“Yuh try with a Fed­er­a­tion

De whole thing end in con­fu­sion

Cari­com and then Carif­ta

But some­how ah smelling dis­as­ter

Mis­ter West In­di­an politi­cian

Ah mean yuh went to big in­sti­tu­tion

An’ how come yuh cyar unite sev­en mil­lion?”

– Black Stal­in

The re­cent de­ci­sion by the T&T Gov­ern­ment to al­low US war­ships to dock in Port-of-Spain has once again raised ques­tions of the strength of re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion and the re­al­i­ty of Caribbean uni­ty.

His­to­ry has al­ready shown us the short­com­ings, and the col­lapse of the West In­dies Fed­er­a­tion re­mains the most spec­tac­u­lar ex­am­ple of the fail­ure of Caribbean col­lec­tive iden­ti­ty and co­op­er­a­tion. Now, decades lat­er, we are still strug­gling with the same dis­con­nec­tion.

Re­cent­ly, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed Cari­com, the re­gion’s uni­fy­ing body, as an “un­re­li­able part­ner” be­cause, in her words, “they chose Venezuela over Trinidad”.

Her state­ment high­lights an un­com­fort­able truth: when re­gion­al and na­tion­al in­ter­ests clash, Caribbean uni­ty quick­ly be­comes op­tion­al.

To be fair, Cari­com mem­bers stand by each oth­er in times of nat­ur­al dis­as­ters. In fact, dis­as­ter re­sponse is one of the few ar­eas where gen­uine re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion ex­ists. It is heart­warm­ing to see how quick­ly coun­tries mo­bilise to as­sist when their re­gion­al part­ners are af­fect­ed by nat­ur­al dis­as­ters. In the af­ter­math of Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa, coun­tries have al­ready be­gun to pledge their sup­port to Ja­maica.

We saw Cari­com coun­tries com­ing to­geth­er to as­sist Haiti on nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions and the Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (CDE­MA) has pro­vid­ed vi­tal sup­port to Do­mini­ca (2017) and the Ba­hamas (2019) af­ter they were rav­aged by hur­ri­canes. Un­doubt­ed­ly, this is the peak of re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion.

On the oth­er hand, for all the talks about re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty, T&T of­ten stands alone when it comes to the is­sues that threat­en our very sta­bil­i­ty, that of drugs, guns, gangs and an in­flux of il­le­gal mi­grants. We face cross-bor­der arms and drug traf­fick­ing on a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent lev­el from the rest of the Caribbean.

We have reached a cri­sis point, with record high mur­der rates, gang ac­tiv­i­ties and mil­lions of dol­lars in drugs pass­ing through our coun­try.

While Cari­com has IM­PACS and the Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sys­tems (RSS), they have of­fered lit­tle di­rect as­sis­tance to T&T. For the most part, T&T has re­mained iso­lat­ed, left to tack­le se­cu­ri­ty is­sues on it own.

Thus, if our re­gion­al part­ners can­not help us to ef­fec­tive­ly deal with our is­sues, should we, there­fore, sit by and hope that things will change?

The an­swer is cer­tain­ly not; we need to be proac­tive if we want to clean up our coun­try, en­sure the safe­ty of cit­i­zens and build a bet­ter fu­ture for our younger gen­er­a­tions. If this means en­gag­ing the as­sis­tance of the US, then sure­ly our Caribbean part­ners should un­der­stand and sup­port us in our at­tempts?

When the Gov­ern­ment turns to the US for as­sis­tance, it should not be seen as a be­tray­al of the re­gion be­cause it is, in fact, a mat­ter of sur­vival. We can­not sit by while vi­o­lence es­ca­lates, and it is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of our lead­ers to seek ex­tra-re­gion­al part­ner­ships to get us back on track.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Mar­lene Attzs not­ed that Cari­com is a fair­ly young in­sti­tu­tion and at 52 years old, it has been the an­chor for re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion, but it has not achieved all of its ob­jec­tives.

Fifty-two years is a life­time in po­lit­i­cal terms. If we have not man­aged to build uni­ty in half a cen­tu­ry, per­haps we are cling­ing to an elu­sive ide­al?

Maybe Cari­com will sur­vive as an or­gan­i­sa­tion but un­less it evolves in­to a space of mu­tu­al re­spect and prac­ti­cal sol­i­dar­i­ty, it will con­tin­ue to be an idea of what the Caribbean could be, but not what the Caribbean ac­tu­al­ly is.

In T&T’s case, we have unique prob­lems, and we stand apart from the rest of the Caribbean, with the ex­cep­tion of maybe Ja­maica, when it comes to crime, guns and drugs. Hence, we need to take a strong stance so that we can move for­ward, clean up our coun­try and make it safer for all cit­i­zens.

If our Caribbean coun­ter­parts can­not com­pre­hend or sup­port our ef­forts to pro­tect our cit­i­zens, then maybe our so-called Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty is more di­vid­ed than we like to ad­mit.

For me, it’s very sim­ple. The Nico­las Maduro regime can do any­thing it wants – ex­pand in­to Caribbean ter­ri­to­ries, as seen with its con­flict with Guyana over the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion. In that case, Caribbean coun­tries do not have the po­lit­i­cal or strate­gic strength and re­sources to take on Venezuela, even when com­bined. There­fore, I see some mer­it in hav­ing the US on our side.

Al­so, the drugs, gun and gang cul­ture, which is ram­pant in T&T, needs to be ad­dressed ur­gent­ly. If Cari­com can­not help us to find a so­lu­tion and the US can, then I am okay with that. Ul­ti­mate­ly, T&T has to fast-track its de­vel­op­men­tal goals and if es­tab­lish­ing firmer re­la­tion­ships with the US and oth­er coun­tries can help us in that man­ner, I see noth­ing wrong with mov­ing in this di­rec­tion.

I am aware that this is a sim­plis­tic view, but I be­lieve it is al­so a re­al­is­tic one.