‘No More Romance’, CARICOM has to move faster toward ONENESS

By Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

#Belize, March 3, 2022 – The 33rd inter-sessional meeting of CARICOM heads of government is officially open. Prime Minister of Belize John Briceño opened the meeting held on Ambergris Caye in Belize with an appeal to speed up integration in the region.

He noted the effects of COVID-19 on small island states as well as food insecurity and economic conditions that affected small states equally, emphasizing the need to come together, faster. Briceño referred to 1973 when the idea of integration was initially proposed.

“I turned to 1973 not out of romantic nostalgia but to remind us of our roots and more importantly to suggest that we need to rekindle that founding vision, both eyes to the scale of its ambition of our integration and the speed with which we need to achieve its consolidation.”

CARICOM says at this meeting it will be exploring how it can be more helpful to Haiti.

This announcement came from Secretary General Dr Carla Barnett in a press conference Monday. Barnett said CARICOM was prepared to offer assistance with administrative and electoral processes as well as training Haiti’s security forces.

Dr Barnett also said that it was the job of CARICOM to lead international countries in what she described as all rounded assistance to Haiti.

“We also feel that there is a particular role that we need to play that is to encourage and in some ways lead the international community towards consideration of long term  development plan for Haiti because a lot of the conversations tend to be around the security and crime issues and that is often de-linked from fundamental underdevelopment issues.”

Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry was in attendance at the meeting in person along with several other heads of state.

The meeting ends Wednesday March 2^nd, 2022.