A Sunday Gleaner investigation has revealed that three of the untreated water sources being frequented by the water trucks failed a standard bacteria test known in environmental health circles as multiple-tube fermentation.

The results revealed that scores of residents have been drinking dirty water that looks clean.

In the meantime, public health officials are warning that the country is dangerously perched on the edge of an outbreak of water-borne diseases if the relevant authorities do not find a way to lock off the dirty practice.

As the drastic drought conditions continue to grip the island and the need for potable water mounts, unscrupulous persons are selling bacteria-infested water drawn from untreated sources to unsuspecting residents …continue

Article and photo credit to Tyrone Reid, Sunday Gleaner. Content originally published by, and copyright to, the Jamaica Gleaner, March 14, 2010.

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Caribbean leaders established the CCJ in 2001 to replace the London-based Privy Council as the region’s final court, but only Barbados and Guyana have signed on to the  appellate and original jurisdictions of the CCJ.

The other CARICOM countries have signed to the original jurisdiction that allows the CCJ to function as an international tribunal in dealing with breaches of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas that governs the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

“As I have often said the commitments that governments make at the CARICOM level must be upheld and must be sustained and so we are committed to that process and we believe it is one that we must continue to maintain…and hopefully by the end of 2010 going to 2011 St. Lucia will be in a position to move forward with the process,” Prime Minister Stephenson King told reporters.

King, who was among regional leaders attending the just concluded CARICOM intersessioanl summit, said there were a number of challenges, including constitutional requirements for a two-thirds majority in a referendum, to be dealt with before the island could join the CCJ.

On Friday, Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson called on his colleagues to ensure that they are full members of the CCJ.

“It weakens the CCJ when the country that is the headquarters of the CCJ, Trinidad and Tobago, is not a country that has acceded to the CCJ. So it is just one of those areas in which people see a yawning gap between the promise of unity and performance and as long as that is not resolved it will pose major difficulties for us.”

Thompson said that it was necessary for regional countries “to get with it” since their reluctance to join the CCJ could weaken the efforts towards establishing the CARICOM Single Market and Economy.

Original reporting via the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).

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The World Bank has offered to help ease the heavy debt burden of Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries.

After meeting with Heads of Government yesterday – the first day of the 21st CARICOM Inter-Sessional Meeting being held in Dominica’s capital – World Bank President Robert Zoellick said the financial institution is currently studying the debt profiles of the region’s countries in order to construct appropriate plans to ease the load.

Zoellick said the Bank was willing to send teams to the various CARICOM member countries to see whether a strategy could be developed that focuses on growth as well as good fiscal management and effective use of debt.

“The next step is for the countries that are interested to ask us to have our teams come and we can come and try to outline that,” he said.

The Community’s crippling debt burden was among key matters the two sides discussed in a two-hour meeting that CARICOM Chairman and host Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit characterized as a “constructive engagement”.

The situation in quake-hit Haiti, climate change and tax haven issues were the other subjects of the exchange.

On Haiti, Zoellick said the World Bank supports a special multi-donor fund for the reconstruction of the quake-hit CARICOM member state. The fund will ensure that all donors’ resources are pooled, thus streamlining the assistance to Haiti.

He said it was best for there to be “one fund connected to the plans of the Haitians without having them to meet with 20 different donors with 20 different ideas”, adding that this would allow Haitians to be “in the driver’s seat”.

Ahead of the meeting with Zoellick, Prime Minister Skerrit had indicated that CARICOM wanted foremost for the Haitian government and its people to be at the centre of and leading the process of the country’s reconstruction.

“We have to ensure that the errors of the past do not repeat themselves where we, as non-Haitian nationals would go into Haiti and determine for them what they need, how they need it and how they should do it, and at the end of the day, nobody benefits,” he said at the time.

Zoellick said the World Bank was also considering how it could support CARICOM’s role in providing assistance to Haiti.

He also revealed that he had held discussions with the Haitian President earlier in the week on how the World Bank Group could best support that country in the immediate future. After the earthquake, the financial institution provided an additional US$100 million in grants, while its private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) also made an additional US$35 million investment to help boost jobs.

With regard to climate change, the World Bank President indicated that the two sides discussed how they could work together to achieve the region’s goals in adapting to climate change.

“CARICOM is particularly active on climate change, and the world is increasingly recognizing the needs of the small island states.  The World Bank can help CARICOM with increasing its resilience to climate change, innovative financing, and low carbon growth strategies that include a focus on reducing the cost and increasing the efficiency of energy in the region,” Zoellick said.

“The Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation, is exploring opportunities to support renewable options, such as geothermal, hydro, wind and solar, along with an energy efficiency programme.”

During the discussions with the leaders, Zoellick also promised that the World Bank would continue to support countries with advice and assistance to put necessary legal frameworks and treaties in place to meet international financial standards.

Several CARICOM countries are under pressure from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to meet specific tax information sharing standards (C360)

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CHIBA, JAPAN – JUNE 21: Japanese Fishermen slaughter a 9.95m Baird’s Beaked whale at Wada Port on June 21, 2007 in Chiba, Japan. Under the coastal whaling program, Japan is only allowed to hunt a limited number of whales every year and Wadaura villages are permitted to hunt 26 whales during the season that begins June 20 and ends August 31. Japan has also threatened to leave the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in the prospect to add humpback whales to its annual cull. (Photo by Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images)

It’s the high seas equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot. Several Caribbean governments are harpooning their own sustainable tourism industry by supporting Japan’s ruthless campaign to continue killing whales.

A group of International Whaling Commission (IWC) nations meeting from March 2 to 4 in Florida is reported to have considered recommending to the full membership that Japan, Iceland and Norway be allowed to hunt whales despite a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling. Japan, in particular, would no longer have to pretend that, in killing thousands of whales every year, it is doing so for “scientific” purposes.

Japan does not deny that meat from slaughtered whales ends up in restaurants and shops.

As this commentary is being written a shipment of whale meat is being transported by ship from Iceland to Japan in an expensive and backward step to resuscitate trade in whale meat. Twenty-six nations condemned Iceland last October for expanding commercial whaling, pointing out that it brings little benefit to Iceland’s economy and great harm to its tourism industry.

Caribbean countries have nothing to gain if the proposal from the IWC’s small working group is adopted by the wider membership. Voting for it would certainly adversely affect the Caribbean’s brand of itself as environmentally friendly, and harm the growing whale-watching aspect of its tourism industry.

A study by a group of Australian Economists placed whale-watching as a US$2.1 billion global industry in 2008. In the Caribbean and Central American whale-watching is growing at a rate of 12.8%, three times more than the growth rate of the global tourism industry (4.2%). Countries in the region now earn more than US$54 million from whale-watching as part of their tourism product, while earnings from whaling are practically zero.

Despite this, members of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and Suriname have routinely supported Japan’s efforts in the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to slaughter whales every year in defiance of the international prohibition.

Significantly, an international meeting in Martinique from 18 to 21 February on “Sustainable ‘blue’ tourism in the Caribbean” strongly urged Caribbean governments “to give their full support and encouragement to whale-watching activities as a valid and sustainable means of protecting marine mammal populations and creating jobs, earning foreign exchange and providing sustainable livelihoods for fishermen and local coastal communities” . In making this call, the participants – the majority of whom were from the Caribbean – recalled that in 2008, the Prime Minister of Dominica Roosevelt Skerrit took the “principled position” to withdraw his Government’s support for whaling at the IWC as being “incompatible” with Dominica’s brand as a “Nature Isle”. They called on the leaders of other OECS countries to join him.

The stand-off at the IWC between whale killing by Japan and its supportive small states, and whale conservation by countries such as Brazil, Costa Rica, India, the United States, South Africa, Germany and Australia, has dragged-on for some time. Last year, the small working group was established to try to bring an end to the impasse. Many hoped that the group’s work would result in strong proposals to ensure that IWC rules are fully respected and implemented, and that whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale sanctuary would be phased out swiftly.

However, it appears that the small group has been coerced into entertaining a different kind of discussion – one in which Japan will be allowed to violate the rules the IWC itself has set and to ignore sanctuaries that have been established. One of the members of the group said that nations must “swallow a dead rat”.

Experts from around the world are deeply troubled by the proposals emerging from the group. The proposals include:

· No provisions to ensure that the existing ban on international trade in whale products is respected;
· Authorizing the killing of sperm whales.
· Continued whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary;
· Weakening of the IWC as a rule making and regulatory international body, encouraging unrestrained actions by individual nations.

Many governments have gotten away with supporting Japan because their publics are not fully aware that, apart from a small number of indigenous communities in the world, only an elite group in Japan consistently eat whale meat.

In the Caribbean, Japanese Associations have paid for the production and broadcast of television programmes which falsely promote whale-killing as a beneficial activity because whales eat fish in Caribbean waters depriving the local population of fish. This claim has been proven, scientifically, to be untrue.

Evidence of the abhorrence of whale killing and its adverse effect on the world’s biodiversity is the fact that an Oscar was recently awarded to “The Cove” – a documentary film depicting the grisly slaughter of dolphins by Japanese in a cove in south-western Japan.

Kevin Rudd, Australia’s prime minister, last month threatened to take action against Japan at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over its Antarctic whale hunt. And, in New Zealand, the foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Labour Party, Chris Carter, has called on the government to join Australia in taking Japan to the ICJ.

But, Japan remains determined in its stance, not only on whaling but on fisheries generally. Indeed, Japan is so obdurate that it has stated categorically that it will “opt out” of its obligation to stop importing Atlantic bluefin tuna if members of the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species vote this month to add the fish to the treaty’s list of most-protected species. In other words, Japan will only respect those international rules that suit it.

Japan’s stance is bad news for small countries which depend, for their own survival, on international rules and respect for them within the UN framework.

Japan has helped to make rules that are imposed on small states – rules with which small countries been forced to comply or be punished. Among these are the regulatory and tax information requirements of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

If the proposals of the small working group are permitted by governments to proceed, Japan, Iceland and Norway will have a free hand, and Japan will no longer need to lure the support of small Caribbean countries in the IWC.

In June, the IWC will hold its annual meeting in Morocco. That’s the time that the OECS and Suriname governments should join the government of Dominica in taking a principled position that upholds their own interest.

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Irene Sandiford-Garner, former Parliamentary Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office has been reassigned as Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Health, with oversight of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital improvement project.

Dr. the Hon. Esther Byer-Suckoo, former Minister of Family, Youth and Sports has been assigned as Minister of Labour, with the Hon. Stephen Lashley joining the cabinet as her replacement.

Trade unionist Harry Husbands will become Parliamentary Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office with responsibility for immigration and the social partnership, while Jeptor Ince will serve as a second parliamentary secretary in the Prime Minister’s office with oversight of economic matters.

The Hon. Patrick Todd, former Minister of State in the Ministry of Education & Human Resource Development has been reassigned as Minister of State in the Ministry of Economic Development, while the Hon. Chris Sinkler, Minister of Social Care has also been appointed as Leader of the House, replacing the Hon. Ronald Jones, Minister of Education & Human Resource Development.

The Prime Minister commented that the changes reflect government’s need to make better use of resources, including human resources, and hinted that there may be other changes of portfolio at other levels of government, including Permanent Secretaries.

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In St. Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago, they are warning of prosecution, including jail time, if consumers violate measures introduced to curb the use of water other than for drinking, cooking and bathing.

In a paper presented in a 2007 conference in Barbados, entitled “Coping with Drought in the Caribbean,” expert Bano Mehdi, cited scientific warnings about this drought, noting that “more intense and longer droughts have been observed over wide areas since the 1970s.”

From Trinidad and Tobago in the south, to Jamaica in the north, governments are implementing water rationing to deal with a drastic decline in capacity in the reservoirs. Some, like Guyana, are pumping a significant amount of money to help farmers overcome the problem.

“So far we have close to 10,000 acres of rice under stress; we have cattle, too, going through some very difficult conditions,” as well as crops under pressure in the interior of the country, said Guyana’s Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud.

“This time last year we were dealing with rainfall levels higher than the 2005 floods. The effects of climate change are hitting home very often,” Persaud added.
When the 2010 national budget was presented in mid-February, the Guyana government said it was allocating 29.4 million dollars to improve agricultural irrigation systems.

A few days later, President Bharrat Jagdeo said an additional 1.2 million dollars would be spent on efforts to confront the effects of El Niño/Southern Oscillation, the cyclical phenomenon in which warm surface waters of the equatorial Pacific flow eastward, altering weather patterns across the Americas.

“The entire apparatus of the government is focused on bringing as much relief as is humanly possible to our people across Guyana,” Jagdeo told farmers, noting that some communities are having difficulties obtaining even drinking water.

Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Patrick Manning is convinced that this drought is due the effects of climate change. His administration is looking to add to the single desalination plant to move the country away from “too-heavy reliance on surface water sources.”

“We believe it is El Niño, but it does not in any way negate our conclusion that as a result of climate change, among other things, we can experience droughts in Trinidad and Tobago,” Manning said.

According to Public Utilities Minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, the water levels in the reservoirs “are well below their long-term averages for this time of year.” The Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) has placed a ban on citizens using water to wash vehicles or water plants and lawns.
So stringent has been the measure that Manning dismissed a contractor working at his official residence after pictures were published in the newspapers showing sprinklers being used to water the lawns.

WASA regional manager Collin Nym said the outlook was bleak for 2010 because lower rainfall had exacerbated production constraints at one of the main water treatment plants and the desalination plant.

“We have a large reservoir and we did not capture as much rainfall as we anticipated. Between January and June 2009, we faced a lot of problems,” he said. “The Meteorological Office predicted that we would have 80 to 90 millimeters of rainfall for January, and we only saw five.”
The Jamaican government has hinted at the possibility of cloud seeding, which involves the use of chemicals to influence rainfall in areas where the drought is more severe.

Water Minister Horace Chang met recently with a group of experts from the University of the West Indies (UWI) to discuss the possibility of cloud seeding, but it is a very expensive option.

Authorities already had to cut a drought mitigation program due to the austerity measures required by a recently signed, multi- billion-dollar Standby Agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The scheme was expected to include the reactivation of several abandoned supply wells in Jamaica. According to Chang, the National Water Commission is losing an estimated 2.2 million dollars in revenues per month as a result of the country’s worst drought in decades.

“We have been spending more money and we have lost significant revenue… People can’t pay if they don’t get water, so we have to spend more money in terms of operational costs,” Chang said.

Corporations are also complaining.

“If the drought continues, we will definitely look to start trucking water to the different factories, but there is a cost involved in doing that,” said Omar Azan, president of the Jamaica Manufacturers Association.

In St. Lucia, the authorities issued a “Declaration of Water Related Emergency” on Feb. 24, and have warned that persons contravening the new measures could face both a fine of not less than 1,110 dollars and imprisonment of not less than six months.

Among the measures contained in the declaration is a ban on the use of water for watering of gardens, lawns, grounds and farms as well as for supplying ponds, swimming pools, “or for use other than normal domestic services such as drinking, cooking, washing, bathing and sanitation.”

Dominica, which boasts 365 rivers, has warned consumers that the drought could get worse.

Based on information from the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology, in Barbados, “we will experience severe dryness for some time to come. If it does continue… it means the water level will definitely get lower and there will not be sufficient pressure to provide water to many communities,” said Gwennie Dickson, spokesperson for Dominica’s Water and Sewerage Company.

The Antigua and Barbuda public utilities authority said that at the normal rate of consumption, the Potworks Dam wouldn’t have enough water to take the country to the end of March.

Adrian Trotman, acting chief of applied meteorology and climatology at the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology, warned that countries like Barbados could experience drought conditions for a long period.

“This is the view of scientists of the Caribbean Drought and Precipitation Monitoring Network (CDPMN), who have been analyzing rainfall trends in the Caribbean since January 2009,” Trotman said in a statement.

“Water resources managers across the region are urged to implement the necessary measures to conserve water, as the drought conditions are expected to persist over the next three months,” he added.

The CDPMN, which was launched in January 2009 under the six- year Caribbean Water Initiative project, has warned that unless the precipitation situation is closely monitored, “one often does not realize that drought is upon you or is approaching – until the effects are already felt.”

This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramerica network. Tierramerica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank. (c) NoticiasFinancieras – Inter Press Services – All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2010 IPS.

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The massive earthquakes in Haiti and Chile within six weeks of each other, on January12 and February 27 respectively, revealed the limited capacity of Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries to respond to disasters on this scale.

To date, CARICOM countries have not been able to mobilize support for Chile and have virtually left the problem to be tackled by the Chilean government, the United States of America, better-off Latin American nations and the international institutions. CARICOM countries simply do not have the resources in any form to cope with massive disasters within their own member states, let alone to provide help to other countries.

In this regard, CARICOM countries need to thank God that the 7.0 earthquake that buckled Haiti did not extend into Jamaica.

Nonetheless, high praise should be given to CARICOM countries for their efforts, at both the level of governments and the public, to help Haiti. In proportion to their capacity, many of them have been very generous.

Barbados has now emerged as the country which, on a per capita basis, has pledged the most to Haiti’s relief and reconstruction. Prime Minister David Thompson has revealed that the Barbados government is donating US$1 million to Haiti, the same figure as the governments of the two countries at either end of CARICOM’s economic scale – oil-rich Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana, the poorest country, in per capita income terms, after Haiti in the region.

While Guyana’s contribution was exemplary, the donation of Barbados is outstanding for not only has the government pledged US$1 million, but it has been shouldering the costs for the operations of the Regional Security System (RSS) that has provided much needed security and other services to Haiti. Barbados shares the RSS with six island-territories of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) but Thompson revealed that “no other contributions have been forthcoming” from other states.

CARICOM countries gave as much as they could. They did so directly and through the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA). But, at the end of the day, large though the contribution was in relation to the means of these countries, it was a drop in the Ocean measured against the scale of Haiti’s needs. Haiti required the large scale assistance of countries such as the United States, Canada, France, Brazil and the international institutions like the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

In early March at a meeting of CARICOM finance ministers, Secretary-General, Edwin Carrington, declared that the region “cannot fail to take cognizance of the near similar situation (to Haiti) which has befallen Chile.” He urged assistance ‘to the best of our ability at this time”.

The number of dead and injured in Chile was not as great as in Haiti even though the 8.8 tremor was much stronger than the earthquake that bowed Haiti. Nonetheless, as this commentary is being written, the United Nations Office for the coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, reports that 723 people were killed and 2 million (about 10 per cent of the population) have been made homeless and are walking the streets. Six regions were declared as zones of catastrophe.

But CARICOM countries are already over-stretched in Haiti. It is doubtful that any of them, except perhaps for Trinidad and Tobago, could make anything more than a token gesture of assistance to Chile.

Fortunately, there are governments that can provide immediate relief assistance and Chile has the financial capacity to undertake the reconstruction that has been estimate, so far, at US$30 billion – 15 per cent of Chile’s annual economic output. The country is the best managed in Latin America with a public debt of only 6 per cent of its GDP. By comparison, the majority of CARICOM countries have a debt to GDP ratio of one hundred per cent and more.

Further, over the last decade Chile saved much of the profits from sales of copper by state-owned mines and taxes on private miners. Its sovereign wealth funds now hold about US$15 billion. With this kind of record and assets, Chile will easily be able to access capital markets at low interest rates for rebuilding.

How to establish machinery for avoiding huge human and infrastructural catastrophes as a result of natural disasters is something that should now be actively exercising the minds of Caribbean leaders.

St Kitts-Nevis Prime Minister Denzil Douglas recently observed that “there is a wave of volcanic activity that is taking place in this region” and he called on his country’s National Emergency Management Agency “to review the country’s capacity to deal with an earthquake”. He would know that to do so the Agency would require greater resources from the government than it now has.

Among the factors that all governments should take into account is the legislation and enforcement of far better building standards than now exists. Equally, they should all subscribe to the Caribbean Catastrophe Facility Risk Insurance Facility which paid out very quickly to Haiti and gave the government some resources to help rebuild the broken country.

The underlying point about all this is that CARICOM countries could not cope with two disasters simultaneously among its own membership, and while they have been valiant in Haiti in relation to their means, their financial contribution to Haiti was miniscule. Nonetheless, disaster threatens them in the form of hurricanes and earthquakes and they are ill-prepared to cope – a fact that international financial institutions and large countries should take into account by ceasing to graduate them from concessionary lending; urgently addressing their burdensome commercial debt problems; and stopping the demand in the World Trade Organisation and in trade agreements that they give reciprocal treatment to countries and regions much larger than they are.

Of course, the principal lesson to be learned from the experience of Haiti and Chile is that the countries that will recover faster and reconstruct quicker from disasters are the ones with the prudently run economies that benefit from greater resources. In this connection, CARICOM countries could make their economies stronger by accelerating the completion of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy with an effective governance structure.

Praying that disaster does not kick down the doors of two or more CARICOM countries at the same time won’t be enough.

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At a meeting of leaders of Latin America and the Caribbean on February 23, Caribbean Community (CARICOM) governments supported a joint “Declaration on (the) Falklands Islands Issue”.

The Declaration “confirmed their support of Argentina’s legitimate rights in the sovereignty dispute with the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands Issue”, and recalled “regional interest in having the governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom resume negotiations to find a fair, peaceful and definitive solution to the dispute over the sovereignty” of the Falklands/Malvinas islands.  They went further to call on the European Union (EU) countries to amend their charter to remove the Falkland Islands from the list of overseas territories associated with the EU.

The support of Latin American countries for Argentina in this matter is quite understandable.  They have links of language, culture, history and proximity that go back centuries.

But the support of CARICOM countries for Argentina’s “legitimate rights” is puzzling.  Both the UK and Argentina have claimed the Falklands/Malvinas for almost two hundred years.  So what now makes Argentina’s rights more “legitimate” than Britain’s?  And, why call for “negotiations” between Argentina and Britain to find “a fair peaceful and definitive solution” to the dispute if it has already been decided that Argentina’s rights are “legitimate”?

Unless there is something they have not made public, this position by Caribbean governments appears on the surface to run counter to their own national interests.

The Caribbean has always strongly supported a people’s right to self-determination.  It is in fulfillment of their own right to self-determination that Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries are independent states.  In this regard, since the people of the Falklands/Malvinas have consistently and overwhelmingly chosen to be British, Caribbean governments would certainly not argue that the manifest wish of the people of the Falklands/Malvinas should be ignored, particularly since Britain has exercised de facto sovereignty over the islands continuously since 1833.

The national interests of twelve of the fourteen independent CARICOM countries are much more bound-up with Britain than they are with Argentina.  CARICOM’s trade with Britain far exceeds trade with Argentina; investment in CARICOM countries from Britain is much greater than any investment from Argentina; official development assistance from Britain to CARICOM countries directly and indirectly (through the European Union and the Commonwealth for instance) is much larger than any assistance from Argentina; the number of tourists from Britain to CARICOM countries is considerably greater than from Argentina; and far more CARICOM nationals live, work and study in Britain than in Argentina.

What appears to have triggered this discussion at the 33-nations Cancun meeting is the fact that a British oil exploration company, Desire Petroleum Plc, announced that it had started drilling for oil 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of the Falklands/Malvinas.  Argentina objects to this development.

In giving support to Argentina, CARICOM countries run the risk of compromising their own interest.  For instance, where would they stand if Venezuela objected to oil exploration off part of Guyana, despite long-standing international arbitrations and agreements confirming Guyana’s title?  Also, where would these countries stand if Venezuela objected to oil explorations that might be granted by some of them near Aves Island/Bird Rock to which Venezuela lays a claim? In the case of Belize where Guatemala claims the entire country, the same argument applies.

Then we come to the matter of the creation of a grouping of these 33 countries that excludes Canada and the United States.  Some of the Latin American leaders – in particular those with a strong anti-American position – proclaimed to the media that this new grouping should replace the Organization of American States (OAS).

Well, replacing the OAS is simply in no country’s interest – not even those with the most rabid anti-American governments.  There has to be a forum in the Hemisphere where all its countries are represented and where discussions can take place at all levels of government and on all issues.  And that organization is clearly the already well-established OAS.  In this regard, Cuba should return to the Organization and the exclusion of the present elected government of Honduras should cease.

In any event, I suspect that only a very few governments touted the idea of an “alternative” organization to the OAS and even fewer would have supported it.  Certainly for CARICOM countries, there is no other organization in which they can engage the US government on a regular and sustained basis at all levels.  That alone makes the OAS worthwhile for them.

Further, CARICOM governments greatly value their relations with Canada which has been an ally and partner for generations in the Hemisphere and in the Commonwealth. They would want deeper not distant relations with Canada.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Latin American and Caribbean countries establishing a grouping that is not an alternative to the OAS, but is additional to it.

However, no one should believe that it will be anything more than an opportunity for dialogue at the level of leaders.  It will have no secretariat and therefore little means of implementing decisions; decisions will have to be made by consensus, therefore no binding decisions will be made; and, in truth, the grouping is so amorphous and made up of countries at such different levels of development and with such differing interests and ambitions, that its meetings will be largely obligatory and its decisions only declaratory.

The Summit “Declaration of Cancun” does have as one of its objectives “the coordination of regional positions ahead of meetings and conferences of global reach…  to project the region and increase its influence”.  This is to be welcomed provided that the view of smaller Caribbean islands are seriously considered and reflected by the larger Latin American states.

This brings us to the OAS itself.  The US government should regard this move by Latin American and Caribbean countries to set up a Hemispheric grouping, which deliberately excludes it, as a firm warning that its neglect of Latin America and the Caribbean’s development needs and issues, and its oftentimes casual dismissal of their positions is not in the interest of the United States.  The authorities in Washington need to engage Latin American and Caribbean countries as genuine partners and neighbours and a strengthened and revitalized OAS is the place to do so.

In this connection, CARICOM countries should indicate their support for the re-election on March 23 of the incumbent Secretary-General, Jose Miguel Insulza.  His task over the last five years in a fractious organisation, which also relies on consensus for decision-making, has not been easy.  But, he has tried to introduce reforms and he has been the most forceful Secretary-General the OAS has seen for a long time. Additionally, he has been very mindful of his obligations to his Caribbean member states.

He has also taken on Hugo Chavez over violations of media freedom in Venezuela and he has not been afraid to point out shortcomings by the US government.  To have offended both these adversaries, he must have done something right for the rest.

Over the next five and final years as Secretary-General, Insulza can be bold in giving the OAS real direction in reforming its mandate and establishing it as a meaningful forum for settling hemispheric issues and advancing democracy, development and human rights.

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Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in devastated Haiti on February 17, a month and five days after a massive earthquake ravaged the Capital, Port-au-Prince killing more than 200,000 people; maiming tens of thousands of others, and wreaking billions of dollars in damage.

The extent of the damage and loss of life in Haiti were undoubtedly due to the country’s lack of physical infrastructure and its poor building standards, neither of which could be accomplished in a situation where 70 percent of its gross domestic product was paid over to France for over a century.

This is not to ignore the excesses of Haitian governments, particularly under the Duvaliers, which also deprived the country of monies that should have been pumped into constructing infrastructure, providing education and health facilities, and establishing regulatory bodies to ensure higher standards across a range of activity including the construction of buildings.

The harsh imposition by France of a levy of 90 million gold francs, which Haiti did not finish repaying until 1947, also does not excuse recent Haitian governments and political parties for failing to spend aid funds on an agreed and country-wide development programme instead of on narrow political interests.

Indeed, on any programme for constructing a new Haiti – both in a physical and societal sense – Haitian governments should be mindful that not only the Haitian people but the entire international community will want guaranteed machinery to ensure that aid money is spent on sustainable development.

The challenge is huge. Taking Haiti off the world’s “sick man” list is not a short-term or cheap affair. The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has calculated that the rebuilding programme will cost US$14 billion and will take at least 10 years.

And, while there have been mountainous pledges of assistance from many governments as television images riveted the eyes of the world on Haiti, experience of previous disasters elsewhere in the world teaches that pledges often fall by the way side as soon as the cameras move on.

Acknowledging “the wounds of colonization” and saying that he knows well “the story of our countries on the question of debt”, President Sarkozy , in addition to cancelling all of Haiti’s US$77 million debt to France, also promised to provide aid of US$400 million over the next two years.  Included in the aid package is US$40 million in support of the Haitian government’s budget.

This latter commitment was warmly welcomed by Haiti’s Prime Minister, Jean-Max Bellerive who described it as “crucial” and added: It means we are going to use it the way we want”. The Prime Minister’s statement is understandable given that the government has to try to provide some basic services, such as policing, to the country in circumstances where government revenues must be very little.

But the question still arises as to whether the French government’s pledge to Haiti is enough.

Haiti’s exiled former President Jean Bertrand Aristide had calculated the sum that France extracted from Haiti, as the price for recognising its participation in the international community in 1825, as US$21 billion in today’s values.

As Sarkozy was entering Haiti, Professor Norman Girvan of the University of the West Indies, and former Secretary-General of the Association of Caribbean States, in an invited comment to the Associated Press was pretty clear about France’s obligation to Haiti and what Sarkozy should do.

He declared: “If President Sarkozy were to make restitution in the name of all the decent people of the French Republic for the historic wrong; and support the efforts of the Haitian people to rebuild their shattered lives and their economy with the resources thereby provided, he would undoubtedly gain the respect of the entire world and be a prime candidate for the award of the Nobel Prize for 2010”.

Somehow, I don’t believe that President Sarkozy will be a Nobel Prize recipient for returning to Haiti what was so callously extracted from it, and which is the underlying basis for its persistent poverty and  underdevelopment. And, it is instructive that the Haitian government is not pushing it. Millien Romage, a legislator for Aristide’s party also told the Associated Press: “This is not a time to be making loud demands. We don’t want to fight. But perhaps the French could recognize their debt by helping us to get out of poverty. They can help build roads, houses, schools.”

Sarkozy has at least made a start and it is to be hoped that when France joins other nations at a high-level international donors’ conference for Haiti, which will be held in New York next month, the French government will open its cheque book more generously to a country that it exploited and impoverished.

Canada, which has no history of exploitation of Haiti (or any other country for that matter) has been far more generous than France.   Even before the calamitous January earthquake, Canada had pledged more than US$500 million to Haiti over the next five years.

And, in a visit that preceded Sarkozy’s, Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, discussed with the Haitian President, Rene Preval, the creation of a common fund for Haiti’s recovery to be managed jointly by the Haitian government and donors.

A partnership between the Haitian government and the international community is crucial to the successful construction of Haiti and to the restoration of its society.

Calls for the Haitian government to be “masters of their own development”, should be tempered with realism. Governance in Haiti was fractious before the Earthquake, the government is now in tatters, and many who were leaders in Haitian society were victims of the earthquake. In this connection, Haiti needs a lot of help including help in the governance of the country over the next few years.

The representative of the 14 governments of the Caribbean Community, former Jamaican Prime Minister, P J Patterson, put the task ahead in clear terms at the Ministerial Conference on Haiti held in Canada on January 25 when he said: “Reconstructing Haiti needs to encompass more than replacing destroyed buildings and infrastructure and eviscerated institutions and must include a developmental dimension. Rebuilding should therefore also include the empowerment of the Haitians by the teaching of new skills”.

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