Yvonne Ba­boolal

Af­ter 40 years, the Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas, signed in 1973 to cre­ate Caribbean uni­ty but still large­ly un­suc­cess­ful, was signed again yes­ter­day by 15 Cari­com prime min­is­ters at the same place it was ini­tial­ly signed–the Con­ven­tion Cen­tre, Ch­aguara­mas. Mak­ing a strong re­newed call for Caribbean uni­ty, the heads of gov­ern­ment con­ced­ed at the re-en­act­ment of the Ju­ly 4, 1973, sign­ing of the treaty that re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion was still not where they want­ed it to be.At the 1973 sign­ing were Forbes Burn­ham (Guyana); Michael Man­ley (Ja­maica); Er­rol Bar­row (Bar­ba­dos) and Dr Er­ic Williams (Trinidad and To­ba­go).

At yes­ter­day's event were pres­i­dent of the As­sem­bly of States Par­ties to the Rome Statute Ti­ina In­tel­mann; pres­i­dent of the 67th Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly Vuk Je­re­mic; sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Caribbean States Am­bas­sador Al­fon­so Munera and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank, Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion and the Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States.Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, ad­dress­ing the gath­er­ing, paid trib­ute to the "found­ing fa­thers" of the re­gion for ex­e­cut­ing what, she said, was per­haps the most sig­nif­i­cant ac­cord that would gov­ern the re­la­tion­ship of the na­tion states in the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty.She said: "Let this re-en­act­ment to­day be not just a phys­i­cal drama­ti­sa­tion of our past but a tan­gi­ble re-ded­i­ca­tion to the fu­ture."Let it be the rein­car­na­tion of the spir­it and in­tent of the char­ter of Ju­ly 4, 1973. Let to­day be­come our mo­ment for a new re­solve, for re­ju­ve­nat­ed de­ter­mi­na­tion and con­scious­ness."

The prime min­is­ters of the four coun­tries which signed the Ch­aguara­mas Treaty–T&T, Guyana, Bar­ba­dos and Ja­maica–de­liv­ered short ad­dress­es.Ja­maica Prime Min­is­ter Por­tia Simp­son-Miller was loud­ly ap­plaud­ed for a speech, in which she re­mind­ed the heads of gov­ern­ment that Caribbean in­te­gra­tion was a process not an event.Not­ing that as a com­mu­ni­ty the Caribbean has much to be proud of, Simp­son-Miller said: "We, the Caribbean, are great peo­ples, whose spir­it con­tin­ues to in­fuse the world with mu­sic, colour, spice, vi­bran­cy, ex­cite­ment."No chal­lenge can daunt our peo­ple who cre­at­ed the tech­nol­o­gy that makes sweet mu­sic from steel­pans."No prob­lem can stop peo­ple whose reg­gae mu­si­cal forms have in­spired rev­o­lu­tion­ary change across the world.

"The world stood still when the Caribbean took cen­tre stage at the (Lon­don) Olympics. Noth­ing can stop a unit­ed Caribbean peo­ple who hail from the crests of the Blue Moun­tains to the glassy wa­ters of the Grand Anse."We are from the deep forests of Guyana and Suri­name. We cel­e­brate the beau­ti­ful bays of St Vin­cent, the hot sul­phur springs of St Lu­cia and Do­mini­ca. Let us unite as one re­gion to shape the fu­ture of Cari­com to­geth­er."

Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Guyana Don­ald Ramo­tar said the need for re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion was prob­a­bly greater now than it was 40 years ago. The glob­al fi­nan­cial cri­sis had im­pact­ed heav­i­ly on the re­gion, mak­ing the need for greater in­te­gra­tion more ur­gent, Ramo­tar said.Not­ing that "some progress" has been made since the 1973 treaty, he said: "There is a need to re­flect on whether the peo­ple of the re­gion have ben­e­fit­ed ful­ly from the in­te­gra­tion process."The 15 Cari­com heads of gov­ern­ment re-en­act­ed the sign­ing of the treaty on a sim­ple, wood­en ta­ble on­stage be­fore the au­di­ence, which in­clud­ed sev­er­al pri­ma­ry school­child­ren.Artistes from Ja­maica, Bar­ba­dos and Guyana per­formed but it was the T&T con­tin­gent who put on a stun­ning act, chore­o­graphed by top mas de­sign­er Bri­an Mc­Far­lane, that stole the show which rep­re­sent­ed every eth­nic group in the coun­try.