapters. In the early1960s, with the global system still characterized by tight bipolarity, even strong anticolonial-ists such as Trinidad and Tobago’s Eric Williams adopted pro-West foreign policy positionsfor their countries.10 Guyana did try a different course, to the detriment of the Marxists ledby Cheddi Jagan: as noted in Chapter 2, British troops landed in 1953 when the legislaturepassed some socialist-sounding laws, and the Central Intelligence Agency helped stir agita-tion against the government in 1964. On the other hand, the “socialist” Forbes Burnham wasseen as a tolerable alternative to the hardliners and so was propped up by Western countriesfor most of his long and increasingly autocratic term in office.

In the 1970s, the region’s adoption of nationalist counterdependent or counterhegemonicstrategies cannot be said to have come from indigenous sources: they were borrowed devel-opments, copied from Africa and Asia, fostered by systemic change including détentebetween the superpowers and the rise in influence of the third world. But perceived radical-ism, as in Jamaica, was short lived, meeting with harsh responses from the United States, andan ultimate return to normal relations as the international system was tightened again, begin-ning in the last years of the administration of President Jimmy Carter and hardening underPresident Ronald Reagan.

During the period of détente, the United States appeared to be taking a more flexibleapproach to nationalist experiments. This is not to say that systemic influence was weakened,but rather the international climate became more hospitable to the activities of the globalsouth nations in general. Among the contributing factors cited for world changes were thefollowing: the apparent U.S. retreat from a “world policeman” role after Vietnam; the rise inoil prices engineered by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC); sub-sequent northern acquiescence to global talks on development issues; the perception of theU.S. leadership as weak and ineffectual; negative domestic and global political reaction toPresident Carter’s attempt to make much of the stationing of a Soviet “brigade” in Cuba, andU.S. powerlessness in the face of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979; and FidelCastro’s apparent triumph over the United States in permitting thousands of Cubans, includ-ing those deemed social undesirables, to leave for the United States in the Mariel boatlift. Asit turned out, other important systemic factors had been downplayed by those who foresawa U.S. decline. These included the increasingly hard line policies of the later Carter and theReagan administrations toward the Soviet Union, and the U.S. continuation of the use ofeconomic pressures against recalcitrant regimes. In the case of Caricom, the apparent spaceprovided by U.S. weakness and northern complacency was soon closed: unfriendly regimesin Grenada and Jamaica lost power, and even Guyana turned toward greater liberalization bythe 1990s.

The 1990s and 2000s ushered in an era of globalization that has affected the small openCaricom societies in particular ways. New pressures have ranged from the risk of economicmarginalization posed by the intensely liberal and competitive global environment—an envi-ronment in which small Caricom countries are losing the preferential markets on which theydepended—to the deep impact of transnational threats already described. After going througha decade of structural adjustment and debt renegotiation in the 1980s, by the 1990s Caricomleaders were indicating that they saw no choice but to join in the new global movementtoward greater economic liberalization. By the end of that decade, however, there were increas-ing concerns about the social effects of liberalization, in particular the rise in the population


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living in absolute poverty. Caricom nations, taking their cue in large part from developmentswithin the United Nations and the major international institutions, turned their attention tocountering these problems and working toward the achievement of sustainable development.

International institutions have in fact impacted the Caricom states in a number of ways,some positive, some not: first, they have been a source of tangible financial support, even ifbilateral sources of aid have been much more important (Chapter 4); second, they have,however, been sometimes manipulated by the northern donors to pressure Caricom coun-tries deemed unfriendly or uncooperative; third, they have been the source of normative anddiplomatic support for Caricom countries; and finally, they have served as channels forspreading norms from the north to southern nations like those of Caricom.

Chapters 3 and 4 discussed the sources of multilateral assistance to Caricom nations, cit-ing the role of the global financial agencies as well as the regional Caribbean DevelopmentBank (CDB) and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and, to a lesser degree, OPECaid agencies, in assisting the Caribbean countries over the years. This positive role can be bal-anced against the use of the international financial institutions to pressure certain countriesto conform to bilateral interests. Thus during the turbulent 1970s, Jamaica was subjected tostringent conditionality by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) largely as a result of U.S.pressures. IMF loans to Guyana were suspended in the 1980s and the United States workedto deny that country loans from the IDB. Unsuccessful efforts were made to deny Grenadaa loan from the CDB. More broadly, the adoption by Caricom states of structural adjust-ment policies in the 1980s was in large measure attributable to pressures emanating from theinternational financial institutions, which were widely accused of failing to understand thestructural realities of these and other global south nations.11 (Since then, these agencies haveenacted some changes to focus more on poverty alleviation and assistance to highly indebtedcountries).

On the other hand, for their part, Caricom states have not hesitated to also use otherinternational institutions to learn about and gain support for the strategies they haveadopted. Politically, organizations such as the UN, the Organization of American States, andthe Non-Aligned Movement have been used as platforms to air territorial grievances, seeksolutions to security problems, and gain diplomatic support for the protection of the rightsof small states. Economically, these forums have been used to support economic strategies:for example, the espousal of policies of import substitution industrialization (“industrializa-tion by invitation”) in the 1960s and the growth of economic nationalism in the 1970s wereboth influenced by the proposals of the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America(ECLA) and by the third world’s agitation for a New International Economic Order. Onestrategy vigorously adopted by Caricom and promoted by ECLA was regional integration,initiated at a time when developed country markets were strongly protected. Throughout theyears, the pace of Caricom integration has continued to be influenced by global changes,including institutional developments. Thus in the 1990s, the creation of the single marketwithin the European Union was a catalyst for the strengthening of Caricom. Similarly, thecreation of the North American Free Trade Agreement and plans for a Free Trade Area of theAmericas pushed Caricom toward both deepening and widening the subregional movement.

Finally, in terms of the impact of the global system, the spread of broad normative ideas inthe international system have had a great impact on the behavior of Caricom states, and in fact,these states have done their share to contribute to the growth and development of some of theseideas. They have helped legitimize decolonization, antiracialism, nonintervention, and respect


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for human rights. In the economic sphere, Caricom embraced ideas about economic nation-alism and social justice that were operationalized in strategies such as import substitutionindustrialization, south–south cooperation, regional integration, and nonalignment in the1970s. Since then, Caricom countries have embraced norms of economic as well as politicalliberalization, helped broaden the concept of sustainable development to include humansecurity, and have lent active support to the ideas of transparency and democratization thatunderlie the growth of global governance.

Domestic Politics

In the two-level game of foreign policy, there is a complex interaction between the domesticpolitical and social systems and the ability to enact policies at the international level. Howconstrained are Caricom states by their political and societal constituencies? To answer thisquestion, the nature of Caricom political systems needs to be described.

Political Structure and Role of Leadership

Among all the states of Caricom, Haiti has had a truly difficult political history, enduringlong periods of dictatorship without the presence of any trappings of democracy; Guyanaexperienced autocratic rule in the 1970s and early 1980s backed by a rigged electoral appa-ratus; and Grenada and Suriname underwent coups that in each case introduced a period ofundemocratic rule. As a whole, however, the English-speaking core Caricom countries havegenerally taken pride in their tradition of political stability based on democratic values andthe attendant institutions inherited from Britain. While governments have come and gone inthe English-speaking Caribbean, real regime change has occurred only in Grenada (whereopposition parties could not function) and Guyana (where the institutions were changed toallow for an executive president and to ensure the paramountcy of the party). Arguably, how-ever, the foreign policies of Grenada and Guyana and also Jamaica were more affected by thechange in ideology, which led to more activist and wide-ranging strategies, than any changein the government system itself. The political structures of the Caricom nations are mostnotably characterized by a penchant for strong leadership, even today when pragmatic lead-ers can no longer depend on maintaining the political longevity of their older postcolonialcounterparts.

Caricom countries, with the exception of Guyana, have a dual system of government,with a president (elected in the case of Haiti) or governor-general as head of state and a primeminister as head of government. Central decision-making power rests with the prime minis-ter who is the leader of the majority party in parliament, and with his or her cabinet, whichis in turn composed of members of parliament chosen by the prime minister. Cabinets arenormally drawn from elected parliamentary representatives, although in some cases nomi-nated senators serve as well. In the Guyanese variant, the cabinet is still the central decision-making body in which the prime minister plays an important role, but power is centralizedin the hands of an executive president. Overall, the structure of government gives the presi-dent in Haiti and Guyana and the prime ministers elsewhere a great deal of power.


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Until the late 1980s and early 1990s, Caricom countries tended to be led by the charis-matic postcolonial leaders who brought them to independence and dominated the polity andsociety, often with colorful flair. Haiti represents an extreme in which highly personalisticand idiosyncratic leadership has been the norm since 1904. Despite democratic trappings,most of the Caricom leaders found ways to limit the opposition and keep potential alterna-tive leaders from challenging the status quo. The syndrome of “maximum leadership” hasbeen an enduring feature of Caricom politics. A quote from Sir Erskine Sandiford, a formerprime minister of Barbados, nicely encapsulates the syndrome: “There is no way in thiscountry that the Prime Minister is any primus inter pares, first among equals. That must havebeen so when the office just emerged; but today the Prime Minister is so far ahead of theother members of the Cabinet that that old Latin phrase is not really applicable. He is morethan No 1; he is it! What we have in this country, I am positive about it, is not CabinetGovernment. We have Prime Ministerial Government.”12

While personalism has weakened today in terms of the influence of charisma, the politi-cal systems of the region are such that the influence of the leader remains at least as strong asthat of the various institutions of government. In the English-speaking Caribbean, these veryinstitutions, specifically the structure of the Westminster system of government inheritedfrom Britain, strengthen the leader’s dominance. In its original home, the Westminster struc-ture—government by majority, collective cabinet responsibility—has facilitated strong lead-ership on both sides of the ideological spectrum, reflected for example, in the commandingpresence of both Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. In very small countries where personalnetworking is the norm, and in former colonies where a tradition of looking up to the lead-ership developed during colonial times and evolved further during the postcolonial nation-alist era, the effect of the Westminster system is even more profound. Furthermore, inGuyana, an executive presidency, albeit with some checks, only underscored the authoritari-anism of Forbes Burnham. Haiti and Suriname also follow the presidential model, though inSuriname, the need for coalition government has served to rein in the president’s powers.

In all the Caricom states, the president or prime minister is supported in his duties by acabinet composed of chosen elected members of the parliament and sometimes also mem-bers of the appointed senate or upper house. Apart from the doctrine of collective responsi-bility ingrained in the English-speaking Caribbean (meaning that once cabinet decisions aretaken, they are not subject to public disapproval by any cabinet member), cabinet cohesionis usually ensured simply by the power, dominance, and personality of the leader. As a resultof these factors, in foreign as in domestic policy, the prime minister or president has been themost influential figure in Caricom states. The history of Caribbean politics is to a large extentthe history of various personalities: prominent names include Grantley Adams, AlexanderBustamante, Eric Williams, Norman Manley, Michael Manley, Eric Gairy, Maurice Bishop,L. F. S. Burnham, Cheddi Jagan, Errol Barrow, Tom Adams, Lynden Pindling, Vere Bird,John Compton, Milton Cato, Eugenia Charles, and many others. The history of Haiti, too,is a history of personalities, including the Duvalier dictators and Jean-Bertrand Aristide.Suriname is the only country with a more diffuse leadership configuration, despite theattempts of strongman Desi Bouterse to dominate postindependence politics.13

In the postindependence period, prime ministers tended to assume the portfolio of for-eign minister because they felt that they were in the best position to deal with the complexi-ties of foreign affairs. (In the few presidential systems, the president does not hold anyportfolios.) If they did not assume the role themselves, they entrusted it to good friends and


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party loyalists who were attuned to or unlikely to question prime ministerial judgment.Because foreign policy issues were not on the whole high-priority issues for the public or forpoliticians, prime ministers exercised inordinate influence over the policy process. DuringTrinidad and Tobago’s Eric Williams’ tenure, for example, the foreign policy bureaucracymade few decisions without his express approval, even when the prime minister was nolonger foreign minister, and in turn, the prime minister made many decisions without con-sulting the bureaucracy. Again, in pre-1979 Grenada, given Eric Gairy’s dominance and theweakness of the civil service bureaucracy, foreign policy decisions were merely individualisticprime ministerial decisions. Despite the supposed change to collective leadership under thePRG after 1979, Maurice Bishop was the main face of Grenada in foreign affairs.

Today, although prime ministerial dominance in foreign policy is still pervasive, especiallyin the smaller Caribbean countries, a subtle change can be noted. As these societies havebecome more technologically advanced and more bureaucratically complex, and as postin-dependence charismatic leaders have died, replaced by pragmatists, the decision-makingprocess has also become more complex, and the ability of leaders to manage policy as a closedaffair has eroded. In such circumstances, prime ministers are giving their foreign ministersmore responsibility, even while the leaders themselves still make and vet the major decisions.The somewhat greater independence of foreign ministers is also tied to the declining interestof some leaders in the more “showy” aspects of foreign affairs. The focus today on techno-cratic issues has led to a general downgrading of the foreign service in favor of other min-istries (discussed in more detail in the next chapter). As a result, prime ministerial attentiontends to be focused elsewhere or on specific aspects of the foreign ministry’s work, trade andfinance in particular, leaving foreign ministers with greater independence on other issues per-ceived as less central, for example, multilateral diplomacy.

Empirical analysis bears out this change. After independence, the prime ministers of theBig Four countries—Williams, Bustamante, Barrow, and Burnham—all assumed the job offoreign minister. The pattern was followed by Suriname, Belize, and most eastern Caribbeanstates as they attained their independence. By the mid-1980s, however, only some easternCaribbean states—specifically, Dominica, Saint Lucia, St. Kitts-Nevis, and St. Vincent andthe Grenadines—as well as Belize, had leaders who were also foreign ministers. By the early2000s, no leader was holding the foreign ministry post. After prime ministers dropped thepost, foreign ministers were drawn from the ranks of seasoned politicians or persons withsome training in international affairs. For example, in Trinidad and Tobago, where the for-eign minister can be appointed rather than elected, up to the 1980s, the ministry at varioustimes was entrusted to academics with specialties in international relations or a related area,or well-known politicians, including a deputy prime minister and a former opposition leaderwho had joined the ruling alliance. In Barbados, in the 1980s, the ministry was led by J.Cameron Tudor, a prominent politician who had headed the ministry in 1971–1972.Another holder of the position in the past, Henry Forde, was well known for his strong inter-national legal training. In Jamaica, P. J. Patterson, who went on to become prime minister,held the position of foreign minister in the late 1970s. Again, Jamaican Prime MinisterEdward Seaga appointed a former prime minister and deputy party leader, Hugh Shearer, tothe position. However, by the 2000s, with a few exceptions, foreign ministries were in thehands not of prominent personalities but rather of technocrats moved around among min-istries as cabinets changed. This signified both a downgrading of the ministry’s position vis-à-vis other civil service departments as well as a change in foreign policy emphasis toward


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more technical issues. There were still, however, a few exceptions to the technocraticapproach: in Barbados, the foreign ministry remained headed by a deputy prime minister(later “senior minister”); in Guyana, by a distinguished career diplomat: and in Saint Lucia,by a prominent businessman and former leader of the Saint Lucia Labor Party.14 It shouldalso be stressed that despite the hand over to technocrats, however, prime ministers contin-ued to retain ultimate control over foreign affairs.

An example from Saint Lucia provides an illustration of the personal considerations thatoften guide prime ministers to retain control over the foreign affairs bureaucracy, eventhough this case also involved particular political maneuverings by the foreign minister. In2000, under the influence of a strong left-leaning minister of foreign affairs, George Odlum,Saint Lucia concurred with the Organization of eastern Caribbean States (OECS) decisionto send an exploratory mission to Libya and seemed close to establishing diplomatic relationswith that country. However, when Odlum left shortly after to join the opposition, the primeminister reasserted control by reviewing these initiatives and reversing Odlum’s decisions.The review was not attributed by analysts to bureaucratic or cabinet deliberation, but ratherto the personal affront taken by the prime minister when a fact-finding group of Libyans vis-ited with Odlum after he had departed the government.

Given the penchant in Caricom for strong leadership despite today’s nod to pragmatism,the influence of foreign ministers and of cabinet ministers as a whole still depends largely ontheir loyalty to the prime minister. Policy and personality conflicts between prime ministerand foreign minister inevitably result in the resignation of the foreign minister,15 in the shift-ing of the foreign minister to another ministry, or the removal of the foreign minister fromany policy-making position whatever. On the other hand, foreign ministers who are person-ally close to the prime minister have always been able to exercise a great deal of influence. Inone case, in Antigua and Barbuda in the 1980s and early 1990s, the foreign minister anddeputy prime minister was the prime minister’s son, Lester Bird. This relationship allowedLester Bird more flexibility than that accorded most Caribbean foreign ministers; indeed histendency was to make anti-U.S. and other pronouncements that clearly went against thetone set by his father. In Barbados, the foreign minister has endured in the position as one ofthe prime minister’s closest advisers.

Margaret and Charles Hermann posited that a leader’s training or knowledge and interestin foreign affairs may be significant variables in determining what type of foreign policy ispursued.16 This is certainly the case in the Caricom region where the dominant leader’s inter-est or lack of it has directly impacted a country’s foreign policy activity. The impact ofMichael Manley’s third world–oriented ideas and Maurice Bishop’s anti-imperialism on theirrespective countries’ foreign policies was easy to discern, but there are many less well-knownexamples from other countries as well. Prime Minister Williams of Trinidad and Tobago wasa highly educated internationalist as well as anticolonial nationalist who actively forged hiscountry’s foreign policy toward the region and toward Africa and managed to judiciouslykeep his country at a respectable distance from the United States. In the smaller islands, inthe 1980s, Saint Lucia’s prime minister John Compton openly opposed what he saw as “pos-turing” on the international stage and cut back on staffing of the foreign ministry (discussedin more detail in the next chapter). Compton, who returned to power in 2006, was amongthose leaders who felt strongly that the economic and finance ministries were more impor-tant than foreign affairs in the conduct of foreign policy. Again, in Trinidad and Tobago inthe 1990s, Prime Minister Patrick Manning also viewed foreign policy bureaucrats as out of


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touch with developmental realities and favored a more focused approach on economic, par-ticularly energy, diplomacy. Despite little training in international affairs to begin with, hedeveloped an interest in Latin America as part of an overall plan to make Trinidad andTobago a gateway between the Americas, resulting, among other things, in Trinidad andTobago’s bid to host the headquarters of the Free Trade Area of the Americas. On the otherhand, he was one of the few prime ministers who paid relatively little attention to UN affairs.One other example is Grenada, where Prime Minister Keith Mitchell placed his own stampon foreign policy by taking an activist approach to regional affairs, reestablishing good rela-tions with Cuba, and also courting the United States, where he had personal ties, havingobtained some of his education in Washington. In addition to these examples, Caricom lead-ers have a tendency to make decisions about diplomatic links, official representation, andofficial visits without consulting their bureaucracies. In the smaller countries in particular,the prime minister himself, as opposed to lower-level officials, is more likely to be activelyinvolved in activities such as leading delegations on visits and to meetings abroad. Clearly, inall countries of the world, the importance of an event, meeting, or conference in a coun-try’s foreign policy can be inferred from the level of official representation sent. Usually aleader’s decision to make an official trip abroad results at least partly from bureaucratic andcabinet urging based on strategic national-interest considerations. In Mexico, for example,the legislature has even exercised a veto over some of the president’s planned trips. In thesmall Caricom countries, however, high-level participation is often decided by the pre-dominant leader himself, with formal advisers and bureaucrats merely being asked to imple-ment the decision.

In sum, the evidence suggests that leaders and their close advisers—who are just as likelyto be informal as official advisers—do have a major influence on foreign policy strategies andfoci. Finally, with regard to leaders and leadership, political and social psychologists and oth-ers make note of the influence of social background and training on attitudes, interests, anddecision-making styles.17 The perceptions of Caribbean decision makers can often be relatedto their educational level, age, sex, social class, and career experiences, among other factors.On the whole, Caribbean elites are well educated, most holding one or two universitydegrees. Among the older leaders, such advanced education was usually obtained in Britain,France, or the Netherlands (that is, the mother countries) but younger leaders are more likelyto have been trained in the region or in the United States. For the English-speaking countriesin particular, the University of the West Indies had become the university of choice for manyby the 1970s. By the early 2000s, this regional university had educated the leaders ofJamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, St. Kitts-Nevis, Saint Lucia, and St.Vincent and the Grenadines, as well as large numbers of advisers, cabinet ministers, opposi-tion leaders, and bureaucrats. This common background has fostered close personal rela-tionships among some leaders and a relatively cordial approach among them to decisionmaking on regional projects and initiatives. In the 2000s, it is the background, for example,against which the leaders of St. Vincent and Trinidad and Tobago, who attended the univer-sity together, have been contemplating some form of political unity, with Grenada also apartner. For the older group of leaders, common backgrounds were also important: Guyana’sBurnham, Barbados’ Barrow, and Jamaica’s Michael Manley knew one another in Englandbefore they entered politics and continued to have a close relationship while in power. It wasalso said that the former leaders of St. Vincent (Mitchell) and Saint Lucia (Compton) wereapt to coordinate their policies more than usual because they were cousins.


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Other formative experiences also come into play: Maurice Bishop and some of his col-leagues were influenced by Marxism while studying in England; and Janet and Cheddi Jagan,while living in the United States in the 1940s. Jamaica’s Edward Seaga was born in Bostonand educated at Harvard University—facts that help explain his pro-U.S. policies, althoughhe was said to have been more left-oriented in those earlier days. Eric Williams’s nationalismcould be traced to certain experiences he had while at Howard University in the UnitedStates and again as a result of negative experiences or perceptions garnered while serving withthe Anglo-American Commission formed after World War II.

A generational difference in style is also noticeable. Older “charismatic” leaders gave way toyounger ones in the late 1970s and 1980s. These younger leaders were generally less conserva-tive during the late cold war period but can be described as pragmatic since the end of the coldwar. Among the older leaders, there was naturally some variation in educational levels: less edu-cated leaders were sometimes highly authoritarian (for example, Eric Gairy) and at other times,somewhat deferent in their decision-making style (for example, George Chambers, who suc-ceeded a highly educated leader in Trinidad and Tobago). Among the younger leaders, however,educational differences are too minor to be an important influence. Most of the younger lead-ers are also from more solidly middle-class backgrounds than their predecessors, who oftenemerged from the trade union movement. Lastly, the paucity of female decision makers makesit impossible to tell what the effect of gender might be on Caricom decision making. OnlyEugenia Charles and Janet Jagan have been elected prime ministers as of 2007, although a fewwomen have served for short stints while their prime ministers were abroad or, in the case ofHaiti’s Ertha Pascal-Trouillot, as interim president (March 1990 to February 1991), andJamaica’s Portia Simpson as interim prime minister (March 2006 to September 2007). JanetJagan’s tenure was relatively short and disrupted by residual racial issues and doubts about herqualifications to serve. In the case of Charles, who served for three long terms from 1980 to1995, the propositions of the international relations literature that women might be more“doveish” in foreign policy are not borne out, but this is only one example. Apart from the lead-ership position, too few Caribbean females have served as foreign minister to make any corre-lations with respect to style or outcomes: as of 2007, women have served in this position onlyin the Bahamas, Barbados, Haiti, and Suriname (twice).18

Government-Opposition Relations

The emphasis on the leadership suggests a limited role for the legislature and for oppositionsin small Caricom states. This is not to say that legislatures are not vibrant political bodies atthe domestic level but rather that they do not have major influence on the decision-makingprocess in foreign policy. Foreign policy theorist Joe Hagan correctly points out that bothregime fragmentation (where either internal divisions exist within the ruling party or wherethere is a coalition without a single, dominant actor) as well as significant legislative and soci-etal opposition will complicate a government’s ability to implement foreign policy changes.19

In the Caricom region, however, except for rare instances of coalition politics, the rulingparty and the leadership are not significantly challenged in foreign policy, even where majoropposition is directed toward domestic policies.

In theory, the main decision-making body, the cabinet (which has been dominated by thepresident or prime minister), is theoretically responsible to parliament, with the parliamentable to question, vote down, or delay proposed policies, as well as exercise leverage through


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their budgetary power. However, the executive-legislative relationship is such that parlia-ments rarely hinder executive policy and in particular rarely intervene in foreign affairs,which tend to be given low priority unless linked directly to domestic affairs.

In the 1960s and 1970s, many Caricom countries were one-party dominant states inwhich one party held power for a very long time with sufficient parliamentary majorities topractically dispense with opposition sentiment. Even when two parties were equally strong,as in Jamaica, parliamentary majorities were usually unquestionable. Crossover voting wasrare. Because of this, the rare instances of open intraparty dissension provided the only realwindows on contentious policy making, where this spilled over into the cabinet. One exam-ple was the breakdown that occurred in Trinidad and Tobago in the 1980s when two factionssupposedly forming a united party, the National Alliance for Reconstruction, quarreled inthe cabinet. In the most extreme case in the region, in revolutionary Grenada, the rulinggroup broke into factions with one group attempting to maintain the upper hand throughthe use of violence.

In the late 1980s and in the 1990s, clear majority rule began to be eroded as postcolonialleaders moved on. Small third parties pulled at the bases of support of the dominant parties,even if they did not generally succeed in producing coalition governments. Electoral victo-ries became sometimes very narrow and contentious. Elite instability was more common asboth ruling and opposition parties became factionalized. However, despite their more unsta-ble support, leaders remained in firm control of both parties and the government. As PrimeMinister Tom Adams noted in the 1980s,

We have a constitution which is unduly generous to Prime Ministers. In effect inBarbados, any Prime Minister can play the part of a Samson and drag the temple downwith him, since even if he loses a vote of confidence, the Prime Minister is not obliged toresign and be replaced by another member who can command a majority. He may, if hechooses, dissolve the House of Assembly and therefore place the seat of every Member ofParliament at risk. This is a very powerful power to give to a Prime Minister, and left tomyself, it is not a power which I think is always in the best interest of Parliament in smallcountries to have.20

Caribbean political scientists have debated various proposals for reforming the system in theEnglish-speaking Caribbean so that some separation might be created between the executiveand legislature. For, as one aptly points out, even parliamentary committees are subjected toparty discipline.21 On the other hand, it is somewhat of an exaggeration to imply that par-liaments are largely impotent in foreign policy. While no legislature can veto a prime minis-ter’s travel for example, parliaments have sometimes injected themselves relatively stronglyinto foreign affairs by requesting data on, and protesting what is perceived as, excessive for-eign travel expenditure by the prime minister or his aides or excessive expenditures on for-eign embassies; by questioning controversial diplomatic decisions, for example, the decisionto establish ties with Libya or Cuba; by debating appropriate responses (as was the case withrespect to U.S. demands for “shiprider” access to interdict narcotics traffickers); and, lastly,by injecting their opinions on intermestic issues ranging from the fate of criminal deporteesor refugees to economic arrangements with the international financial institutions. Withrespect to this last, IMF arrangements became a source of interparty contention in manycountries in the 1980s, especially in Jamaica and Barbados.


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The search for information by parliaments involves parliamentarians of both the govern-ing and opposition parties, even if the latter naturally seek answers to support their ownalternative positions. Opposition views, however, do not translate into influence: partly thisis attributable to the nature of the Westminster system in which the opposition’s role is tokeep the government “on its toes” rather than to share in decision making as in the U.S. sys-tem. Partly, too, the weakness and fragmentation of the opposition in the Caribbean com-bines with the leader-focused bent of most governments to prevent the “out” group fromeffective participation in politics. Also, the traditional priority given to domestic policy inelectoral politics has meant that the opposition—both in and outside of parliament—hasconcentrated less on foreign policies that attract scant popular attention, and more ondomestic issues. When the parliamentary opposition does focus on controversial foreignissues, its members normally try to be seen as either as or more nationalistic or regionalistthan the government. Illustrative is the case of Venezuela’s assaults on Guyanese territorialintegrity: whoever is in opposition has usually vigorously defended Guyana’s integrity whileaccusing the government of not handling the matter in a suitably nationalist manner. Thetakeover in Grenada in 1979 and subsequent events provoked continuing criticism of gov-ernmental stances from opposition parties throughout the Caribbean. More recently, oppo-sitions have complained about governments yielding too much or not enough to U.S.counternarcotics and security demands, and they have seized the opportunity to critique gov-ernments on matters involving transparency and corruption in international financial deal-ings. Still, while often performing a popular service by publicizing problems, Caricom’sparliamentary oppositions are usually too structurally encumbered, and more and more toofragmented, to exert significant influence; as a result, they focus on boosting their image andchances of election rather than on truly modifying governmental policies.

Bureaucratic Politics

The bureaucratic model of politics maintains that policy results not so much from rationalcalculation as from the push and pull among various departments, each championing its owncause and offering its own perspectives colored by the departmental culture and standardoperating procedures.22 There has been a tendency on the part of theorists of the foreign pol-icy of the global south to downplay bureaucratic factors as influences on decision making infavor of individual-level explanations.23 While the discussion above has supported the impactof leadership over, or in tandem with, international systemic factors in explaining Caricomforeign policy, this in no way means that the influence of the many segments of society,including bureaucrats, can be ignored.

In the Caricom region as elsewhere, as foreign policy concerns have been broadened, min-istries other than the foreign ministry have become centrally involved in the foreign policyprocess. In particular, the rise of trade issues has meant that trade ministers and bureaucraticspecialists have been increasingly important participants in the advisory process. Energy andother resource specialists have also begun to play similar roles. Other global and local prob-lems, for example human rights issues, have demanded the involvement of attorneys-generaland their staffs, and still others, including drug trafficking and immigration, have brought inthe ministers and staff dealing with national security. Agricultural ministers and their keysenior staff members attend international meetings of the Food and AgriculturalOrganization (FAO), ministers of health and officials from various health agencies deal with


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the very important global AIDS/HIV programs, housing specialists deal with internationalsettlement and environmental issues, environmental management officials attend confer-ences on disaster reduction and the ecological problems of small island development states,and gender and community development ministers attend UN conferences on women andgender and development.

Changing foreign policy priorities can sometimes be reflected directly in the adoption oftechnical portfolios by the prime ministers and foreign ministers themselves: beginning inthe early 1980s in some countries, the foreign minister was also sometimes given the portfo-lio of attorney-general. In Barbados and Belize, the prime minister took on the additionalportfolio of minister of defense. However, by the late 1980s into the 1990s and 2000s, primeministers were more apt to hold on to finance portfolios than any other position. In the1980s, prime ministers in Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica, the Bahamas, St. Kitts-Nevis, Saint Lucia, and St. Vincent all held the finance portfolio. Added to these wasDominica, where the prime minister was not only finance minister but also took control oftrade and industry. In Antigua and Barbuda, the foreign minister was also minister of eco-nomic development, and in Belize, he was also in charge of economic development andfinance. In Guyana, the Department of International Economic Cooperation was createdwithin the office of the prime minister.

By the early twenty-first century, even with expanding cabinets in the larger countries,prime ministers still gave top priority to finance: by 2007, of the fifteen countries inCaricom, the prime ministers of ten—Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize,Dominica, Jamaica, St. Kitts-Nevis, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, andTrinidad and Tobago—all also held the portfolio of finance minister whereas none held theforeign ministry portfolio. Along with this focus on finance came a general reorganization ofthe foreign ministry over the years to emphasize international trade and economic coopera-tion. Many foreign affairs ministries were renamed “Ministries of Foreign Affairs andForeign Trade,” to emphasize the point, and some were even merged with existing commerceand enterprise ministries.

The rising priority of other ministries has created significant problems with respect tocoordination of the foreign policy enterprise (see also the next chapter). Competition fromother ministries has left the foreign ministries uncertain about their focus and scrambling tosave and legitimize their role as the traditional gateway to the outside. Foreign ministry staffsare regularly bypassed and their advisory input has to a great degree been superseded by theinput of the staffs of technical ministries. Meanwhile, the technical ministries each focus onparticular foreign policy issues but do not have an overall conceptualization of the country’sforeign policy. At the ministerial level, the competition plays out as a struggle by ministersfor financial outlays and visibility for their departments, a struggle complicated by the needto anticipate prime ministerial preferences. On the other hand, the complexity of interna-tional issues in the twenty-first century is forcing many Caricom governments to involvesenior-level experts more deeply in the advisory process.

One aspect of bureaucratic influence is often overlooked: since bureaucrats are the onesresponsible for operationalizing political decisions, efficiency in implementation is impor-tant especially in foreign affairs, where the country’s image and commitment can be adverselyaffected. In his analysis of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Graham Allison highlighted a particu-larly dramatic instance of bureaucratic inertia having negative effects when he noted thatobsolete missiles that had been ordered removed from Turkey were not removed and thus


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became part of the bargaining scenario between the United States and the Soviet Union.24

While the Caricom states have not been involved in such high military maneuvers, delays inratifying a convention or in signing a trade agreement can be costly. Bureaucratic inertia is amajor problem in Caricom countries, aggravated by other handicaps common to globalsouth countries—information, resource, and personnel deficiencies, and sometimes culturalresistance. Moreover, although bureaucrats are expected to be politically neutral, many arehired or promoted through political connections, and many more find it hard to avoid strongpolitical affiliations in these small societies where patronage counts. Thus the executives ofCaricom have often accused bureaucrats of secretly resisting proposed policy changes andeven of overt hostility and sabotage. Meanwhile governments have themselves politicized thebureaucracy by changing the top levels at their whim—essentially, shifting them horizontallysince these are civil service or foreign service positions—or bringing in foreign consultantsand loyalists as overseers from outside. (This can occur not only when governments changebut also during any government’s term of office.) As this situation has become accepted,vexed bureaucrats have indirectly increased their impact, some by honing their politicalrelationships with politicians, and others by showing their indifference to attempts tospeed up changes. Fortunately, politicization affects domestic areas far more than foreignpolicies: the issues dealt with in foreign policy are less susceptible to substantial changefrom regime to regime.

Security Agents

Although military issues are not a Caricom priority, the increasing global emphasis on abroad range of security issues has expanded the role of the defense and security apparatuses(composed of police forces only in most of the eastern Caribbean countries) in foreign affairs.In Chapter 4, it was noted that the small countries of Caricom are not interested in adven-tures abroad but rather maintain forces for a level of self-defense as well as internal securityoperations. Of the Caricom countries, Guyana, facing a territorial threat from Venezuela, hasbeen the most focused on having a strong military, enhanced by significant paramilitary con-tributions at the height of the Burnham era. In nearby Suriname, the military has also playeda significant role, not just in protecting the country’s borders, primarily vis-à-vis Guyana, butalso as governors and behind-the-scenes influencers of civilian governments. In revolution-ary Grenada, paramilitary units were built up and strengthened to protect the country fromexternal aggression. In Haiti, the military has ruled the country at times, and at other timeshas been a source of instability as civilian governments have sought to contain its influence.

Overall, the influence of security agencies has waxed and waned depending on the roleagents have been assigned or abrogated to themselves. Clearly, in the two cases where mili-taries have seized power (Haiti and Suriname), they have been able to control foreign poli-cies. In Suriname, the “modernizing military” placed a socialist stamp on foreign policy. InHaiti, the conservative military maintained strong ties with the equally conservative militaryof the Dominican Republic. But the impact of military rule on foreign affairs was felt farmore indirectly, that is, by way of the ostracism and intervention of the international com-munity. A similar statement can be made with respect to Grenada and to a lesser extent,Guyana, where the strengthening of the army and paramilitary had the effect of alienatingregional neighbors as well as the United States.


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In the 1990s and 2000s, with the end of ideological differences, the region’s militaries,customs, and police forces have been given the new and important task of dealing with a vari-ety of transnational challenges. In the English-speaking Caribbean, formal policy consulta-tion among chiefs of police and military heads was initiated in the 1980s within the contextof the establishment of the Regional Security System, and sharpened in the 1990s and 2000swith the establishment of a regional task force to deal with financial crime, as well as a net-work of customs, immigration, military, and law enforcement agencies, all leading to thegradual development of a regional architecture for dealing with crime and security (seeChapter 4). Security agents influence policy in their advisory capacities to governments: theyreport to and advise the respective ministers of national security and implement policiesestablished by cabinets. Their impact is felt in foreign affairs not only through their workwith external partners but also because their work has an indirect effect on the image of theircountries abroad.

Societal Influences on Foreign Policy

At the societal level, researchers concentrating mainly on developed countries have addressedfactors such as the role of interest groups, public opinion, and elite attitudes toward foreignpolicy. Also included has been research on the influence of structural and value aspects of thesociety, including the cultural traits and values, ethnic composition and fragmentation, andthe level of social instability in the country. Moreover, in recent times, with the spread of lib-eralism, the permeation of democratic values within a country has been considered animportant facilitator with regard to the implementation of a liberal political and economicforeign policy agenda.25

Despite the fact that the interest-group liberalism common to developed countries, par-ticularly the United States, may not be as strongly developed in global south countries, theimportance of group politics is certainly growing in most regions of the developing worldwhere previous tendencies toward strong executive leadership are becoming more muted. Inthe south as in the northern countries, foreign policy used to attract relatively light intereston the part of the general public unless crisis situations or “pocket-book” issues wereinvolved. In the twenty-first century, however, societal involvement in foreign policy, some-times engaged in quite unconsciously, has been facilitated by factors such as the blurring ofthe distinction between domestic and foreign issues, the increased role and responsibilities ofthe media in democratic and democratizing countries, the easier access to international newsthrough improved technology (there is now widespread access to television complementedby the growing access to the Internet), and the rise in the number of nongovernmental advo-cacy groups that link across world regions as well as the globe.

Business as Interest Group and Social Partner

The spread of economic liberalism to the southern nations has also brought greater inde-pendence for domestic and international business interests that were previously encumberedby the regulations devised under economic nationalist policies. Domestic capitalists, usuallyin tune with their international capitalist partners, play an important role in pressuring


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governments to adopt favorable liberal policies, although they may still encounter difficultieswith ideologically inhospitable governments (such as Venezuela and Bolivia) or governmentsthat are confronted by significant labor or mass opposition, as happened in Indonesia in thelate 1990s.

Within Caricom, both multinational enterprises and local businesses have traditionallyplayed major roles in the economy. Multinational corporations (MNCs) were instrumentalin putting in place policies of industrialization in the postindependence period, before beingsubjected in many countries to localization policies in the 1970s. The MNCs establishedinfluential relationships with host governments and local business groups, and in the 1960s,companies such as Tate and Lyle and Bookers in sugar, Texaco in oil, and the bauxite com-panies had an inordinate influence over their hosts, simply because their contribution todomestic revenues was so crucial. The 1970s buyouts, takeovers, and localization policiesreduced the power of the multinationals, but divestment policies brought foreign investorsback in during the late 1980s and 1990s. MNCs have decentralized their operations some-what to meet the competitive challenges of globalization. This, coupled with the fact thathost countries have developed more skills in dealing with these transnational actors, havegenerated a more symbiotic relationship between hosts and corporations in the 2000s.

While also seeking to exert independent influence, MNCs, particularly the U.S. compa-nies that dominate the Latin American and Caribbean region, have also relied on their homegovernments to influence their hosts on their behalf. Close bilateral ties between the UnitedStates and various Caribbean countries have been successful in promoting arrangementsfavorable to U.S. investment and policy. A notable example in the early 1980s was the col-laboration of U.S. officials and private groups with the Jamaican government of EdwardSeaga, aimed at reviving investment in Jamaica after the nationalistic 1970s. More recently,in the banana dispute between Caribbean and Latin American countries in the late 1990sand early 2000s (discussed in Chapter 3), the U.S. government lent strong support to theChiquita corporation against the interests of the West Indian banana producers.

While sharing a general capitalist orientation and opposition to state control of the econ-omy, local business and foreign multinational enterprises have not been necessarily alwaysallied with each other. MNCs often compete with and draw capital away from both largelocal firms and small businesses, instead of having the anticipated leverage effect on the econ-omy. As a result, state initiatives in support of or against one or the other business sector havehad variable effects: initiatives to protect local industry in the 1970s benefited both local andmultinational groups that were given incentives under policies of import substitution indus-trialization but also prevented the latter from enjoying the benefits of free competition.Localization and, of course, nationalization policies as well as attempts to impose taxes andlevies further aggravated relations with the multinationals. At the same time, import restric-tions on needed manufacturing inputs and financial controls were a more vexing problem forlocal than multinational businesses. In the new era of liberalization, however, both sectors arebenefiting from unrestricted trade. Interestingly, a number of local enterprises have alsoexpanded and turned into regional multinational corporations.

Given the fact that in the Caricom countries, state control of government and the bureau-cracy devolved with independence on the black middle class, owners of large and mediumbusinesses, traditionally persons of European, Chinese, Syrian, Lebanese, or French Creoleheritage (expanding more recently to include East Indian segments), and groups repre-senting these businesses have sought to influence the governing class by developing close


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relations with the political parties or directly with the political leadership. Often disparagedas a “parasitic oligarchy,” they have nevertheless over the years exercised quiet influencebehind the scenes, including relatively unregulated funding of political parties.26 Theirimpact contrasts with that of the black-creole petite bourgeoisie of small business owners, acategory that has grown considerably over the years but has generally lacked similar eco-nomic and political clout. These have either had to ally functionally as suppliers with largebusinesses or depend on the increasingly supportive state agencies.

However, local business groups that were generally seen as playing a clientalistic role inthe 1960s and 1970s increased their independent influence in the “lost decade” of the 1980swhen indebted and deteriorating economies were restructured and into the liberalized 1990sand 2000s. Today chambers of commerce and manufacturers’ associations speak out regu-larly about economic issues, including foreign economic matters, consult with like-mindedgroups and well-known economists abroad, and have developed mechanisms of consultationwith governments and the regional integration system. With respect to the latter, the majorregional business association is the Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce(CAIC), which includes transnational enterprises as members.27 The CAIC was active insupport of integration from the beginning of the Caribbean Free Trade Area (Carifta) in1967 in the hope that a customs union would create a protected regional market.28 The finaldecision on organizing the more advanced Caricom came from a joint proposal of the Cariftasecretariat and the CAIC, but the business group parted ways with the politicians when con-trols on foreign investment were introduced and state participation in the economy of mostof the more developed countries grew. In Jamaica and Guyana, the private sector’s role wasconsiderably reduced during the socialist eras, whereas in Trinidad and Tobago, manufactur-ers and others benefited from the oil boom but became more dependent on the state.Moreover, there was tension between the more and less developed countries’ manufacturingsectors because of the unequal distribution of the benefits of integration.

During the 1970s, regional integration took a backseat to unilateralism, but with therevival of the movement in the mid-1980s, the private sector once again became active insupport of deepening the integration movement even though some conflict concerning“unfair practices” between manufacturing associations continues to occur into the 2000s.The CAIC has become a social, consultative partner to regional governments, pushing thenationalistic politicians to move more quickly toward a single market and economy.Although Caricom governments were initially opposed to a formal private sector mechanismof consultation at the regional level, by the late 1990s they had agreed on the formation of aregional consultative council involving not only the CAIC but also the Caribbean Congressof Labor (CCL) and some small NGOs.

Beyond the Caricom region, the CAIC was actively involved in the establishment of aCaribbean Council for Europe (CCE) in 1991, created to represent Caribbean private sectorinterests in Europe.29 Most notably, the CCE gained access to the African-Caribbean-PacificGroup (ACP) through the formal creation in 1998 of the ACP Business Forum, itself theresult of ACP acceptance of private sector participation in its decision making.

Since the 1990s, Caribbean business groups have also formed energetic private liaisonsand channels in the United States and Britain, among other countries. These external part-ners usually include a number of diaspora-based businesspersons as members or invitedguests. In the United States, the most active organization has been the Caribbean/LatinAmerican Action (CLAA), founded in the 1970s, which hosts an annual conference in


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Miami that brings together U.S. and Caribbean officials and business interests. CLAAdescribes itself as a “non-profit organization that promotes . . . trade and investment, worksto improve the policy environment for business in the region, and seeks to strengthen the pri-vate sector so that it can play its rightful role in building democratic institutions.”30 Anotherexample in the United States is the U.S.-Caribbean Executives Club of the AmericasProgram (Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC), which holdsprograms for Caribbean businessmen and also grants corporate fellowships.31 In Britain, theCaribbean-Britain Business Council describes itself as a “not-for-profit networking organiza-tion of major investors, exporters, importers, service providers and others in the private sec-tors of the UK and the Caribbean with an interest in strengthening on a two way basiscommercial relations between the two regions.”32

Labor as Interest Group and Social Partner

Besides business, labor is a recognized stakeholder in the socioeconomic future of theCaribbean. Labor unions were formed in the region during the colonial period to agitateagainst social inequality and developed with strong ties to political parties. But with theirheavy focus on socioeconomic issues, they have had relatively little to do with foreign polit-ical issues. Notable cases of political action with foreign import have been the refusal of dockworkers in Trinidad and Tobago to handle cargoes from South Africa during the worst of theapartheid era, and similar action with respect to Venezuela in solidarity with Guyana. In theeconomic arena, however, they have had an indirect impact on policy: in the 1970s, unionswere very proactive, pushing governments to adopt nationalist policies by agitating againstthe practices of multinational corporations and by opposing IMF conditionalities. Aseconomies were adjusted in the 1980s, unions lost some of their political clout and focusedinstead on the social fallout from structural adjustment and the often-wrenching dislocationsresulting from divestment and liberalization policies. With the rise of transnationalism andthe global push for “good governance,” unions have been accepted as key social partners, oneof the groups that are part and parcel of “civil society.” As such, Caricom unions, like unionselsewhere, have become more involved in regional and transnational activities. In particular,Caribbean unions, traditionally represented at the regional level by the Caribbean Congressof Labor (CCL), have been staunch supporters of regionalism, in particular elements of thesingle market proposal that call for mobility of labor. As described in Chapter 3, govern-ments have been slow to adopt measures to allow wide mobility, but they were relativelyquick to agree to mobility of the more limited categories of university graduates, musicians,and media and sports personnel.

While Caribbean unions have focused on regionalism, they have also debated and articu-lated positions on other important global issues of local import including migration, humanrights, HIV/AIDS, crime and drugs as they affect workers’ rights and conditions, traffickingin women and children, and other key issues. Moreover, throughout the Caribbean, unionleaders have had another path to influence: given their traditional association with politicalparties, they have sometimes been elected or appointed to government positions, with someeven achieving the prime ministership itself. But even as some who enter government havetried to continue their work on behalf of labor, others have been perceived as abandoningtheir former constituencies as they become co-opted into the prevailing political system.


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Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs)

Whereas labor unions are an old and established advocacy group, nongovernmental organi-zations (NGOs) are new in terms of the role they have begun to play in helping to focus gov-ernments on the social content of foreign policy. NGOs work in a variety of globallysignificant areas, including environmental issues, poverty alleviation, and human and genderrights. NGOs may influence foreign policy in the guise of domestic pressure groups, butone of their unique characteristics is their ability to network across regional and global lev-els. In fact, unions have joined with NGOs in advocating for social justice locally, region-ally, and globally.

Each Caricom state has seen a rise in the establishment of NGOs across the years, andsome NGOs have found a niche in transmitting information to governments and the generalpublic, particularly on environmental and gender issues. Still, not many are able to directlyinfluence the decision-making process. At the regional level, note can be made of theCaribbean Policy Development Center (CPDC), which has tried to carve out a role in theregional consultative processes of Caricom. The CPDC, formed in 1991, describes its mis-sion as follows: to “foster partnerships between civil society and governments [in order to]design and implement policies which benefit Caribbean people[;] . . . help Caribbean NGOsto understand how policies affecting Caribbean people are made; . . . [share] informationabout policies and the decision making process; [work] to influence and bring positivechange to the development process; [and lobby] for policies which are in the interest ofCaribbean people.”33 Network membership is trans-Caribbean, including organizations asdiverse as the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action (CAFRA) headquar-tered in Trinidad; the West Indies Farmers Association based in St. Vincent; the Associationof Caribbean Economists (Puerto Rico); the Association of Development Agencies(Jamaica); the Platform Ayisyen Pledwaye Pou You Development Altenatif (an alternativedevelopment agency in Haiti); the Centro de Estudios de America (a research organizationbased in Cuba); and the Barbados Association of NGOs, an umbrella organization of agen-cies. The CDPC supports programs in sustainable development, trade, and participatorydemocracy, and by the early 2000s, had participated actively in programs in Barbados, Belize,Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico,St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.

The CPDC has presented position papers at various Caricom summits. It supporteddiplomatic lobbying in the banana dispute with the EU and lobbied for post-Lomé favorabletreatment. In the banana dispute, it also stressed the practical need for preparation of farm-ers for a future without Lomé. The group was active in consultations leading to the forma-tion of an ACP NGO Forum formed in 1997, which lobbies for greater focus on thesustainable development of ACP societies, high standards of governance, and participationof all stakeholders in decision making and implementation in ACP societies.34 Other callshave been made for more participatory democracy in the Caribbean, the development oflegitimate conflict resolution mechanisms, and the need for a harmonized regional approachto the protection of the labor force in the face of the social fallout from liberalization.

Caricom NGOs have also engaged in extensive dialogue and collaboration with Europeancivil society on development issues while increasingly defining their own separate positions.The role of NGOs and civil society as a whole has been recognized formally by the ACP,which formed a Civil Society Forum in 1999. But while lobbying vis-à-vis Europe has beenrelatively successful, NGOs have had less success in influencing the hemispheric free trade


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(FTAA) process even though some, including the CPDC, have submitted proposals and par-ticipated in the pre-summit processes.

The Summit of Americas information network lists a number of Caribbean NGOs asinvolved in one way or the other in summit issues, including the CAIC, Caribbean TourismOrganization (CTO), Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA), Caribbean Natural ResourcesInstitute (CNRI), Caribbean Marine Research Center (CMRC), Caribbean ConservationAssociation, and Women and Development (WAND) at the University of the West Indies.Also individual NGOs from the Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica have madesubmissions to the FTAA meetings as of the early 2000s. Another umbrella NGO group ofeven broader scope, the CRIES (Coordinadora Regional de Investigaciones Económicos ySociales), founded in 1982, has been involved in the summits as well. The CRIES networkincludes more than fifty research institutes, nongovernmental organizations, professionalorganizations, and foundations in what it calls the Greater Caribbean (Caribbean andCentral America). Notably, CRIES helped create a Permanent Forum of Civil Society inthe region and has supported various subregional initiatives and projects, including thoseof the CPDC.35

NGOs such as CRIES and other social partners participated in the FTAA process throughthe Committee on Civil Society of the Organization of American States (OAS), the institu-tion charged with handling civil society initiatives for the FTAA process. The hemisphere’strade ministers also created the Committee of Government Representatives on theParticipation of Civil Society, which received input from civil society organizations. At thefirst Summit of the Americas held in Miami in 1994, the heads of state and government ofthe Americas formally called for strengthening civil society organizations in the interest ofdemocracy and transparency. But it was not until the third summit in 2001 that NGOs par-ticipated fully in a six-month period of consultations at the national and regional levels priorto the summit in Quebec City. Even so, the Quebec summit was widely viewed as not trans-parent enough in its consultative processes and in the length of time it took to release thefinal document.

Some other NGO–civil society initiatives are worth citing. With respect to Caricom itself,civil society involvement in regional integration processes was promoted in the West IndianCommission Report Time for Action (1992), a report that itself was the result of a broadconsultative process. In 1997, Caricom heads adopted the Charter of Civil Society, commit-ting themselves to respect various human and civil rights, and to consultation with civil soci-ety through the creation of state–civil society national committees. In July 2002, a firstformal “encounter” between civil society and governments was held in Guyana prior to theannual Caricom summit. The important role of NGOs in the socioeconomic context wasendorsed, and participants agreed to a triennial “engagement” and to establish a task force tofollow though on various recommendations.

With regard to another major regional organization, the Association of Caribbean States(ACS), the process of consultation has been less developed, perhaps because of the gradualprogress of the ACS itself toward institutionalization and role definition. Also, social sectorsdo not fall within the ambit of the ACS work program directly even if many aspects of thework program—for example, trade, tourism, and the management of natural disasters—havesocial implications.36 In 1997, the ACS ministerial meeting agreed, in keeping with theannex to the convention of the ACS, on regulations governing the admission of social actorsto the organization. By the early 2000s, the Caribbean Medical Association (Cuba-based),


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the Caribbean Shipping Association (Jamaica-based), the Association of CaribbeanUniversities and Research Institutes (UNICA, headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida), theCRIES, the Institute for Agronomic Research (Centre Antilles-Guyane), and the CAIC hadbeen accepted as social actors in consultative status. In addition, the Caribbean TourismOrganization is a founding observer. The ACS has focused more on strengthening thebusiness climate, creating the Business Forum of the Greater Caribbean, first held in 2000.The forum, which is a networking and discussion arena for business people and govern-mental authorities, is paralleled by a forum for trade promotion organizations operatingwithin the ACS.37

NGOs and the UN Global ConferencesOne of the main ways in which NGOs have sought to have a global impact has been throughparticipation in the many international conferences organized by the United Nations onhuman development issues since the 1970s. Table 6.1 sketches the participation of CaricomNGOs in a sampling of key global conferences. The listing is only indicative of participationin that there is no way to gauge whether accredited groups actually attended after having reg-istered to do so. Foreign-based Caribbean NGOs may also attend conferences and have animpact on the home countries, as described later in the discussion of the role of the diaspora,but are not included in this particular list. Analysis shows that Caricom NGOs are morelikely to be represented at social rather than economic or narrowly technical meetings. NoCaricom NGOs participated, for example, in the International Criminal Court conferencein Rome in July 1998 even though Trinidad and Tobago was a major promoter of the court,or the important Financing for Development Conference in Monterrey, Mexico, in March2002. On the other hand, Caribbean NGOs were fairly well represented at the BeijingSummit on Women in 1995, the Special Session on Children held at the United Nations in2002 (a follow-up to the 1990 conference), and the World Conference on Racism held inJohannesburg in August 2001. The World Food Summit in Rome in 1996 falls somewherein between, with five Caricom NGOs listed as observers. Given the social orientation ofmost NGOs, it is not surprising that they would be better represented at social summits,though it does highlight why governments tend to assume that NGO input is helpful onlyon human development issues. Although the data are selective, it may be noted that the par-ticipation of NGOs from Haiti, where NGOs have been very active in the absence of fullyfunctioning governments, has been relatively high at these conferences. Other countries par-ticipating regularly are Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Belize, Guyana, and Jamaica. NGOsbased in St. Vincent and Barbados were also represented at the conferences studied. Fewerparticipants have a regional rather than national focus, but this has to be balanced against thefact that the regional NGOs are more comprehensive in scope.

It may be assumed that, lacking the resources to participate in global conferences, manyNGOs focus instead on participation in regional conferences. By way of comparisonbetween participation at the regional and global levels, the attendance at the regional GlobalConference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island States (1994) can be comparedto the (weak) attendance at the Johannesburg sustainable development summit. Apart fromthe inclusion in 1994 of delegations from the dependencies of Montserrat, Curaçao,Guadeloupe, and Martinique, there was stronger representation from the host Barbadositself, as well as by regional NGOS. (Note that more Caribbean NGOs were involved in the


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preparatory meetings of the Commission for Sustainable Development than the numberlisted as attending the summit itself.)

Overall, there has certainly been an increase in attention to NGOs and other civil societyelements in Caricom affairs. The key regional intergovernmental organizations have has-tened to follow the United Nations in including a space for stakeholders, with business inter-ests the most readily accommodated. However, a word of caution must be injected: as for the


Table 6.1 Participation of Caricom NGOs in selected international conferences

Conference Countries with NGOs accredited

World Conference on Women, Beijing 1995 BarbadosGuyana (2)Haiti (2)a

JamaicaSuriname (2)Trinidad and Tobago (4)St. Vincent and the Grenadines

World Food Summit 1996 BelizeGuyanaHaiti (2)Caribbeanb

World Conference Against Racism 2001c BarbadosBelize (3)Guyana (3)St. Vincent and the GrenadinesSurinameTrinidad and Tobago (4)

UN Special Session on Children 2002 GrenadaGuyana (4)Haiti (5)Jamaica (3)Suriname (2)

World Summit on Sustainable Development 2002 Caribbeand

DominicaTrinidad and Tobago

SIDS Sustainable Development, 1994e Barbados (4)f

Belize Caribbean (8)g

Jamaica

Sources: Conference Web sites.a One based in Brooklyn, New York.b Caribbean Network for Integrated Rural Development based in Trinidad and Tobago.c World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intoleranced Caribbean Policy Development Center.e Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island States (Barbados). List does not include four

associations from the dependent Caribbean.f One based in Canada.g Association of Caribbean Universities, Caribbean Conservation Association, Caribbean Forest Conservation Association,

Caribbean Natural Resources Institute, Caribbean Network for Integrated Rural Development, Caribbean People’s Development Agency, Caribbean Policy Development Center, and University of the West Indies Center for Environment and Development.

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translation of consultative deliberations into policy, governments tend to view civil society asa source of ideas and information rather than as true influencers of outcomes. As scholarsJessica Bryon and Norman Girvan note, “Neither at regional nor at domestic level has con-sultative activity [yet] extended to become real participation in decision-making and policyimplementation.”38

Public Opinion

The General Public and Media

In the early 1970s, one scholar wrote of Trinidad and Tobago.

The news media have made a valiant attempt to report on regional and international mat-ters but by and large suffer from what the rest of the society suffers: lack of proper researchfacilities which are vital and necessary to write insightful and penetrative articles. . . .Public opinion on foreign affairs has been singularly lacking since the public operatesunder the very constraints of the local news media, and is not well-informed. Importantevents affecting and concerning Trinidad and Tobago come and go with little informedcomment. The extension of diplomatic relations with Cuba by the CommonwealthCaribbean States, for example, evoked virtually no public response in the local press.When comments appear they are . . . likely to be the responses of ethnic groups. Fine illus-trations were a spate of letters in the local press criticizing the Government’s extension ofdiplomatic relations with Uganda or the virulent reaction to local Syrians coming out onbehalf of financial support for Arab States during their struggle with Israel.39

With high levels of education and politicization, the proliferation of news outlets no longercontrolled by governments, the widespread availability of the Internet, and the naturalcuriosity of Caricom publics about areas of the world to which they are intimately linked bygeography and immigration, Caricom publics can no longer be considered ill-informed.Nevertheless, people in these very small countries have tended to fix their attention ondomestic issues. In terms of the broader terrain of foreign affairs, as informed as they mightbe about the wider world, only issues that are intermestic, that is, those international politi-cal, economic, or social issues that have a domestic impact, are likely to be significantlydebated—examples include the role of the IMF in a specific situation, and initiatives regard-ing AIDS, immigration, crime, and drug trafficking. Even regional events are not avidly fol-lowed in the larger countries (the subregional eastern Caribbean fares much better), the focusbeing on cases of controversy among Caricom members or between a Caricom country andthe United States or Europe. The slow progress of regional integration seems to draw rela-tively little interest, unless a crucial initiative, such as labor mobility, is announced oradversely impacts some well-known personality or segment of society. This is not to say thatacademic and business elites in Caricom countries, as elsewhere, do not hold numerous pri-vate forums and disseminate written commentaries about global issues. However, even theseelites tend to narrow their focus to particular cases and specific activities perceived as rele-vant. Of course, like all publics, the Caricom public is very alert to extraordinary world crisessuch as the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York in 2001, which also killed


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a number of Caricom nationals, or the tsunami of 2004 that killed more than one hundredfifty thousand persons in South Asia. In contrast, however, debate and activities surround-ing the second war and occupation in Iraq have been relatively muted throughout theregion.

Public interest in the day-to-day aspects of diplomacy is even lower than in the issuesthemselves: diplomatic appointments draw attention only if they are unduly politicized forsome reason, diplomatic visits and meetings only if opposition elements publicize govern-ment overspending or make strong objections to the visit, and diplomatic stances with regardto nonregional events are generally not discussed at all.

However, recent examples of the Caribbean public’s interest in foreign issues include thevigorous media debate on the issue of the signing of shiprider agreements with the UnitedStates in 1995. The mere suggestion of an assault on Caribbean nationalism drew a spate ofgenerally pro-government editorials, commentaries, and letters in newspapers in Jamaicawhere the government resisted U.S. pressure for additional interdiction rights. The issue waseven debated in formal meetings between officials and the Jamaican diaspora. In countriesthat yielded to the U.S. demands, proponents and opponents argued exhaustively for severalmonths over the merits or demerits of their governments’ stances.

International aspects of criminality have also drawn great public attention in the face ofhigh and rising rates of crime in the region as a whole. People are interested in attempts atcooperation between home security agents and Interpol or Scotland Yard. They are interestedin the capture of drug lords and in narcotics seizures. In Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago,in particular, the human rights issue of whether to continue exercising the death penalty gen-erated much debate, some supportive of Amnesty International and UK or European posi-tions against the death penalty, but the majority opinion supportive of the retention ofhanging and the governments’ right to carry out this penalty. Again, there has been muchinterest in and opposition to the U.S. policy of deporting felons to their home countriesregardless of whether they have any remaining family ties to the Caribbean. Returnees areseen as contributors to rising crime, so this issue is strongly intermestic. Immigration andrefugee issues also are of immediate concern and therefore galvanize Caribbean publics. Afterall, changes in immigration policies in industrialized countries directly affect the livelihoodsand social mobility of many people. In the northern Caribbean countries (Jamaica, Belize,the Bahamas), publics have vigorously debated the plight of Cuban and Haitian refugees,certain segments displaying anxiety and vexation at their governments’ resettlement or repa-triation attempts. On the other hand, Caribbean publics and media as a whole have beensupportive of the Cuban government and against the U.S. embargo of that country. At thesame time, they have opposed the differential treatment meted out by the United States toCuban and Haitian refugees. In the southern Caribbean, publics have fulminated againstillegal Guyanese immigration, even chiding a Barbadian prime minister for being too lenienton this matter and for himself hiring an illegal Guyanese immigrant, but the media and cer-tain groups have at the same time often called attention to unwarranted discriminationagainst Guyanese at ports of entry and elsewhere. In some of the countries of the southernCaribbean, somewhat remote from Haiti, publics have also in the past opposed acceptanceof Haitian refugees. The varying stances often seem contradictory but reflect a relativelystrong societal aversion to injustice, while at the same time, a self-interested approach basedon socioeconomic anxieties.


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Earlier, the direct impact of social actors on the consultative process was discussed.However, these actors also try to exert influence indirectly through influencing public opin-ion at both mass and elite levels. In economic matters, local chambers of commerce seek toexert influence on the populace by broadcasting opinions, negative as well as positive, aboutthe potential impact of global events on government policy or potential reaction of externalcountries to government policy. A similar role is played by NGOs that use the print andtelecommunications media to push for policy changes in such areas as environmental issues,measures against domestic violence, and children’s rights in societies where physical and psy-chological abuse of women is often seen as acceptable, and abuse of children is often seen asa necessary part of proper child training. Likewise, given the high incidence of HIV/AIDS inthe Caribbean, it is not surprising that prominent AIDS researchers regularly contributenewspaper columns and discuss in the media international, regional, and local approaches tothe issue.

But even though the public is interested in these issues, the question still remains: to whatextent is the opinion of the media, prominent individuals, and organized groups not directlyinvolved in the consultative process actually taken into account in the formulation of policy?NGOs have, for example, tried to push for Caricom compliance with international conven-tions and other international agreements. In the area of gender, for instance, they haveapplauded the progress made in the creation of ministries of gender affairs, or sections withinsocial development ministries, and the passing of national legislation against domestic vio-lence, even if implementation of this legislation has been variable. In other cases, however,for instance children’s rights, concerned individuals and NGOs complain that they have hadlittle impact on either governments or the mass public.40 In other words, notwithstandinggreater dissemination of information and greater advocacy on the part of social partners, theactual influence of groups and individuals on policy is still very weak, particularly whereaction threatens to disturb prevailing normative and cultural beliefs.

On the other hand, governments themselves have not hesitated to manipulate publicopinion in support of important policies. As an illustration, in Guyana, governments counton relatively unified mass support at times of saber rattling by Venezuela. Similarly, theJamaican government actively drew the people into foreign economic affairs in the 1970sby seeking a popular mandate for rejection of a deal with the IMF. Public support forexternal policies was also manipulated in Grenada during the revolutionary period. Moresubtle use of public opinion has occurred when governments have themselves publicizedissues such as the antinarcotics agreements or anti–death penalty pressures emanating fromexternal agencies.

As in most countries, the media that most serve to sharpen awareness of foreign affairswithin Caricom nations is television as well as the printed word. Cable television has over-taken radio broadcasts as sources of information in these relatively developed small states.Newspapers are numerous and widely disseminated. Whereas in the 1960s and early 1970s,the best newspapers were in the hands of foreign concerns, by the late 1970s, these, alongwith the television networks, were devolved to local hands. As a result, they became morevaried, with views entertained from many different points of the ideational spectrum. In1977, a regional agency, the Caribbean News Agency (CANA), now defunct,41 was estab-lished to supplement the foreign agencies in distributing information on a wide variety ofinternational topics. Regional reports also began to appear regularly in most newspapers andon television by the 1970s as the Caribbean became more socially and culturally integrated.


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As skills and training opportunities for journalists opened up, local journalists and commen-tators, as well as guest commentators from abroad, expanded coverage of international andregional issues. Still, analysts have continued to note a relatively weak level of interest bypublics and by local media houses in regional and global rather than purely domestic affairs.

While the Internet has become widely available in the Caricom region, at least in urbanareas, it is used more as a source of information and intragroup debate than as a medium toinfluence governments themselves. On the other side of the coin, most governments havenot moved proactively to use the Internet as a way to provide information about foreign pol-icy positions and events to the local and external publics. In the early 2000s, in fact, the Websites of many Caricom states continued to provide only very basic information (see also thenext chapter).

Elite Opinion

In drawing up a chart of public opinion influence, one scholar notes that there are threechannels of influence: governments may influence the masses directly, or they may do sothrough elites; elites may influence both governments and masses; and masses may influencegovernments directly or through elites.42 It has been noted that in the Caricom region, pol-icy making tends to be top down, with little input even from opposition parties. But asreflected in the discussion of interest groups, there is some evidence that elite opinion has animpact on governments. This influence is not necessarily exerted only within groups: in thesesmall societies, elites are also likely to exert important indirect influence through their infor-mal social links with politicians. The smaller the state, the easier it is to exercise this typeof influence. Academic elites are sometimes invited to brief politicians or would-be politi-cians on issues, or politicians may attend lectures and participate in academic conferencesin which various points of view are aired. The relationship is somewhat uneasy, however,inasmuch as politicians often think that scholars are too theoretical and more importantly,too ideological, while scholars have often denigrated the politicians’ seemingly simplisticapproaches to policy.

Although the libraries within Ministries of Foreign Affairs are generally not well stocked,they usually do contain some locally produced academic reports and commissioned studies,and diplomats have been known to request copies of pertinent papers and articles from aca-demicians. Some ministries also maintain relatively close ties to the local universities whererelevant material is available. At the broadest level, Caribbean intellectual elites have oftenfounded political parties and groups that discuss foreign as well as domestic policy and haveput some pressure on ruling elites for change. Also, polls, initiated by those in the academicsector, have provided governments with better knowledge of changes in the popular mood.In addition, there is some, albeit small, “circulation” of elites, that phenomenon well knownin the more developed societies by which business and academic elites circulate into govern-ment and back.

The study of the effect of elite opinion on foreign policy is limited by the fact that exceptin the case of in-depth analyses of how particular decisions were made, the actual process bywhich general elite opinion is translated into policy cannot be ascertained. Analyses ofJamaican elites have shown that right after independence, the elite—business and political,opposition and ruling—were highly pro-West in cultural and political orientation and thatthis orientation declined remarkably, to be replaced by a third world orientation in the


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1970s. In the early 1980s, the attitude of the elites changed radically again to a pro-Westone.43 The assumption is made that Jamaica’s changes in foreign policy have been the prod-uct of changes in elite attitudes in general and not just in the attitudes of the ruling politicalelite. However, this assumption does not give the full picture, for while most influence ongovernments comes through the elites, it must not be forgotten that elite attitudes can some-times originate in the masses.

In the first place, knowledge of events in Jamaica suggests that the “mass” dimension wasimportant in engendering changes, in that the rise of Michael Manley was facilitated bysocietal disaffection reflected in growing unrest in the late 1960s and early 1970s.44

Similarly, mass action in Trinidad and Tobago in 1970 led to changes in both domestic andforeign policy. Even where unrest has not occurred, the general populace influences for-eign policy through electoral changes generated by public dissatisfaction, even thoughthis public dissatisfaction is usually based on domestic rather than foreign policies. In otherwords, elite influence has often merely reflected or responded to mass demands.

Second, the data on elite attitudes in Jamaica indicate that except for 1962, when therewas an elite consensus on the virtues of a pro-West policy, changes were, in fact, a reflectionof changes in attitudes on the part of the ruling elite only. The breakdown of changes for thepolitical elite shows an expected increase in the polarization of attitudes. In 1962, 71 percentof Jamaica Labor Party (JLP) elites and 82 percent of People’s National Party (PNP) elitespreferred a pro-West policy; in 1974, the percentages were 62 percent and 16 percent,respectively; and in 1982, 83 percent and 0 percent. No JLP elites chose a third world ornonaligned orientation in 1982, but 47 percent of PNP elites did, and another 18 percentchose these as their second choice.45 Since foreign policy orientations were not shared acrosspolitical groups, except for the 9 percent of JLP people and 18 percent of PNP elites whochose the category “self-interest” as their first choice of foreign policy preference, Jamaicanruling elites had no choice but to ignore their competitors in determining their foreign pol-icy. The figures are even more interesting for the business elite, which displayed a high degreeof consistency in its pro-West orientation—from 100 percent pro-West in 1962, to 71 per-cent in 1974, to 85 percent in 1982. Thus the changes in Jamaican foreign policy of the1970s were initiated against the preferences of the business elites. The conclusion has to bemade, therefore, that in Jamaica, at least up to the 1980s, the elites were only influential inso-far as their views conformed to the political orientations of the ruling elite. Of course, asnoted earlier, in the 1990s and 2000s, the independent influence of business elites has grownthroughout the region, and all governments now tend to view the business community moreas partners than as political pawns.

The elite studies also highlighted the fact that in Jamaica, it has been possible to initiateforeign policies that have not been approved by the business sectors. In the 1980s, this wassignificant in that it went against the tenets of dependency theory that posited the existenceof such close linkages between the ruling and business elites in peripheral countries that for-eign policy choices were inevitably favorable to the West.46 Even in the new era of pro-busi-ness policies, it still also suggests that the importance of business elites in Caribbean foreignpolicy is highly variable and dependent on government priority. The influence of business, asindeed of all interest groups, also varies according to the size of the country: the smaller thestate, the easier it has been for particularly favored groups, particularly business, or even aparticular business leader, to exert influence. But again, it should be borne in mind that the


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success of all influence depends on the ability to have an impact on the nation’s leader andhis advisers.

Local elites are not the only ones who have had an impact or attempted to have an impacton Caricom foreign policy. In small nations such as those of Caricom, the relationshipbetween external elites and government officials has been important. In the 1960s, JamesRosenau used the term “penetrated” system to define societies in which nonmembers partic-ipate “directly and authoritatively” in the decision-making process of other countries.47

While Rosenau is very specific about the “direct” nature of this participation, the conceptcould be extended to include indirect but highly influential means of pushing a country totake a particular decision. It is well known, for example, that U.S. ambassadors and othergovernment officials often make public statements intended to warn other governments thata particular strategy or the election of a certain individual would not be acceptable to theUnited States. To give an example, during the Bahamian elections in 1987, the then primeminister Pindling suggested that he might reappoint a former government official who hadbeen forced to resign amid charges of money laundering for a U.S. organized-crime figure.Reacting to this, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for the Caribbean interpolated,“You can’t expect the United States to ignore that. I don’t want to anticipate what action wewould take, but we are giving it a great deal of thought.”48 The official’s response was, giventhe nature of the U.S.-Bahamian relationship, obviously intended to strongly influence theoutcome of (in this case) a domestic issue. In the case of Jamaica, Prime Minister Seaga’s closecooperation with U.S. officials gave them great influence over Jamaica’s policy. On the otherside of the ideological fence, extremely close links developed between Maurice Bishop andCuban President Fidel Castro and between the two countries. There was evidence thatCuban government officials participated actively in Grenada’s decision making.49 In thesmall eastern Caribbean islands, the close relationships between the U.S., Canadian, and UKambassadors and the prime ministers and other major government personnel is often talkedabout by diplomats. Such ambassadors are often treated by local politicians as if they are gov-ernment ministers, and their views are given primary consideration. Also important has beenthe role of officials of the international financial institutions. Although these officials arenonpolitical, they exercise great influence through their surveys, reports, and recommenda-tions to governments.

The Caribbean Diaspora

Caribbean peoples are present in large numbers in Canada, the United Kingdom, and theUnited States, and as such have the potential to influence both their home and host coun-tries in a variety of ways. Their large numbers and continued interaction with the homecountry means that governments need to retain adequate services for them abroad; hence theubiquitous presence of Caribbean consulates and honorary consulates in these countries. Thediaspora has for long been a source of much-needed repatriated funds for some of theCaricom countries—in particular, Jamaica and the eastern Caribbean islands—and the needfor these funds has intensified with liberalization in the 1990s and 2000s. Remittances forJamaica alone amount to some 15 percent of the GDP.50 Therefore some governments haveopened channels of contact with these exiles and put measures in place to facilitate financial


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reinvestments in the home countries. Moreover, the diaspora can be a source of skills, advice,and political support. As elaborated later, several political parties have been supported for-mally or informally by groups abroad, and government officials, especially heads of govern-ment, as well as opposition leaders and candidates often consider it worth their while to visitwith the diaspora, not so much to secure votes—absentee balloting being prohibited in theregion, though some immigrants do return to the home country to vote—but rather to gainsymbolic as well as financial support. Beyond electioneering, high government officials usu-ally still find it useful to meet with nationals abroad, and diaspora groups, for their part, areinterested in securing access to politicians by inviting them to visit and, often, rewardingtheir visits with a variety of symbolic awards.

The diaspora also has the potential to influence officials in the adopted countries on mat-ters affecting the Caribbean. Changes over the years in northern immigration policies havepushed Caricom immigrants to become citizens of their adopted countries in order to ensurethe preservation of their civil and economic rights. Dual citizenship, allowed by Caricomcountries, has done much to remove the reluctance of Caricom nationals to assume a newcitizenship. As citizens of their adopted countries, they have the potential to engage in poli-tics in their new homeland, run for office, organize associational groups, and in the processto some degree influence policies relevant to the Caribbean. In the United States, for exam-ple, Caribbean constituencies and groups have attracted the attention of members of theCongressional Black Caucus, the National Association for the Advancement of ColoredPeople (NAACP), and prominent private lobbying groups such as TransAfrica. Moreover,some immigrants may actually be recruited or recruit themselves for political office at home,provided that the eligibility requirements are met. (However, to serve in a political positionat home or an ambassadorial position abroad, they normally would need to renounce theiracquired citizenship.)

Diasporas are also particularly helpful in promoting Caribbean culture and directly andindirectly influencing patterns of tourism. These are generally vibrant communities that haveestablished ethnic newspapers and formed community groups and alliances. They enthusias-tically disseminate Caribbean customs, cuisine, and culture abroad. Sometimes these groupsengage in political fundraising, but more often, it is humanitarian activities on behalf eitherof the home country or co-nationals in their adopted country that preoccupy them.

Notwithstanding the proliferation and vibrancy of diaspora groups, however, it is notclear that these groups have any major impact on actual policy making. That is to say, whilethey may be valued as cultural ambassadors and erstwhile financiers, there is little evidencethat their opinions matter strongly to Caricom politicians when decisions are being made,other than decisions about diaspora involvement itself. As suggested at the beginning of thissection, diaspora groups can be usefully divided into political groups that are organized alongparty lines and the larger number of social and functional groups, which are organized withnonpolitical inclusive membership, though they may not necessarily be devoid of politicalambition. (The special category of business groups—chambers of commerce and businesscouncils—was dealt with earlier in the discussion of the role of business as a social partner.)The social groups can be country-focused or Caribbean-wide: the former are ubiquitous andengage in cultural and humanitarian activities; the latter tend to be functionally focused, forexample, Caribbean health associations that are a tribute to the region’s prominence as asource of many nurses, doctors, and others trained in this sector. While the members of socialgroups can be quite partisan politically, the groups themselves are not politically focused.


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On the other hand, politically oriented groups may emphasize general support ratherthan specific advice and influence. For example, in New York, Grenada’s New National Party(NNP) has for some time had a support group that raises funds for the party but claims notto seek to advise the government in any official way. Individual members do have their ownpolitical links, however, and Grenada is one of the few Caricom countries that has drawn onthese individuals to fill political positions. A case in point is the fact that as of the early 2000s,three U.S. citizens had held the position of ambassador to the United Nations, and othershad served as consuls-general.

Much older than the NNP group is the Jamaican Progressive League (JPL), a pro–People’sNational Party group formed in New York in 1938. This group has not only raised substan-tial funds over the years, but it has also actively tried to influence policy. For instance, mem-bers claim that while Michael Manley was in power, the JPL sought through UN ambassadorAndrew Young to strengthen the bond between the Jamaican government and PresidentJimmy Carter. In doing so, it claimed some credit for opening up new bauxite markets in theUnited States. It also claimed to have helped improve tourism through various publicityefforts. Interestingly, the JPL apparently tried unsuccessfully to sensitize Manley to theUnited States’ deep concerns about his militant policies, but in this area its impact wasapparently minimal. The JPL has since continued to work for U.S. immigration andrelated reforms.

Immigration reform has also been a main concern of the Trinidad and Tobago Alliance,another New York–based group. In the 1980s, it also focused on promoting dual citizenshipfor Trinidadians, a goal that was achieved in 1988. This group has nonprofit status, whichlimits its political activity, and it confines itself to internal discussions and suggestions onpolicy matters while officially seeking to merely bring together Trinidadians andTobagonians of all political stripes. In practice, however, the group is proactive in joininginformally with more partisan groups and individuals and hosting key politicians visitingNew York.

The fundraising and morale-boosting performed by these groups, however, is not to beequated with major influence. In part, this is because of the uneven approaches of Caricomgovernments to the diaspora. Enthusiasm for the diaspora varies by country, with the smallerCaricom countries historically more involved and positive about the use of the diaspora inpromoting and helping their countries. Thus, many of the smaller countries have hired theirnationals abroad as consultants and have given some priority to their nationals in businesscontracts. In contrast, in some of the larger countries, tension exists between those “inside”and those “outside”; that is to say, governments and home societies often care little for theefforts to contribute by migrants whom they consider to be removed from their country’srealities, and less nationalistic than those who remained during difficult times. In a countrysuch as Trinidad and Tobago where the economy is not dependent on remittances, the dias-pora has been barely noted, except for the continual trek of returnees during the Carnival fes-tival and other tourist events. In other countries, governments, while appreciating theremittances and fundraising support the exiles provide, seem to be more interested in tap-ping the economic resources of the diaspora than in facilitating their return or their influenceon government policy. Moreover, as noted previously, most Caricom countries make it quitedifficult for their diasporas to vote or serve in key political capacities, since domicile require-ments have to be met. Guyana has reason to be particularly sensitive, given the abuse ofabsentee balloting in the era of Forbes Burnham.


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On the other hand, diasporas have also hurt their chances for effective lobbying of bothhome and host governments by their lack of organizational unity. Diaspora groups tend toorganize by nation not region, and the national groups do not usually collaborate with oneanother. Groups also tend to reflect political and ethnic divisions, even where their activitiesare supposed to be merely social. The most successful groups steer clear of politics and focusonly on cultural events. In the circumstances, attempts to form effective Caribbean-wide lob-bies have not been very successful to date: among the more promising U.S. groups was theCaribbean Action Lobby (founded by a Trinidadian, a Panamanian, and a Guyanese),51

which advocated in Washington on immigration and other issues but, as Douglas Paynenotes, “foundered amid internecine battles in the late 1980s and early 1990s when it tried tomake inroads in the racial rough-and-tumble of Democratic party politics in New York,where West Indians and African-Americans were increasingly at odds.”52 Another pan–WestIndian organization, the Institute of Caribbean Studies, established in Washington, DC, in1993 to promote Caribbean development and “to insert the diaspora into the U.S. policy-making process,”53 has lacked funding and manpower. Even informal attempts—sometimesunder the umbrella of one of the Caricom consulates—to bring together Caribbean groupshave not had lasting organizational results.

Special mention should be made here of the Haitian diaspora in the United States, whichbecame very active in the 1980s. Earlier Haitian migrants had formed social clubs in NewYork and Florida as well as a politically oriented group, the Haitian-American CitizensSociety in New York in 1968. However, political visibility for Haitian groups came as a resultof the issues stemming from the influx of refugees in the 1970s.54 Haitians then formedimmigrants-rights organizations funded with foundation support and help from theCongressional Black Caucus, two of the most influential being the Haitian Refugee Center(HRC), founded in Miami in 1975, and the National Coalition of Haitian Refugees/Rights(NCHR) founded in 1982.55 These groups worked to assist refugees in legal and resettlementmatters and to change U.S. policies that designated Haitians, in contrast to Cubans, as eco-nomic refugees subject to repatriation. Moreover, during the turbulent era of the 1980s and1990s, a large number of seemingly unrelated Haitian associations emerged in New York,Miami, and Washington, some engaged in humanitarian work, and all holding lectures anddemonstrations supporting one side or another in Haiti and planning for the post-crisisreconstruction of the country. Key groups and individuals participated in discussions withcongresspersons in Washington where the Congressional Black Caucus and the influentialTransAfrica Organization gave solid support for changes in Haiti. Hollywood fundraiserswere also held.56 All this lobbying initiated by the diaspora and supporters was successful inchanging U.S. policy on deportations and immediate return of refugees, but Haitian refugeeswere never given the automatic rights of Cubans fleeing that island. The intense lobbying,culminating in TransAfrica’s Randall Robinson’s initiation of a hunger strike, also persuadedthe United States to seek a military solution to the crisis in Haiti.

As the need of Caricom countries for both external economic and political support hasaccelerated in the 2000s, Caricom countries seem to be finally trying to reach out to the dias-pora. Until the early 2000s, Haiti was the only country to have any organized outreach, inthe form of a Ministry of Haitians Living Abroad. In 2004, Jamaica decided to initiate for-mal outreach at a successful diaspora conference co-hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairsand Foreign Trade and the University of the West Indies School of Business. A DiasporaFoundation and Advisory Board were established, with representatives in the United States,


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Canada, and the United Kingdom. The representatives’ role is to liaise between the commu-nity and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and to help develop an agenda of mutual benefitthat would include influencing the host country’s foreign policy.

In other countries, less formal efforts have been put in place. Guyana, for example, hasbeen mobilizing its diaspora in the United Kingdom to agitate against a new EU sugarregime. Both Guyana and the eastern Caribbean countries have moved more aggressively toestablish mechanisms to facilitate migrant investment and return of skills. Ambassadors andconsuls everywhere are spending more time and effort working with key community groups,especially business groups that might be helpful in promoting their countries’ viewpoints.

Finally, despite the late governmental realization of the possible benefits of workingwith the diaspora, Caricom has long benefited from immigrant successes. Individualssuch as Shirley Chisholm and Mervyn Dymally who both helped found the U.S.Congressional Black Caucus, Secretary of State Colin Powell, who openly talked abouthis Jamaican parents, and Valerie Amos, Britain’s minister of international development inthe early 2000s, have been viewed as helpful in bringing Caribbean as well as diaspora con-cerns to the attention of host governments.57 Apart from these prominent immigrants, anumber of Caribbean academics, researchers, and consultants have contributed as membersof think tanks or government or business agencies in the diaspora. Some Caribbean-bornpersons or persons of Caribbean heritage are also to be found occupying increasingly majorpositions in the foreign services of the developed nations.58

To summarize, Caricom foreign policy decisions are primarily taken within the contextof small size and the attendant needs generated by that reality. However, while foreign pol-icy decision making is constrained by this, it is also, overall, activist in outlook geared asmuch toward shaping the international environment as to reacting to it. One effect ofsmallness as well as institutional history is that decision making is geared toward the pref-erences of individual leaders. Nevertheless, as foreign policy becomes more focused on abroad range of issues with domestic reach, leaders’ political space for maneuvering is beingnarrowed. The environment of decision making in Caricom states is therefore becomingmuch more complex.


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CHAPTER 7

The Conduct and Managementof Caricom Foreign Policy

Caricom policy making, including foreign policy making, has traditionally carried astrong executive stamp. However, the need for skilled foreign policy bureaucrats andfor an efficiently managed diplomatic machinery has grown as Caricom countries

have become more aware of and embroiled in the increasingly complex international envi-ronment. In earlier chapters, it was noted that small states, constrained by limited resources,have found it useful to work collectively to achieve economic and diplomatic goals. Yet,despite policy and strategic advances in regional and intra–global south collaboration, themanagement of foreign policy in the Caricom region remains highly nationalistic and idio-syncratic. Financial and human resource limitations have been major constraints on the effi-ciency and effectiveness of the foreign policy bureaucracy. Beyond that, what distinguishesthese small states from larger ones is the fact that the operations of foreign ministries are verytied to the executive’s perception of their usefulness and willingness to invest in improve-ments in infrastructure and skills. It is true that what small states lack in numbers andfinances they have somewhat countered by diplomatic skill. The visibility of Singapore’sdiplomats is an example of this. But within Caricom, despite the skill exhibited by indi-vidual diplomats and the region’s overall successes (considering its size) in placing its diplo-mats in relatively high international offices, diplomatic services have been plagued byproblems both human—that is, shortages of trained personnel—and technological. Interms of the latter, clearly one important development for small states has been the adventof new forms of diplomacy triggered by communications advances. Yet by the first decadeof the 2000s, Caricom states were lagging in the proactive use of information technologyas a tool of diplomacy. This chapter examines the nature of the diplomatic machinery inCaricom states as well as various factors that hinder or facilitate the effective management oftheir foreign policies.

Diplomatic Infrastructure

Even though the complexity of the diplomatic infrastructure clearly depends on the size andfinancial resources of the state, a more important factor driving the effectiveness of the

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Caricom foreign policy bureaucracy has been the level of support given by government lead-ers to the diplomatic services. It is appropriate to point out that in all the English-speakingCaricom countries, foreign affairs units were initially established—either before indepen-dence, as was the case with Trinidad and Tobago, or immediately after, as was the case in mostother countries—as units within the prime minister’s office. Prime ministers therefore bore themajor responsibility for foreign affairs. Later, independent foreign ministries were developed,but their growth was often stymied by the reluctance of the executive to invest too much inthe foreign services, in some cases because of wariness of the elitist character of this bureau-cracy, in others because of preference for the more development-oriented bureaucracies.

The foreign ministries of the larger Caricom countries are not surprisingly more func-tionally complex than their counterparts in the smaller eastern Caribbean countries, but theyare still organized relatively simply by global standards. Although each ministry is structuredslightly differently, they are normally sectioned to deal with general political and economicissues, international trade (a specific area whose prominence dates from the turn to exportpromotion in the 1980s), legal issues, protocol and consular matters, administrative issues,and information (see Figure 7.1 for the Jamaican example). The political-economic sectionis usually further subdivided by geographic sectors and also handles multilateral arrange-ments, including the United Nations, Organization of American States (OAS), internationalfinancial institutions, African-Caribbean-Pacific Group and European Union, LatinAmerica, Caricom itself, the Association of Caribbean States, and hemispheric trade.1 Thelegal divisions were strengthened to focus on marine affairs during the protracted law of thesea negotiations of the 1970s. Aviation (in the Jamaica case) and counterterrorism issues area more recent addition given international concerns about security. The protocol and consularsectors deal with diplomatic arrangements for conferences and visits, as well as with passports,visas, and other matters affecting nationals abroad, and residence and citizenship require-ments. One of the main developments in this sector in the 1990s and 2000s has been theincreased attention to diasporic affairs reflected in the creation of the Jamaican OverseasDepartment, Barbados’ Facilitation Unit for Returning Nationals, and Guyana’s RemigrationOffice. (Haiti has gone further in establishing a complete ministry devoted to Haitians liv-ing abroad.) Finally, the administrative unit deals with accounts, personnel, promotions andtransfers, and matters relating to the rules and regulations of the service, and the informationor media division is charged with publicity and communications and usually includes a cul-tural section and library services.

In addition to the above, Guyana has a frontiers division that deals with the continuingborder problems with both Venezuela and Suriname; Trinidad and Tobago (in the past) andGuyana have focused on science and technology, the former through a ministry section, thelatter through the Applied Science and Technology Institute linked to the foreign ministry;the Bahamas has established a crime and drugs subsection; Jamaica has an integrated policyplanning mechanism; and Guyana and Jamaica have addressed their manpower needsthrough foreign ministry–based Foreign Service Institutes.

In the matter of trade, notwithstanding the assumption of that portfolio by many foreignministries, matters concerning international economics have traditionally been dealt withmore thoroughly by technicians within other relevant ministries. In the 1980s there wasmore recognition of the role foreign ministries could play “as a link between local Ministries,Agencies and private firms and the international intergovernmental organisations . . . gearedto disseminate information and provide technical assistance and advisory services in export



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Figure 7.1 Structure of the Jamaican foreign ministrySource: Jamaican Ministry of Foreign Affairs

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promotion and development.”2 However, the uncertainty as to whether foreign affairsshould be entrusted with such an important technical area was reflected in the continuallinking and delinking of foreign ministries to foreign trade operations throughout the 1980sand 1990s. Almost all the larger Caricom countries at some point moved foreign trade backto other economic ministries, although many returned the portfolio to foreign affairs by theend of the 1990s.

Overall, the range of issues dealt with by the ministries of the larger countries points toresponsiveness to the increasing complexity of the international environment. However, asmore divisions and issues have emerged, the capacity of staffs has been strained, both interms of quantity and quality—the latter because staffs continue to be trained too heavily asgeneralists rather than specialists and technicians. In addition, adequate information aboutglobal developments is not always easily available, technological advancements notwith-standing. In many cases, financial or staff constraints limit the stocking of libraries. Wherelibraries exist in reasonable shape, the advanced technologies they may now provide tend tobe underused, especially by the older staff members. Also, neither the diplomatic nor theadministrative staffs are assigned, or have the necessary time, to do research activities, andas long as this is the case, the bureaucracy’s role will remain one of implementation andcoordination, with little input—via reports and studies—into the actual formulation offoreign policy.

One would expect that with the wide availability of the Internet and the identification byall Caricom governments of information technology (IT) as a priority, foreign ministry staffwould have more ready access to information and that this tool would be used to disseminateinformation in a timely manner both within headquarters and with the outside. However,this does not appear to be the case. Traditional methods of work predominate within the ser-vices. It is true that in response to the need to disseminate information to other countries andagencies as well as the interested public, almost all Caricom foreign ministries establishedWeb sites in the 1990s. However, these Web sites vary in usefulness, with Jamaica andBarbados offering a relatively high amount of information about foreign policy goals andprocedures, but many others plagued by broken links and limited and often dated informa-tion. The need for trained IT professionals at the foreign ministries has still not been met inthe early 2000s, with most work being outsourced, often to foreign-based agents. Foreignministry Web sites should be distinguished from those of other key government agencies, inparticular the prime minister’s or president’s office, which appear to be far better servicedthan foreign ministries. It should be added that some countries, for example Haiti, seem tocompensate for poor headquarters coverage with greater dissemination of informationthrough key embassies, particularly those at the United Nations and Washington. While themere location of these sites makes them more technically reliable, they cannot be expected tosubstitute for the more complex and detailed information that should be emanating fromheadquarters. On the positive side, foreign ministries seem to be aware of their technologicallimitations, and by the early 2000s, most Caricom countries were in the incipient stages ofdeveloping stronger IT applications in foreign policy. In this regard, the United NationsDevelopment Program’s sustainable development program IT network has been helpful tosome in initiating their outreach.

The rationality of the organization of the ministries must be considered an important fac-tor in facilitating their efficiency. In the larger foreign ministries, there is laddered manage-ment: at the top is the permanent secretary, at the second level are the heads of the various


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divisions, and the diplomatic as well as administrative staffs occupy the third level. The polit-ical-economic division has traditionally been larger than others, creating some organizationalimbalance. Many ministries have dealt with this by subdividing the division into sectionswith separate directorships. More problematic has been the overburdening of the permanentsecretary, who is responsible for both administration—including control over appointments(except ambassadors), promotions, and transfers—and policy oversight. In part, this hasbeen dealt with by the appointment of highly experienced senior officers as deputy perma-nent secretaries; by creating two permanent secretaries—one for administration, one for pol-icy (Guyana and, in the past, Trinidad and Tobago); and by decentralizing and devolvingdecision making to the under-secretary or directorship levels. Still, questions about the divi-sion of responsibilities and managerial versus diplomatic training continue to create prob-lems in many ministries.

A less easily addressed problem is the organizational uncertainty caused by regime change,that is to say, both changes in government and changes within the government. Until the late1980s, many Caricom states had experienced few elite changes because of the long life ofpostcolonial regimes. Since the 1980s, however, as governments have rapidly changed, sohave foreign ministers, ambassadors, and the patronage-dependent career prospects of thetop strata of the foreign service, not to mention executive perceptions of the scope of foreignministries. New regimes mean new ministers with varying abilities and training in foreignaffairs. Sometimes regime change or shifts within regimes also bring changes in the ministry’sportfolios as well: for example, the changes in the ministry’s portfolios already mentionedwith respect to the incorporation of trade came about because of changes in the politicalregime, with each government trying to do something new. As a somewhat extreme example,in Trinidad and Tobago, the ministry of external affairs came to incorporate tourism andinternational marketing after a political change in 1987, but no more than six months later,tourism was dropped so that energies could be concentrated on international trade. After aperiod in the 1990s during which trade was removed, the ministry was merged with enter-prise development and tourism, only to return to simply foreign affairs after a change of gov-ernment in 2002. Lastly, government changes can bring with them personnel and personaluncertainties caused by changes in patronage, leading to declining morale. Furthermore, toomany structural changes can lead to disorganization in the foreign services.

A final problem for the foreign ministries of all Caricom countries, both large and small,is inadequate coordination with other ministries. In the smaller countries, the problems areunique, grounded in excessive competitiveness among ministries, but in the larger countries,the coordination problems have less to do with competitiveness and more to do with orga-nizational deficiencies. In Chapter 6, it was noted that the increasingly technical nature offoreign policy has brought into foreign affairs many agencies other than external or foreignaffairs departments. Among the agencies involved are agriculture, trade, commerce,health, and energy ministries, as well as the office of the prime minister, which either con-sults with other ministries or exercises its inherent authority, depending on the demandsof the situation. Back in the 1970s, it was pointed out that in Trinidad and Tobago, “someministries view the Ministry of External Affairs as a post office to which information shouldbe sent after all action has already been taken.” This was blamed on jealousy among person-nel, on the belief that the foreign ministry does not have the expertise to be part of otherministries’ decisions, and on the general lack of interministerial coordination mechanisms.3

Jealousy among personnel apart, the other factors still appear pertinent in the 2000s and can

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in fact be generalized to the rest of the region. In most instances, other so-called line min-istries take their foreign policy initiatives without special consultation or coordination withthe foreign ministry. Reports may be passed along to be filed, but in many cases, the foreignministry does not even act as a clearinghouse. While it is unrealistic (and not even desirablegiven staffing concerns) to expect that all external initiatives of all ministries should be con-ducted through the foreign ministry, certainly greater efforts at the coordination of majorinitiatives would result in greater efficiency in the conduct of foreign policy.

The bureaucracies of the smaller Caribbean territories have somewhat different charac-teristics from those of the larger countries and therefore deserve separate discussion. Mostclaim to be functionally specific, usually divided along the same basic lines as the largerbureaucracies. But the range of matters handled is considerably smaller than in the largercountries, and for many states, the divisions exist only in theory because inadequate staffingprecludes specialization. In general there have been fewer than a dozen people in these for-eign offices, with the strongest division being the administrative.

The problem in all these small states is not just inadequate staffing, but also uncertaintiesas to the role the foreign ministries are expected to play. Foreign ministries are clearinghousesrather than agencies performing crucial coordinating and advisory roles. Eastern Caribbeangovernments, in particular, tend to believe that because the most important area of foreignpolicy is the economic area, and these issues are handled by the technical ministries, the for-eign ministry is almost irrelevant. In the 1980s, the prime ministers of Saint Lucia and St.Vincent and the Grenadines openly espoused this view and reduced the staff and status of theministry. (The view is not exclusive to the smaller countries: in the 1990s, the prime minis-ter of more developed Trinidad and Tobago also expressed the view that foreign ministry per-sonnel were not trained for the specialized work needed for a country hoping to achieve firstworld status).4 In a previous chapter, it was noted that the importance of trade and financehas been reflected in the fact that most prime ministers in the eastern Caribbean have heldthe finance portfolio or have given it to trusted deputies. This situation has tended to aggra-vate competitiveness between the foreign ministries and the ministries of trade and financein that there are normally no special provisions for coordination of policy between the twoareas beyond the fact that international economics has now become a fundamental concernof even the most traditional diplomatic services in developing countries. Foreign affairs per-sonnel are apt to complain that the economic ministries are taking initiatives without con-sultation with them and merely using them whenever convenient. In the smaller states, thishas tended to develop into a zero-sum situation where one ministry has been upgraded andgiven more visibility at the expense of the other. These attitudes have since moderated some-what as foreign ministry personnel have tried to become the vanguard for the promotion ofinvestment and trade links. Yet there still remains a reluctance by the political directorate inmany countries to invest more resources in the ministry.

One somewhat positive aspect in the smaller territories is that permanent secretariesappear to have more independence in administrative and minor policy matters than do theircounterparts in the larger countries. Ironically, this is especially the case where the ministerin charge—prime minister or foreign minister—holds multiple portfolios, simply because,with limited staff, he or she is too overburdened to deal with anything but major problemsaffecting the different ministries overseen. But the independence of the permanent secre-taries in these countries has to be balanced against the fact that they are often likely to bebypassed in policy advising because of a lack of immediate access and visibility. However, this


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particular multiple-portfolio problem has improved in the late 1990s and 2000s because for-eign affairs portfolios are at least increasingly coupled with other similar ones (at the time ofwriting, foreign affairs and trade, for example, in Grenada, Dominica, and Saint Lucia, orforeign affairs and legal issues, in Belize). In theory, this should also diminish the intermin-isterial coordination problem mentioned earlier. Still in some cases, ministerial portfoliosremain strangely unrelated —as an example, foreign affairs has been coupled with educationin St. Kitts-Nevis, and with public service in the Bahamas, which is, of course, one of themore developed countries. In the case of Antigua and Barbuda, in the early 2000s, the primeminister was overseeing more than twenty diverse areas, only three of which were related toforeign affairs: foreign affairs, Caricom/OECS affairs, and overseas representation portfolios.

Any discussion of the diplomatic infrastructure must also include the role of theembassies of Caricom states. In Chapter 5, it was pointed out that Caricom countries main-tain a relatively small number of embassies, the number ranging in the early 2000s fromtwenty-five for Haiti and fourteen for Jamaica to five or six for most of the easternCaribbean. This, of course, in itself limits the international effectiveness of these countries,but it can be countered by adequate representation in multilateral forums and by deployingsuitably skilled personnel, as discussed in the next section. Still, the small size of theembassies and missions precludes organizational complexity. The staff of the embassies of thelargest Caricom countries usually comprises the ambassador, a minister and deputy, one ortwo counselors, a first secretary, one or two second secretaries or a third secretary, and a fewattachés. Comparing this to the missions of developed countries, there is a similar structurein terms of hierarchy, but there is more specialization of the staff in different technical areas.Understandably, financial limitations prohibit this for Caricom states. Moreover, given theirsmall size, Caricom embassies are quite loosely organized, and while the loose hierarchy maynot automatically lead to ineffective decision making, the informality in some cases gives theimpression of a lack of coordination and efficiency.

The main structural difference between the larger and smaller states in overseas operationshas been the inability of the smaller states to provide individually all the facilities needed foreffective representation. As mentioned in Chapter 5, eastern Caribbean countries have triedto overcome this problem by establishing joint missions in London, Ottawa, and Brussels.The intent was to share both facilities and representation, that is, share one ambassador. Butif the sharing of facilities was relatively easy, the appointment of a regional ambassador car-ried the risk of displeasing one or more constituent members, and this, coupled with the pullof nationalism, led to the disbanding of the London arrangement. By the same token, thedecision to share only facilities in Washington proved to be highly effective. At the UnitedNations, after financial and staffing difficulties led to the closing of the Dominican missionin 1986, Belize and the eastern Caribbean states, excluding Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts-Nevis, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, agreed to a Commonwealth proposal that offeredtemporary funding of certain shared facilities (for example, a common reception area andlibrary) and basic staff at the United Nations. In the 2000s, Dominica and Saint Lucia con-tinue to share some facilities. On the whole, collective arrangements, whatever the degree ofsharing, make a great deal of sense and are beneficial in helping to counteract some of thestructural limitations of small states. On the other hand, considerable effort and will areneeded for these initiatives to be successful. These arrangements are also limited to a few cru-cial geographic areas.


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In all countries, the efficiency of the foreign service also depends on the clarity and easeof communications among the various units involved. The implementation of policy deci-sions calls for both diplomatic and managerial expertise, and here the major role is played bypermanent secretaries who head the administrative staff of the various ministries, includingthe foreign ministry. Permanent secretaries should ideally be active advisers and intermedi-aries between their staffs and the ministers in charge, but on the whole the advisory functionis subordinated to the mediation and coordination role. In some Caricom countries, thechance to advise on foreign policy comes through a Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) of cab-inet, one of the interministerial committees composed of senior civil servants as well as seniorcabinet ministers who discuss the issues and then send their opinions on to the cabinet.However, the level of formality of the committee (where it exists and functions) and its min-isterial composition vary by country. In some countries it is a permanent committee that mayinclude representatives from the Foreign Affairs, Customs, Agriculture, Finance, Legal, andother pertinent departments. In the smaller islands, the arrangement tends to be more infor-mal and the composition narrower. In most countries, however, the committees meet irreg-ularly at best, and when they do meet, their suggestions are not necessarily given carefulconsideration in the making of final decisions, especially those with a major impact. Morelikely, the decision is made by the prime minister on the basis of political and personal con-siderations as well as advice solicited from outside the bureaucracy.

In fact, the permanent secretary of the foreign ministry tends to play a role only at the pre-liminary stage, before the minister takes his or her proposals to the cabinet or to the FAC.The extent of this role depends on the relationship between the foreign minister and the per-manent secretary. Generally speaking, the contacts between the permanent secretary and theforeign minister are ad hoc rather than regularized, often with the secretary taking the initia-tive to approach the minister. Thus decision making from the top down is therefore rein-forced. Permanent secretaries who overreach by attempting to exert influence withoutspecific ministerial sanction are almost certain to be dismissed or moved to another position.As for the rest of the foreign ministry staff other than the permanent secretary, their input isthrough the permanent secretary and before that, through division heads, where these exist.Generalizing across all states, regular institutionalized meetings between minister and staff,other than the permanent secretary, seem to be somewhat rare, these being conductedinstead on an “as needed” basis. Permanent secretaries, too, seem to prefer one-to-one con-tacts with staff rather than many formal meetings. On the whole, it is in the smaller coun-tries that the higher-level staff are more likely to feel comfortable about approaching theministers directly with a foreign policy initiative.

In terms of communication between headquarters and the diplomats and staff abroad,ambassadors vary in the degree to which they perceive themselves to be (or actually are) con-strained in making independent decisions. The more seasoned and self-assured the diplomat,the more likely the person is to use her or his own initiative. Before making major decisionsor giving key speeches, all ambassadors are required to clear their positions with the ministryat home, but this rule seems to be loosely applied. As to the lines of communication, careerambassadors generally try to be circumspect and correct in screening their ideas through thepermanent secretaries or section directors who then can take issues up with the foreign min-isters. Depending on how secure they feel and on the nature of the issue at hand, they taketheir own proactive measures to deal with an international issue, but most tend to be rela-tively shy in this regard. There are, however, some ministries that are so dysfunctional that


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senior ambassadors feel forced to communicate directly to the staff of other ministries or tothe foreign minister or other ministers (with communications simply copied to the foreignministry), in order to garner timely attention to a pressing matter. On the other hand, polit-ical appointees, including almost all the ambassadors of the smaller countries, usually enjoydirect access to high party officials and politicians and may bypass permanent secretaries incommunicating their views to the top.

Within the missions—to generalize across the states in our study—heads or ambassadorstend not to schedule regular meetings with staff but instead to schedule them as the occasiondemands. Thus a broad sense of the mission’s strategic objectives may not be achieved. Forexample, at the UN missions, more meetings are naturally held during the convening of theGeneral Assembly than at other times. Again, ambassadors seem to meet instead with indi-vidual staff members; so, given the small size of the missions, efficiency depends rather heav-ily on interpersonal factors.

Finally, effective communication and coordination should be global in scope, that is,among ambassadors and between them and the senior home staff, and the minister if possi-ble. Regular meetings of all these individuals can provide opportunities for the constantreassessment of foreign policy goals and strategies. Some larger Caricom countries attempt todo this by scheduling review meetings between all ambassadors and the home staff, especiallythe permanent secretary. However, these meetings have not usually been held on a regularbasis, and often the attendance is only partial. In Guyana, heads of mission conferences havebeen held fairly often, but there is evidence that they do not produce meaningful results.Unless the discussions and reports presented at these conferences are submitted to the foreignminister and lead to changes or improvements in policy and policy implementation, themeetings will simply be viewed by participants as paid vacations home rather than as crucialchannels facilitating involvement in policy making.

Bureaucratic Limitations on Effective Policy Making: An Example5

In order to clarify the impact on decision making of the problems described in the previoussection, I have chosen to focus briefly on some of the bureaucratic difficulties encounteredover time in one of the small states, Saint Lucia. Saint Lucia is a pivotal state among the east-ern Caribbean islands. Since the 1980s, it has played a relatively active role in foreign policyconsidering its size, hosting several important regional and hemispheric conferences, begin-ning with the OAS General Assembly of 1981 and the Caricom summit of 1987. Saint Luciahosts the headquarters of the OECS. It is a member of most major international organiza-tions. Its consistent representation at the United Nations was rewarded in 2003 by the elec-tion of its permanent representative to the presidency of the General Assembly, a first forsuch a tiny nation. Yet, as we will see, the foreign ministry has struggled for bureaucratic pri-ority in Saint Lucia.

Because foreign relations were the last realm of competence that colonial powers handedover to newly independent nations, there was a significant lack of machinery and skills in for-eign affairs in the period immediately following independence.6 The Caricom states were noexception to this, but the transition was less abrupt than for many other emerging nations.In most cases, departments of external affairs were established within the prime minister’s


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office just before or after independence. Moreover, for the eastern Caribbean countries, alimited external competence had existed under the associated statehood agreement with theUnited Kingdom. Associated states were given authority to apply for membership in inter-national organizations of which the United Kingdom was a member, to negotiate tradeagreements and send and receive visits for commercial purposes, to negotiate aid agreementswith the United States and members of the Commonwealth, to sign agreements relating toemigration, and to negotiate agreements of local concern. Specific competence was grantedfor the negotiation of the Caricom agreement. Although none of this could be equated withthe grant of true international responsibility, at least the seeds were planted for the growth ofthe organizational and policy structure.

As was the case in almost all the Caribbean countries, Saint Lucia’s limited internationalrelations were handled before and just after independence by the prime minister’s office. Infact, after independence in February 1979, Prime Minister John Compton assumed the port-folio of minister of external affairs. In July 1979, a new government came to power, headedby Allan Louisy of the Saint Lucia Labor Party. Deputy Prime Minister George Odlum thenbecame minister of external affairs, as well as of trade, industry, and tourism. At that time, aseparate ministry of external affairs was created, headed by an assistant secretary, pendingappointment of a permanent secretary.

The first problem for the ministry, in terms of its influence on the decision-makingprocess, was its physical location next to the prime minister’s office and across town from theforeign minister’s office located in the ministry of trade. The significance of this was that thechannels of communication remained between the prime minister and foreign affairs staffrather than between the foreign minister and his staff. Between 1979 and 1982, Saint Luciaunderwent a high level of elite instability. An agreement between Louisy and Odlum that theformer would step down as prime minister after six months was refuted by Louisy. Accordingto analysts, Louisy had the support of the party executive but his cabinet was divided.7 In theensuing battle for power, Louisy abolished the post of deputy prime minister and redistrib-uted Odlum’s ministries, other than the external affairs portfolio. However, continuing fric-tion and social unrest eventually led to Louisy’s resignation, while Odlum left to form hisown party. The interim government of Winston Cenac was dissolved in January 1982, andan interim coalition government was formed. This government was voted out of power andJohn Compton returned as prime minister and foreign minister in May 1982.

These governmental changes were reflected in changes in the foreign policy bureaucracy’sorganizational structure. Under the Cenac government, Odlum’s foreign affairs portfolio wasassumed by a former agriculture minister, Peter Josie, who also became minister of trade. Theforeign ministry was moved to the trade building just before Saint Lucia hosted a major OASmeeting in 1981. A permanent secretary was finally appointed, and communication betweenthe foreign minister and his staff improved. Interestingly, it was an external event, the OASassembly, that served as a catalyst for the rationalization of the organization of the ministry.Considerations of image led to greater interest in the fate of the foreign ministry.

The governmental unrest of 1979 to 1982 did not affect the day-to-day activities regard-ing Saint Lucia’s foreign policy because the technocrats remained in place both at home andabroad. In fact, the political problems placed the technocrats at the center of decision mak-ing. According to the data presented in Chapter 5, Saint Lucia’s activity at the UnitedNations, for example, improved between 1979 and 1981: it was absent 116 times in its first


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year of membership (1979), but only 34 times in 1980 and 22 times in 1981. Absences did,however, worsen in 1982 (76 absences) when a new government took over.

The return of John Compton, who had served as prime minister for fifteen years until1980, represented a return to the dominance of the prime minister in foreign policy decisionmaking. Indicative of this was his assumption of the important portfolios of finance, foreignaffairs, home affairs, and planning. The foreign ministry remained located in the trade build-ing, whereas the prime minister operated out of government headquarters. The lines of com-munication were reorganized, working again to distance the foreign minister from his staff.In the absence of close communications—by 1986, the prime minister had reportedly visitedthe foreign ministry only twice—the permanent secretary was forced to use his initiative inmaking day-to-day decisions. But major decisions remained the prerogative of the primeminister. For example, when the prime minister was planning to visit West Germany andFrance in 1985, the foreign ministry learned about it through a political officer of the U.S.embassy to the eastern Caribbean and through the West German ambassador’s inquiries as tothe nature of the visit. In another example, the prime minister took the decision to invite thepope to Saint Lucia in 1986 in consultation with the local church but without informing theministry. The prime minister also approved the appointment of a lobbyist in Washingtonwithout any input from the ministry. In 1987, Neville Cenac took over the foreign affairsportfolio, which subsequently devolved on George Mallet. However, Compton remained thedominant figure.8

The failure to tap bureaucratic expertise led to a lack of policy coordination. Thus, forexample, on the issue of relations with then revolutionary Nicaragua, the prime ministeropposed the foreign ministry’s stance against U.S. sanctions. While the prime minister wasconcerned about relations with the United States, the foreign ministry’s concern was—atleast partly—that sanctions against Nicaragua could lead to its flooding of the market withbananas, Saint Lucia’s chief export. Both stances were supportable, but on such an importantissue, greater discussion between the foreign ministry and the prime minister’s office was cer-tainly to be expected.

Like many other small states, Saint Lucia’s ambassadors have been primarily politicalappointees. Given Compton’s personalized style of governing, the advice of these appointeesoften superseded the advice given by the foreign service bureaucrats. For example, the ambas-sador to London’s opinion was particularly important in the decision not to establish diplo-matic relations with the Soviet Union. The advice of the ambassadors to the United Statesand Canada also appeared to supersede any contrary advice given by the ministry. Again, thecoalescing of the prime minister and foreign minister portfolios meant that potential foreignaffairs personnel were absorbed into the prime minister’s office, not the foreign office. Andbecause the prime minister was also in charge of finance and planning, the department thathandled all important aid projects, the foreign ministry was reduced to protocol functions.

At the time, Saint Lucia’s prime minister reportedly said that he opposed “posturing” onthe international stage, and during his 1982 election campaign, he talked about closing theUN mission (fortunately this did not come to pass). He resisted the demands from the min-istry for more staff and instead instituted cutbacks. There was a rational basis for theseactions: given Saint Lucia’s relative lack of financial and other resources, it had to operatewith a certain austerity. In addition, since Prime Minister Compton saw his country as vig-orously pro-West, it was logical to focus on a few Western embassies rather than seek diver-sification. Moreover, because Saint Lucia needed and still needs to emphasize economic


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development, it makes sense to focus on aid and trade and to employ the technicians in thefinance and trade ministries to the greatest advantage. The point, then, is not so muchwhether the policy made sense but rather whether the decision-making process was effective.The downplaying of the foreign ministry meant that the main channel of external informa-tion and coordination was lost. The permanent secretary did not play the necessary screen-ing role, and important feedback information was absent. Since the bureaucratic role inforeign affairs was downplayed, foreign operations became dependent on the vagaries of pol-itics. Clearly, very small states need to have foreign policy structures that are proportional totheir size. But perhaps more so than in larger countries, small states need to work towardrationalizing their foreign policy bureaucracies in order to promote maximum efficiencyunder conditions of resource and personnel scarcity.

The problems in Saint Lucia were eased somewhat in the 1990s. In 1996, Vaughan Lewistook over as prime minister and minister of foreign affairs as well as minister of finance, plan-ning, and development. Although Lewis was well versed in regional and external affairs asformer director of the OECS and as a former university professor, he was handicapped bypolitical uncertainties and not helped by the meshing of the finance and foreign ministries.His short tenure ended in 1997 with the election victory of the Saint Lucia Labor Party.Prime Minister Kenny Anthony retained the finance portfolio while handing over foreignaffairs to two seasoned political veterans between 1997 and 2003, first to George Odlum(former foreign minister and ambassador to the United Nations) and later to Sir JulianHunte, former leader of Anthony’s ruling party. The appointment of Odlum accompaniedmoves to elevate Saint Lucia’s status in foreign affairs, with significant initiatives madetoward China, Cuba, and Libya. However, Odlum’s independent decisions eventually led tohis dismissal in 2001. A period of relative calm followed as Saint Lucia sought greater visi-bility in international affairs. The new attitude toward foreign affairs, the greater elevation ofthe foreign ministry, and the appointment of more experienced personnel to ambassador-ships paid off in terms of the country’s increased status at the United Nations. However, thereturn to power of the United Workers Party under John Compton in December 2006 onceagain raised new uncertainties about the direction of the country’s foreign affairs. (Comptonlater resigned because of ill health.)

Personnel Issues

Except for Haiti, where so many trained Haitians have felt essentially forced to leave thecountry, the Caricom region is generally viewed as fortunate in having a good pool of rela-tively well-trained human resources, notwithstanding long-standing patterns of migration tothe developed countries. Literacy levels are high, and primary, secondary, and higher educa-tion are relatively accessible compared to other developing countries. But when Britainpulled out of the English-speaking states, and the Netherlands out of Suriname, these stateshad little experience in the handling of external relations and so there were few personnelspecifically skilled in international relations. None of the countries lacked pools of potentialdiplomats, either experienced civil servants or young persons with higher-education degrees,but the smaller the country, the smaller the pool, so that the early years after independencewere a time when the region, particularly the smaller states, scrambled to catch up.


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Nevertheless, the English-speaking Caribbean states were able to draw particularly from asmall number of individuals who had previously worked with the West Indies Federation,the Eastern Caribbean Commission, and the West Indies Associated States (WISA) secre-tariat. These persons either substituted experience for formal training or else were quicklysent for additional diplomatic training abroad. Typical of the first type would be the perma-nent secretary of one smaller state who had no direct training in diplomacy but whose fed-eral experience led to jobs as personal assistant to the governor, then assistant to the highcommissioner to Caricom, and finally to permanent secretary in the ministry of externalaffairs. Of the second type, Basil Ince wrote, regarding his country, that

Trinidad and Tobago benefitted from the demise of the Federation since the short-livedFederal Government had begun to train candidates for its prospective diplomatic service.Those Trinidad and Tobago candidates who had benefitted from diplomatic trainingbecame the nucleus of the career diplomats in the Ministry of External Affairs. Theirtraining, which included stints at universities in North America and Europe, was sup-ported by attachments in British Embassies and Consulates, in such diverse locations asItaly, Brazil, England, Spain and Australia. Since the training of individuals slated foremployment in the External Affairs offices is an expensive proposition, many candidatesreceived their training with the financial support of interested non-governmental organi-zations in North America. Thus the new Ministry’s composition included senior civil ser-vants, the nucleus from the Federal days and lower-level recruits, some of whom camefrom other civil service departments.9

Gerald Samuel made similar observations about Barbados, where the process of establishinga ministry was somewhat more hurried than in Trinidad and Tobago. (In Trinidad andTobago, an external affairs division was established in the prime minister’s office a full yearbefore independence.) In the four months between independence and the establishment ofthe ministry of external affairs, Barbados cast around for suitable diplomatic personnel:

Barbados possessed a relatively large number of university graduates in its well-developedgovernment service. Several public servants who worked in senior posts in Ministries exist-ing much longer than the Ministry of External Affairs were transferred to help form thenucleus of the new foreign ministry. These local civil servants and personnel from the WestIndies Federation and the Eastern Caribbean Commission coupled with politiciansrecruited from among the senior ranks of the ruling Democratic Labour Party member-ship comprised the core staff of the Barbados Ministry of External Affairs.10

In the larger countries, the foreign service was created as a parallel unit to the civil service,but in the smaller countries, foreign service personnel maintained civil service ranks.Especially where the foreign service was a separate track, the recruitment process tended tobe far from professionalized as candidates competed for what was seen as an elite arm of thecivil service. Given the small size of these countries and the prevalence of patronage politics,ascriptive criteria (social connections) were determining factors in job hiring in general, andthe foreign service in particular. Social status and correct political links were particularlyimportant and to a large extent have remained so in the 2000s, even though foreign serviceshave put achievement measures in place. In the smaller countries, the application of ascrip-tive norms did not necessarily work to the exclusion of qualified people, given the small pool


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of qualified applicants to begin with. However, in larger countries, the problem was moreserious, with many qualified individuals turned away in favor of others with political con-nections. In all countries, after the initial recruitment of seasoned bureaucrats, recruitmentwas limited to persons with university degrees, usually in languages, economics, internationalrelations, political science, or other relevant fields. The need for more specialized trainingbegan to be felt by the 1980s, accelerating into the 1990s and 2000s. At the same time, how-ever, in the 1990s and 2000s, modernization, globalization, and privatization brought new,more lucrative careers into central focus. People who once wanted foreign service jobs, withthe opportunity for foreign travel, turned to private industry and “high tech” opportunities.As a result, ironically, foreign services, once so competitive, began in the 1990s to find it dif-ficult to recruit qualified individuals.

Training and Skills Acquisition

In order to professionalize the service, Trinidad and Tobago took the lead in requiringprospective recruits to take an objective foreign service exam, beginning in the early 1980s.Other countries did not introduce an exam but rather opted for intensive interviews of can-didates combined with probationary periods of service. Interviewing panels usually comprisesenior foreign service or civil service officials, including the permanent secretary in the min-istry of foreign affairs, and in some cases the foreign minister himself. Trinidad and Tobagoalso opted to add a psychiatrist or psychologist to the panel. Despite these moves to profes-sionalism, however, the process remained open to partiality: in many cases, the interview isstill only a formality to confirm persons already informally accepted through questionablecriteria.

Perhaps because of the ascriptive hiring patterns and also because in the initial stages, for-eign service personnel were poorly trained, the Caribbean foreign service became heavilydependent on in-service training. Often persons already trained in diplomacy were bypassedin favor of those with barely adequate qualifications who could be trained while in service.This ensured that they were molded to suit the prevailing norms of conformity and conser-vatism (that is to say, commitment to the status quo) that characterize the foreign serviceboth in the Caricom nations and elsewhere.11 Caribbean foreign service personnel thus forthe most part have lacked the initiative and innovation needed to cope with the many inter-national challenges that global south nations face, more so in the era of globalization.

Ince also pointed out in the early 1970s that in terms of rewards, it was better to do grad-uate work while in service than to acquire a graduate degree before applying. Speaking againof Trinidad and Tobago, he noted, “The way in which the promotion system currently worksdiscourages individuals doing post-graduate work since such work will be rewarded with oneof two increments in the lowest salary scale. The individual who joins with an undergradu-ate degree and spends the time to gain a post-graduate degree in the Ministry receives nearlythe same salary as the post-graduate appointee and in addition is blessed with seniority.”12

The issue is one that characterizes all civil service operations: the established way to advanceis to slowly work up the ladder, and seniority determines rewards. In the 2000s, althoughforeign service officers still tend to complain about difficulties in receiving time off for fur-ther study and the lack of rewards for doing so, a few changes have been made that allow forsome flexibility in hiring persons with advanced training into higher positions rather thanforcing all into the lowest rung. Since many of those so hired, however, are contract officers,


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new issues are raised about salary and functional inequities. It should be pointed out never-theless that despite some aberrant cases in which high-level foreign affairs personnel have dis-counted the need for graduate training at all international relations fields, graduate work isgenerally viewed highly and encouraged. Indeed, those persons serving at high levels inCaricom embassies and international agencies are generally very well educated, and in someinstances, people with advanced degrees have been appointed to visible positions, despite alack of experience. The tendency to appoint such persons—not only career officers but alsopolitical appointees—must be attributed to the general esteem for education that pervadesthe region.

In terms of training opportunities for their career diplomats, an early training center wasthe autonomous Institute of International Relations of the University of the West Indies(Trinidad and Tobago), established in 1966, which provided a yearlong diploma as well asmaster’s level courses in international relations. The regional agenda of this institute ended inthe 1980s, when Caricom member countries encountered financial difficulties and moved toexplore other avenues to train their diplomats, but it still continues to carry out a more gen-eral educational mission. As noted earlier, Guyana and Jamaica established their own foreignservice institutes. Foreign service officers have also been regular participants in short coursesin diplomacy offered over the years by the United Nations Institute for Training andResearch, by Britain and the Commonwealth, Canada, the European Union, private U.S.foundations such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and by Barbados forpersonnel of the eastern Caribbean islands. Barbados also helped the eastern Caribbean statesby providing regular contacts between its staff and those of the other states. The easternCaribbean also benefited after independence from the return of their personnel working forforeign services in the larger countries.

Despite these opportunities, there continues to be a dearth of specialists in Caricom for-eign services, even as the exigencies of external relations in today’s globalized world demandthe hiring of such personnel. Negotiating trade issues, for example, has become extremelycomplex, and the same can be said for energy negotiations both from the point of the pro-ducer as well as the consumer nations. Considering the lack of resources available to producea highly specialized ministry, the foreign ministries have coped by encouraging their currentstaff to gain more knowledge in technical areas rather than by hiring more personnel.However, the skills and expertise of foreign ministry personnel continue to be devalued via-à-vis those of the technical ministries. Technocrats from trade, energy, and finance ministriesand central banks continue to deal more or less independently with crucial international eco-nomic matters. Related to the need for specialists at home is the need for similar specialistsin trade and investment to staff the embassies and consulates abroad. Since governmentshave reoriented foreign policy toward economic diplomacy, personnel serving abroad areexpected to do their best to encourage exports and investment. Yet, notwithstanding thetrend toward opening more consulates in key cities abroad, the staff of these consulates oftenlack both specialized information and appropriate training.

In legal areas, the attorney general’s office often deals with matters of international law inwhich it is not completely qualified. It was noted earlier that during the protracted law of thesea negotiations of the 1970s, there was a greater awareness of the need to hire specialists ininternational law. As a result, the larger countries now have fairly well-trained personnel inthis field. However, the smaller countries continue to rely on the domestic law specialists in


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the attorney general’s or prime minister’s office. In a few cases, expert consultants have beenbrought in from other countries.

Unfortunately, many specialists, especially in economic areas, find it more interesting towork for old or new multilateral agencies and regional institutions such as the CaricomRegional Negotiating Machinery, which was established to deal with free trade negotiations.Specialists also opt to serve as well-paid consultants to the governments and internationalorganizations. On the positive side, however, staffs in many countries are generally betterinformed in the area of tourism, which continues to be heavily promoted in the 1990s and2000s.

To some extent, inadequacies in economic areas are made up for by more substantialinformation offered by private business groups both at home and abroad. These groups alsoseem to make far better use of the Internet as a tool for disseminating information. Manyembassies are proactive in placing links to the Web sites of business groups on their own Websites. In this regard, computer training has become as important as language training fordiplomats, even if IT use is still in its incipient stages in the Caricom foreign ministries in theearly 2000s. As for the traditional language training, considering the increasing integrationof Caricom nations with Latin America, there remains a shortage of fluent Spanish speakersin the diplomatic services. In the long term, this is bound to change inasmuch as enormousstrides have been made in the English-speaking Caribbean nations in recognizing the impor-tance of learning Spanish at elementary, high school, and tertiary levels. In the 2000s, themost progress has been made by Belize, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Guyana, andSuriname in this regard, primarily because of geographic considerations. Acquisition of thisskill has certainly contributed to the elevation of diplomats from Barbados, Trinidad andTobago, and Suriname to the deputy secretary-general level of the OAS, as well as to posts inLatin American–dominated organizations. As for other languages, Saint Lucia and Dominicahave taken pride in their membership in the Francophone community, a factor that hasplaced them in a strategic position in relations with Haiti as well as the départments d’outre-mer (Martinique and Guadeloupe). Surinamese diplomats stand alone in speaking theDutch language, but its diplomats are competent not only in English but many in Spanishand French as well. As globalization proceeds, knowledge of nontraditional languages (forexample, Japanese, Chinese, and Arabic) will surely also become an asset for the Caricomdiplomatic services as for the rest of the world.

While training is important, effective diplomats also usually share some combination ofexperience, skills at negotiation and outreach to various constituencies, and energetic personal-ities in order to project themselves and their countries. Since it is ambassadors who representtheir country in every forum abroad, ambassadorial skills deserve special focus. Research showsthat Caricom countries are aware of this in the sense that they devote more resources—peopleand money—to the missions abroad than to headquarters.13 The Caricom region has producedsome notable diplomats who have been able to project the region’s image in ways that are quitedisproportionate to its size. But an examination of the minutiae of diplomacy reveals a numberof deficiencies as well, discussed in separate sections later in this chapter.

Politicization

The tension between career diplomats and political appointees is a well-known problem inall foreign services. The career diplomat brings experience and skills to an ambassadorial


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position, but the political appointee often has access to the highest levels of the decision-making structure and knows how to work with sensitivity in the particular political climate.Up to the late 1980s, for the eastern Caribbean states, Belize, and even the Bahamas, the lackof experienced career diplomats resulted in almost all ambassadors being political appointees.Being political appointees, they lacked diplomatic training and experience, despite being welleducated. This problem was aggravated by the lack of resources at headquarters (as describedearlier) and the lack of experienced staff in the embassies. Typically an embassy would haveone or two knowledgeable career diplomats who often complained about having to do all thework for the ambassador without the rewards, and a number of (usually) locally recruitedadministrative staff members. In the 1990s and 2000s, as the diplomatic services havematured, the appointment of career diplomats appears to be accelerating, though less so forthe most important postings such as Washington. Persons with long tenure in the diplomaticservices have begun to rise to the top, and even though political appointments still outnum-ber career ones, the former, too, tend to have had some experience, training, or familiaritywith international and not just local affairs.

A peculiar effect of small size has been the appointment by some small countries of“locally recruited” ambassadors and consuls-general, that is, diaspora persons who have offi-cially or unofficially held permanent residence in host countries even while keeping attunedto and involved in politics at home. The Grenadian example of locally recruited ambas-sadors, including U.S. citizens, to the United Nations has already been highlighted.Grenada’s People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG) even sought the appointment of a U.S.permanent resident as ambassador to the United States. In the case of a non-UN ambas-sadorship, appointees must be willing to give up their permanent resident status. More prob-lematic was the appointment in the 1990s by both Grenada and Saint Lucia of non-nationalsiblings as their representatives to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and CulturalOrganization. While few questioned the abilities of these ambassadors, the appointmentraised eyebrows, in Saint Lucia at least, with the opposition questioning the wisdom and pro-priety of having a non–Saint Lucian (in this case a Nigerian of Lebanese extraction) repre-senting the country, not to mention bankrolling the diplomatic presence.14 In 2001,Grenada had to revoke the appointment of a non-national (“economic citizen”) as tradecounselor when his credentials turned out to be false, and an enquiry was begun into the pos-sibility that he had bribed his way into the job.

For the larger Caricom countries, endowed with more human resources, the tensionbetween political and career appointees has been more acute. As with the smaller countries,career appointments were few in the early years, but as the foreign services matured andbecame professionalized, this natural tension emerged. The ratio of career to noncareerambassadors varies according to the level of involvement of the political leadership and theextent to which it sees the need to reward supporters with patronage appointments. Over theyears, Barbados, Jamaica, and Guyana have made special efforts to promote career diplomatsso that the ratio of these to noncareer ambassadors was either about even or inclined towardmore career appointees in the early 2000s. Note that political appointees may be very skilledand politically astute, in addition to being well connected.

But the practice of political appointments as well as the politicization of the bureaucracyhave had an adverse effect on the morale of the foreign service officers in many countries. Forone, given the smallness of these bureaucracies, too many foreign service officers are toointensely focused on surviving the ups and downs of the political process. Second, the high level


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of political appointments and politically favored career appointments has led to frustrationamong senior foreign service officers who have reached the top with nowhere to go. Theresult is job dissatisfaction and a lowering of productivity as officers while away the time untilretirement. The stagnation of older officers also leads to serious bottlenecks in the promotionprocess: promotions of younger officers are slowed so that movement between ranks takeslonger than it normally might have. To a large extent, this is reflective of a general problemin padded civil service bureaucracies, but the bottleneck problem is also compounded by theclosed nature of the diplomatic service in some of the larger countries—that is, because theservice is autonomous, there is little horizontal movement to other sectors of the civil service.In countries such as Trinidad and Tobago, the only movement of higher-level officers is tothe prime minister’s office. In other Caricom countries, the foreign service is an integral partof the civil service, and promotions can therefore take place “out” as well as “in.”

Thirdly, the politicization of the bureaucracy in Caricom countries has also reduced pro-ductivity and morale by fostering an atmosphere of favoritism and distrust among staffs whomay find persons of lesser tenure suddenly promoted to senior positions, or find themselvesmoved suddenly from the “in” group to the “out.” Haiti presents an interesting case, how-ever: the foreign service was largely left untouched by new political leadership in the late1990s and 2000s. Pro-government analysts complained therefore that key diplomatic postscontinued to be occupied, as late as 2000, by survivors of the old Duvalier or interim regimesand opposition who were seen as undermining rather than helping the government’s positionin the international community.15

Finally, in regard to Caricom as a whole, the constant need to find politically acceptablepersonnel and the length of time taken to identify these personnel have tended to lead to ahigh incidence of ambassadorial vacancies in key postings and too many embassies headedfor too long a time by chargés d’affaires.

Working Conditions

As in other jobs, morale, and thus performance, is also affected by other considerations,including the availability of opportunities for demonstrating initiative and assuming respon-sibility, adequate staffing and proper work distribution so that overloading does not takeplace, financial compensation, availability of opportunities for appointment to prizedposts abroad, and general perception of the country’s (and diplomats’ own) effectiveness inforeign policy.

It has already been said that foreign service officers are called upon to implement, not tomake, policy. Yet job satisfaction is dependent on the extent to which foreign officers areconsulted by their ministers, ambassadors, and permanent secretaries, and the extent towhich their opinions, once given, are taken into account. Generalizing across the Caricomcountries, we can say that permanent secretaries and their deputies are least likely to be dis-satisfied, given the fact that they exercise administrative control and policy oversight. Buttheir level of satisfaction depends on the extent to which they are bypassed in importantmatters—as described earlier, ministers sometimes communicate directly with other min-istries, and prime ministers often make external affairs decisions without consulting the for-eign ministry—and the access they have to the foreign minister, considering that permanentsecretaries often have to take the initiative to meet with the minister rather than vice versa.At the next level, because one-to-one contacts seem to be preferred by permanent secretaries


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as well as by ambassadors, the job satisfaction of their staffs will depend on their responsi-bilities and on the personal relationship with the superior. Research indicates that foreignofficers abroad generally have more room for growth and use more initiative than those atheadquarters.

A major problem for Caricom foreign service bureaucracies has been inadequate staffing.Even in situations where there are bottlenecks in promotion, there is a need for more profes-sional staff at the lower levels. Financial limitations, recruitment inadequacies, and lack ofgovernment interest all affect the level of staffing. Not surprisingly, the situation is mostacute for the smaller territories. The professional staff of the eastern Caribbean foreign min-istries has rarely exceeded four persons, the administrative support staff being somewhatlarger. Of the larger Caricom countries, Guyana has had the most significant staffing prob-lems: a long-standing weak economy and high levels of skilled worker migration led to ashortage of both skilled and unskilled persons. Indicative of the staffing problem is the factthat all the Caricom states, but the smaller ones in particular, maintain very small or rela-tively small missions abroad. Table 7.1 shows the level of staffing of Caricom embassies to theprime posting, Washington, comparing this to the staff at the United Nations in 2007. InChapter 5, it was stated that the level of staffing at the United Nations is hardly adequate tocover the committees of the General Assembly as well as the numerous other UN committeesand meetings. Caricom states have had to be very selective in narrowing their UN activities.


Table 7.1 Size of Caricom UN and Washington missions, 2006–2007a

Country Washington staff a UN staff

Antigua and Barbuda 3 7 (1)Bahamas 6 4Barbados 7 (3) 5Belize 5 7 (2)b

Dominica 1b 2 (1)Grenada 2 3 (1)Guyana 4 (1) 5Haiti 12c 11Jamaica 8 (5) 10 (4)St. Kitts-Nevis 1 4Saint Lucia 4 (1) 3b

St. Vincent 3 2Suriname 2 5 (1)b

Trinidad and Tobago 7 (3) 5 (2)Cuba — 43 (17)South Africa 26 24 (4)Venezuela 18 19 (3)United States — 133b

Sources: United Nations, Permanent Missions to the United Nations (Blue Book), March 2007; U.S. Department of State,Diplomatic List, Summer 2006.— not applicable.a Attachés in parenthesis. Guyana’s senior legal adviser is included in its total.b No ambassador in office at this time. Of the 133, 108 were “advisers.”c Does not include staff of the commercial attaché office, consular affairs office, and military attaché office not listed in

the source.

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As for Washington, as shown in the table, except for Haiti with twelve diplomats (and threeattaché offices), Caricom countries make do in Washington with very small staffs of less thansix diplomats (the Bahamas has six) and a few attachés. In fact, Washington staffs tend to besmaller than UN staffs. St. Kitts-Nevis makes do with only its ambassador, although at cer-tain times, one member of the UN staff also serviced Washington. Both Suriname andGrenada had only two diplomats in Washington in 2006.

Some peculiarities in diplomatic representation in New York and Washington in theimmediate postindependence period no longer obtain in the 2000s. In earlier times, a cost-effective measure was the sharing of ambassadors and personnel between New York andWashington. St. Kitts-Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Dominica all engaged in the practice into the1980s. With time, however, all have managed to assign separate ambassadors and personnelto each post. Another peculiarity that characterized St. Kitts-Nevis and Dominica in themid-1980s was the appointment of ambassadors who were resident in the islands to these keypostings. In Chapter 5, it was mentioned that, after closing its UN mission for lack offinances in the 1980s, Dominica eventually reopened it with Commonwealth assistance andwith a separately appointed ambassador. St. Kitts-Nevis also assigned separate ambassadorsin the 1990s. In Washington, up to the early 2000s, the ambassador for Dominica was stilllisted as resident in Dominica, and as of 2006, only a third secretary was listed as embassystaff. In short, Caricom diplomats make do with less when it comes to staffing, even at thelocations considered to be very important.

Staff shortages are also aggravated by the fact that many Caricom embassies are also bur-dened with consular work. The staffing problem has led countries to recruit nationals and insome cases, non-nationals, who are resident in host countries on a contract basis. This is usu-ally only viable at the lower, less sensitive, administrative levels. Thus, for example, theHaitian foreign ministry has been criticized for permitting the hiring of non-nationals at oneof its most important diplomatic posts, the Dominican Republic. According to reports in2000, of thirty-two persons employed at the embassy in Santo Domingo, twenty-two werecitizens of the Dominican Republic on contract. Concerns were expressed about theDominicans being in charge of the embassy’s accounts while not being subject to Haitianlaws and not able to be easily dismissed during the years of contract.16

Some of the effects of small size outlined earlier can be countered by skilled diplomacy.The Caribbean has indeed produced its share of internationally visible diplomats, includingthree assistant secretaries-general of the OAS already listed; a former deputy secretary-generalof the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Alister McIntyre); a secre-tary-general of the Commonwealth (S. S. Ramphal); a deputy secretary-general of the ACP-EC group (Edwin Carrrington, who moved on to head the Caricom secretariat); UN under-or assistant secretaries-general Lucille Mair and Angela King, and many more less well-known people, not counting the politicians who have championed diplomatic causes—lead-ers such as Michael Manley and A. N. R. Robinson, for example. Even so, by and large, fewCaribbean ambassadors have shown the capacity for diplomatic maneuvering attributed, forexample, to Singapore’s diplomats, and most ambassadors, particularly career diplomats,tend to keep a very low profile. Most lower-level personnel are not particularly proactive,tending to be overburdened and relatively unprepared at major meetings. In part, this mustbe blamed on the attempt by governments to save money by sending representatives who arealready on the spot to important international meetings. Given the more proactive approach


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of nongovernmental participants in the 2000s, it may be helpful for Caricom official repre-sentatives to work more closely with these.

The morale of the foreign service officers also depends on such job satisfaction indicatorsas monetary rewards, availability of prestigious postings, and the perception of their coun-tries’ overall effectiveness. Even though most diplomats at home find their financial situationadequate, many diplomats abroad express dissatisfaction when questioned about these mat-ters. Because of unfavorable foreign exchange rates, salaries are considered inadequate, andpoor economic conditions at home have in many instances precluded salary increases fordiplomats. In fact, the poor economic situation at home may also affect physical conditionsat the embassies themselves. At the height of Guyana’s economic problems in the 1980s,Guyanese embassies sometimes had trouble paying their telephone and electricity bills.Haitian embassies have experienced similar problems and more. One report cites a formerconsul at the Haitian embassy to the Bahamas complaining to his superior, “The Mission hasno vehicle, insufficient chairs in the waiting room for nationals, only one computer, theembassy’s carpet is in a lamentable state; . . . the telephone and cable television were cut fornon-payment . . . the embassy is not linked to the Internet, there is no subscription to news-papers and magazines and no health insurance . . . as a result [there is] the absence of data onthe major diplomatic, consular, and political dossiers of the world, inability to visit otherislands of the archipelago. Moreover, you have reduced the main embassy personnel to fivepersons.”17 On the other hand, for most Caricom diplomats abroad, salaries are supple-mented by fairly generous perquisites, including (usually) a 90 percent housing allowanceand an entertainment allowance. Complaints about “perks” tend to center on the fact thatsmall entertainment allowances do not allow diplomats to engage in much of the self- andcountry promotion that brings international visibility. Also in the past, financial considera-tions were counterbalanced by the perceived prestige of the diplomatic profession. As statedearlier, in the 2000s, with more lucrative and exciting job and travel opportunities becomingavailable to wider sections of the employable public, the diplomatic services have tended tobe viewed in a less glamorous light.

On the issue of prestige, the availability of desirable postings is a major factor in boostingmorale. Generally, the United Nations and Washington are viewed by Caricom diplomats asthe most desirable posts, followed by London, Ottawa, Brussels, and Caracas. The fewAfrican posts and regional postings are not rated highly, but diplomats who have done toursof duty in these places seem pleased, except for the normal issues associated with “thirdworld” postings. The United Nations is desired not only because of the attractiveness of NewYork City where there is also a strong Caribbean immigrant presence but also because theUN’s activities are perceived as being varied and important for small states, enabling them tohave some impact on the international environment. For obvious reasons, Washington isimportant in the bilateral context, and many diplomats and governments consider good rela-tions with the United States as producing more tangible benefits than multilateralism. Inaddition, both the Washington and New York missions and consulates have long served askey disseminators of information for both nationals and non-nationals.

Given the attractiveness of most of the overseas locations where Caricom states have seenfit to establish embassies, Caribbean diplomats do not have to worry much about “hardship”postings the way diplomats from the developed countries do. Also, the rotation system(where it works properly) and limited embassy presence abroad ensure that most officers geta chance to be posted to desirable locations. In fact, the complaints encountered in this area


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are the reverse of what one might expect. Officers may tire of the frequent moves, and thereare also complaints about the selectivity of the system. The rotation system does not functionwell in the smaller countries where organizational procedures have not evolved sufficiently.But in the larger countries, there are unwritten rules governing postings. Newly recruitedofficers are expected to first spend two or three years at home rotating within the various sec-tions at headquarters.18 Then they may be posted abroad for one or two tours of duty ofabout three years each before returning to headquarters. This circular rotation pattern is thenorm in most foreign ministries of the world, allowing officers to familiarize themselves witha variety of overseas duties without losing touch with the “home base.” However, in theCaricom region, the rules have generally been applied with great flexibility because of therealities of staff shortages. There is nothing intrinsically problematic about this, but abuseshave occurred. Thus some persons have been favored with longer rotations abroad—to theextent that they become proprietary about their entitlement to the post—whereas others,particularly female officers with families, have been favored with longer stints at home.When this happens, the unfavored are blocked from desirable postings, and bottlenecksoccur at the home office. Although most foreign offices have worked to correct the problem,they do have to deal with the modern problem of complying with the rules while reconcilingthe needs of two-career families. Many of the dissatisfied today are foreign-service spouses(both husbands and wives) who are reluctant to leave their jobs to go abroad. The rules gov-erning rotation within the various bureaucratic divisions have also been very flexibly appliedand sometimes bypassed altogether.

A Note on Gender

Even if much remains to be done, women have been increasing their representation in thehigher levels of the civil services of Caricom countries. Available statistics on civil service (notspecifically foreign service) appointments for five countries in 2000–2001 (Antigua andBarbuda, Dominica, Guyana, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago),show that the percentage of women in senior-level positions in the government service aver-aged 36 percent. In terms of each country, on the positive end, Antigua and Barbuda’s per-centage was 50 percent, and Trinidad and Tobago’s was 62 percent. In contrast, Dominica’sgovernment service was male-dominated, with 88 percent men in 2000, down from 92 per-cent in 1998; and Guyana went from 86 percent men in 1990 to 79 percent in 2000. St.Vincent improved from 15 percent women (85 percent men) in 1990 to 29 percent womenor 71 percent men in 2000. Based on the limited data, it appears that women are particularlywell represented as permanent secretaries, that is, the administrative head or chief executiveofficer of a ministry (45 percent for all five countries, 56 percent in Antigua and Barbuda, 63percent in Trinidad and Tobago in 2001).19

With respect to the foreign service, as happened in most countries, Caricom foreign ser-vices after independence were overwhelmingly male, primarily because this was the pool of“experienced” personnel from which one could draw. By the 1970s, however, given civil ser-vice rules erecting no particular barriers to women, women were entering the foreign servicein relatively high numbers. As elsewhere, however, their progress up the ranks was initiallyslowed by concerns about travel, spouses, and late-night protocol duties.20 Although a break-down of all personnel in all countries is not readily available, a look at just the Caricom


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diplomatic staff serving in Washington and in New York, places already described as keypostings, shows that women equal men in these Caricom embassies in 2007 (see Table 7.2).

Nevertheless the women tend to cluster at the first to third secretary levels. The first gen-eration women were fewer to begin with and for reasons already described, were less likely toreach the very top ambassadorial and permanent secretary (of the foreign ministry) levels.But Table 7.3 gives an idea of how women, presumably this first generation of older women,were positioned in the early 2000s. The figures given do not include the fair number whohave risen today to the head of divisions and subdivisions within the foreign ministry.

In assessing the figures in Table 7.3, the differential in total number of embassies noted inChapter 5 must be taken into account: Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana arelarger and have more diplomatic missions abroad than the others. (Because this is a four-yearperiod and there is overlap, a percentage distribution cannot be determined by simply divid-ing by the total number of embassies.) Barbados’ six and Grenada’s five female representativesover this four-year period certainly compare favorably with Jamaica’s nine. All but threecountries had at least one female ambassador during this time.

A compilation of the total female ambassadors that Caricom states have sent over time tothe United Nations in New York as of 200721 shows that whereas only one country, Grenada,had a female ambassador to the United Nations in the 1970s, the number rose in the 1990s.The number of representatives is three for Trinidad and Tobago; two for Jamaica; two forBarbados and Grenada; one for the Bahamas; and one each for Belize, Guyana, Suriname,Saint Lucia, and St. Vincent. (The list does not include acting representatives). In terms of


Table 7.2 Number of female diplomats at Caricom missions at the United Nations and embassies inWashington, D.C., 2006–2007a

United Nations WashingtonCountry Males Females Males Famales

Antigua and Barbuda 4 2 0 3*

Bahamas 1 3* 3 3Barbados 3 2 3 1Belize 1b 3 2 3*Dominica 1 0 0 1b

Grenada 1 1 1 1Guyana 4 1 2 1Haiti 7 4 5 7Jamaica 2 4 1 2St. Kitts-Nevis 2 2 1 0Saint Lucia 1 2 0 3*St. Vincent 1 1* 2 1Suriname 1b 2 2 0Trinidad and Tobago 3 0 2 2*Total 32 27 24 28

Sources: United Nations, Permanent Missions to the United Nations (Blue Book), March 2007; U.S. Department of State,Diplomatic List, Summer 2006.* Indicates presence of a female ambassador. Female permanent representatives from Grenada and Suriname demitted

office in 2006 and 2003, respectively.a Excludes attachés and administrative staff but includes ambassadors.b Ambassador position vacant.

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length of time the ambassadors served, Trinidad and Tobago’s women representatives haveserved eleven years altogether, the lone Bahamian representative served ten years, Barbados’for nine, and Jamaica’s representatives for eight years.22 If consideration is given to the num-ber of years a woman could have served (more than forty years since independence for thetwo largest English-speaking countries, far more for Haiti), it can be concluded that womenhave been promoted relatively slowly. In this group of ambassadors, two (one from Jamaicaand one from the Bahamas) also served as ambassadors to the United States, a position rela-tively rarely filled by women. Up to the early 2000s, only Trinidad and Tobago (twice),Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, and Saint Lucia had sent female ambassadors to Washington.Although not apparent from the bare figures, the number of female nonpolitical (career)


Table 7.3 Female permanent secretaries (foreign affairs) and ambassadors for four-year period,2000–2004a

Country Permanent Ambassadors Chargés/deputy Consuls-generalsecretaries (place) ambassadors (place)

Antigua and Barbuda xb — — 1 (Toronto)

Bahamas x — — 2 (Miami, Hong Kong)

Barbados xb 2 2 1(Toronto)(UN, Venezuela) (UN-New York,

UN-Geneva)

Belize — 3 (Belgium, — 1 (Cancún)United States-Canada,

Cuba)

Dominica

Grenada 2 (UK, Venezuela) 2 (Cuba, Belgium) 1 (New York)

Guyana x 1 (Brazil) —

Haiti 2 (Belgium, Cuba) — 4 (New York,French Guyana,

Puerto Rico, Boston)

Jamaica — 4 (UN, Berlin, 4 (UN,d 1 (Toronto)Belgium, UK, Mexico)c Canada,

UN-Geneva)

St. Kitts-Nevis — — 1 (UN) —

Saint Lucia — 1 (United States) 1 (New York) 1 (Martinique)

St. Vincent — 1 (UN) — 1 (UN-Geneva)

Suriname — 1 (UN) 1 (UK) 1 (UN-Geneva)

Trinidad and Tobago x 1 (United States) 3 (UN, Belgium, 1 (Toronto)United States)

Sources: Foreign Ministries and diplomatic lists.a Note that some persons were replaced during the three-year period. In some cases, one person was relocated to another

key position and therefore is counted twice. Dominica is excluded because the country had no females in these positionsduring the period.

b First-time female secretaries.c Two consecutive female ambassadors for Mexico.d Two deputies at varying times at the United Nations.

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appointees also accelerated in the 1990s and 2000s in keeping with a trend for all appoint-ments, male as well as female. Overall, it can be said that progress has been made inappointing women to the top position in the foreign service, although the Caricom percent-age does not yet match the 36 percent average indicated earlier for all senior-level govern-ment positions. That percentage may have been reached or exceeded for individual services,however: for example, as of 2007, Trinidad and Tobago had only four male ambassadors andheads of mission.

Finally, in terms of the appointment of female foreign ministers, it was noted in the lastchapter that such appointments remain rare. Only Haiti (twice), Barbados, the Bahamas,and Suriname (twice) have appointed women at that level.23 None of the three largestEnglish-speaking countries—Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana—had appointed afemale to the ministry by 2007. In this, the Caricom countries fall behind many of theircounterparts in Africa and in the world.

Diplomatic Effectiveness

Since small states often have a difficult time making themselves visible in the internationalsystem, diplomats’ satisfaction with their role depends to a great extent on whether theybelieve that they are accomplishing their countries’ goals and gaining recognition from othercountries as well as concrete results. The effectiveness of the diplomacy of Caricom nationsdepends on the ability of the diplomats to successfully project the image of the countryabroad. Interviews with and observation of diplomats, particularly at the United Nations andin Washington over many years, suggest that despite the frustrations, Caricom diplomatshave a sense of overall effectiveness. Certainly diplomats from Jamaica and Guyana seem tobe the most positive about their countries’ effectiveness abroad. Jamaican self-assurancecomes from the fact that it is the best known of the English-speaking Caribbean countriesand it has projected itself successfully in many international arenas throughout its indepen-dent history. Jamaican diplomats feel that their country has been very successful in its initia-tives mainly because of the dynamism of individual diplomats and the high level ofinvolvement of Jamaican representatives. At the United Nations in particular, Jamaicans eas-ily point to tangible results of their diplomacy in the consistent appointment of nationals tohigh and senior UN positions, in their two rounds of the Security Council and membershipand chairmanship of a number of boards and groups such as the Group of 77, and even inthe leading role their consuls-general tend to play in community initiatives. Similarly,Guyanese speak of their service on the Security Council, and the fact that their long-servingpermanent representatives to the United Nations have been among the most senior and well-respected Latin American and Caribbean ambassadors. Until Saint Lucia served in2003–2004, Guyana had been the only English-speaking Caribbean country to hold thepresidency of the General Assembly. Guyanese also value the recognition they have gained inthe Non-Aligned Movement as a result of their commitment and activism, as well as princi-pled stances on decolonization and antiracialism.

Trinidad and Tobago diplomats seem to be ambivalent about their country’s internationalsuccess. Indeed the country has alternated long periods of low-profile diplomacy with some-what higher levels of involvement, for example Security Council membership in 1985–1986,heading the OAS mission in Haiti, and early activity on behalf of the International CriminalCourt. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the country is well respected within its group at the


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United Nations as well as within the Washington diplomatic community. It has also playeda leadership role in Caricom itself, where it has leveraged its status as the region’s only oil andgas exporter.

Over the years, the Barbadian view of the country’s effectiveness in international forumshas shifted from a focus on the multilateral to a bilateral one, especially after its lack of suc-cess—in the wake of its pro-U.S. stance on Grenada in the 1980s—in gaining both a seat onthe UN Security Council, and the General Assembly presidency in 1988. Diplomats inWashington have usually expressed satisfaction with their country’s effectiveness there, notjust vis-à-vis the United States but in the OAS where they note that a Barbadian was the firstEnglish-speaking person to hold the second highest post. In the 1990s and 2000s, Barbadoshas developed a reputation abroad for effective small state diplomacy, not least because of thepersonal investment of the prime minister himself as well as the foreign minister in attend-ing events and delivering lectures abroad.

Among the smaller countries, diplomats express a mix of complaints about lack ofresources on the one hand, and on the other, confidence that their efforts have some tangi-ble effect. At the United Nations, they benefit from the global acceptance of the equality andindependence of microstates, and countries such as the Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda,Saint Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines have all made strides in the 1990s and2000s in achieving greater visibility through their representatives’ committee service and (attimes) dynamic diplomacy at the United Nations. Overall, and not unexpectedly, evendiplomats from the smallest countries express some confidence that their presence might behelping their countries achieve vital developmental goals.

Objective observation suggests, however, that Caricom countries still have to make somechanges in their diplomacy in order to improve their effectiveness. In general, Caricomdiplomats need to be more familiar with the political and bureaucratic structure of their hostcountries, and even of the United Nations and other institutions. But even when well trainedin this regard, as diplomats from small states they start with a natural disadvantage when itcomes to garnering the attention of and lobbying high-level persons in the host governments.Some countries have hired paid lobbyists to do the job that diplomats cannot do (or are per-ceived by their governments as not doing), but some diplomats complain that they have tospend more time helping the lobbyists than vice versa. Caricom business and social groupsalso help in this regard, and embassies usually try to keep in touch with these nationals asmuch as possible. Relationships with sympathetic host country associations are fairly easy tosustain and can be helpful. Nevertheless, clearly the most effective lobbying arrangement isthe pooled, collective lobbying of Caricom states by way of caucuses in hot spots such as NewYork, Washington, and Brussels. In Washington, the Caribbean Embassy Group, for exam-ple, originally formed to deal primarily with Caribbean Basin Initiative issues, meets regu-larly and makes collective representation to U.S. departments such as Commerce and Labor.But individual embassies have a harder time getting their voices heard. First, just locating thekey persons in the relevant bureaucracies of the host country is often difficult in developedcountries where the bureaucracy is fragmented. Second, access to busy high-level officials isnot easy to obtain and junior level officials may not be knowledgeable or particularly sym-pathetic. The easiest access is normally to persons in the host foreign ministries but thesecontacts, while informative, do not necessarily have an impact on policy. In Washington,given the checks and balances of the U.S. political system, it is important for diplomats to be


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able to influence congressional representatives, but here again, getting access depends ongood networking that is not always achieved by the smaller countries.24

Finally, Caricom effectiveness in achieving desired goals in key developed countries is tosome extent hindered by the tendency of Caricom personnel toward protocol rigidity.Following the rules of protocol, higher-level Caricom representatives will normally eschewmeeting with a slightly lower-level representative from a key developed country partner. Thissometimes causes crucial delays in negotiating on important issues. While a protocol-con-scious stance is appropriate and understandable as a matter of sovereignty and status, flexi-bility may be called for in cases where such stances impose bureaucratic hurdles. Aprotocol-based approach may also reflect a lack of understanding of how the bureaucracyworks in certain developed countries. This has been the case with Caricom’s relations withJapan, which have generally focused on the highest levels, disregarding the extensive bureau-cratic interaction that is so important to Japanese decision making.25

Formulated foreign policies can only be effectively acted on if the channels of implemen-tation work efficiently. Caricom foreign policy planning is already constrained by small sizeand limited resources, and goals and strategies must be formulated with these limitations inmind. But smallness need not affect achievement, if adequate and skilled human resourcesare used to counteract the effects of size. The Caricom diplomatic services are in general stillunderstaffed, still lacking in some of the technical skills needed to be effective in a globalizedworld, and still lacking in flexibility and innovation. However, on balance, despite some ten-sions stemming from the continuing politicization and personalization of the appointmentprocess and from economic constraints, personnel continue to express satisfaction with theirand their countries’ performance. It is clear that these countries have come a long way ininstitutionalizing their foreign services and projecting themselves within not only theregional and hemispheric arena, but also the global community.


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CHAPTER 8

A Brief Evaluation

One may well ask, why study the international activity of fourteen Caribbean statesthat are today rather marginal in global security and economic affairs? But these arethe same states that once were central to the world economy because of one prod-

uct, sugar, and also came to occupy a key place in U.S. and global policy during the cold war.Geography, economics, and security considerations still make them important to NorthAmerica and Europe, even if in the post–cold war period, such importance has diminishedas attention continues to focus on the Middle East and East Asia. By continuing to analyzehow all states act, despite the inevitable cycles of visibility and invisibility, we can betterunderstand the constantly changing international system, the role of the large countries (interms of how they impact and are impacted by the small), and the unique perceptions of thesmall countries themselves. As new small states in Europe try to find a global space in thepost–cold war environment, it might be helpful for them to draw on the experiences of theolder developing small states.

At the theoretical level, small states should not be seen as simply “large states writ small” assome realist-oriented scholars might suggest. In every issue-area—security, development, andstatus issue-areas—small state interests are developed in the context of very real constraintsand unique vulnerabilities. Military interests among them hardly exist, and in fact a large part(though certainly not all) of their security interests are defined for them by large powers. Theireconomic interests are in many ways counterposed to the interests of the larger northernneighbors or even their larger global south counterparts. Their efforts to project themselvesdiplomatically are hindered by the constraints of size and relatively few resources. Their deci-sion-making structures are not fully liberalized because of the impact of personalist factors, yetthey have open political systems, developed state institutions (notwithstanding certain ethnicand governance challenges), and strong collective identities. Their primary goal is to achievehigher levels of economic and social development by finding ways to overcome inherent vul-nerabilities while employing peaceful, diplomatic instruments and strategies.

In this study, the challenges facing these small states have been described in great detail.To evaluate the effectiveness of their foreign policy, a criteria for success needs to be estab-lished. If success is measured by political survival, economic progress, and the extent towhich these states are being heard internationally, then Caricom states have been moderatelysuccessful in their foreign policies. Using the broadest brush stroke, it is clear that after nearly

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a half century of independence, these small states have defied those who considered or stillconsider them to be “quasi-states” by sustaining their nationalism and sovereignty vis-à-vislarger neighbors, by positioning themselves in various ways to benefit economically amid thetwists and turns of international economic affairs, and by establishing a presence at theUnited Nations and in other organizations well beyond what might be expected given theirsize and capabilities.

Somewhat finer brush strokes are also needed, however, and so a brief look at each area ofCaricom foreign activity is appropriate. On the positive side, the region has survived variousinternal and external security challenges, and in relatively good shape. Belize and Guyana, forexample, have made good use of bilateral and multilateral forums to publicize their borderdisputes and preclude attempts by Guatemala and Venezuela to push their claims too vigor-ously. Several countries have survived domestic security challenges while avoiding the threatof overt external intervention. Today’s strategy of multidimensional cooperation with thenorth has further warded off crises in the security area, despite the inevitable vexationsgrounded in nationalist perceptions of northern violation of the principle of sovereignty.Only a few countries or governments have miscalculated the external environment, mostnotably Grenada and Jamaica during the cold war when U.S. ability and will to act wereunderestimated, though it must be added that these foreign policy “mistakes” may have hadsome short-lived domestic advantages for the governments involved. And yet, looking at thesecurity situation of the region in the 2000s, the observer must be struck by the considerable“unfinished business” that remains: despite the strenuous efforts, the long-standing bound-ary disputes remain unresolved, and newer marine disputes persistently disrupt efforts tomaintain regional harmony; Haiti remains a nation in intermittent crisis, too heavily depen-dent on the United States for political solutions, a new member of a regional body that itselfstill has difficulty determining whether and how to engage in the search for solutions to crisesin Haiti as elsewhere; and most importantly, all the members of Caricom suffer from a clearlack of capacity to deal with the newer threats of drug trafficking, domestic as well as transna-tional crime, and environmental assaults. Strategies strongly linking local, regional, andinternational initiatives in these areas are still being devised.

In the economic sphere, Caricom states have tried a variety of strategies since indepen-dence, depending on the prevailing configuration of the international system. Overall, eco-nomic nationalist and third world–oriented strategies were neither successful in fosteringeconomic growth nor particularly beneficial in terms of strengthening relations with keynorthern partners. However, economic liberalization has brought fear of marginalization,especially for the smaller countries endowed with fewer resources. On the positive side, itmay be said that for a long time, Caricom states were successful in receiving preferential priv-ileges from a colonial-sensitive Europe (aided here by African and Pacific partners), and dur-ing the cold war, they were successful in manipulating superpower rivalries to gain aid andtrade preferences from North America. They have worked hard to support the initiatives ofolder coalitions such as the Group of 77, as well as to build new ones such as the Alliance forSmall-Island Developing States (AOSIS) in order to draw attention to their particular vul-nerabilities. Export promotion strategies in the 1990s and 2000s and the use of economicdiplomacy have borne some results. Yet, on the negative side, liberalization has broughtsevere social deterioration and increased poverty, and while certain countries—Trinidad andTobago in particular—have been able to position themselves to take advantage of tradeopportunities, others such as some in the eastern Caribbean have still been unable to devise


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alternatives to their long-standing dependence on preferential trade. Caricom countries havebeen unable to push through the principle of special and differential treatment in hemi-spheric trade negotiations, and the global south as a whole has been unable to achieve certainconcessions within the framework of the World Trade Organization. Finally, while Caricom’scontinued persistence as a regional economic movement must be viewed as a success, thepace of integration has been slow, and the continued reluctance to grant more decision-mak-ing authority to the regional level has restrained the process.

Diplomacy is an overarching category: not only must diplomatic strategies be assessed interms of performance in “status” areas (in particular, participation in international organiza-tions), but also they must be evaluated in terms of tangible gains achieved by “good” skilleddiplomacy. On the plus side, Caricom states have definitely shown themselves to be morecapable internationally than might have been expected given their size and resources. Withsome exceptions, they are visible and active at the United Nations, have earned a central placeat the Organization of American States (OAS), have been visible in the Non-Aligned Move-ment, and have joined and participated in many other organizations. When they havepressed for change, their numbers have sometimes been enough to guarantee it, as was thecase with the creation of a special unit within the UN Economic Commission for LatinAmerica, or changes in the OAS Charter to allow for the admission of Guyana and Belize.They have been innovative as well, for example, in promoting links with Central Americathrough the establishment of the Association of Caribbean States, and links with the Pacificand other island states through the AOSIS. In international forums, Caricom states havegenerally articulated principled stances supportive of international law and global equity. Onthe less positive side, if tangible gains are the goal of multilateral diplomacy, mixed successhas been obtained. Indeed, some Caricom states have long expressed a preference for bilat-eral diplomacy over the multilateral, precisely because of the likelihood of greater immediateeconomic gain from the former strategy. Still, multilateral approaches and positions havebeen important with respect to longer-term bargaining intended to reform the internationaleconomic system, and have also become more important as social issues such as habitat chal-lenges, poverty, health, and the environment have emerged as focal points on the globalagenda. Caricom countries gain by participating, learning about, and cooperating on multi-lateral initiatives, even if such gains are hard to quantify.

As has been seen, the decision-making process in Caricom states remains too personalizedand politicized, primarily because the Westminster system allows a prime minister and hiscabinet carte blanche in an environment in which oppositions have traditionally been weak.It is true, however, that personalism has decreased in importance since the 1960s and 1970s,as postindependence leaders have been replaced by pragmatic ones with less stature andlongevity. Foreign ministers, high-level bureaucrats, elites, and interest groups have increasedtheir input; public opinion is better informed (if not always interested) on external matters,and nongovernmental actors and social partners have assumed a place, albeit a relatively mea-ger one, at the decision-making table. All these trends are clearly positive ones.

In the larger Caricom countries, foreign policy bureaucracies have become more func-tionally complex to meet the increasing complexity of international relations. However,functional complexity has not necessarily signified efficiency because the need for trainedand specialized personnel has not been fully met. In the smaller countries, there is an evenmore acute need for trained staff. The problem is compounded in some countries by the hap-hazard and personalized nature of the recruitment process. In addition, in the 1990s and

A Brief Evaluation • 233

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2000s, candidates who may have joined the foreign services in earlier days are to some extentopting for more lucrative fields. Moreover, for all Caricom countries, international effective-ness has often been limited by their inability to maintain more than a few understaffed mis-sions abroad and to send adequate numbers of personnel to cover important conferences andother activities.

Caricom governments have generally been reluctant to spend scarce resources on thediplomatic establishments, at least as they are currently constituted. In the era of globaliza-tion, technical ministries are seen as more important. To earn their place in this era, foreignministries have to show that they are also competent and necessary. The challenge to foreignministries in the 2000s is to devise a new consultative and technological diplomacy thatdraws not only on traditional diplomatic strengths but also on the technical expertise pro-vided by other government services, and the input from the business community as well asrepresentatives of relevant social groups within and outside the region. In this exercise, atleast, the small states of Caricom are not different from their larger counterparts.


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Notes

Chapter 1

1. While some see multinational corporations or regions such as the European Union as hav-ing “foreign policies,” I consider corporate action only in relation to states, and I do notconsider any region as yet having the capacity to develop foreign policy independent of themember states.

2. For a good summary of the different schools of thought concerning globalization, seeAnthony G. McGrew, “The Global Debate: Putting the Advanced Capitalist State in ItsPlace,” Global Society 3 (September 1998): 299–321. See also David Held, A. G. McGrew,D. Goldblatt, and J. Perraton, Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture (Cam-bridge: Polity Press, 1999).

3. See Bayless Manning, “Congress, the Executive, and Intermestic Affairs: Three Proposals,”Foreign Affairs 55, no. 2 (January 1977): 306–24.

4. This has been noted, for example, in Gerd Junne, “Multinational Enterprises as Actors,” inEuropean Foreign Policy: The EC and Changing Perspectives in Europe, ed. Walter Carlsnaes andSteve Smith (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1994), 100.

5. For example, see the classic by Richard J. Barnet and Ronald E. Müller, Global Reach: ThePower of the Multinational Corporations (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974).

6. Epistemic communities are “network[s] of professionals with recognized expertise and com-petence in a particular domain and an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledgewithin that domain”—in other words, knowledge-based communities. This is the definitionof Peter M. Haas in “Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coor-dination,” International Organization 46, no. 1 (Winter 1992): 3. On the role of transna-tional groups, see, among other works, Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, ActivistsBeyond Borders (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998).

7. John Lewis Gaddis, “International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War,” Inter-national Security 17, no. 3 (Winter 1992/93): 217.

8. See Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979).9. Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York: Knopf,

1948). There have been many subsequent editions of this classic work.10. See Hans Morgenthau, “Another ‘Great Debate’: What is the National Interest of the

United States?” American Political Science Review 46, no. 4 (December 1952): 961–88. For acritique, see James Rosenau, “The National Interest,” in The Scientific Study of Foreign Policy(New York: Nichols, 1980), 283–93.

11. Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987).

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12. Neoliberalism is probably most associated with the work of Robert O. Keohane. See, in par-ticular, his After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton,NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984). On strategic cooperation, see among others, Ken-neth A. Oye, ed., Cooperation under Anarchy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,1985).

13. Herbert Simon, Administrative Behavior (New York: Macmillan, 1957). There have beenmany subsequent editions of his book.

14. For an example of these approaches, see André Gunder Frank and Dale L. Johnson, eds.,Dependence and Underdevelopment: Latin America’s Political Economy (Garden City, NY: Dou-bleday, 1972); Immanuel Wallerstein, The Capitalist World Economy (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1979). See also Immanuel Wallerstein, After Liberalism (New York: FreePress, 1995).

15. See, for example, Helen Milner, Interests, Institutions, and Information: Domestic Politics andInternational Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001). Research on depen-dence is discussed in the following sections.

16. For an introduction to these approaches, see G. J. Ikenbery, D. A. Lake, and Michael Mas-tanduno, “Introduction: Approaches to Explaining America’s Foreign Economic Policy,”International Organization 42, no. 1 (1988): 1–14.

17. Robert D. Putnam, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games,”International Organization 42, no. 3 (Summer 1988): 427–60.

18. Among other works in these areas, see Andrew Moravscik, “Taking Preferences Seriously: ALiberal Theory of International Politics,” International Organization 51, no. 4 (Autumn1997): 513–55; also Michael Doyle, “Liberalism and World Politics,” American Political Sci-ence Review 80, no. 4 (1986): 1151–69.

19. See, for example, Randolph B. Persaud, Counter-Hegemony and Foreign Policy: The Dialectics ofMarginalized and Global Forces in Jamaica (Albany, NY: State University Press, 2001); andCynthia Enloe. Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).

20. Alexander Wendt’s works are the ones most often cited on constructivism. See “Anarchy isWhat States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics,” International Orga-nization 6, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 391–425; and Social Theory of International Politics (NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 1998). However, Wendt is a systemic constructivistwho aims to present an alternative to neorealism. Constructivist work that is more rele-vant to foreign policy, that is, that incorporates the domestic, takes its cue from NicholasOnuf (World of Our Making: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations[New York: Columbia University Press, 1989]) and focuses on the role of norms andideas. See for example, Martha Finnemore, National Interests in International Society(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996); and J. Goldstein and R.O. Keohane, eds.,Ideas and Foreign Policy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993).

21. James N. Rosenau, “Comparative Foreign Policy: One Time Fad, Realized Fantasy and Nor-mal Field,” in The Scientific Study of Foreign Policy (New York: Nichols, 1980), 93.

22. Valerie M. Hudson with Christopher S. Vore, “Foreign Policy Analysis: Yesterday, Today,Tomorrow,” Mershon International Studies Review 39, supplement 2 (1985): 211. The term“actor specific” is borrowed from Alexander George’s Bridging the Gap Between Theory andPractice (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute for Peace, 1993).

23. Hudson and Vore, “Foreign Policy Analysis,” 211. The article they cite by Ruth Lane is“Concrete Theory: An Emerging Political Method,” American Political Science Review 84, no.3:927–40.

24. Richard C. Snyder, H. W. Bruck, and Burton Sapin, eds., Decision-Making as an Approach tothe Study of International Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1954); and For-eign Policy Decision-Making (New York: Free Press, 1962). A reprint was published in 2002 asRichard C. Snyder, H. W. Bruck, Burton Sapin, Valerie M. Hudson, Derek H. Chollet, andJames M. Goldgeier, Foreign Policy Decision-Making (Revisited) (New York: Palgrave Macmil-lan). This decision-making model drew from the work of Harold Sprout and MargaretSprout, The Ecological Perspective on Human Affairs with Special Reference to International Rela-tions (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965).

236 • Notes



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25. See, for example, Michael Brecher, B. Steinberg, and J. Stein, “A Framework for Research onForeign Policy Behavior,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 13, no. 1 (1969): 75–102.

26. Irving Janis, Victims of Groupthink (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972); Robert Jervis, Percep-tion and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,1976).

27. On prospect theory, see, for example, Jack Levy, “Prospect Theory and International Rela-tions: Theoretical Applications and Analytical Problems,” Political Psychology 13, no. 2(1992): 171–86. More recently “poliheuristic” theory uses positivist methods to draw up adecision framework incorporating both psychological and rational choice components. SeeA. Mintz, ed., Integrating Cognitive and Rational Theories of Foreign Policy (New York: PalgraveMacmillan, 2003).

28. Graham T. Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining The Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little,Brown, 1971). A newer edition co-authored with Philip Zelikow was published by Long-man in 1999.

29. A good critique is Stephen Krasner’s “Are Bureaucracies Important or Allison Wonderland?”Foreign Policy 7 (Summer 1972): 159–79. For a discussion of research on governmental pol-itics, see Eric Stern, B. Verbeek, D. Welch, J. Weldes, J. Kaarbo, D. Gruenfeld, P. t’Hart,and U. Rosenthal, “Whither the Study of Governmental Politics in Foreign Policymaking?A Symposium,” Mershon International Studies Review 42, supplement 2 (November 1998):205–55.

30. James N. Rosenau, “Pre-Theories and Theories of Foreign Policy,” in Approaches to Compar-ative and International Politics, ed. R. Barry Farrell (Evanston, IL: Northwestern UniversityPress, 1966: 27–92). Reprinted in James N. Rosenau, The Scientific Study of Foreign Policy(New York: Nichols, 1980: 115–68).

31. For a general overview of comparative foreign policy developments, see Hudson and Vore,“Foreign Policy Analysis.”

32. With respect to Latin America, for example, the Handbook of Latin American Studies publishedby the Library of Congress contains reviews of all international relations publications on abiennial basis. A recent review by G. Pope Atkins noted that “general and comparative theory-based foreign policy analyses of Latin American external state processes (beyond those dealingwith particular issues or individual countries) are largely missing.” See G. Pope Atkins, “Inter-national Relations: General,” in Handbook of Latin American Studies, Social Sciences, ed.Lawrence Boudon and K. D. McCann, vol. 59 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003), 590.Similarly, with regards to the Hispanic Caribbean, Damián Fernández notes that “the litera-ture being produced is mostly journalistic and highly ideological. The bulk of the work lacksconceptual and theoretical concerns and is far removed from the leading theoreticalapproaches of the discipline (for example, constructivism)” (Jacqueline Anne Braveboy-Wag-ner, “International Relations: Non-Hispanic Caribbean,” in Handbook of Latin AmericanStudies, Social Sciences, ed. Lawrence Boudon and K. D. McCann, vol. 59 [Austin: Universityof Texas Press, 2003], 620). On the non-Hispanic Caribbean, J. Braveboy-Wagner adds,“Unfortunately, the perennial problem of theoretical weakness has deepened as authors con-tinue to describe issues and events without much concern for contributing to the reconceptu-alization of international relations and foreign policy” (“International Relations:Non-Hispanic Caribbean,” Handbook, 620).

33. In addition, the liberal model at the domestic level presupposes the existence of relativelysophisticated interest group–based lobbying of governments, a model that does not exist inmany global south countries.

34. Mohammed Ayoob claims this is key to understanding third world security. See MohammedAyoob, “Subaltern Realism: International Relations Theory Meets the Third World,” inInternational Relations Theory and the Third World, ed. Stephanie G. Neuman (New York: St.Martin’s Press, 1998), 32–54. Ayoob argues that security issues are best understood byfocusing on the domestic order as well as the “intertwining of the state-making enterprisewith regional balance of power politics” (45).

35. Kenneth Waltz in Man, The State and War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1954) sawthe “third image” international environment as the permissive cause of war (233–34). Forthe use of the permissibility-autonomy concept in a global south context, see, for example,

Notes • 237



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Helio Jaguaribe, “Autonomía periférica y hegemonía céntrica,” Estudios Internacionales 12,no. 46 (1979): 91–130; or, more recently, Holge Henke, Between Self-Determination andDependency: Jamaica’s Foreign Relations, 1972–1989 (Bridgetown, Barbados: University of theWest Indies Press, 2000).

36. The review is largely drawn from Jacqueline Anne Braveboy-Wagner, ed., The Foreign Policiesof the Global South: Rethinking Conceptual Frameworks (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003).

37. Bahgat Korany and A. E. H. Dessouki, eds., The Foreign Policies of Arab States (Boulder, CO:Westview, 1991).

38. The overview is taken from Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou, “Foreign Policy inthe Arab World: The Promise of a State-Centered Approach,” in Braveboy-Wagner, The For-eign Policies of the Global South, 66–69. See also Bahgat Korany with contributors, How For-eign Policy Decisions are Made in the Third World (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1986).

39. This critique is Mohamedou’s. See Mohamedou, “Foreign Policy in the Arab World.”40. See Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou, Iraq and the Second Gulf War (San Francisco:

Austin and Winfield, 1998).41. I have drawn here from Alberto van Klaveren, “Understanding Latin American Foreign Poli-

cies,” in Latin American Nations in World Politics, ed. Heraldo Muñoz and Joseph S. Tulchin(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996), 35–60. See also Andrés Serbín, “Latin American For-eign Policies: Incorporating Civil Society Perspectives,” in Braveboy-Wagner, The ForeignPolicies of the Global South, 99–124.

42. The preceding summary is drawn from Paul Adogamhe, “African Foreign Policy: Integrat-ing Political Economy and Decisionmaking Perspectives,” in Braveboy-Wagner, The ForeignPolicies of the Global South, 80–85. Among works on African foreign policy, see I. WilliamZartman, International Relations in New Africa (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966);J. C. B. Olatunde Ojo, D. K. Orwa, and C. M. B. Utete, eds., African International Relations(London: Longman, 1985); I. A. Gambari, Theory and Reality in Foreign Policy Making(Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1989); Stephen Wright, ed.,African Foreign Policies (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1999); and T. M. Shaw and O. Aluko, eds.,The Political Economy of African Foreign Policy: Comparative Analysis (New York: St. Martin’sPress, 1984).

43. See, among others, Franklin Weinstein, Indonesian Foreign Policy and the Dilemma of Depen-dence: From Sukarno to Soeharto (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976); Harish Kapur,India’s Foreign Policy, 1947–92: Shadows and Substance (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage 1994); LuNing, The Dynamics of Foreign Policy Decision-Making in China (Boulder, CO: Westview,1997); Howard H. Lentner, “Modernization and Foreign Policy,” in Braveboy-Wagner, TheForeign Policies of the Global South, 163–88.

44. Jacques Rapoport, Ernest Muteba, and Joseph J. Therattil, Small States and Territories: Statusand Problems (New York: Arno Press for the United Nations Institute for Training andResearch [UNITAR], 1971); Elmer Plischke, Microstates in World Affairs: Policy, Problems andOptions (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1977); David Vital, The Inequal-ity of States: A Study of the Small Powers in International Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1967); Maurice A. East, “Size and Foreign Policy Behavior: A Test of Two Models,” WorldPolitics 25 (July 1973): 576–76.

45. Jacqueline Anne Braveboy-Wagner, “Making Room for the Smallest States,” in Braveboy-Wagner, The Foreign Policies of the Global South, 150; Roderick Pace, “Small States and theInternal Balance of the European Union: The Perspective of Small States,” in Enlarging theEuropean Union: The Way Forward, ed. Jackie Gower and John Redmond (Burlington, VT:Ashgate), 107.

46. East uses population while Steve Salmore and Charles Hermann use gross domestic product(see Steve Salmore and Charles Hermann, “The Effects of Size, Development and Account-ability on Foreign Policy,” Peace Research Society Papers 14 [1979]: 16–30). Whereas in hispretheory, Rosenau uses small to encompass both developed and developing countries,Patrick McGowan and Peter Klaus-Gottwald use “small” and “developing” interchangeably.See Patrick J. McGowan and Peter Klaus-Gottwald, “Small State Foreign Policies,” Interna-tional Studies Quarterly 19, no. 4 (December 1975): 299–321.

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47. Jeanne A. K. Hey, “Introducing Small State Foreign Policy,” in Small States in World Politics: Explain-ing Foreign Policy Behavior, ed. Jeanne A. K. Hey (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003), 2.

48. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. Rex Warner (London: Penguin 1954),401. The dictum was imagined to have been spoken by the Athenians to the Melians indemanding their submission.

49. See Marshall R. Singer, Weak States in a World of Powers: The Dynamics of International Rela-tionships (New York: Free Press, 1972), 216; and Bruce Russett, Harvey Starr, and DavidKinsella, World Politics: The Menu for Choice (Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2006), 62.

50. James N. Rosenau, “Pre-Theories and Theories of Foreign Policy,” in The Scientific Study ofForeign Policy, 115–68. The article originally appeared in 1966. Rosenau also later added theidea that the hierarchy of various influences would change according to issue-area.

51. See East, “Size and Foreign Policy Behavior.”52. Among studies usually cited in support of the bargaining model are one done by K. B. Rai

using foreign aid dependence (“Foreign Aid and Voting in the UN General Assembly,1967–1976,”Journal of Peace Research 17, no. 3 [1980]: 269–77), and another by NeilRichardson using export dependence (“Political Compliance and U.S. Trade Dominance,”America Political Science Review 70, no. 4 [December 1976]: 1098–1109). Bruce Moon iscredited with articulating the consensus model in an effort to explain why previous findingsthat a significant amount of global south behavior was in fact not compliant. But althoughhe found some support in the level of voting agreement between the United States andcountries that receive high levels of foreign assistance, he himself admitted that this did notprove that influence attempts had not been made. See Bruce Moon, “The Foreign Policy ofthe Dependent State,” International Studies Quarterly 27, no. 3 (September 1983): 315–40.

53. Relevant studies include Joe Hagan, “Domestic Political Regime Changes and Third WorldVoting Realignments in the United Nations, 1946–84,” International Organization 43, no. 3(Summer 1989): 505–41; W. J. Biddle and J. D. Stephens, “Dependent Development andForeign Policy: The Case of Jamaica,” International Studies Quarterly 33, no. 4 (December1989): 411–34; and Jeanne Hey, “Compliance, Consensus and Counterdependence: For-eign Policy in Ecuador,” International Interactions 19, no. 3 (1994): 241–61.

54. Jeanne A. K. Hey, “Refining Our Understanding,” in Small States in World Politics: ExplainingForeign Policy Behavior, ed. J. Hey (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003), 194.

55. See Joseph R. Harbert, “The Behavior of the Ministates in the United Nations,1971–1972,” International Organization 30, no. 1 (Winter 1976): 109–27; Jorge I.Dominguez, “Mice that Do Not Roar: Some Aspects of International Politics in the World’sPeripheries,” International Organization 25, no. 2 (Spring 1971): 175–208.

56. See Jacqueline Anne Braveboy-Wagner, “Microstates,” in Encyclopedia of International Rela-tions and Global Politics, ed. Martin Griffiths (New York: Routledge, 2005), 521–35.

57. Charles L. Taylor, for example, in an annex to the UNITAR study, defined a microstate as astate with one hundred thousand to one million inhabitants. See “A Statistical Typology ofMicro-States and Territories: Towards a Definition of a Micro-State,” Annex to Rapoport,Muteba, and Therattil, Small States and Territories. See also Harbert, “Behavior of the Min-istates.” However, Plischke, cited earlier (Microstates in World Affairs), categorized states into:small states 300,000 to one million), microstates (fewer than 300,000), and submicrostates(fewer than 100,000 inhabitants). The term “ministate” was more common in the literature.

58. Plischke, Microstates in World Affairs, 17.59. See, for example, Harbert, “The Behavior of the Ministates.”60. Commonwealth Secretariat, Vulnerability: Small States in the Global Society (London: Com-

monwealth, 1985). Revised 1997.61. See reviews in the Library of Congress’s Handbook of Latin American Studies 55, 57, 59, 61.62. Vaughan A. Lewis, “The Commonwealth Caribbean and Self-Determination in the Inter-

national System,” in Size, Self-Determination and International Relations: The Caribbean (Mona,Jamaica: Institute for Social and Economic Research, 1976), 229.

63. Ibid. See also Jacqueline A. Braveboy-Wagner, “Changes in the English-SpeakingCaribbean,” in Latin America and Caribbean Contemporary Record, 1981–1982, ed. Jack Hop-kins, vol. 1 (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1983), 101–9.

64. Biddle and Stephens, “Dependent Development.”

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65. Henke, Between Self-Determination.66. Randolph B. Persaud, Counter-Hegemony and Foreign Policy: The Dialectics of Marginalized and

Global Forces in Jamaica (Albany, NY: State University Press, 2001).67. Alex Dupuy, Haiti in the New World Order: The Limits of the Democratic Revolution (Boulder,

CO: Westview, 1977).68. On the role of the International Monetary Fund, see Horace A. Bartilow, The Debt Dilemma:

IMF Negotiations in Jamaica, Grenada, and Guyana (London: Macmillan Education, 1997).Other useful works on broader subjects of political economy are Hilbourne A. Watson, TheCaribbean in the Global Political Economy (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1994); Anthony T.Bryan, ed., The Caribbean: New Dynamics in Trade and Political Economy (Miami: North-SouthCenter, 1995).

69. Basil Ince, “The Administration of Foreign Affairs in a Very Small Developing Country:The Case of Trinidad and Tobago,” in Lewis, Size, Self-Determination, 310–34; Basil Ince,“The Information Gap and Non-Consultation: Effects on Foreign Policy-Making in Com-monwealth Caribbean States,” International Journal 34 (Spring 1979): 227–50; Basil Ince,“Leadership and Foreign Policy Decision-Making in a Small State: Trinidad and Tobago’sDecision to Enter the OAS,” Issues in Caribbean International Relations, ed. Basil Ince,Anthony T. Bryan, Herb Addo, and Ramesh Ramsaran (Lanham, MD: University Press ofAmerica, 1983), 265–95.

70. Among the more theoretical works on Grenada, see Jacqueline Anne Braveboy-Wagner,“Decision-Making in Crisis: The Grenada Case,” in The Caribbean in World Affairs: The For-eign Policies of the English-Speaking States, ed. Jacqueline Anne Braveboy-Wagner (Boulder,CO: Westview, 1989), 179–94. On Haiti, see Dupuy, Haiti. A good descriptive work on theGrenada crisis is Anthony Payne, Paul Sutton, and Tony Thorndike, Grenada: Revolution andInvasion (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984); for an eyewitness account, see Hugh O’Shaug-nessy, Grenada: An Eyewitness Account of the U.S. Invasion and the Caribbean History that ProvokedIt (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1984). In a similar vein, on Haiti, see Bob Shacochis, Immacu-late Invasion (New York: Viking, 1999). General works on broad aspects of Caribbean secu-rity include Anthony T. Bryan, J. Edward Greene, and Timothy M Shaw, eds., Peace,Development, and Security in the Caribbean (New York: St. Martin’s Press 1990); and Paul Sut-ton and Anthony Payne, eds., Size and Survival in the Caribbean and the Pacific (London: FrankCass, 1993).

71. For more on the West Indies Federation, which foundered primarily because of the inabil-ity of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago to agree on power sharing, see Sir John Mordecai,The West Indies: The Federal Negotiations (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1968).

72. See Cheddi Jagan, The West on Trial: My Fight for Guyana’s Freedom (London: Michael Joseph,1966); and Peter Simms, Trouble in Guyana (London: Allen and Unwin, 1966).

73. Guyana Government, Declaration of Sophia, Georgetown, Guyana: Government Printery1974.

74. As elaborated in the next chapter, Eric Williams gave an alarmist speech against Venezuelato his party followers on May 4, 1975. For a good work focusing on Venezuelan-Caribbeanrelations in these early times, see Andrés Serbín, Geopolítica de las Relaciones de Venezuela conel Caribe (Caracas, Venezuela: Fundación Fondo Editorial Acta Científica, 1982).

75. For background on Suriname, see, among others, Edward Dew, The Difficult Flowering ofSurinam: Ethnicity and Politics in a Plural Society (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1978); andEdward Dew, The Trouble in Suriname: 1975–1983 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994); Betty N.Sedoc-Dahlberg, ed., The Dutch Caribbean: Prospects for Democracy (New York: Gordon andBreach, 1990); and Gary Brana-Shute, ed., Resistance and Rebellion in Suriname: Old and New(Williamsburg, VA: College of William and Mary, 1990). For cultural aspects, seeAnnemarie de Waal, The Javanese in Surinam: Segment of a Plural Society (Assen, Netherlands:Van Gorcum, 1963); and Rosemarijn Van Hoefte, “Caribbean Culture: Ethnic IdentityIssues—the Case of Suriname,” in Caribbean Public Policy: Regional, Cultural, and Socioeco-nomic Issues, ed. Jacqueline A. Braveboy-Wagner and Dennis J. Gayle (Boulder, CO: West-view, 1997), 99–106.

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76. For background on Haiti’s politics, economics, and society, see, among many others: C. L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution (New York:Random House, 1963); James G. Leyburn, The Haitian People (New Haven, CT: Yale Uni-versity Press, 1966); David Nicholls, From Dessalines to Duvalier: Race, Colour and NationalIndependence in Haiti (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1995); Alex Dupuy,Haiti in the World Economy: Class, Race, and Underdevelopment Since 1700 (Boulder, CO: West-view, 1989); and Michael J. Dash, Culture and Customs of Haiti (Westport, CT: Greenwood,2000. Of course, the most well-known literary work on Haiti remains Graham Greene, TheComedians (London: Penguin, 1991) (original edition 1967).

77. This is nicely detailed in François Blancpain, Haïti et les états-Unis, 1915–1934: Histoire d’uneOccupation (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1999), among other French and English sources.

78. Ibid., 225–40. The author notes that the influence of the Europeans had been supplantedby that of the United States, and that the role of European legations in Port-au-Princehardly went beyond that of “simple consulates” (225).

79. Ernesto Sagas, An Apparent Contradiction?: Popular Perception of Haiti and the Foreign Policy ofthe Dominican Republic (paper presented at the Sixth Annual Conference of the Haitian Stud-ies Association, Boston, MA, 1994), http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/misctopic/dominican/conception.htm.

80. After Haiti’s independence, the Vatican (Holy See) took rather long to recognize this thenofficially Catholic republic (1860). But the church’s presence and Vatican influence enduredin Haiti despite the pervasiveness of voodooism and the complaints of some about Vaticanslowness to recognize human rights problems and perceived coziness with authoritarianism.In fact, “Father” Aristide’s liberation theology did not sit well with the church hierarchy. Hewas expelled from his order in 1988 and resigned in 1994.

Chapter 2

1. George C. Moe, “The Role of Foreign Policy in Barbados Development Strategy” address by the min-ister of external affairs, at a special meeting of the Barbadian Chamber of Commerce on Thursday,November 27, 1875, Barbados Bulletin 1, no. 3 (October–December 1975): 24.

2. These roles were so defined by Admiral Mountbatten in 1962 during a visit to Trinidad andTobago. See S. Hylton Edwards, Lengthening Shadows: Birth and Revolt of the Trinidad Army(Port-of-Spain, Trinidad: Inprint Caribbean, 1982), 23, 27–28. I am indebted to HumbertoGarcía Muñiz for this and other references as indicated in other footnotes.

3. For example, the concept of “collective economic security” was enshrined in the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance in 1975.

4. Rubén Silié and Guy Alexandre, “Las Relaciones entre Haiti y República Dominicana,”Ciencia y Sociedad 18, no. 3 (July–September 1993), 232. The quotation is a translation.

5. For a good if brief discussion, see François Blancpain, Haïti et les états-Unis, 1915–1934: His-toire d’une occupation (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1999), 236–40.

6. G. Pope Atkins, Latin America and the Caribbean in the International System (Boulder, CO:Westview, 1999), 325.

7. Samuel Martínez, Peripheral Migrants: Haitians and Dominican Republic Sugar Plantations(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1995), 46.

8. A comprehensive work on the dispute is Jacqueline Anne Braveboy-Wagner, The Venezuela-Guyana Border Dispute: Britain’s Colonial Legacy in Latin America (Boulder, CO: Westview,1984).

9. See also documents on the government’s Web site http://www.sndp.org.gy/minfor; and doc-uments by Odeen Ishmael on the Ministry of Information’s Web site http://www.guyana.org/features/trail_diplomacy.

10. “The Suriname Ferry.” Stabroek News (Guyana), September 22, 1998.

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11. For this and more on the Guyana-Suriname dispute, see documents available at Guyana’sMinistry of Foreign Affairs, http://www.sdnp.org.gy/minfor/guysur/.

12. Anthony T. Bryan, “The Islands and the Littoral: New Relationships,” in The RestlessCaribbean: Changing Perspectives of International Relations, ed. R. Millett and W. Marvin Will(New York: Praeger, 1979), 242–43.

13. Alma H. Young, “Belize,” in Latin America and Caribbean Contemporary Record 1982–1983,ed. Jack Hopkins, vol. 2 (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1984), 454.

14. According to a Caricom press release, “on February 24, 2000 . . . certain elements of theGuatemalan Armed Forces violated the territorial integrity of Belize, unlawfully enteredBelizean territory and forced three members of the Belize Defense Force and one member ofthe Belize Police Department at gunpoint to cross over into Guatemalan territory wherethey illegally held them prisoner for over a week” (Press release 26/2000, March 14, 2000,http://www.caricom.org/pressreleases [accessed July 28, 2004].)

15. For historical details of the Belize-Guatemala dispute, see R. A. Humphreys, The DiplomaticHistory of British Honduras: 1638–1901 (London: Oxford University Press, 1961); and WayneA. Clegern, British Honduras: Colonial Dead End, 1859–1900 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana Uni-versity Press, 1967); for a good legal analysis, see David A. G. Waddell, “Developments inthe Belize Question, 1946–1960,” American Journal of International Law 55, no. 2 (April1961): 459–69.

16. “Base naval de Isla de Aves se inaugurá en corto plazo.” Venpres, July 20, 2004, translated bythis author.

17. For maps and discussion, see Yoshifumi Tanaka, “Barbados/Trinidad and Tobago MaritimeDelimitation,” the Hague Justice Portal, December 5, 2006, http://www.thehaguelegalcapital.nl/eCache/DEF/6/336.html (accessed March 9, 2007). The actual award washanded down in April.

18. Steve Dodge and Dean W. Collinwood, “Foreign Policy Making in the Bahamas: A Case Studyof Nassau’s Anti-U.S. Reaction to the Invasion of Grenada” (paper presented at the CaribbeanStudies Association Annual Conference, San Juan, Puerto Rico, May 29–June 1, 1985).

19. Arthur Banks, Political Handbook of the World 1986 (Binghamton, NY: Center for SocialAnalysis of the State University of New York; New York: Council on Foreign Relations,1986), 468.

20. Dean W. Collinwood, “Bahamas,” in Latin America and Caribbean Contemporary Record1983–1984, ed. Jack Hopkins, vol. 3 (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1985), 662.

21. Blancpain, Haïti et les états-Unis, 16.22. Ibid., 17.23. For an interesting and detailed account of the 1915 invasion and its aftermath, see Hans

Schmidt, The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915–1934 (New Brunswick, NJ: RutgersUniversity Press, 1995).

24. For details, see John Bartlow Martin, Overtaken by Events: The Dominican Crisis From the Fallof Trujillo to the Civil War (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1966).

25. Andrew Reding, “Exorcising Haiti’s Ghosts,” World Policy Journal 13, no. 1 (Spring 1996):15.

26. “A Dominican Invasion of Haiti?” Haiti Progrès 17, no. 34, November 10–16, 1999.27. A good account of the negotiations and other developments during World War II can be

found in Fitzroy André Baptiste, War, Cooperation, and Conflict: The European Possessions in theCaribbean, 1939–1945 (New York: Greenwood, 1988).

28. See Eric Williams, Inward Hunger: The Education of A Prime Minister (London: AndréDeutsch, 1969), 204–44.

29. Ibid., 223.30. See Peter Simms, Trouble in Guyana (London: Allen and Unwin, 1966).31. William Ratliff, “Guyana,” in Latin America and Caribbean Contemporary Record 1983–1984,

ed. Jack Hopkins, vol. 3 (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1985), 416.32. The most well-known maneuver was one that the Grenadian government assumed to be a

dress rehearsal for invasion: an exercise targeted at a fictitious country called “Amber and

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the Amberdines,” presumed to be a code name for Grenada and its dependencies in theGrenadines.

33. Eric Williams, speech to Special Convention of the People’s National Movement (PNM)(Sunday, June 15, 1975, Chaguaramas, Trinidad). See also Eric Williams, “The Threat tothe Caribbean Community,” speech to the PNM General Council, May 4, 1975 (Port-of-Spain: PNM, 1975).

34. The PetroCaribe accord is discussed in the next chapter.35. Roy Preiswerk, “The New Regional Dimensions of the Foreign Policies of Commonwealth

Caribbean States,” In Regionalism and the Commonwealth Caribbean (St. Augustine, Trinidad:Institute of International Relations, 1979), 9.

36. Williams, Inward Hunger, 335.37. Selwyn Ryan, The Muslimeen Grab for Power: Race, Religion and Revolution in Trinidad and

Tobago (Port-of-Spain, Trinidad: Inprint Caribbean, 1991), 256. Ryan writes, “Qaddafi’spreoccupation with the West in general and the U.S., Britain and France in particular wasdue to his perception that France, Britain and especially the United States were the princi-pal supporters of Zionism and the monarchist and conservative elements in the MiddleEast. He was also aware that Israel was providing support for many right wing groups inAfrica and Central America. As such, he considered it imperative to attack Israel and theU.S. not only in the Middle East itself, but anywhere in America’s backyard where a basecould be secured. It was in pursuit of this objective that military training and funding wasprovided for ‘proxies,’ whether secular or Islamic, in Grenada, St. Lucia, Trinidad andTobago, Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Venezuela. He also supportedthe IRA in its campaign against the British as well as movements in New Caledonia, Guade-loupe and Martinique.”

38. Rosemary Brana-Shute and Gary Brana-Shute, “Dominica,” in Latin America and Caribbean Contem-porary Record 1981–1982, ed. Jack Hopkins, vol. 1 (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1983), 542–43.

39. According to Ryan, the Ministry of National Security, working through Dutch and U.S.embassy channels, had established that at least thirty-five persons went to Libya for militarytraining (Ryan, Muslimeen, 258–59).

40. Ibid., 159.41. St. Vincent’s dependencies are Bequia, Canouan, Mayreau, Mustique, Prune Island, Petit St.

Vincent, and Union Island.42. Report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organization, General Assembly Offi-

cial Records, fifty-fourth session supplement no. 1 (A/54/1), chapter IV.43. Most of the information here and in the next paragraph is from annual reports of the U.S.

International Narcotics Bureau, in particular Narcotics Control Strategy Reports 2003 and2006 (published March 2004 and March 2007, respectively).

44. For a controversial look at government corruption and other government-supported activi-ties in Antigua and Barbuda at that time, see Robert Coram, Caribbean Time Bomb: TheUnited States’ Complicity in the Corruption of Antigua (New York: William Morrow, 1993).

45. See, for example, Glenroy Sinclair, “Haiti Drug Link—Cops say Fake Fishermen SmugglingArms, Aliens.” Jamaica Gleaner, September 9, 2003.

46. “Former Haiti Police Chief Arrested.”CNN.com, May 16, 2004.47. Lynden O. Pindling, Statement by Bahamian Prime Minister to the 40th General Assembly of the

United Nations, October 24, 1985 (New York: United Nations General Assembly 1985), UNDoc. A/40/PV.47), 51–52.

48. Alan A. Block, Masters of Paradise: Organized Crime and the Internal Revenue Service in theBahamas (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1998), 299.

49. Joel Brinkley, “Drugs and Graft Main Issue in Bahamas Vote.” New York Times, June 14,1987, p. 20.

50. Dean W. Collinwood, “Bahamas,” in Latin America and Caribbean Contemporary Record1984–1985, ed. Jack Hopkins, vol. 4 (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1986), 617–25. See also “3Bahamas Cabinet Members Resign and 2 Are Dismissed.” Reuters Report, October 10, 1984.

51. Joel Brinkley, “Drugs and Graft Main Issue in Bahamas Vote.”

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52. Joseph B. Treaster, “Anti-U.S. Mood Was a Key Issue in Bahamas.” New York Times, June 21,1987, p. 16.

53. Betty N. Sedoc-Dahlberg, “Democracy and Human Rights in Suriname,” in Democracy andHuman Rights in the Caribbean, ed. Ivelaw L. Griffith and Betty N. Sedoc-Dahlberg (Boulder,CO: Westview, 1997), 221.

54. United States Bureau for International Narcotics and Law enforcement Affairs (BINLEA),International Narcotics Control Strategy Report 2003 (Washington, DC: Government Printery,March 2004). See the Suriname section.

55. Kathleen Maharaj, report from Tobago, Trinidad Express, April 6, 1998.56. Ivelaw L. Griffith focuses on the many facilitating factors with respect to “geonarcotics” in

his Drugs and Security in the Caribbean: Sovereignty under Siege (University Park: PennsylvaniaState University Press, 1997).

57. Cartagena Declaration on Refugees, Nov. 22, 1984, Annual Report of the Inter-AmericanCommission on Human Rights, OAS Doc. OEA/Ser.L/V/II.66/doc.10, rev. 1, at 190-93(1984–1985).

58. Dean Oliver Barrow, Statement by Minister of Foreign Affairs and Economic Developmentof Belize to the 40th General Assembly of the United Nations, October 8, 1985. (New York:United Nations General Assembly 1985), UN Doc. A/40/PV.27.

59. Alma Young, “Belize,” in Hopkins, Latin America and Caribbean Contemporary Record, 3:490.60. Instituto de Relaciones Europeo Latinoamericanas (IRELA), Haiti: Una Democracia Imposi-

ble? Dossier no. 38 (Madrid: IRELA, May 1992), 37.61. Maureen Taft-Morales, Haiti: The Struggle for Democracy and Congressional Concerns in 1993,

Congressional Research Service Issue Brief (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, Novem-ber 8, 1993).

62. Alex Dupuy, Haiti in the New World Order: The Limits of the Democratic Revolution (Boulder,CO: Westview, 1997), 182.

63. Jim Loney, “Cuban Exiles Protest Bahamas Rafter deportation.” Reuters, May 25, 1998.64. Sedoc-Dahlberg, “Democracy and Human Rights in Suriname,” in Griffith and Sedoc-

Dahlberg, Democracy and Human Rights, 214.65. See Caribbean Development Bank, Annual Reports over the years. Since 2004, the bank has

separated the Annual Reports into the report and an Annual Economic Review. Populationfigures are contained in the appendices of the latter. The latest report at the time of writingwas 2005. See Caribbean Development Bank, Annual Economic Review 2005 (St. Michael,Barbados, 2006).

66. See, for example, Martínez, Peripheral Migrants. Much of the following discussion is from hisbook.

67. Michele Wucker, “Fernández: We Deported Haitians After Breaking Up Network of beg-gars.” Haiti Insight 7, no. 3 (February–March 1997).

68. For a full discussion of these issues, see National Coalition of Haitian Rights (NCHR),“Haitians in the Dominican Republic: Mass Expulsions and Deportations,” May 2001,http://www.nchr.org/hrp/dr/report_overview.htm (accessed March 2007).

69. See Caribbean Development Bank, Annual Economic Review 2004, 2005, Appendices: Coun-try Data.

70. Nina Bernstein, “U.S. Is Ending Haven for Those Fleeing a Volcano,” New York Times,August 9, 2004, pp. A1, B6.

71. Block, Masters of Paradise, 296.72. Information and reports on FATF can be gained from its Web site, http://www.fatf-gafi.org.73. The Egmont Group is a global network of FIUs that first met in 1995 and is devoted to

information sharing, training, and development activities intended to meet the threat ofmoney laundering and terrorism. See its Web site: http://www.egmontgroup.org.

74. For an excellent history, description, and critique of the tax issue, see Marshall J. Langer,“The Outrageous History of Caribbean Tax Treaties with OECD Member States,” Tax NotesInternational, June 10, 2002, 1187–199, available at www.itpa.org/open/archive/langer-outrageous.pdf (accessed March 2007).

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75. Information on these treaties and agreements can be obtained from the Web site of theInternal Revenue Service (http://www.irs.gov).

76. Trinidad and Tobago is home to more than one-third of the total stock of Caribbeanmigrants. Grenada, St. Vincent, and Guyana are the major sources of intraregionalmigrants. For details on intraregional migration, see Elizabeth Thomas-Hope, “EmigrationDynamics in the Anglophone Caribbean,” in Emigration Dynamics in Developing Countries:Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, ed. Reginald Appleyard, vol. 3 (Aldershot, UK:Ashgate, 1999), 232–84.

77. Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs 2004, eastern Caribbeansection.

78. See Department of Homeland Security, “Aliens Formally Removed by Criminal Status andRegion and Country of Nationality, Fiscal Years 1998–2004, 1998–2005,” Yearbook ofImmigration Statistics 2004, 2005, published in 2005 and 2006 respectively. (Table 43 for2004, Table 41 for 2005).

79. “US Gang Links—Study Shows Deportees’ Criminal Connection,” Jamaica Gleaner, Octo-ber 21, 2003.

80. “Deportees Playing Minor Role,” Trinidad Express, October 5, 2003.81. “Deportees to Guyana from North America on the Increase,” Guyana Chronicle, February

22, 2004.82. See, for example, “Trinis Flood Canada, UK,” Trinidad Guardian, August 15, 2004.83. For data on visas, see the tables entitled “Immigrant and Nonimmigrant Visas Issued at For-

eign Service Posts” and “Summary of Visas Issued by Issuing Office,” for various fiscal yearsthrough 2006, Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs, “Travel.state.gov,”http://travel.state.gov.

84. Christopher Mitchell, “The Impact of 9/11 on Migration Relations Between the Caribbeanand the United States,” in Caribbean Security in the Age of Terror: Challenge and Change, ed.Ivelaw L. Griffith (Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers, 2004), 355–57.

85. The attacks of 9/11 were followed by several incidents on planes, one of which eveninvolved a Trinidadian on his way from France to Trinidad who helped foil a Briton’s planto blow up the American Airlines plane using explosives hidden in his shoes.

86. Ransford W. Palmer, “Economic and Trade Impact of 9/11,” in Griffith, Caribbean Security(Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers, 2004), 344–45.

87. See Camini Marajh, “U.S. on Jammat Trail,” Trinidad Express, August 15, 2004.

Chapter 3

1. “Human security” supplements the traditional notion of state security, expanding securityto include a people-centered focus. The emphasis is on protecting people’s vital freedomsfrom critical and pervasive threats—including threats to human rights and human develop-ment—in ways that empower them so that they fulfill their strengths and aspirations. Thisis the conceptualization adopted by the independent Commission on Human Security thatwas launched at the 2000 UN Millennium Summit

2. The MDG goals are to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal primaryeducation; promote gender equality and empower women; reduce child mortality; improvematernal health; combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases; ensure environmental sus-tainability; and develop a global partnership for development.

3. Commonwealth Secretariat, Vulnerability: Small States in the Global Society (London: Com-monwealth, 1985), 5, 21–22. See also A Future for Small States: Overcoming Vulnerability (Lon-don: Commonwealth, 1997).

4. See United Nations, “Sustainable Development of Small Island States,” preamble of Pro-gramme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States, UNGlobal Conference, Bridgetown, Barbados, April 25–May 6, 1994.

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5. Among others, see UN Economic and Social Council Document A/53/65-E/1998/5, Feb-ruary 6, 1998; and Jonathan P. Atkins, Sonia Mazzi, and Christopher D. Easter, A Com-monwealth Vulnerability Index for Developing Countries: The Position of Small States (London:Commonwealth Secretariat, January 2000).

6. Atkins, Mazzi, and Easter, Commonwealth Vulnerability Index.7. The OECD is comprised of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Den-

mark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxem-bourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, SlovakRepublic, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States. The orga-nization disseminates annual data on aid transfers.

8. Note that according to the OECD, its calculation of “unallocated” amounts underestimatesthe private sector net inflow of countries hosting investment in the oil sector and countrieswith offshore operations.

9. See IMF, Annual Reports throughout the years for more detail, and especially IMF, AnnualReport 2004 (esp. appendices) (Washington D.C.: International Monetary Fund, 2005).

10. CDB, Annual Economic Review 2005 (St. Michael: Barbados: Caribbean Development Bank,2006), country appendices.

11. IMF Country Report, no. 04/216, July 2004.12. Thus, for example, the U.S. ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago warned that U.S. investors

would go elsewhere if the Caribbean did not “respond” adequately to international orga-nized crime and terrorism. Trinidad Guardian, May 22, 2002.

13. Estimate from a study by Martin Sullivan published by Tax Notes and excerpted in the NewYork Times, September 27, 2004, C2. In trying to discourage companies from going abroad,the U.S. congress passed a bill in October 2004 that, inter alia, allowed companies to payonly 5.25 percent (as opposed to the usual 35 percent) on foreign income if they sent themoney home by the end of 2005 and reinvested it in the United States in just about any areaexcept paying for executive salaries.

14. These are Caricom Statistics from the subprogram database.15. The political context of PetroCaribe is also discussed in the next chapter.16. “The energy sector already accounts for about 40 percent of GDP, 83 percent of domestic

goods exports, and slightly more than 40 percent of government revenue.” InternationalMonetary Fund, “IMF Concludes 2004 Article IV Consultation with Trinidad andTobago,” Public Information Notice (PIN), no. 04/136, December 8, 2004, http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pn/2004/pn04136.htm (accessed March 30, 2007).

17. Caricom Secretariat, press release 74/2004 (May 17, 2004). For more information, see theprojects section of the Web site (http://www.caricom.org).

18. UNECLAC-Caribbean, Report of the Seminar on the Results of the Social Vulnerability Index, June24–25, 2004, document LC/CAR/L.35, April 21, 2005, available at http://www.cepal.org/publicaciones/xml/6/22496/L.035.pdf (accessed March 31, 2007).

19. UNDP, “Financing Human Development,” Human Development Report 1991 (New York:Oxford University Press for UNDP, 1991).

20. UNDP, Human Development Report 2006, “Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and theGlobal Water Crisis” (New York: Palgrave Macmillan for the UNDP, 2006).

21. Figures on poverty are from Commonwealth of Dominica, Country Poverty Assessments,Final Report, 1:46. Gini index statistics are available in Caribbean Development Bank(CDB), Annual Economic Review 2004 (St. Michael, Barbados, 2005). Unemployment statis-tics are from CDB, Annual Economic Review, 2005.

22. “Global Summary of the AIDS Epidemic December 2006,” World Health Organization(WHO)/UNAIDS, AIDS Epidemic Update, December 2006; and WHO/UNAIDS, 2005Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic (New York: UNAIDS 2006).

23. Ibid.24. United Nations General Assembly, Report of the Global Conference on the Sustainable Develop-

ment of Small Island Developing States, Barbados, April 25–May 6, 1995. Annex II: Preamble, Pro-gramme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (UN documentA/CONF.167/9, October 1994).

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25. The members are the following: all the Caricom nations, Cape Verde, Comoros, CookIslands, Cuba, Cyprus, Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia, Guinea-Bissau, Kiribati, Mal-dives, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Singa-pore, Seychelles, Sao Tome and Principe, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.American Samoa, Guam, Netherlands Antilles, and the U.S. Virgin Islands are observers.

26. The status of treaties can be checked at United Nations, “Multilateral Treaties Depositedwith the Secretary-General” (New York: United Nations Treaty Section, 2006), available athttp://untreaty.un.org.

27. My thanks to Diana Cassells and Justin Braveboy-Wagner for contributing to this section onnatural disasters and environmental issues.

28. Lesley France and Brian Wheeller, “Sustainable Tourism in the Caribbean,” in Environmentand Development in the Caribbean: Geographical Perspectives, ed. David Barker and F. M. Dun-can McGregor (Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, 1995), 62–63.

29. Ibid., 63.30. Ibid., 66.31. Ibid., 67.32. Trinidad Express, October 5, 2003.33. At the time of writing, Bermuda is the only island that charges a head tax of sixty dollars for

cruise passengers. Bermuda also restricts the number of ships in port at any one time to nomore than two, insists that cruise ships employ more Caribbean nationals, and has forcedthe industry to pay into an education fund to assist young people (information from state-ments made at Caribbean Media Exchange Tourism Conference, Kingston, Jamaica, June 5,2003).

34. Statistics are from the Caricom Community statistics subprogram and are available athttp://www.caricom.org.

35. Henry S. Gill, “NAFTA: Challenges for the Caribbean Community,” in The Caribbean: NewDynamics in Trade and Political Economy, ed. Anthony T. Bryan (Miami: North-South Center,1995), 34–35. This is Gill’s conclusion.

36. For a good discussion of this and other aspects of Puerto Rican development, see RichardRuth, Sarah Grusky, and José Rodriguez, “Puerto Rico and the Caribbean Basin Initiative:Uneasy Interdependence,” in The Caribbean in the Global Political Economy, ed. Hilbourne A.Watson (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner and Ian Randle, 1994), 207–21.

37. William Steif, “936—What It Means for Caricom,” Caribbean Week, May 1–14, 1993, p. 54.38. Ibid.39. White House Press Releases, June 27, 1990.40. Typical was Carter Footwear, a large U.S. company, that argued,

The CBI has strengthened the position of many U.S. companies. In stemming theloss of jobs to the Far East, the CBI has actually resulted in a net gain in U.S.employment. U.S.-based operations complementary to the Caribbean facilities sup-port and supply the off-shore operations. In fact, for our industry, we estimate thatfor every 400 jobs in the Caribbean footwear industry, approximately 100 jobs arecreated in the U.S. to support and supply our operations. By contrast, if the samefootwear production were performed in China, zero U.S. jobs are created. (U.S.House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Trade of the Committee on Ways andMeans, Written Comments on H.R. 1403 Caribbean Basin Free Trade Agreements Act, June7, 1993 [Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993], 58)

Under Section 222 of CBERA, footwear assembled in the Caribbean from 100 percent U.S.components enter the United States duty-free. A “Section 222 Coalition” of footwear man-ufacturers also supported the bill.

41. First Summit of the Americas, Declaration of Miami, December 9–11, 1994.42. According to Blake, “the negotiator of one of the largest countries was, in fact, heard to

remark that his country had no intention of entering into an Agreement with any permanent

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cripple.” See Byron Blake, “The Free Trade Area of the Americas: A View from Outside theBox” (speech presented by Assistant Secretary-General, Regional Trade and Economic Inte-gration, Caricom Secretariat at the 27th Miami Conference of the Caribbean Basin, Miami,FL, December 8–10, 2003) http://www.caricom.org/27miamiconference-blake.htm.

43. Cuba was accepted as a member by ACP countries in 2000 but as of 2007 has not been ableto join the Cotonou agreement because of provisions requiring democracy and respect forhuman rights.

44. See European Commision, Directorate General, An Analysis of Trends in the Lomé IV TradeRegime and the Consequences of Retaining It, document CE/TFN/GCEC3/09-EN,ACP/61/002/99 (Brussels: European Commission, 1999).

45. A. Dunlop, “What Future for Lomé’s Commodity Protocols?” European Center for Devel-opment Policy Management (ECDPM) discussion Paper 5 (Maastricht, Netherlands:ECDPM, 1999), 11.

46. Ibid., 12.47. Ibid.48. The 1980 and 1990 figures are Caricom statistics. The 1990 figures do not include data for

Antigua and Barbuda, which stopped reporting to Caricom in 1989. The 2004 figures arefrom the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Handbookof Statistics 2006, online (http://www.unctad.org). and include the Bahamas and Haiti,even though they are not members of the common market. Caricom data for 2004 areincomplete.

49. Dunlop, ““What Future,” 25.50. Figures given in New York Times, April 7, 1999, C1.51. Sahadeo Basdeo, “CARIBCAN: A Continuum in Canada-CARICOM Economic Rela-

tions,” Caribbean Studies 25, no. 3/4 (1992): 189–90.52. Ibid., 195–96.53. Caricom statistics for 2004 were incomplete at the time of writing in that statistics for

Grenada, as well as Antigua and Barbuda (which has not reported data since 1989), weremissing, as also were Suriname’s export data. The data are more complete for 2003, whenthe export percentage was 5.4 percent and import 2.8 percent.

Suriname was not a member of the common market in the 1980s and 1990s and thusis excluded from that data. Neither the Bahamas nor Haiti, nonmembers of the commonmarket, are included. Small amounts of trade for Montserrat are included in the totalamounts, except for imports in 1980 and 1990.

54. Exports do not include reexports; 2004 data are extrapolations from Canada’s reporting (StatisticsCanada, Trade Data Online, http://www.strategis.ic.gc.ca). It is not exactly accurate to comparestatistics given by Canada with those of Caricom since different calculations of cost-insurance-freight and free-on-board, among other things, affect the values. For the total trade denominator,UNCTAD/IMF data are used (from UNCTAD, Handbook of Statistics).

Chapter 4

1. “Bahamas Asks U.S. for Military Outpost,” CNN report, September 25, 2003.2. This program, the U.S. Public Safety Program, was discontinued in the mid-1070s after

Congress declared that the training of police forces was illegal. Various changes were madein the 1980s to accommodate the fact that many Caribbean countries have no armies. SeeHumberto García Muñiz, El Caribe Angloparlante del “SMLE” al “M-16”: Ensayo sobre el Desar-rollo Histórico de la Presencia Militar de Estados Unidos en el Caribe (Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico:Institute for Caribbean Studies, University of Puerto Rico, 1985), 302–10.

3. ACDA is now a bureau within the State Department.4. Center for International Policy and Latin America Working Group Educational Fund, “Just

the Facts,” http://www.ciponline.org/facts/inl.htm (accessed March 17, 2007).

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5. García, El Caribe Angloparlante, 396. Figures were given by García in Barbados dollars ($2.5million).

6. “Exported weapons from UK (UK) in 1995–2005, March 3, 2006,” SIPRI Web site,http://www.sipri.org/contents/armstrad/access.html (accessed March 17, 2007).

7. Michael H. Erisman and John D. Martz, ed., Colossus Challenged: The Struggle for CaribbeanInfluence (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1982), 91.

8. U.S. Departments of State and Defense, Grenada Documents: An Overview and Selection(Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, September 1984).

9. Garcia, Ensayo, 396. Aid was not substantial. For example, President Desmond Hoytereceived a gift of three combat helicopters from the U.S.S.R. in 1985. Caribbean Insight,November 1985, 8.

10. Betty N. Sedoc-Dahlberg, “Democracy and Human Rights in Suriname,” in Democracy andHuman Rights in the Caribbean, ed. Ivelaw L. Griffith and Betty N. Sedoc-Dahlberg (Boulder,CO: Westview, 1997), 219.

11. Latin America Weekly Report, October 29, 1982, 6.12. García, Ensayo, 236.13. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peace-Keep-

ing: Report of the Secretary-General, June 17, 1992, UN doc. A/47/277-S/24111. This reportrepresented a post–cold war evaluation of the role of the United Nations.

14. On this topic, see, among many others, Ruth Wedgwood, “Regional and Subregional Orga-nizations in International Conflict Management,” in Managing Global Chaos: Sources of andResponses to International Conflict, ed. Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and PamelaAall, (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute for Peace, 1996), 275–85.

15. Details of the Guiana affair and Trinidadian proposal can be found in Government ofTrinidad and Tobago, Trinidad and Tobago and the British Guiana Question, Speech by the PrimeMinister of Trinidad and Tobago, the Honorable Eric Williams, in the House of Representatives,November 22 and 27, 1963 (Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago: Government Printery,1963); and Roy Preiswerk, ed., Documents on International Relations in the Caribbean (Trinidadand Tobago: Institute of International Relations; Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico: Institute ofCaribbean Studies, 1969), 820–25.

16. For excerpts of the report of the investigatory commission, see Preiswerk, Documents onInternational Relations in the Caribbean, 9, 825–29. After Anguilla ended up seceding, thethreat of secession continued to worry St. Kitts/Nevis. The right of Nevis to secede was writ-ten into the independence constitution of 1983 as an inducement for Nevis to remain in thefederation. Over the years, the Nevis Reformation Party and, later, the Concerned Citizens’Movement on Nevis consistently left open the question of pursuing a separate course. Mat-ters came to a head in 1998, when a referendum on the issue was called. The viability of atiny independent Nevis, with an economy fueled primarily by offshore financial services,was widely discussed throughout the region. In August 1998, 62 percent of Nevisians votedfor autonomy, just short of the two-thirds majority needed to change the country’s consti-tutional status. Nevisians feel short-changed by St. Kitts on issues of finances and manage-ment. The vote was closely watched by other dissatisfied territories, including Barbuda,which complains about rule from Antigua, and Tobago, which complains about its unitarystate partner, Trinidad. In the aftermath of the vote, all parties on St. Kitts/Nevis pledged totry to work out their differences. A constitutional commission of independent partiesworked to come up with an equitable solution to Nevisian complaints.

17. García, Ensayo, 245.18. In 1983, Barbados’ prime minister Tom Adams inadvertently reflected this tolerant attitude

when he noted that “Mr. Burnham is regarded in the Caribbean not only as a cross thatGuyana has to bear, but a cross that many of us have to bear . . . a figure of fun and hisspeeches are entertained as light relief.” Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Latin Amer-ica Daily Report, November 30, 1983.

19. See, for example, Rickey Singh, “Caribbean Turnabout,” Caribbean Contact, September1985, 1.

20. García, Ensayo, 407–11.

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21. Private impressions of a Trinidadian government press member who accompanied thetroops to Haiti, April 1995.

22. CFATF members are the following: all the Caricom states (including Montserrat), all Cen-tral American nations, Dominican Republic, Panama, Venezuela, Aruba, and the dependen-cies Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands,and the Netherlands Antilles.

23. IMPACS Web site is http://www.caricomimpacs.org.24. In 2007, Guyana and Venezuela are reviewing their options for settlement after the death of

the UN special mediator.25. Also participating were Algeria, Argentina, Austria, Bangladesh, Benin, Canada, Djibouti,

France, Guatemala, Guinea-Bissau, Honduras, India, Ireland, Jordan, Mali, Nepal, Nether-lands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Russian Federation, Togo, Tunisia, and theUnited States.

26. Here are the dates when Caricom members joined the GATT: Antigua and Barbuda: March30, 1987; Barbados: February 15, 1967; Belize: October 7, 1983; Dominica: April 20,1993; Grenada: February 9, 1994; Guyana: July 5, 1966; Haiti: January 1, 1950; Jamaica:December 31, 1963; St.Kitts-Nevis: March 24, 1994; Saint Lucia: April 13, 1993; St. Vin-cent and the Grenadines: May 18, 1993; Suriname: March 22, 1978; Trinidad and Tobago:October 23, 1962.

27. For a brief view of the unitization agreement in the context of overall global gas markets, seeU.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, International Energy Out-look 2004 (Washington, DC, 2004), 61.

28. The discussion is based on an analysis of trade patterns reported in J. Braveboy-Wagner, TheCaribbean in World Affairs: The Foreign Policies of the English-Speaking States (Boulder, CO: West-view, 1989). See pp. 77–78 for Jamaica.

29. The members of LAIA are Argentine Republic, Republic of Bolivia, Federative Republic ofBrazil, Republic of Chile, Republic of Colombia, Republic of Ecuador, United MexicanStates, Republic of Paraguay, Republic of Peru, eastern Republic of Uruguay, and BolivarianRepublic of Venezuela.

30. The statistics in this section, unless otherwise indicated, are Caricom statistics. TheBahamas and Suriname are not included in 1981. The Bahamas, Suriname, and Antigua andBarbuda are not included in 2000. Guyana statistics were missing for years after 2000 andGrenada’s for 2004. For 2004, data on imports were reported for Suriname but export datawas missing. Data for 1981 were expressed in EC dollars and were therefore converted toU.S. dollars at the rate of EC$2.7 = U.S. $1, the rate then as well as today.

31. From 0.8 percent to 1.3 percent for imports; from 0.5 percent to 0.5 percent for exports.32. This analysis is based on IDB-FTAA statistics. The last available year was 1999 for the

Bahamas, and 2001 for Suriname.33. See IMF, Direction of Trade Statistics Yearbook 1996, 2006 (Washington D.C.: International

Monetary Fund, 1996, 2006) and also ALADI Information System on Foreign Trade(online statistical database), http://www. aladi.org, for statistics on Venezuela and Cuba.

34. Some of this discussion appeared in Jacqueline Anne Braveboy-Wagner, with Marvin W.Will, Dennis J. Gayle, and Ivelaw L. Griffith, The Caribbean in the Pacific Century (Boulder,CO: Lynne Rienner, 1993).

35. Data from the IMF, Direction of Trade Statistics Yearbook, 1996.36. Data on India are from India’s Department of Commerce, March 19, 2007.37. Christine Ho, “‘Hold the Chow Mein, Gimme Soca’”: Creolization of the Chinese in

Guyana, Trinidad, and Jamaica,” Amerasia Journal 15, no. 2 (1989): 3–25.38. Statistics are from the Caricom Secretariat, Subprogram in Statistics, 2007.39. Statistics on Surinam’s trade are relatively scarce. While Suriname began to report data to

Caricom in 2002–2004, no export data were included. The information on Suriname’s tradepartners is based on FTAA-IDB data, and the last year for which data are available (as of2007) is 2001.

40. Anthony T. Bryan, “The CARICOM and Latin American Integration Experiences: Obser-vations on Theoretical Origins and Comparative Performance,” in Ten Years of CARICOM,by Inter-American Development Bank (Washington, DC: IDB, 1984), 84.

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41. For details, see the Caricom Web site at http://www.caricom.org.42. The assembly is composed of parliamentarians from member states, not parliamentarians

elected directly, as in the EU.43. ODA is aid to developing countries and multilateral agencies that contains a grant element

of at least 25 percent. OA is the same assistance sent to countries in transition. The Bahamasis listed as a country in transition in the 2000s.

44. DAC means Development Assistance Committee, a subgrouping within the Organizationfor Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The members are Australia, Aus-tria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Luxem-bourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey,United Kingdom, and the United States.

45. Caribbean Development Bank, Annual Report 2006(St. Michael, Barbados, 2007), 27.46. See the Guyana government’s Web site at http://www.op.gov.gy and the Caricom secre-

tariat’s Web site at http://www.caricom.org for more details about the 2001 and 2004 agree-ments.

47. Preamble to the PetroCaribe Energy Cooperation Agreement, signed at the First EnergySummit of Caribbean Heads of State and Government in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, June29, 2005. The text is available at, among other Web sites, http://www.radiohc.cu/ingles/alba/documentos/documento3.htm (accessed April 3, 2007).

48. See Speech by Hon. P. Manning to British Gas Trinidad and Tobago Energy LuncheonSeries, September 5, 2006; see also Trinidad Express, September 6, 2006.

49. Caribbean Development Bank, Annual Report 2005, Part 5, “Statement of ContributedResources December 2004 and 2005.” This figure is the sum of contributed resources underthe Unified as well as “Other” categories. The “Other” refers to special development fundssubject to pre-1983 rules and therefore the amount has not changed (see p. 104 and tableon pp. 98–99).

50. The full extent of aid was fully detailed in Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, Ministry ofFinance, Review of the Economy 1983 (Port-of-Spain, Trinidad: Government Printery, 1983),53.

Chapter 5

1. The link with Chile has in the past been contentious. In the 1970s with Chile under thecontrol of the dictator Augusto Pinochet, only Eric Gairy’s Grenada chose to work with thecountry, much to the dismay of many in the Caribbean. In contrast, Jamaica cut off rela-tions with Chile after Pinochet came to power, Barbados refused to normalize its relationsestablished within the first year of independence, and Trinidad and Tobago maintainedessentially dormant relations. After the overthrow of Gairy, Grenada downgraded its rela-tions, and cordial relations were established by most nations in the 1990s.

2. So described in United States, Departments of State and Defense, Grenada Documents: AnOverview and Selection (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, September 1984),106–7.

3. Specifically, a $2.5 million grant was given for housing and full scholarships for ten students(including those dislocated from Taiwan) to attend universities in the PRC, and $6 millionwas earmarked for budgetary support. Regarding Dominica, initial aid promises were for $6million in budget support, and $1 million annually for six years. See Larry Rohter, “China’sEconomic Power Grows in Latin America,” New York Times, November 20, 2004, p. A8. Onthe assistance provided to Grenada, see Grenada Today (a Grenadian national newspaper),Internet Edition, April 2, 2005. In contrast with the ups and downs of its relationship withCaricom countries, the ROC has been able to maintain stable linkages with Central Amer-ican states, Panama, and the Dominican Republic.

4. Embassies are called high commissions when established in Commonwealth countries byCommonwealth members.

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5. Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Latin America Daily Report, October 30, 1984, p. S1.6. Some of the larger countries also shared personnel between New York and Washington dur-

ing the early postindependence period.7. See, for example, Maurice East, “Size and Foreign Policy Behavior: A Test of Two Models,”

World Politics 25 (July 1973): 556–76.8. “Acquiescence” is the term preferred by James N. Rosenau 1980; Bruce Moon suggests that

perceived compliant behavior may instead be consensual. See James N. Rosenau, “TheAdaptation of National Societies: A Theory of Political Behavior and Transformation,” inThe Scientific Study of Foreign Policy (New York: Nichols, 1980), 501–34; and Bruce Moon,“Consensus or Compliance? Foreign Policy Change and External Dependence,” Interna-tional Organization 39, no. 2 (Spring 1985): 297–329.

9. Cuba had forty-two staff members in 2002 before it was accused of spying by the UnitedStates. Several members were sent home, and by 2005, the staff was down to thirty-fivebefore rising once more.

10. United Nations, Permanent Missions to the United Nations (Blue Book), March 2007.11. In terms of subsidiary organs of the GA, the following can be noted (data through 2007):

Trinidad and Tobago has served three three-year terms (1980–1982, 1986–1988,1989–1991) on the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions(ACABQ), and Barbados served three terms as well (1991–1994, 1995–1997, 1998–2000).On the Committee for Program and Coordination, Trinidad and Tobago has served sixthree-year terms (1982–1984, 1985–1987, 1988–1990, 1991–1993, 1994–1996,1997–1999) and the Bahamas has served five (1989–1991, 1992–1994, 1995–1997,1998–2000, 2004–2006). Jamaica served in 2003–2005. On the Committee on Confer-ences, Jamaica served from 1992–1994, 1996–1998, 1999–2001, and is serving a term for2005–2007, the Bahamas served for 1995–1997 and 1998–2000, Grenada served for1993–1995, and St. Vincent served for 1995–1997. Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidadand Tobago have served indefinite terms on the Committee on Information. Among othercommittees with fairly wide representation, the UNEP’s Governing Council can be men-tioned: Antigua and Barbuda served from 1998–2001 and 2002–2005; Jamaica1982–1994, 1985–1997, and 1998–2001; Bahamas 2000–2003 and 2003–2006; Suriname2000–2003; Barbados 1986–1988, 1989, 1990–1993; Guyana 1989–1991 and1992–1995; and Haiti 1980–1983 and 1984–1986.

12. In the 1994 case, the candidate, Foreign Minister Bernd Niehaus, addressed the OAS dele-gates after the vote, charging that many Caribbean countries “sacrificed their word and theirhonor. They didn’t even show the elemental courtesy to inform the Costa Rican governmentof their decision to withdraw their support. . . . The colonial stance adopted by the weak iseven worse than the imperialist stance demonstrated by the strong.” “In Controversial Elec-tion, Colombian President Cesar Gaviria is Elected as Secretary General of the O.A.S.,”NotiSur-Latin American Political Affairs 4, no. 13, April 8.

Regarding 1999, see among other things, Caricom press release 32/1999 “Statement byCaricom Secretary-General on the Withdrawal of the Costa Rican candidate for the Secre-tary-Generalship of the OAS.”

13. “Mexico abstained from the vote, with the government of President Vicente Fox angered byits candidate’s [Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez’] failure, as did Bolivia, which has hada long-running dispute with Chile regarding access to the Pacific. . . . Peru cast a blank bal-lot, unwilling to support Chile because of allegations that the country delivered arms toEcuador during a border war between Ecuador and Peru in 1995.” See detailed report andanalysis in “Moderate Chilean Socialist José Miguel Insulza Elected to Head Organizationof American States,” NotiSur, South American Political and Economic Affairs, May 6, 2005.

14. On the problems and prospects of this uneasy Caribbean-Latin American relationship, see,among others, Anthony T. Byran and Andrés Serbín, eds., Distant Cousins: The Caribbean-Latin American Relationship (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1994). It is not only inthe political arena (reflected in the competition for office holding) but also in the economicarena that the Caricom states have been disappointed in the relations with the smallest LatinAmerican states with which they share some commonalities. A good example, as seen in

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Chapter 3, was the “banana dispute” that bitterly divided Central American and Caricombanana producers.

15. Caricom had a strong record of voting against apartheid in the 1970s. However, the recordwas somewhat tainted when it was revealed in the late 1970s that the Antiguan governmentwas hosting a Canadian company that was developing and sending sophisticated arms toSouth Africa. Military officials from South Africa were said to have been allowed to bypasscustoms and immigration when entering the country. As a result of the outcry produced bythe revelations, which were initiated by the political opposition, the company was forced tocease its operations.

16. Caricom states’ individualism on human rights issues was also reflected in the previous year,1999, when Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, andSuriname abstained on human rights in Kosovo, and Suriname further abstained on the sit-uation in Bosnia and Herzegovina/Croatia/Yugoslavia.

17. Guyana opted not to send appeals to the Privy Council in 1966.18. Caricom voting on one additional resolution, not related to the areas highlighted, is inter-

esting: in 1995 there was much opposition to a resolution affirming the strict implementa-tion of arrangements for the use of multiple languages in the work and recruitment policiesof the United Nations. Although Dominica and Haiti were among the sponsors of the reso-lution, all the other Caricom states abstained or, in the case of Jamaica, St. Vincent, andSuriname, voted no. Note that Dominica and Haiti belong to the Francophonie grouping.Suriname belongs to the Dutch grouping, the Nederlandse Taalunie.

19. See Moon, “Consensus or Compliance?”; on bargaining, see K. B. Rai, “Foreign Aid and Voting inthe UN General Assembly, 1967–1976,”Journal of Peace Research 17, no. 3 (1980): 269–77.

20. Abstentions are included as similar votes; votes are excluded from the numerator if thecountry, the United States, and Soviet Union all voted similarly.

21. The index used is the Modified Rice Index calculated as follows: number of yes votes minus numberof no votes minus half the number of abstentions, divided by the total of all votes excluding absences.

Chapter 6

1. Robert D. Putnam, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games,”International Organization 42, no. 3 (Summer 1998): 427–60.

2. See, among other works, the realist classic Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: TheStruggle for Power and Peace (New York: Knopf, 1978); Ruchard C. Snyder, H. W. Bruck, andBurton Sapin, eds., Foreign Policy Decision-Making (New York: Free Press, 1962); MichaelBrecher, B. Steinberg, and J. Stein, “A Framework for Research on Foreign Behavior,” Jour-nal of Conflict Resolution 13(1), 1969: 75-102; (comparative foreign policy) James N. Rose-nau, “Pre-Theories and Theories of Foreign Policy,” in James N. Rosenau, ed., The ScientificStudy of Foreign Policy. New York: Nichols, 1980: 115-169; Andrew Moravscik, “Taking Pref-erences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International Politics,” International Organization51(4), Autumn 1997: 513-555; and J. Goldstein and R.O. Keohane, eds., Ideas and ForeignPolicy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993.

3. Even when a rational choice approach is used, there is usually an acknowledgment of thebounded nature of rationality (see Herbert Simon, Models of Bounded Rationality vol. 2 [Cam-bridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982]). Although scholars have tended to use either rational or cog-nitive approaches, a more recent approach, poliheuristic theory, attempts to combine both.See, for example, A. Mintz, “How Do Leaders Make Decisions? A Poliheuristic Perspective,”Journal of Conflict Resolution 48, no.1 (2004): 3–13.

4. Lawrence E. Harrison also lays the blame of the pervasiveness of voodooism. See Underdevelopmentis a State of Mind (Lanham, MD: University Press of America; Cambridge, MA: Center for Inter-national Affairs, Harvard University, 1985). Bob Shacochis in his Immaculate Invasion (New York:Viking 1999), reporting on the U.S. invasion of Haiti in 1994, makes depressing note of theseeming Haitian penchant for violence.

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5. United Nations General Assembly, Report of the Global Conference on the Sustainable Develop-ment of Small Island Developing States, Barbados, April 25-May 6, 1995. Annex II: Preamble, Pro-gramme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States, UN documentA/CONF.167/9, October 1994; and Commonwealth Secretariat, Vulnerability: Small Statesin the Global Society (London: Commonwealth, 1985), 5, 21–22.

6. On the role of “norm entrepreneurs” see Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, “Inter-national Norm Dynamics and Political Change,” International Organization 52, no. 4(Autumn 1998): 887–917. For view of SIDS negotiations, see Eric Shibuya, “RoamingMice Against the Tide: South Pacific Islands and Agenda-Building on Global Warming,”Pacific Affairs 69, no. 4 (Winter 1996): 541–55. On the broader negotiations, see Irving M.Mintzer and J. A. Leonard, eds., Negotiating Climate Change: The Inside Story of the Rio Con-vention (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

7. This was the opinion of both policy makers and scholars. See, for example, the scholar Abra-ham F. Lowenthal, “The United States and Latin America: Ending the Hegemonic Pre-sumption,” Foreign Affairs 55, no. 1 (1976): 199–213.

8. George Louison, Internal Events Leading to the U.S. Invasion of Grenada (New York: GrenadaFoundation, 1984), 33–34.

9. Thus in 2006, the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago complained that even though thecountry was supplying the United States with 75 percent of its natural gas needs, it had notreceived concessions requested regarding preferential access for goods packaged in the coun-try. See Office of the Prime Minister, Speech of Prime Minister Manning to Energy: Lun-cheon Series of British Gas Trinidad and Tobago, September 5, 2006.

10. Williams’ “To Hell with Castro” speech (cited in Chapter 2) during the 1966 elections run-up was indicative of his scorn toward Marxism. See Eric Williams, Inward Hunger: TheEducation of A Prime Minister (London: André Deutsch, 1969), 335.

11. See, for example, Cheryl Payer, The World Bank: A Critical Analysis (New York: MonthlyReview, 1982). Also useful is Horace A. Bartilow, The Debt Dilemma: IMF Debt Negotiationsin Jamaica, Grenada, and Guyana (London: Macmillan, 1997).

12. Quoted by Selwyn Ryan from a speech by St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ prime ministerDr. Ralph Gonsalves, delivered to the Conference on Constitutional Reform in theCaribbean held in Barbados (January 21, 2002). According to Ryan, Gonsalves opined that“the powers of the Prime Minister are awesome in the political system of a small state.” Inthese small states (according to Gonsalves), prime ministers peep into and interfere withaspects of their society that are physically beyond the notice of their metropolitan counter-parts. Many also act unilaterally without consulting cabinet colleagues, believing perhapsthat by doing so, they may signal weakness or advertise their own inadequacy. See Ryan,Commentary, Trinidad Express, April 30, 2002.

13. Some interesting reflections of Caribbean charismatic leaders can be found in Anton Alla-har, ed., Caribbean Charisma; Reflections on Leadership, Legitimacy and Populist Politics(Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle; and Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2001).

14. Billie Miller, Samuel Insanally, and Sir Julian Hunte respectively.15. In one unusual case in Trinidad and Tobago in 1995, the foreign minister resigned after his

sister, then speaker of the parliament, was placed under house arrest.16. M. Hermann and C. Hermann, “Who Makes Foreign Policy Decisions and How: An

Empirical Inquiry,” International Studies Quarterly 33, no. 4 (December 1989), 361–88.17. Regarding the United States, Henry Kissinger, for example, felt that the predominance of

decision makers with legal and business training engenders a short-term, pragmaticapproach to policy making in the United Sates (Henry Kissinger, “Domestic Structure andForeign Policy,” in American Foreign Policy: Three Essays [New York: Norton 1974]). DavidHalberstam saw Vietnam policy making in terms of the commonalities among the “best andthe brightest.” David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York: Random House,1972). More recently, a spate of writers on George W. Bush’s policy making have mademuch of the background and experiences of the so-called neocons (neoconservatives). Seefor example, Ivo Daalder and James M. Lindsay, America Unbound: The Bush Revolution inForeign Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2003).

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18. Janet Bostwick, the Bahamas (1995–2002), Billie Miller, Barbados (1994– ), ClaudetteWerleigh, Haiti (1993–1995), Maria Elisabeth Levens, Suriname (2000–2005), and LygiaKraag-Keteldijk, Suriname (2005– ).

19. Joe D. Hagan, “Domestic Political Regime Change and Foreign Policy Restructuring: AFramework for Comparative Analysis,” in Foreign Policy Restructuring: How GovernmentsRespond to Global Change, ed. Jerel A. Rosati, Joe D. Hagan, and Martin W. Sampson III(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994), 88–110.

20. Quoted by Selwyn Ryan, “Commentary,” Trinidad Express, August 4, 2002.21. Ryan notes (“Commentary,” Trinidad Express, April 30, 2002),

Studies of Caribbean political systems have also repeatedly shown that in most ofthem, there is very little if any separation between the executive and the legislature,either in theory or in practice. The two branches of government substantially over-lap since most MPs are either in the cabinet or in the executive as junior ministersor parliamentary secretaries. The small size of Parliament and the dominance of thePrime Minister and the party which he leads make a nonsense of some of the theo-ries and assumptions that inform parliamentary democracy. In Caribbean parlia-ments, there are no oversight committees such as obtain in the United States towhich ministers are meaningfully accountable. Where they exist and meet, minis-ters either ignore them or treat them cavalierly. Party discipline also obtains withinthe committees since the doctrine of collective responsibility applies equally to whattakes place in committees. No MP wants to score own goals by openly siding withthose from opposition benches even if he privately agrees with what they propose.The “whip” is in effect in committees as surely as it prevails in Parliament.

Relevant books on the subject by Ryan are Winner Take All: The Westminster Expe-rience in the Caribbean (St. Augustine, Trinidad: University of the West Indies, Insti-tute for Social and Economic Research, 1999); and Governance in the Caribbean, withAnn-Marie Bissessar (St. Augustine, Trinidad: University of the West Indies, 2002).In 2006–2007, several countries were reviewing their constitutions.

22. See Graham T. Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban MissileCrisis (New York: Longman, 1999). This model has also become known as the governmen-tal politics model.

23. Korany calls this the “great man theory of history” in foreign policy decision making. SeeChapter 2 of Bahgat Korany with contributors, How Foreign Policy Decisions Are Made in theThird World: A Comparative Analysis (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1986).

24. See Allison and Zelikow, Essence of Decision.25. A well-read and quoted work on the impact of democracy is Michael Doyle, “Liberalism and

World Politics,” American Political Science Review 80, no. 4 (December 1986), 1151–169.26. On the relationship between the state and private interests in Jamaica, see Carl Stone, State,

Class, and Democracy in Jamaica (New York: Praeger, 1986); and Politics versus Economics: The1989 Elections in Jamaica (Kingston, Jamaica: Heinemann Caribbean, 1989).

27. The CAIC was originally the Incorporated Caribbean Chambers of Industry.28. Andrew Axline, Caribbean Integration: The Politics of Regionalism (London: Frances Pinter,

1979). I have drawn on a number of unpublished papers by Argentinean scholar RitaGiacalone for some of this information.

29. According to its Web site (hosted by oneworld.org in 2003–2004), the CCE advocates inBrussels and European capitals on behalf of these and other interests, provides informationto its member associations and member companies on developments in Europe that affecttheir interests, and organizes events such as the Europe/Caribbean conference series.

30. CLAA was originally named the Committee on the Caribbean but took on the current namein 1990 to reflect a new focus on hemispheric integration. See http://www.claa.org.

31. Web site http://www.csis.org.

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32. Web site http://www.caritag.org/council.33. Information on the CPDC has been taken from Jessica Byron and Norman Girvan, “The

CARICOM/CARIFORUM Groupings: Regional Integration and International TradeIssues,” in Anuario de la Integración Regional en el Gran Caribe 2000, ed. Francine Jácome,Antonio Romero, and Andrés Serbin (Caracas: Nueva Sociedad, 2000), 59–82; translatedfrom Spanish. See also the Web site http://www.cpdcnco.com.

34. Ibid., 4.39. Basil Ince, “The Administration of Foreign Affairs in a Very Small Developing Country:

The Case of Trinidad and Tobago,”in Size, Self-Determination and International Relations: TheCaribbean, ed. Vaughan A. Lewis (Mona, Jamaica: Institute of Social and EconomicResearch, 1976), 314.

40. Experts in Trinidad and Tobago complained after the Children’s Summit held at the UnitedNations in 2002 that although Trinidad and Tobago and other Caricom countries were earlysignatories of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), “‘the public has virtuallyno concept of what the CRC is or what it means. . . . ’ There has [sic] been little or no pro-grams run by the government or NGOs to educate the public on the rights of children.[There is only] low priority given to the subject by Government” (Trinidad Express, August18, 2002).

41. However, interest in CANA faded in the 1990s and it was disbanded in 2002, replaced byan online news service run by the Caribbean Media Corporation.

42. Donald Puchala, International Relations Today (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1971).43. See Wendell Bell, “Foreign Policy and Attitudes of Elites in Jamaica: The First Twelve Years

of Nationhood,” in The Restless Caribbean: Changing Patterns of International Relations, ed. R.Millett and W. Marvin Will (New York: Praeger, 1979), 149–65; and Wendell Bell and J.William Gibson Jr., “Independent Jamaica Faces the Outside World: Attitudes of Elites afterTwelve Years of Nationhood,” International Studies Quarterly 22, no. 1 (March 1978): 5–48.See also W. J. Biddle, and J. D. Stephens, “Dependent Development and Foreign Policy:The Case of Jamaica,” International Studies Quarterly 33, no. 4 (December 1989): 411–34.

44. See Randolph B. Persaud, Counter-Hegemony and Foreign Policy: The Dialectics of Marginalizedand Global Forces in Jamaica (Albany, NY: State University Press, 2001) for an analysis of themass effect in Jamaica.

45. Biddle and Stephens, “Dependent Development,” tables 2–4, pp. 418, 422, 427.46. Biddle and Stephens explain this deviation by suggesting that the role of “organized action

of subordinate classes” be considered, which fits in with the ideas expressed here. They alsonote that some businessmen supported Manley’s moves against the bauxite companies (a)because of the shortage of foreign exchange and (b) because the bauxite companies “had notdeveloped sufficient linkages to the local economy to tie a substantial sector of the bour-geoisie to their own [the bauxite companies’] immediate interests.” Ibid., 423.

47. James N. Rosenau, “Pre-Theories and Theories of Foreign Policy,” in The Scientific Study ofForeign Policy, ed. James N. Rosenau (New York: Nichols, 1980), 147–48.

48. New York Times, June 14, 1987, p. 20.49. Former PRG attorney general Lloyd Noel said that the Cuban ambassador invited himself

to cabinet meetings until Bishop withdrew this privilege. Released committee minutes alsoshow that Major Leon Cornwall, Grenada’s ambassador to Cuba, complained that theCubans had greater access to the New Jewel Movement hierarchy than he did and weredirectly informed on many matters.

50. See Norman Girvan, “Agenda Setting and Regionalism in the Greater Caribbean,” inCaribbean Security in the Age of Terror, ed. Ivelaw L. Griffith (Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle,2004), 312.

51. It was founded by Mervyn Dymally (Trinidadian), a former congressman, PanamanianWaldaba Stewart, and Guyanese former state senator Colin Moore.

52. Douglas W. Payne, Emerging Voices: The West Indian Dominica, and Haitian Diasporas in theUnited States (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, October 221998), 5.

53. Ibid., 12.

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57. Shirley Chisholm, of Barbadian/Guyanese heritage, was the first African-American womanelected to the U.S. congress in 1969; her tenure lasted until 1982. Although she focused onurban affairs rather than Caribbean affairs, she was later appointed ambassador to Jamaicaby President Clinton. Trinidad-born Mervyn Dymally, a U.S. congressman from 1980 to1992, was especially active in promoting U.S.-Caribbean relations. U.S. Secretary of StateColin Powell certainly exhibited more than the usual interest in Caribbean issues, even ifCaricom leaders did not necessarily agree with his solutions. Britain’s Valerie Amos,Guyanese-born, was put in charge of international development, social security, andwomen’s issues in the early 2000s. Haitian-born Michelle Jean also can be mentioned in thatshe brought visibility to the Caribbean by being appointed governor-general of Canada in2005, even though the post is only ceremonial.

58. For example, President W. Bush appointed a Vincentian-born college friend as his ambas-sador to Trinidad and Tobago in the early 2000s.

Chapter 7

1. Only Trinidad and Tobago has had a separate Caricom division.2. Vernetta Calvin-Smith, “The Role of External Affairs in the National Export Promotion

Thrust of Trinidad and Tobago,” in Trade Diplomacy and Export Development in a ProtectionistWorld: Challenges and Strategies for Caribbean States, ed. Anthony P. Gonzales (St. Augustine,Trinidad and Tobago: Institute of International Relations, University of the West Indies,1985), 85.

3. Basil Ince, “The Administration of Foreign Affairs in a Very Small Developing Country:The Case of Trinidad and Tobago,” in Size, Self-Determination and International Relations: TheCaribbean, ed. Vaughan A. Lewis (Mona, Jamaica: Institute for Social and EconomicResearch, 1976), 328–29.

4. Private conversations with Prime Minister Manning held at various times in the 1990s and2000s. Writing in the late 1990s, Justin Robertson noted the low expenditure of Trinidadand Tobago on the foreign ministry compared to other sectors ($105TT million, 1 percentof the budget, versus $910TT million on finance in 1997) and emphasized the (then) primeminister’s frequent statements prioritizing the Ministry of Industry and Trade and theTourism and Industrial Development Company (TIDCO) over the Ministry of ForeignAffairs. He argued that in response to global interdependence, Trinidad and Tobago hadadopted a “fragmented” model (like the United States) rather than a converging of foreignaffairs structures, but that unlike the United States, the foreign ministry was in no way“empowered” or strengthened to deal with the new economic issues. Justin Robertson, “TheForeign Ministry in Developing Countries and Emerging Market Economies,” InternationalInsights 14, special issue (1998): 99–114.

5. Most of the information for this section was provided in the 1980s by Earl Huntley, at thetime permanent secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Saint Lucia. Earl Huntley was,and remains, in no way responsible for my critique of the way the government handled for-eign affairs. He himself has gone on to a distinguished foreign service career.

6. Ince, “Administration of Foreign Affairs,” in Lewis, Size, 310.7. Rosemary Brana-Shute and Gary Brana-Shute, “Dominica,” in 1981–1982, ed. Jack Hop-

kins, vol. 1 of Latin America and Caribbean Contemporary Record (New York: Holmes andMeier, 1983), 615.

8. Compton remained in power until 1996, when he voluntarily resigned in favor of VaughanLewis. He returned to power in 2006.

9. Ince, “Administration of Foreign Affairs,” in Lewis, Size, 321.10. Gerald Samuel, Barbados Foreign Policy from 1966–1978 (unpublished master’s thesis, Insti-

tute of International Relations, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad andTobago, 1980), 216.

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11. Charles Frankel depicted the U.S. State Department’s resistance to new ideas and to changein his classic work High on Foggy Bottom (New York: Harper and Row, 1968).

12. Ince, “Administration of Foreign Affairs,” in Lewis, Size, 334.13. Robertson notes that the distribution of personnel for Trinidad and Tobago was 70 percent

abroad and 30 percent at home in the late 1990s. The ministry spent four times as much onoverseas missions than on general administration at headquarters. See Justin Robertson,“Foreign Ministry,” 105–6.

14. For a defense of Ambassador Chagoury, see Dr. Didicus Jules, The St. Lucia Mirror, February7, 2003, http://www. stluciamirroronline.com (accessed July 28, 2003).

15. See a fairly lengthy description of problems discussed in the newspaper Haiti-Progrès 18, no.28 (September 27, 2000), no. 29 (October 4, 2000).

16. Details are available in ibid.17. Haiti Progrès, September 27, 2000.18. In 2007, to meet the staffing shortage, Trinidad and Tobago began to recruit short term

International Relations Officers on contract who would not be subject to these rules.19. These positions were as follows: head of public or civil service, permanent secretaries, gov-

ernors of central banks, commissioners of services (e.g., police commissioner), directors ofdepartments (e.g., director of statistics), advisors (in prime ministers’ office and fiscal advi-sor). Data are from Caricom Secretariat, Women and Men in Caricom Member States: Power andDecision Making 1980–2002, prepared by the Statistics Sub-Program and the Informationand Communication Program, 2003, tables 13–15.

20. See, for example, an article on Indian females in the foreign service. According to theauthor,

At one time if a lady diplomat got married, she had to leave the IFS [Indian ForeignService]. This rule was overturned only in 1964. As such the question of beingposted together, when the lady diplomat and her spouse were both in the IFS didnot arise. But today, at Consul levels, couples can be accommodated in the sameembassy. In cases where this is not possible, they are posted as near as possible.

Again in the 1970s, another reason the higher ups advanced against making[India’s first female ambassador] Muthamma an Ambassador was that often diplo-mats (especially in the African countries) had to go to the airport, at 3 a.m. in themorning (for seeing off the local Head of State on his foreign trips), and it wouldnot do to have the Indian Ambassador raped by highway robbers!

See K. R. N. Swamy, “All Diplomats Are Not Gentlemen,” The (Indian) Tribune, February24, 2002.

21. A constantly updated list has been compiled by Martin Christiansen and is available athttp://www.guide2womenleaders.com (accessed April 2, 2007.) The listing was checked forerrors against other available data.

22. Ambassadors listed in Christiansen’s compilation are; Marie-Jo McIntyre, Grenada, 1976);Dame Nita Barrow, Barbados, 1986–90; Margaret McDonald, Bahamas, 1986–96; MarjorieThorpe, Trinidad and Tobago, 1988–92; Ursula Barrow, Belize, 1989–91; Annette des Iles,Trinidad and Tobago, 1992–98; Lucille Mair, Jamaica, 1992–95; Janet Jagan (acting),Guyana, 1993; Jean George, Trinidad and Tobago, 1993; M. Patricia Durrant, Jamaica,1995–2002; June Yvonne Clarke, Barbados, 1999–2004; Margaret Hughes-Ferrari, St. Vin-cent and the Grenadines, 2001–; Paulette Bethel, Bahamas, 2001–; Irma Klein-LoembanTobing, Suriname, 2002–2003; Ruth Elizabeth Rouse, Grenada, 2004 (demitted office in2006, although not yet noted in the compilation); Janine Coye-Felson, Belize, 2006 (actingas of 2006).

23. Haiti has had (two) female foreign affairs ministers, Marie-Denise Jean-Louis in 1991 andClaudette Werleigh in 1993–1995, Barbados has had Billie Miller from 1994 to the time ofwriting, the Bahamas appointed a foreign minister (Janet Bostwick) between 1995–2002,

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and Suriname’s Marie Levens was appointed in 2000–2005, followed by Lygia Kraag-Keteldijk in 2005.

24. For more information, see Jacqueline Braveboy-Wagner, The United States and the Caribbean:The Washington Bureaucracy, working paper prepared for the Caribbean Policy Group, Centerfor Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown, Washington, DC, April 1991.Reprinted in Jacqueline Braveboy-Wagner, Caribbean Diplomacy (Medgar Evers College,City University of New York: Caribbean Research Center, 1991).

25. Observations by author gleaned both in interviews in Washington and during service as aconsultant on Japan for Caricom.

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Index

Adams, Grantley, 175Adams, Tom, 39, 99, 175, 180Afghanistan, 9, 154, 157, 172African-Caribbean-Pacific Group (ACP), 24,

82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 188African Union, 128. See also Organization of

African UnityAlbright, Madeleine, 43Alexandre, Guy, 26Algeria, 128Alliance of Small Island Developing States,

(AOSIS), 72, 144, 170, 232, 233Allison, Graham, 6, 182Amazon Treaty of Cooperation, 19American Enterprise Institute, 8Andean Community (ANCOM), 110, 127Andorra, 11Angola, 38, 115Anthony, Kenny, 214Antigua and Barbuda, 14, 15, 16, 35, 38, 182,

209, 221, 225–26; crime, 49, 51;economic issues, 56, 58, 61, 63, 65–66,68, 71, 72–73, 76, 78, 79, 84, 87, 112,113, 114, 122, 124; narcotics/drugs, 40;strategic and diplomatic linkages, 89–95passim, 97, 99, 102, 103, 104, 105, 116,118, 130, 131, 138, 139, 141, 142, 145,146, 147, 149,150, 154, 155, 156, 157,158, 161, 163, 164, 165

Argentina, 110, 128, 132, 134, 154Aristide, Jean-Bertrand, 24, 33, 34, 41, 46, 47,

65, 99, 100, 103, 175Armenia, 166Aruba, 73Association of Caribbean States (ACS), 19, 22,

109, 110, 141, 143, 189, 190, 204, 233

Association of Caribbean Economists, 188Association of Caribbean Universities and

Research Institutes (UNICA), 190Association of Development Agencies, 188Association of South East Asian States,

(ASEAN), 165–66Atkins, G. Pope, 27Australia, 84, 131, 134, 138Austria, 123, 131Azerbaijan, 166

Bahamas, 14, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 32, 35, 38,42, 209, 221, 225–26; crime, 49–50, 52;drug trafficking, 40, 42–43, 44; economicissues, 56, 58, 62, 64, 65,66, 68, 71, 73,76, 78, 79, 84, 108–12 passim, 114, 121,122, 123, 124; refugees, 46–47; strategicand diplomatic linkages, 89–94 passim,98, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 105, 106,107, 115, 118, 129, 130, 131, 132, 135,137, 142, 145, 146, 147, 149, 150, 152,153, 155, 156, 157, 158, 161, 163, 164,165

Balaguer, Joaquín, 23, 34Barbados, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 25, 29, 38,

39, 44, 45, 176, 177, 178, 182, 188, 215,218, 219, 221, 225, 226; and crime, 49,50, 51; and Eastern Caribbean, 39–40;economic issues, 57–58, 61, 63, 64, 65,66, 70, 71, 72, 78, 79, 84, 106, 108, 111,112, 113, 120, 121, 123, 124; strategicand diplomatic linkages, 89–95 passim,97, 98, 99, 103, 104, 105,115, 116, 118,119, 129, 130, 131, 135, 137, 138, 139,141, 142, 144, 145, 146, 147, 149, 150,153, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 161, 163,

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164, 165; and Trinidad and Tobago,31–32, 100, 103

Barrow, Errol, 175, 176, 178Basdeo, Sahadeo, 86Beal, 28Belgium, 66–67, 121, 123, 131–33, 138Belize, 14, 15, 16, 17, 36, 176, 182, 188, 209,

221, 225, 226; and crime, 49, 50;economic issues, 56, 57, 58, 61, 63, 64,65, 66, 70, 71, 75, 78, 79, 84, 110, 113,120, 121, 122, 123, 124; and Guatemala,27, 29–30, 100, 108, 135, 218;narcotics/drug trafficking, 40, 41–42, 43,44; refugees, 45–46; strategic anddiplomatic linkages, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95,99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104,105, 118,131, 135, 136, 137, 141, 142, 144, 145,146, 147, 150, 151, 153, 155, 156, 157,158, 161, 163, 164, 165, 190

Bermuda, 35, 153Betancourt, Rómulo, 37Bird, Lester, 177Bird, Vere, 40, 175Bishop, Maruice, 36, 175, 176, 177, 179, 197Blair, Tony, 175Blake, Byron, 81Bolívar, Simón, 21Bolivia, 110, 185Borno, Louis, 23Bosch, Juan, 23, 34Botswana, 138Bouterse, Desi, 43, 175Boutros, Boutros-Ghali, 97–98Boyer, Jean-Pierre, 26Braveboy-Wagner, Jacqueline, 9Brazil, 19, 43, 81, 82, 84, 96, 108, 110, 128,

131, 132, 133, 134, 135British Guiana, 35, 98, 111British Virgin Islands, 73, 122, 141, 153Brunei, 12Brunswijk, Ronnie, 47Bulgaria, 128Burnham, Linden Forbes, 15, 18, 36, 98, 172,

175, 176, 178, 183, 199Bush, George, 76, 80, 85Bustamante, Alexander, 175, 176Byron, Jessica, 192

Cambodia. See KampucheaCameroon, 115Canada, 22, 24, 29, 48, 49, 52, 53, 217; and

deportees, 50–52; economic links toCaribbean, 57, 61, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68,77, 86, 87, 111, 120, 121, 122, 123;strategic and diplomatic linkages with

Caricom, 90, 95, 96, 100, 106, 127, 131,132, 133, 134, 135, 138, 139, 144, 197,223

Canadian International Development Agency(CIDA), 144

Caracas Energy Agreement (2000), 69Caribbean Action Lobby, 200Caribbean Agricultural Research and

Development (CARDI), 141, 142, 143Caribbean Aid Council (CAC), 125Caribbean Association for Feminist Research

and Action (CAFRA), 188Caribbean Association and Industry and

Commerce (CAIC), 186, 189, 190Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act

(CBERA), 74, 75, 77, 78, 79Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), 57, 74–76,

87, 228Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act

(CBTPA), 75, 76, 80Caribbean-Canada Trade Agreement

(CARIBCAN), 87Caribbean Community (Caricom), 14–15, 17,

18, 19, 20, 22, 24, 29, 37, 55, 100, 101,106, 109, 115–19, 127, 142, 163–64,174, 189, 204, 209, 222, 228; economiclinks, 61–64, 68, 78, 87, 218, 233

Caribbean Conservation Association, 198Caribbean Council for Europe (CCE), 186Caribbean Council of Labor (CCL), 186, 187Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), 66, 67,

68, 71, 109, 120, 121, 122, 123, 125,141, 142,173

Caribbean Development CooperationCommittee (CDCC), 141, 151

Caribbean Disaster Emergency ResponseAgency (CDERA), 73, 141, 142

Caribbean Environmental Health Institute(CEHI), 141, 143

Caribbean Epidemiology Center CAREC),141, 143

Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), 141,143

Caribbean Export Development Agency(CEDA), 119, 141, 142, 143

Caribbean Free Trade Area (Carifta), 14, 20,115, 116, 135, 163, 165, 186

Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA), 189Caribbean Industrial Research Institute

(CARIRI), 141, 143Caribbean/Latin American Action (CLAA),

186, 187Caribbean Marine Research Center (CMRC),

189Caribbean Medical Association, 189

272 • Index



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Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CNRI),189

Caribbean News Agency (CANA), 194Caribbean Policy Development Center

(CPDC), 188, 189Caribbean Renewal Energy Development

Program, 70Caribbean Single Market and Economy

(CSME), 118–19Caribbean Shipping Association, 190Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), 141,

189CARIFORUM, 82, 109, 142Carrington, Edwin, 222Carter, Jimmy, 33, 103, 172, 199Castro, Fidel, 34, 37, 172, 197Cato, Milton, 130, 175Cayman Islands, 49, 122, 141, 153Cedras, Raoul, 33Cenac, Winston, 212, 213Central African Republic, 24Central American Common Market (CACM),

82Central American Integration System (SICA),

127Chad, 114Chambers, George, 179Charles, Eugenia, 39, 130, 175, 179Charles, Pierre, 129Chávez, Hugo, 28, 29, 37, 69, 123Chile, 82, 128, 132, 138, 157China, People’s Republic (PRC), 69, 107, 112,

121, 122, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133,134, 136, 139, 214

Chisholm, Shirley, 201Colombia, 46, 51, 77, 106, 109, 110, 122,

127, 128, 131, 132, 134colonialism, 7, 8, 11, 14, 15, 18, 37, 39;

neocolonialism, 153, 154, 155, 166Commonwealth, 12, 55, 56, 86, 101, 102, 103,

144, 212, 217, 222Commonwealth Development Corporation,

142Compton, John, 130, 175, 177, 178, 212, 213,

214Congo, People’s Republic of, 128Congo, Republic of, 115, 158Congressional Black Caucus, 46, 198, 200, 201Costa Rica, 25, 75, 76, 78, 108, 109, 123, 128,

131, 132, 134CRIES (Coordinadora Regional de Investigaciones

Económicos y Sociales), 189, 190Croatia, 123, 166Cuba, 12, 15, 17, 18, 72, 83, 96, 102, 107,

109, 110, 111, 123, 124, 128, 129, 131,

132, 134, 136, 137, 138, 139, 145, 154,155, 158, 166, 172, 180, 193, 214; andBahamas, 32; and Grenada, 36, 178; andHaiti, 21,22, 34, 35, 37; and Jamaica, 36;and Suriname, 19, 20, 21, 29, 128; andTrinidad and Tobago, 37–38

Curaçao, 138, 190Cyprus, 138Czechoslovakia, 107, 128

Declaration on the Granting of Independenceto Colonial Countries and Peoples, 11,154

Denmark, 85, 120, 123dependence, 4, 10, 12, 56–70dependent state, 6, 7, 10, 12–13, 14, 171Dessouki, A., 7Dominica, 14, 15, 16, 38, 39, 47, 170, 176,

182, 218, 221, 225, 226; and crime, 49,50, 51; economic issues, 57, 58, 61, 63,64, 65, 66, 68, 71, 73, 78, 79, 107, 111,112, 113, 121, 122, 124; narcotics/drugtrafficking, 40; strategic and diplomaticlinkages, 91, 92, 93, 95, 97, 99, 102, 103,104, 105, 115, 129, 130, 131, 141, 142,145, 146, 147, 148, 150, 154, 156, 157,158, 159, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165

Dominican Republic, 12, 32, 33, 37, 75, 76,79, 82, 109, 110, 123, 124, 128, 132,134, 139, 183; crime, 51; and Haiti, 22,23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 34, 48, 49, 135, 222;narcotics/drug trafficking, 41

Douglas, Rosie, 129Duvalier, François, 23, 27, 34, 48, 94, 175Dymally, Mervyn, 201

East, Maurice, 9Economic Commission for Latin America (and

the Caribbean), (ECLA[C]), 109, 116,141, 143, 173, 233

Ecuador, 86, 110El Salvador, 46, 78, 79, 108, 123, 131, 154,

157Enterprise for the American Initiative (EAI),

76, 77Equatorial Guinea, 115Estimé, Dumarsais, 34Ethiopia, 128, 135, 136European Commission: European

Community/Union, 17, 24, 82, 100, 131,132, 133, 134, 138, 141, 204, 217;economic links to Caricom, 61, 62, 63,64, 66, 67, 68, 69, 120, 121, 122, 188,201; trade and aid programs, 82–86;European Development Fund (EDF), 82

Index • 273



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Falkland (Malvinas) Islands, 154Fernández, Leonel, 48Financial Action Task Force (FATF), 50, 53Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs), 50Finland, 123, 138Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),

141–43, 181Forde, Henry, 176Foreign Military Sales (FMS), 90, 93, 94France, 39, 54, 57, 66–68, 107, 120, 122, 123,

132, 133, 134, 155, 178, 213; and Haiti,20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 30, 34, 65, 89, 96,100, 106, 107, 120, 121, 135

France, Lesley, 73Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), 80,

81, 82, 87, 128, 141, 151, 178, 189French Guiana, 27, 47, 96, 138

Gaddis, John Lewis, 3, 6Gairy, Eric, 17, 128, 175, 176, 179Gaviria, César, 151General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs

(GATT), 106–7George, Alexander, 5Germany, 21, 22, 23, 33, 62, 66, 67, 68, 85,

86, 107, 120, 122, 123, 132, 134, 136,213; East Germany, 107, 128

Ghana, 114, 128Girvan, Norman, 192Greece, 138Grenada, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 32, 38, 45, 174,

176, 178, 180, 183, 188, 194, 209, 221,225, 226; crime, 50; economic issues, 59,61, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 71, 72, 75, 78, 79,107, 109, 110, 113, 121, 122, 124, 173;strategic and diplomatic linkages, 91, 92,93, 94, 96, 97, 99, 103, 104, 105, 118,120, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 135–39,141, 142, 145, 146, 147, 150, 153–59passim, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 178; andthe United States, 35, 36, 170

Guadeloupe, 107, 138, 190, 218Guatemala, 27, 29–30, 46, 75, 78, 79, 86, 95,

100, 108, 110, 123, 131, 135, 157, 232Guillaume, Vilbrun, 33Guinea, 128Guinea-Bissau, 72Guyana, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 31, 38, 45,

47–48, 53, 111, 168, 170, 174, 177, 182,186, 188, 201, 218, 219, 221, 225, 226;crime, 50, 51, 52; economic issues, 56, 57,59, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 70, 71, 75,78, 79, 84, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 113,121, 123, 124, 173; and French Guiana,27; narcotics/drug trafficking, 40, 43, 44,

45; strategic and diplomatic linkages,89–95, 98–105 passim, 115, 116, 118,128, 129, 132, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139,140, 142, 144, 145, 146, 147, 149, 150,152, 154–61 passim, 163, 164, 72, 190;and Suriname, 27, 28, 29, 102, 135, 165,183, 204; and the United States, 35–36;and Venezuela, 27–29, 31, 36, 98, 100,108, 135, 149, 152, 181, 183, 187, 194,204

Hagan, Joe, 179Haiti, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20–24, 25, 154, 168,

174–75, 183, 188, 209, 221, 225, 226;border problems, 26–27, 48; crime, 50,51, 52; economic issues, 56, 57, 59, 62,64, 65, 67, 70, 71, 75–76, 78, 79, 82, 84,87, 107, 110, 111, 112, 114, 120, 121,123, 124; foreign policy sketch, 20–24;interventions in, 33–35; narcotics/drugtrafficking, 40, 41, 43, 44; refugees,46–49; strategic and diplomatic linkages,91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 98–105 passim,128, 130, 131, 132, 135, 136, 137, 138,139, 140, 142, 144, 145, 146, 147, 149,150, 151, 153, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159,161, 163, 164, 165, 170

Haitian Refugee Center (HRC), 200Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs), 65,

69, 123Hermann, Margaret and Charles, 177Holy See. See VaticanHonduras, 46, 76, 78, 79, 86, 101, 108, 109,

123, 131, 132Hong Kong, 71, 111, 138Hudson, Valerie, 5Human Development Index (HDI), 71Human Rights Commission, 48Human Rights Committee, 159Hungary, 128Hunte, Julian, 214

Iceland, 11Ince, Basil, 215, 216India, 111, 128, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136Indonesia, 112Institute for Agronomic Research (Centre

Antilles-Guyane), 190Institute of Caribbean Studies, 200Insulza, José Miguel, 151Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), 66,

67, 68, 69, 108, 120, 121, 122, 123, 125,141, 141, 143, 173

Inter-American Institute for Cooperation onAgriculture (IICA), 141, 142, 143

274 • Index



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International Bank for Reconstruction andDevelopment, 66–68; see also World Bank

International Bauxite Association, 17International Convention on the Rights of

Migrant Workers and Members of theirFamilies (1990), 45

International Criminal Court, 68, 95, 149,157, 190, 227

International Development Association, 73,120

International Military Education and Training(IMET), 90, 93–94

International Monetary Fund (IMF), 62, 64,65, 68, 87, 120–21, 123, 141, 142, 173,180, 192, 194; Enhanced StructuralAdjustment Facility (ESAF), 64; ExtendedFund Facility, 64; Poverty Reduction andGrowth Fund (PRGF), 64–65; StructuralAdjustment Facility (SAF), 64; TrustFund, 64

Iran, 155, 157, 158Iraq, 69, 128, 154, 156, 158Israel, 123, 128, 154, 156, 160Italy, 68, 120, 122, 123

Jagan, Janet, 179Jamaica, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 22, 23, 35,

36, 37, 38, 47, 52, 168, 170, 174, 176,178, 182, 186, 188, 193, 196, 209, 219,221, 225, 226; crime, 50, 51; economicissues, 56–57, 59, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67,68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79,107–14 passim, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124;narcotics/drug trafficking, 40, 41, 43, 44;passport issues, 52; strategic anddiplomatic linkages, 89, 91, 92, 93, 94,96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 103, 104, 105, 115,116, 118, 119, 128, 129, 130, 132, 123,135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 143, 144,145, 146, 147, 149, 150, 153, 155, 156,158, 159, 160, 161, 163, 164, 165, 171,190; and the United States, 35, 36

Janis, Irving, 5Japan, 54, 80, 127, 132, 133, 134, 136, 138,

171; economic links with Caricom, 57,61, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 87, 111, 112,120, 121, 123

Japan, Cheddi, 15, 18, 35, 99,100, 172, 175,179

Jervis, Robert, 5Jordan, 138

Kampuchea, 128, 154Kazakhstan, 166King, Angela, 222

Korany, Bahgat, 7Kosovo, 158Kyoto Protocol, 72Kyrgyzstan, 166

Lane, Ruth, 5Laos, 128Latin America and Caribbean Group

(GRULAC), 145, 162Latin American Economic System (Sistema

Económico Latinoamericano, SELA), 17,18, 19, 109, 152

Latin American Energy Association(Organización Latinoamericaa de Energía),OLADE, 19

Latin American Integration Association(Asociación Latinoamericana de Integración,ALADI), 61, 62, 63, 64, 110, 127

Latortue, Gérard, 100Latvia, 154Lebanon, 128, 156Lehder, Carlos, 42, 49Leoni, Raúl, 28Lewis, Vaughan, 214Libya, 31, 38, 39, 128, 129, 177, 180, 214Liechtenstein, 11Louisy, Allan, 212Luxembourg, 11

Mair, Lucille, 222Malaysia, 112, 136Mallet, George, 213Malta, 31Manigat, Leslie, 24Manley, Michael, 17, 18, 36, 38, 47, 65, 99,

108, 136, 171, 175, 177, 178, 196, 199,222

Manley, Norman, 175Manning, Patrick, 177–78Maritime Areas Act (1992), 30Marshall Islands, 154Martínez, Samuel, 27, 48Martinique, 107, 138, 190, 218Maynard, Clement, 42McComie, Valerie, 150–51McIntyre, Alister, 222Mexico, 27, 28, 46, 70, 75, 76, 77, 78, 86,

106, 108, 109, 110, 116, 122, 123, 127,128, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 137, 178

Micronesia, Federated States of, 154, 166Middle East, 7, 20, 21, 38, 155, 156–57, 160,

231Military Assistance Program (MAP), 91, 93, 94Millennium Development Goals (MDG), 55Milosevic, Slobodan, 149

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ministate, 11, 168Mitchell, Keith, 99, 178Monaco, 11Mongolia, 128Montserrat, 14, 49, 72, 76, 122, 124, 153, 190Morgenthau, Hans, 3Morocco, 114, 154Mozambique, 128Muslimeen, 39, 53–54Myanmar, 1

Namibia, 153National Coalition of Haitian Refugees

(NCHR), 200Netherlands, 19, 21, 30, 40, 43, 45, 47, 57, 66,

67, 68, 89, 96, 107, 120, 121, 123, 129,133, 134, 135, 178, 214

New International Economic Order (NIEO),17, 106, 156, 173

Nicaragua, 17, 20, 21, 38, 78, 79, 101, 102,123, 128, 154, 155, 213

Nigeria, 114, 128, 134, 136Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), 17, 19, 20,

21, 101–2, 128, 130, 136, 144, 165, 166,173, 233

North America Free Trade Agreement(NAFTA), 75, 76–82, 84, 87, 173

North Korea, 96, 128, 129, 130, 158Norway, 107, 123

Odlum, George, 177, 212, 214Organization for Economic Cooperation and

Development (OECD), 50, 62, 69Organization of African Unity (OAU), 128,

135Organization of American States (OAS), 17, 19,

22, 23, 24, 27, 30, 34, 48, 73, 80, 99,100, 101, 103, 106, 108, 109, 128, 131,132, 133, 134, 135, 141, 142, 143, 144,149, 173, 189, 204, 211, 212, 218, 222,227, 228, 233; English-speakingCaribbean countries in, 150–52

Organization of Eastern Caribbean States(OECS), 73, 97, 119–20, 129, 142, 413,177, 209, 211, 214; diplomaticarrangements, 138–39; Environment andSustainable Development Unit (ESDU),73

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries(OPEC), 17, 18, 20, 172, 173

Pace, Roderick, 9Pakistan, 138Palau, 154

Panama, 19, 37, 46, 75, 78, 79, 86, 101, 102,106, 108, 109, 110, 123, 134, 138, 164

Pan-American Conferences, 23Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO),

141, 142, 143Pascal-Trouillot, Ertha, 24, 179Patterson, P. J., 176Payne, Douglas, 200Peru, 110Philippines, 112, 166Pindling, Lynden, 42, 43, 175Poland, 107Portugal, 123Powell, Colin, 201Preiswerk, Roy, 37Préval, Réné, 24, 34Protocol of Port-of-Spain, 28, 102Putnam, Robert, 4

Qaddafi, Muammar, 38, 129

Ramdin, Albert, 51Ramphal, S. S., 222Reagan, Ronald, 75, 172Regional Negotiating Machinery (RNM), 81,

141, 142, 218Regional Task Force on Crime and Security, 53Republic of China. See TaiwanRobinson, A. N. R., 150, 222Robinson, Randall, 200Rodríguez, Miguel Angel, 151Romania, 128Rosenau, James, 4, 6, 9–10Russia (Russian Federation), 132, 133, 139,

155. See also Soviet UnionRwanda, 157

Saint Lucia, 14, 15, 16, 17, 35, 38, 45, 47, 176,177, 178, 182, 209, 218, 219, 221, 225,226; bureaucratic difficulties, 211–14;economic issues, 57, 59, 61, 63, 67, 71,73, 78, 79, 107, 108, 110, 113, 114, 121,124; strategic and diplomatic linkages, 89,91, 92, 93, 99, 103, 104, 105, 119, 129,130, 133, 137, 138, 139, 141, 143, 144,145, 148, 149, 150, 153, 155, 156, 157,158, 161, 163, 164, 165

Samuel, Gerald, 215San José Accord, 28, 36, 69, 70, 108, 123San Marino, 11Saudi Arabia, 128Seaga, Edward, 36, 38, 65, 93, 136, 176, 179,

185, 197Sedoc-Dahlberg, Betty, 47

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Serbia, 166Shearer, Hugh, 176Sierra Leone, 128, 157Silié, Reuben, 26Simpson, Portia, 179Singapore, 71, 112Singer, Marshall, 9Slovenia, 123Small-Island Developing States (SIDS), 56, 70,

72Snyder, Rochard, 5Somoza, Anastasio, 128South Africa, 24, 114, 128, 136, 145, 153,

154, 155, 160, 166, 187South Korea (Republic of Korea), 112, 130,

138Southern Common Market (Mercosur), 81,

109, 128Soviet Union (USSR), 66, 96, 107, 121, 128,

129, 136, 154, 160, 161, 162, 166, 171,172, 183, 213

Spain, 21, 26, 107, 121, 123, 132–33Sprout, Harold and Margaret, 5St. Kitts-Nevis, 14, 15, 16, 39, 40, 168, 170,

176, 182, 209, 221, 225, 226; crime, 50,51; economic issues, 57, 59, 61, 63, 64,65, 67, 71, 72, 73, 75, 78, 79, 112, 113,114, 124; narcotics/drug trafficking, 40;strategic and diplomatic linkages, 91, 92,93, 95, 97, 998, 102, 103, 104, 105, 118,119, 129, 130, 133, 137, 139, 143, 144,145, 146, 148, 150, 154, 155, 157, 161,162, 163, 164, 165

St. Vincent (and the Grenadines), 14, 15, 16,38, 176, 178, 182, 188, 209, 221, 225,226; crime, 50; economic issues, 57, 60,61, 63, 67, 71, 72, 73, 76, 78, 79, 107,109, 111, 112, 113, 121, 123, 124;strategic and diplomatic linkages, 91, 92,93, 98, 99, 102, 104, 105, 115, 129, 130,133, 139, 141, 143, 145, 146, 148, 149,150, 151, 153, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159,161, 162, 163, 164, 165

Steif, William, 76Structural Adjustment Facility. See International

Monetary FundSudan, 158Suriname, 14, 15, 16, 19, 25, 31, 38, 47, 50,

111, 168, 174, 175, 176, 178, 188, 218,221, 225, 226; economic issues, 56, 57,60, 61, 62, 63, 67, 70, 71, 72, 73, 78, 82,84, 87, 107, 110, 111, 112, 114, 120,121, 122, 123, 124; foreign policy sketch,19–21; and Guyana, 27, 28, 29, 100, 102,135, 183, 204; narcotics/drug trafficking,

40, 43, 45; strategic and diplomaticlinkages, 89, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 103, 104,105, 115, 128, 129, 130, 132, 133, 134,135, 136, 137, 140, 143,144, 145, 146,148, 150, 151, 153, 156,158, 159, 161,162, 163, 164, 165, 190

Sweden, 123Switzerland, 51, 66, 67, 107, 120, 123Syria, 128

Taiwan (Republic of China), 112, 129, 130,131, 132, 133

Tax Information Exchange Agreements(TIEAs), 50

terrorism, 2, 19, 52–54, 69, 162, 192Thailand, 84, 112Thatcher, Margaret, 175Thomas, Christopher, 151TransAfrica, 46, 200Treaty of Paris (1814), 26Trinidad and Tobago, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18,

28, 39, 47, 48, 53, 111, 135, 176, 178,180, 182, 186, 188, 193, 196, 215, 216,218, 221, 225, 226; and Barbados, 31–32,100; crime, 50, 51; and Cuba, 37–38;domestic turmoil, 39; economic issues, 56,57, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 68, 70–79passim, 107–12 passim, 114, 115, 122,123, 124; narcotics/drug trafficking,40–41, 43, 44; passport issues, 52;strategic and diplomatic linkages, 89, 90,91, 92, 93, 95–105 passim, 115, 116,118, 119, 128, 129, 130, 134, 135, 136,137, 138, 139, 140, 143, 144, 145, 146,148, 149, 150, 151, 153–65 passim, 170,190; and United States, 35; and Venezuela,30–31, 36–37, 96–97

Trinidad and Tobago Alliance, 199Trujillo, Rafael, 23, 27, 34Tudor, Cameron, 176Tunisia, 31Turkmenistan, 158, 166Turks and Caicos Islands, 122, 141, 153

Uganda, 136Ukraine, 166United Arab Emirates, 128United Kingdom (UK), 14, 15, 17, 29, 35, 39,

49, 54, 119, 145, 154, 155, 159, 174,178, 179, 217; deportees, 50, 51;economic links with Caribbean, 57, 61,62, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 87, 107, 108, 120,121, 122, 123, 186, 187; and Guyana, 35,45, 172; and Haiti, 20, 21, 22, 26; andJamaica, 52; strategic and diplomatic

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linkages with Caricom, 89, 90, 95, 97,131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 139, 197, 212,223; and Trinidad and Tobago, 54

United Nations (UN), 8, 10, 11, 12, 20, 23,24, 28, 33, 38, 40, 45, 99, 100, 101, 102,103, 104, 105, 106, 127, 129, 131, 132,133, 134, 135, 139, 140, 170, 171, 173,178, 182, 190, 191, 204, 206, 209, 211,212, 213, 214, 219, 221, 222, 223, 225,227, 228, 233; Caricom participation in,144–52; Caricom voting behavior in,152–55; Economic and Social Council(ECOSOC), 149; General EnvironmentalFacility (GEF), 73

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF),141, 142, 143

United Nations Conference on Trade andDevelopment (UNCTAD), 107, 222

United Nations Development Program(UNDP), 66, 67, 68, 71, 73, 120, 121,141, 142, 143, 206; and HumanDevelopment Index, 71; and Gender-related Development Index (GDI), 71;and Index of Gender Empowerment(GEM), 71

United Nations Educational, Scientific andCultural Organization (UNESCO), 141,142, 143, 219

United Nations Environmental Program(UNEP), 141, 143, 149

United Nations Institute for Training andResearch (UNITAR), 217

United Nations International Drug ControlProgram, 141, 142

United Nations Women’s Fund (UNIFEM),141

United States, 1, 8, 11, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21,22, 23, 24, 27, 29, 30, 32, 38, 46, 47, 49,50, 53, 54, 145, 151, 153, 154, 155, 156,158, 159, 177, 180, 183, 192, 200; andCaricom at the United Nations, 160–63;and deportees, 51–52; economic linkswith Caricom, 57, 61–69 passim, 84, 86,87, 106, 107, 108, 109, 120, 121, 122,123, 185, 186, 187, 199; EconomicSupport Fund (ESF), 74; trade programs,74–82; interventions, 32–36; militaryprograms, 89–95; narcotics/drugtrafficking, 40–45; strategic anddiplomatic linkages with Caricom, 39, 97,99, 100, 101, 102, 127, 129, 131, 132,

133, 134, 135, 138, 140, 144, 154,165–66, 171, 172, 173, 178, 197, 213,219, 223, 228–29, 232

United States Agency for InternationalDevelopment (USAID), 144

United States (U.S.) Virgin Islands, 153University of the West Indies, 178, 189, 200;

Institute for International Relations, 217USSR. See Soviet UnionUzbekistan, 154, 158, 166

Vanuatu, 56Vatican (Holy See), 11, 24, 127, 134Venezuela, 18, 18, 24, 34, 37, 46, 70, 77, 106,

109, 110, 122, 123, 124, 127, 128, 131,132, 133, 134, 135, 139, 145, 146, 155,185, 223, 232; aid to Caricom, 123–24;Venezuelan Trust Fund, 124; andDominica/Bird Island (Isla de Aves), 28,30, 36, 100; and Guyana border dispute,27–29, 31, 36, 69, 98, 100, 102, 108,135, 149, 152, 181, 187, 194; issues ofimperialism, 36–37; and Trinidad andTobago, 30–31, 36–37, 39, 90, 96–97,108, 116, 135

Vesco, Robert, 42, 49, 51Vietnam, 128, 154, 172Vital, David, 8Vore, Christopher, 5

Waltz, Kenneth, 3West Indies Farmers Association, 188West Indies Federation, 14, 35, 89, 119, 164,

215Wheller, Brian, 73Williams, Eric, 18, 35, 36, 37, 116, 172, 175,

176, 177, 179World Bank, 28, 69, 73, 120, 123, 141, 143.

See also International Bank forReconstruction and Development

World Health Organization (WHO), 141, 142,143

World Trade Organization (WTO), 81, 82, 86,87, 107, 131, 132, 134, 135, 233

Yemen, 128Young, Andrew, 199Yugoslavia, 128, 157

Zambia, 136

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Jacqueline Anne Braveboy-Wagner - Small States in Global Affairs

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