Cari­com has raised the is­sue of sanc­tions against Venezuela, the block­ade against Cu­ba, and the view that more needs to be done to stem the flow of guns in­to the re­gion.

Cari­com chair­man Roo­sevelt Sker­rit, who host­ed a press con­fer­ence at the con­clu­sion of the 45th gen­er­al meet­ing at the Hy­att last night, said that re­gion­al lead­ers raised these and oth­er is­sues with US Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken when he held a cau­cus ses­sion with them yes­ter­day.

“We raised the is­sue of the em­bar­go against Cu­ba and we re­it­er­at­ed our call to the Unit­ed States to have this block­ade against Cu­ba lift­ed. And al­so, we urged the Unit­ed States to re­move the sanc­tions on Venezuela be­cause of the far-reach­ing im­pli­ca­tions of the sanc­tions on Venezuela,” he said.

Sker­rit said at some point he hoped Cu­ba would be a mem­ber of Cari­com.

He not­ed that while the US an­nounced that they have tak­en ac­tion with the ap­point­ment of a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor—Michael Ben’Ary—who will serve as the very first co­or­di­na­tor for Caribbean Firearms Pros­e­cu­tions, there was more that need­ed to be done in the re­gion.

“We still be­lieve that there are ad­di­tion­al things that the US can do to stem the flow of guns with­in our re­gion,” he said.

He said there was al­so ex­ten­sive en­gage­ment on the is­sue of Haiti with Blinken and the Pres­i­dent of Rwan­da.

“We touched on a num­ber of is­sues, the is­sue of cli­mate change and its im­pacts on our world. The is­sue of cli­mate fi­nanc­ing, look­ing at a new ar­chi­tec­ture for the in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions and how they treat coun­tries like ours. We al­so dis­cussed how we can join forces with those who have ex­pressed in­ter­est in their com­mit­ment to pro­vid­ing tan­gi­ble sup­port on the ground in Haiti to­wards the res­o­lu­tion of the cri­sis, cur­rent­ly con­fronting our broth­ers and sis­ters in Haiti.

“And so, we look for­ward to col­lab­o­rat­ing with Rwan­da, who has of­fered to al­so en­gage the African Union,” he said.

Free move­ment of peo­ple

On the in­te­gra­tion move­ment, Sker­rit said lead­ers took the “de­ci­sion to seek to have the free move­ment of all cat­e­gories of peo­ple to live and work”.

“Ob­vi­ous­ly, there are some le­gal is­sues that we have to ex­am­ine. And we have giv­en some months to ex­am­ine those le­gal is­sues and to en­sure that by 30th of March, 2023 (next gen­er­al meet­ing), to take a deep­er po­si­tion on this,” he said.

He ac­knowl­edged that there are some chal­lenges for some, “but we are com­mit­ted to this”.

In ad­di­tion, Cari­com mem­bers will have ac­cess to pri­ma­ry health and emer­gency health, ac­cess to ba­sic ed­u­ca­tion—pre, pri­ma­ry, and sec­ondary ed­u­ca­tion.

“Of course, we have this sort of se­cu­ri­ty agree­ment in place al­ready that peo­ple can ben­e­fit from, but we be­lieve this is a fun­da­men­tal part of the in­te­gra­tion ar­chi­tec­ture,” he said.

“I think we would have served and have served the com­mu­ni­ty well at this meet­ing by ar­riv­ing at that de­ci­sion. And we hope to see that it will be im­ple­ment­ed by the 30th of March, 2024. So this is great news.”

Sker­rit said that of all the is­sues he dis­cussed, this was the one that pleased him most.

“And I be­lieve the found­ing fa­thers are smil­ing from heav­en, that the present gen­er­a­tion are bold enough to ar­rive at a de­ci­sion,” he said.