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GIHROnline News February 23, 2023 Black
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Acknowledgements
Two goals from Omari Glasgowwere the difference as Guyanaoverturnedan early deficittowin 2-1 over Montserrat and take the top spot of GroupB of League B of the 2022-23 CONCACAF Nations League (Photo: Concacaf)
OMARI Glasgow is one of the rising stars of the 2022-23 CONCACAF Nations League. The 19-year-old winger is the leading scorer for the Guyana National Team through the first four matches and trails the golden bootrace by one in League B.
His love for ‘the beautifulgame’ was ignited half his life ago, growingup in the village of Beterverwagting, around 14 kilometres east of Guyana’s capital of Georgetown, off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. With the sport engrained in his family, there was no way he was destined to go withoutknowingthe beautiful game.
“My family used to play football, my dad, my granddad and my other granddad. My granddad from my dad’s side, he was one of the best players on the East Coast, and he passed away before I was born so I didn’tgetto see him play,”Glasgow told Concacaf.com. “I wentto go watch my dad play and I juststarted falling in love with the game, and I started playing at age eight.”
At13, Glasgow was called up to the Under-15nationalteam in whatstarted his journey to the seniorteam a handfulof years down the road. He made his senior team debutin a 4-0 win overThe Bahamas during CONCACAF World Cup qualifying for Qatar 2022 on March 30, 2021, coming off the bench to score and help end a 10-match winless streak in qualifiers for Guyana.
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“Growing up watching the national team play soccer, some of the guys that I play with, I watched them play at a youngage and I always dreamed aboutplayingwith the national team,”Glasgow said. “I did that and I’m so gratefulto get called up to the seniornational team.”
The Golden Jaguars were unable to advance out of the first round of qualifying and again tasted heartbreak by elimination in the 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup prelims the following June. Despite the loss to Guatemala, that Guyanese player’s participation in that match led to his signing with Chicago Fire II in the United States.
With the desire to return winners, Glasgowand his teammates prepared attheirrespectiveclubs to arrive in the bestform possible for the 2022/23 CNL with the objective of earningpromotion to League A.
“We come into the tournament with a mindset, just playing to win and try to get into the other tier of CONCACAF,”Glasgow said. “When we come together, we justwant to win. We justplay to win, do good for the country and put the country out there on the map.”
Glasgow was the star in Guyana’s opening CNL encounter, leading a comeback with a second half brace for a 2-1 win overMontserrat. The young forward scored off a free kick in the 61st minute and provided the game winner 10 minutes later at the Estadio Olímpico Félix Sánchez in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic – the same settingof his debutseniorinternational goal just one yearprior.
“The first time I getcalled up to the seniorteam, that’s when we played in a World Cup qualifier, on that same ground, I scored a free kick against The Bahamas on that same end of the field,” Glasgow recalled.
“I justpick up the ball and said I’m taking it. The confidence was there and I just deliver.”
Delivering another game-winning goal is just what Glasgow did in Guyana’s second CNL match to take a 2-1 result against Bermuda. With six points in hand, the Golden Jaguars were holding onto the top of Group B.
The following two matches, back-to-back encounters with Haiti, threw a wrench in Guyana’s aspirations to ascend. Haiti won both encounters to take pole position for promotion and the direct qualification to the 2023 Gold Cup.
Guyanacan still getpromoted by winningtheirremaining two matches, butthey’llneed Haiti to stumble. What can be secured with the second-place spot is a spot in the Gold Cup Preliminary Round, as the country is hopefulto return aftermaking their first appearance in the 2019 edition.
“Gettingthem to the Gold Cup would be a dream come true for me because I always want to play in one of the highestlevels in CONCACAF,”said Glasgow. “I think we could qualify, but we justhave to work. We have two more games, we justgotto get full points.”
“The tournamentis very good for us because we showcase ourselves. As I said before, we’retryingto get into the top tier of the CONCACAF with thebigteams,”Glasgow said aboutplayingin CNL. “We’re working to get there. This round of Nations League we’ve justgot to take what God make happen for us and just continue workingto get there one day.”
As Guyana look to the future, as well as the present, the ultimate aspiration is to earn their first-ever World Cup berth. An expanded 48-team tournament in 2026, hosted in CONCACAF, has painted the settingfor a dream debut.
“One of my main goals is trying to get Guyanainto the World Cup. In 2026, the U.S., Mexico, and Canada are hostingthe World Cup, so that’s a good chance for us to getin there,”said Glasgow.
“I think the small Caribbean countries have a chance to get in there and I hope we make full use of that chance by then, because, as I said, it’s a process and we’re buildingtowards that.”
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The Guyana Institute of Historical Research is a partner of the Guyana Cultural Association of New York. Professor Dr. Aubrey Thompson, of Morgan State University is the GIHR representative. The Institute is also a partner of the IndoCaribbean Cultural Centre.
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THE BLOODY HISTORY OF GUYANA
By Colin
Bobb-Semple
In August 1823, British led regiments cut off the HEADS of Africans in Demerara, Guiana and displayed them on poles on the East Coast. In Augusteach year, we commemorate the massive Demerarauprising of 13,000 enslaved Africans in East Coast, Demerara, Guiana, on 18th August 1823, demanding "UNCONDITIONAL EMANCIPATION", which, followed by uprisings in Jamaica in 1831, provided a huge boostfor the movementforthe abolition of African enslavement.
QUAMINA's DEMERARA MARTYRS were massacredatBachelor's Adventure, and elsewhereon EastCoast Demerara, Guiana, 1823
The EXECUTIONS followingthe kangaroo court trials of the enslaved African martyrs, were carried out IN PUBLIC at the GALLOWS which had been erected on the PARADEGROUNDin GEORGETOWN. Apartfrom those slaughtered in the bloody massacre at Bachelor’s Adventure, East Coast, Demerara, the PARADE GROUNDis where many of the Demeraramartyrs were killed. Their blood was spilt there.
See these articles: “Quamina: The African Demerara Martyr”, Sunday Chronicle, 20 & 27 August 2006, Pepperpot.
See also (Sunday Chronicle, 20 August 2006):-
“Lieutenant–Colonel Leahy of the 21st Fusileers, Captain Muddle Rix of the marine battalion and Lieutenant-Colonel Goodman of the Georgetown Brigade, led the armed forces (British Parliamentary Papers, p. 147). Over 200 slaves were massacred by troops at Bachelor’s Adventure. Following this, the troops wentto various plantations along the East Coaston a huntingexercise of terror overseveraldays.
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Colonel Leahy conducted mock trials on the spot, summary courts-martial of ringleaders, whom he ordered to be shot and to have their bodies hung on gibbets in front of their houses. Some were tied to trees and shot. Heads were cutoff and placed on poles along the EastCoast, as a gruesome deterrentand to drive terror into the hearts of the Africans (da Costa, pp. 216-27; Northcott, pp. 68-76). Governor Murray later admitted that58 slaves had been shotout of hand, executed summarily (Northcott, p. 75).
MURRAYSTREET in Georgetown was renamed QUAMINA STREET!
Northcottwrote (p. 74):-
“Then began Leahy’s and Goodman’s march of massacre and round-up through the plantations. Many rebels were shot on the spot but those regarded as ‘promoters of insurrection’ were tied together by ropes and marched down to Georgetown.”
Northcott(p. 74), quotingCheveley (one of the soldiers who wrote an account):-
“As they were shotthey were laid in rows on the grass at a little distance … Orders were given to cut their heads off and stick them on poles about the plantation, and this the Negroes, theirlate comrades, were setto do.”
Northcottwrote further(p. 75):-
“For six days the two colonels - Leahy of the Regulars and Goodman of the Militia – roamed the eastcoast plantations with their troopers striking terror into the negro population. At the cross roads bodies in chains and heads on gibbets were ghastly evidence of the colonels’ ruthless campaign. For months Quamina’s body hung dried and shrivelled and, according to Cheveley, a ‘colony of wasps had actually built a nest in the cavity of the stomach, and were flying in and out of the jaws which hung frightfully open’.”
See (Sunday Chronicle, 27 August2006):-
“72 slaves were tried between August1823 and January 1824. 51 were sentenced to the death penalty, and 33 were executed. Executions commenced on 26th August. Condemned prisoners were taken in a public procession, which included Lieutenant-Colonel Goodman, guards, officers and others, accompanied by bearers of empty coffins and a band playing the funeral march, to the Militia Parade Ground in Cummingsburg. They were hanged on the gallows erected there. On Friday 12th September, 60 prisoners awaiting trial were marched to the Parade Ground, to witness the public spectacle of the executions of nine convicted slaves. Some of the executed men were decapitated (daCosta, pp. 242-43).
Honourable David Granger, in his Introduction to “The Demerara Revolt, 1823” by Professor Winston F. McGowan, (1998) Free Press, Georgetown, wrote(p. v):-
“The formalCourtMartial convened in Georgetownon 25August. The parade ground (now Independence Park) in Cummingsburg was the scene of the public executions. After the hangings, several bodies were hungin chains along the public roads or were decapitated and the heads stuck on poles.”
ProfessorMcGowan wrote in “The DemeraraRevolt, 1823” (p. 28):-
“… between 23Augustand 8 October1823 about47 slaves were hanged publicly and 25 others who were sentenced to death were reprieved. Several slaves were decapitated and their heads mounted on poles on the public road on the East Coast of Demeraraand in Georgetown both as a punitive measure and as a means of creatingfearamongslaves which, the Whites hoped, would serveas adeterrentagainstfuture rebellion.”
REFERENCES
Bobb-Semple, C. (2006) ‘Quamina:The African DemeraraMartyr’, GuyanaChronicle, 20 August.
Bobb-Semple, C. (2006) ‘Quamina:The African DemeraraMartyr’, GuyanaChronicle, 27 August.
Bobb-Semple, C. (2007) ‘English Common Law, Slavery, and Human Rights’, 13 Tex. Wesleyan L. Rev. 659.
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lave rebellion.
Bobb-Semple,C. (2012) English Common Law, African Enslavement, and Human Rights,Charleston:Create Space.
British Parliamentary Papers (1969) Proceedings of a CourtMartial in Demerara, on Trial of John Smith, A Missionary, Slave Trade, Vol. 66, Sessions 1823-24, Irish University Press.
Craton, M. (1982) Testing the chains – Resistance to Slavery in the British WestIndies, New York: Cornell University Press.
da Costa, E. V. (1994) Crowns of Glory, Tears of Blood – The DemeraraSlave Rebellion of 1823, New York: Oxford University Press.
McGowan, W.
1. (1998) The DemeraraRevolt, 1823, Georgetown:Free Press.
2. (2005) Slave Rebellions at Seaand on Land – A Comparative Perspective, University of Guyana.
3. (2006) History This Week – The 1763 and 1823 slave rebellions:A comparative perspective (Part1) 17 August(Part2) 24 August, Stabroek News
Northcott, C. (1976) Slavery’s Martyr:John Smith of Demeraraand the emancipation movement1817-24, London:Epworth Press.
The Soul of 'King' KWAMENA (Quamina) of Demerara, Guyana, South America, 1823
YOUTUBE.COM
The Soul of 'King' KWAMENA (Quamina) of Demerara, Guyana, South America, 1823
A dramatic representation of KWAMENA (Quamina) who may have given an account such as this, of over 12,000 Enslaved Africans' Demand fortheir 'Rights' to Freedom.
Ubuntu African Proverbs
On February 23, 1763, a number of enslaved Africans in Berbice, (today Guyana), rose up in rebellion against the brutal Dutch planataion system! The rebellion eventually failed as the Dutch summoned reinforcements and received such! The rebellion took place 260 years ago, but the powerful message it sent is not forgotten in Guyana����!
The rebellion was eventually subdued, but Cuffy and Akara by their actions, did send a powerful message that human beings cannot, and will not always tolerate abuse or, be always taken advantage of! Enslaved workers believed their humanity would not be compromised by slave owners and by a regime that fostered the abuse!
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Submit poems in observance of the bicentennial of the 1823 Demerara slave rebellion
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Afro-Guyanese organisation asks Attorney General for meeting on end of cash support
Denis Chabrol
The International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly- Guyana (IDPADA-G) on Monday formally asked governmentto hold talks on the withdrawalof a multi-million dollar annual subsidy which was scrapped last year.
Chairman of IDPADA-G, Vincent Alexander said his organisation dispatched a letter to Attorney General Anil Nandlall, as the government representative, asking for dialogue with the aim of getting the monies released.
IDPADA-G’s Chief Executive Officer Olive Sampsom calculates that from September 2022 to February 2023, governmentowes the organisation an estimated GY$49 million. Officials said the organisation was relyingon local and Diasporadonations to carry outsome of its work especially to help residents of Mocha, East Bank Demerarawhere their houses were demolished. Despite the end of the subsidy, Mr Alexander said IDPADA-G was notcrippled. “We are not crippled, we are handicapped,”he said.
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The ideaof a type of mediation was floated by Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire during hearingof a court case challenging government’s decision to withhold subsidies to IDPADA-G on the grounds that ordinary Afro-Guyanese have notbenefitted from previous subsidies.
IDPADA-G’s lawyer, NigelHughes said the letterto the Attorney Generalhas no impact on the courtcase.
“It is hoped thatthe Attorney Generalwillact with some form of alacrity…It is an unconditional invitation to engage,”he said.
At that court hearing, according to Mr Alexander, he said the Attorney Generalstated that monies have been voted in the 2023 budgetbutgovernmentdid notknow who to give it to.
Before IDPADA-G last year challenged the cancelation of the subsidy, Mr Alexander said several efforts had been made to seek meetings with Culture MinisterCharles Ramson and PresidentIrfaan Ali but with no success.
He noted thatPublicWorks MinisterJuan Edghill had announced thatgovernmentwould be trainingsmall contractors to bid for contracts, an activity that IDPADA-G had been engaged. Such training had lasted five days.
IDPADA-G, which is made up of 65 organisations and is registered as a not-for-profit entity, was established under the Coalition-led government to further the goals of the United Nations-designated InternationalDecade forPeople of African Descent. Research shows the Afro-Guyanese community needs assistance in training in entrepreneurship, small business development, irrigation and education.
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Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham
On this day, February 20th, 1923, Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham was born in Kitty, British Guiana. Following unprecedented academic achievements and a professional trajectory that straddled law and politics, he emerged as arguably one of the finestminds that Guyana has produced. In the Guyana historical context, his legacy remains in perpetualharangue. Some argue that he was a flawed leader who could not take critique and believed in the Stalinist philosophy of 'no man, no problem' and was always willing to silence his opponents by any means necessary. They also argue that his only legacy are 'rigged elections'. On the other hand, there are those who point to his greatness: his golden tongue, his global accolades, his visionary leadership that moved Guyana from a colonial backwater to a sovereign state that was respected globally and his impenetrable presidentialaura. One side of the population believes thathe is the devilreincarnated and the another section believes that is God. 100 years after his birth, we are reminded that Forbes Burnham's indelible mark on Guyana's history cannotbe ignored. (Source: Ronald Austin)
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We integrate or we perish’: Eric Williams, Forbes Burnham and the regional integration movement
By CeceliaMcCalmont 2013Eric Williams and later Forbes Burnham participated in the last three processes which form a continuum on the road to regionalintegration. The first of these was the WestIndies Federation. EricWilliams played an important role in that debacle. Indeed Williams’ political career as a leader of a party in government coincided with the birth of the Federation in 1958. Forbes Burnham entered the regionalintegration scene in 1964 shortly after he became Premierof Guyanaas a result of a coalition. These two men had overall contrastingpersonalities. EricWilliams was an introvert, reclusive, almostsecretivebutan originalthinker. Forbes Burnham was a natural extrovert, full of bonhomie, a doer and a superb orator. But they had severalthings in common. Their characters were fashioned in the same clay of a British elitist education which they received, adecade apart, butduring the same period of political and intellectual fermentthat was transformingGreat Britain in the years between the two World Wars. Eric Williams was a historian, academic and teacher. Forbes Burnham, though alawyerby training, had a keen sense of history and, like Williams, was cognisantof the legacy of colonialism on the personality of the Caribbean man.
Consequently, they both resented the psychological thralldom of that colonial legacy on our psyche and saw regional integration as a means of breakingit. Yetthey themselves gloried in whatthey had achieved under colonialism’s tutelage. It was a contradiction which played itself out in the nature of the mechanisms they supported to achieve regional integration. They also accepted with little modification, the paradigms, theories and models of integration thatweredesignedby and forthe exploiters as ameans of achieving integration among the exploited. They roundly condemned the regional characteristics of fragmentation, insularity, individualism and parochialism which hampered progress towards regional integration. However, they ignored the fact that, as Caribbean men themselves, they too were nurtured
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in and therefore products of thatsame environment. Theirdenialof thatpersonallegacy was the basis of one of the main weaknesses in the attempts to forge regional integration.
What Williams and Burnham had in common too, was that broader concept of what constituted the Caribbean region. They were both pragmatists and therole they playedin the regionalintegration process was determined by the differentpolitical realities of their individual circumstances. Both men have been highly praised for their vision in conceptualizing and supporting the regional integration process. However, examination of recent and not so recent assessments of the instruments created to achieve regionalintegration revealed that, despite theiravowedcommitment, whatWilliams and Burnham played a major role in creating was a set of handicapped children. The last surviving sibling, the Caribbean Community and Common Market which by Treaty revision in 2002 became the Caribbean Community including the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) was in fact abandoned as a toddler and virtually left to fend foritself for seven years.
The West Indies Federation can be regarded as the first of the three challenged infants birthed in the pursuit of regional integration during the 20th century. Its first and mostsignificant handicap was that its main framers were notthe local politicians butthe expatriate representativesof the mothercountry who had a very narrow view of Federation. According to Gordon K. Lewis, “they saw the West Indian leaders as primarily, Her Majesty’s Ministers overseas notas a vanguard of a West Indian regional nationalism.” It explained the reason why they invested theoffice of GovernorGeneral, notthatof Prime Minister, with most of the panoply of federal power. It was against the latter that Eric Williams protested most vigorously. The second handicap was that it was a political Federation which tried to encompass several different levels of economic integration. Hence the framers were faced at one go with the problems inherent in ensuring freedom of movement and free movement of goods, a Customs Union and federal taxation. Most of these matters were simply left, in typical West Indian style, to be dealt with later. Williams described the birth of the Federation thus “The infant nation was presented to the world in swaddlingclothes made in the United States of Americaoutof the made-in-Britain shroud of colonialism.”
One of Eric William’s main reasons for supporting what he knew to be a handicapped instrument was precisely because he saw Federation as the means whereby the shackles of colonialism which seemed to pervade the very core of our being, could be broken. Additionally, Williams realized that the islands had a long history of insularity which was rooted in the developmentof theireconomy and trade patterns. He envisaged that integration through Federation would help to counteract the legacy of fragmentation, insularity and parochialism. He realized too that the ultimate goal of independence could only be achieved, at that point in time, through the acceptance of Federation. Over a period of two years while the debate overthe nature and scope of the Federation was beingdiscussed, he tried to introduce those modifications which he feltwould make the Federation a more fitting instrumentforthe achievementof integration. However, his attempts soon brought to the fore the differingperceptions of Federation and with it the insularity, jealousies and rivalries he hoped Federation would cure.
The federal infant was being suffocated by the very ideas it was birthed to help eradicate. In the end, it was that insularity and the selfish pursuitof individual national interests which led, first Jamaica and later Trinidad and Tobago to withdraw from the Federation thus leadingto its demise. The pointis well stated by Gittens when he wrote that “it (Federation) failed not just because the leaders of the separate units were too nationalisticor insular, but more intrinsically because theirinsularism was so strong, as to totally
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emasculate the institution and powersof the federalgovernmentso as to renderitincapable of surviving.” It then therefore, was the neglectof the infantwhile its parents squabbled overits developmentas much as its “USA made swaddling clothes” and “British made colonialist shroud” that smothered it. Like many abused and undernourished children of thedevelopingworld today,as in the past, Federation died almost a year before its fifth birthday.
The role of Eric Williams in the debacle of Federation was therefore an ambivalent one. He supported Federation because he saw it as the means of achieving integration but at the same time recognized its shortcomings as the mechanism for achieving integration. He aired his dissatisfaction about the defects and when he was in a position to do so, he tried to modify them. However, his own action in withdrawing Trinidad and Tobago from the Federation, underscored the fact that he had been fashioned in the same clay and driven by the same jealousies of which he had accused others.
In the nextarticle the focus willbe on the beginningof the Conference of Heads of Government, thearrival of Forbes Burnham on the regional integration scene and the coming of CARIFTA
In the previous article, the focus was on the personality and background of the two Caribbean leaders Eric Williams and Forbes Burnham and the role of Williams in particular in the Federation debacle. The focus of this article is on the Conference of Heads of Government, the arrival of Burnham on the integration scene and CARIFTA, the second handicapped sibling of the integration movement.
The Conference of Heads of Government was one of the most important creations in the pursuit of regional integration. Its creation underlined the role of Eric Williams as the visionary of the integration movement. While still basking in the euphoria of leading his country into independence on the heels of the breakup of the Federation, Williams, conscious of the truism that the best way to proceed after a disasterwas to getrightback into the fray, was ready with anew proposalto move theintegration process forward. Herein lay both its strength and its weakness. Williams clearly did not spend enough time examiningthe lessons to be learnt from the failure of the Federation. He also did not spend enough time reflectingon, or for that matter, giving the otherCaribbean leaders time to reflecton their collective and individual roles in that failure and what they could do to prevent a recurrence. Therefore, they came to the table with all the baggage of the past.
Williams invited his colleagues to attend whatturned outto be the firstheadsof GovernmentConference, to discuss the creation of a Caribbean Community. The grouping was to consist of the 10 units of the late Federation, the three Guianas and all the islands of the Caribbean Sea - both independent and nonindependent. This was to be extendedas soon as possible to include the non-British Caribbean countries. But it was notto be extended to allof them. The Republicof Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republicwere not to be included. Overthe years Williams continued to change his definition of the wider Caribbean. It was the difference in perception of Federation which had led to the confrontation between Williams and the Jamaican leaders. Similarly, in the early years, perception of the scope and purpose of the Heads of Government Conference again led to confrontation. Williams stated that the first two conferences had gone well but felt the third was an anti-climax and “did nothing to restore the Conference to such status as it undoubtedly had in the first instance.”While it was Williams’ idea to use the medium of the Heads of GovernmentConference to resuscitate the integration process, itwas also his actions that stymied the process.
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Forbes Burnham hosted the Third Conference. He succeeded Cheddi Jagan as the Premier of British Guianaafterthe 1964 elections. Jagan had attendedthe firsttwo Conferences and his opposition to British Guianajoining the Federation was known. In 1956, Williams had argued passionately that the solution to the Caribbean’s problem of overpopulation and migration was to include British Honduras and British Guiana in the Federation. He stated that the inclusion of British Guiana was essential to the economic developmentof the British Caribbean withoutwhich Federation would be “no more than a Federation of legislators as it once was of lunatics.” Burnham, as a memberof British Guiana’s Legislature in 1958, had argued with equal passion, but to no avail, for support for his resolution that the colony should join the Federation. He argued, among other things, that British Guiana would not only derive tremendous economic and other advantages from that association, but more specifically, it could be the means whereby the country could gain independence.
When Burnham hosted the Third Conference, Williams was aware that the Conference would be in the hands of someone who was close to the leaders who had attended the last two Conferences and with whom he, Williams had had bitter confrontations. He could now retreat strategically knowing that the person to whom he had yieldedand allowed to share thespace, also sharedhis vision of awider Caribbean involvementin the integration process. Burnham’s statementatthe openingof the Conferenceconfirmed thatview. He stated:“I shall merely contentmyself with invitingyou to consideranotherstage of regional cooperation at economic and other levels ... We are on the Northern Territory of the South American continentand perhaps I am permitted to give you anotherdream that I have had for years and that is to getan even biggercommunity embracing all of these countries.
During the ten years before the creation of CARICOM, the Conferenceof Heads of Governmentcontinued to provide the main stimuli for the regional integration process. Many areas of functional cooperation, the main success story of the integration movementhad theirgenesis duringthis period. Itwas duringthe meeting of the Seventh Heads of Government Conference that what should have been the first step of the vision of Williams and Burnham to include the non-British Caribbean in the integration process was taken. At that meeting, Guyana, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica agreed to establish diplomatic relations with the Republic of Cuba. Williams’ support of this decision was a volte face but as it turned out, only a temporary one. In fact Williams continued to be ambivalentin his attitude to Cuba. However, amongthe mostsignificant developments duringthis period was the coming to fruition of one of Williams’ dreams - the establishment of a free trade area - CARIFTA in 1968 and five years later its wideninginto CARICOM.
CARIFTA was designed to be an interim arrangement. Although Williams was notone of the signatories to the Dickenson Bay agreement, CARIFTA’S economic rather than political focus was in keeping with the vision which had inspired his conveningthe firstHeads of GovernmentConference. Onewriterstated that CARIFTA would be the means of achieving true economic integration in the Caribbean because it was an indigenous creation. This proved to be incorrect. Its only indigenous characteristic was the men w ho proposed it. But it was the same men, with the same mindset who had been involved in the debacle of Federation. According to Pollard, CARIFTA was fashioned with little modification along the lines of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). Because the units of EFTA were basically at the same level of economicdevelopment, they werein aposition to reap equitably the benefits which were associated with membership of a free trade area. On the other hand, while the member countries of CARIFTA were all
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underdeveloped compared to members of EFTA, fourof the larger memberstates were more developed than the other potential members. This immediately raised one of the perennial questions of economic integration as to how the costs and benefits of economicintegration would be shared. Herein lay the main handicap of this second attemptatintegration. There were differentperceptions betweenthe MDC’S and LDC’S as to whatconstituted the benefits of integration,and how quickly the benefits from CARIFTA would start accruing. Consequently, the discussions of CARIFTA. Council meetings were just as acrimonious as the discussions on Federation had been. The contradiction was again evident. Despite theirdeclarations to break the shackles of colonialism and achieve economic independence, the now black and brown leaders of the region were again using the mechanism of the white exploiters to achieve theirgoals.
Both Williams and Burnham constantly reiterated thefactthatalthough the economicbenefits ofCARIFTA were important, they supportedits creation because of theotherequally importantbenefits to be derived from the association. A significant one was the strength and stature the region would achieve from speaking with one voice at international forums. However, others saw the motives of Williams and especially Burnham in mainly political terms. One writer conjectured that Burnham needed regional support for a government system opposed by Britain and the United States. Another opined that the Guyana government was anxious to improve its political position and legitimise its American-backed seizure of independence. In the case of Williams, one writer stated thatin the wake of the 1970 February revolution in Trinidad and Tobago, Williams probably for the first time began to feel some political insecurity. Additionally, there was a new sense of economicinsecurity as foreign reserves diminished and the economy seemed to be in a state of decline. The framers of CARIFTA had soughtadvice and had been informed before its establishment that, even as a temporary measure, CARIFTA would be woefully deficient as an instrument for forging economic integration. They were presented with what seemed to be a more viable alternative which was deliberately ignored. Consequently, CARICOM its reincarnated sibling inherited both its strengths and its weaknesses.
The focus of the next article will be the creation of CARICOM and the contribution of Williams and Burnham to 1985.
The 24th regular session of Caricom heads had notyetcommenced when the firstof thesearticles looking at Eric Williams’ and Forbes Burnham’s involvementin the regionalintegration process was written. When the conference concluded afew days ago the main items on the agendahad been tackled and important decisions taken albeit `in principle’ which may well have elicited mixed reactions from the two stalwarts of the integration movementunderdiscussion. In the lastarticle, the focus was on the origins and role of the Conference of Heads of Government and Carifta. In this article, the focus is on the creation and assessments of Caricom and especially the impactof those hiatus years when the heads did notmeetuntil the death of Williams and Burnham. It will conclude with some brief postscript1985 comments.
Caricom replaced Carifta as the mechanism that would `deepen’ the integration process. Assessments of Caricom done within seven years of its creation and those done more than two decades later revealthe nature of the instrument, which the two leaders played such an important role in creating. Duke Pollard examined the institutionaland legal aspects of the community the very yearof its creation. He concluded that Caricom was institutionally weak but if the teething problems were solved then its prospects for survival were evenly balanced.Twenty yearslaterhis criticism was much harsher. Amongotherthings, he agreed with the West Indian Commission that “decision making was the `Achilles heel’ of the integration
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movement” other authors also assessed Caricom from different perspectives. They examined the less than honourable motives of the leaders, Caricom’s strengths and weaknesses and the dissatisfaction of the LDC’s. Many of the criticisms and counterproposals were in keepingwith the theories and models of developmentcurrentin the 50s, 60s and 70s. However, allof them turned outto be eitherinapplicable or inadequate forthe needs of the structurally traumatised economies of the Caribbean. Theirprediction of Caricom’s early demise proved to be premature.Caricom has survived even if ithas notalways prospered.
In the West Indian Commission Report, it was admitted that the gradualist and halting nature of the approach to regional integration resulted from the “trauma of federation’s failure”. However, they highlighted severaltechnical successes, which were cumulative but “desperately slow and halting”. It is, however, in evaluatingthe many areas where Caricom has fallen shortthat the mixed legacy of Williams, Burnham and the other leaders is revealed. Firstly, the general disenchantment of the people of the Caribbean with the integration movementis discussed. Despite allthe promises from Chaguaramas (1958) to Chaguaramas (1973) via Georgetown, the people of the region, for the most part, still live with unemployment,poverty, deterioratinghealth services and inadequate educationalsystems. They are still hassled at each others’ airports while foreign tourists enterunmolested.
They are not permitted to move from one member state to the other seeking jobs. The critics of the integration movementreferto the disconnection of theCaribbean peoplefrom the process. Ironically too, so did the leaders. But they were the problem. They demanded integration in the name of the people but it was seldom for the people. When Eric Williams spoke to the people of Trinidad and Tobago at the `University of Woodford Square’,they werethereas studentsto be educatednotcitizens to be consulted. In the heyday of Cooperative Socialism in Guyana, Forbes Burnham made no pretense of consulting the Guyanese people. Additionally, the treaty showed ambivalence on issues that clearly touched on issues of vital importance to the peoples of the region. It therefore begged the question as to who were to be the primary beneficiaries of integration - the politicians or the people.
In his July 3, 1973 speech, on the occasion of the signingof the Treaty of Chaguaramas, Williams identified many of the dilemmas of developing countries. Yet he, Burnham and the other leaders, based on neoclassical development, models geared to the needs of developed countries in order to integrate the fragmented economies of the region. The unequal nature of the development between the MDC’s and LDC’s indicated that some member countries would experience the negative rather than the positive effects of integration. The special regime put in place for the LDC’s did not adequately cater for their needs. The constraints on freedom of movement inherent in Article 38, the conscious choice of leaving the implementation of decisions necessary to advance the progress of regional integration to individual memberstates which made it possible for national interests to override regional ones, all pointed to the fact thatdespite theirutterances, the leaders werenotyetprepared to make the compromises necessary in pursuitof their stated goals. Despite what Williams said in that speech, the Caribbean leaders had not learned that well. The neo classical model which they had cogged made certain basic assumptions about the economies of the participating units in a Customs Union. The assumptions were inapplicable to the resource poor, underdeveloped economies of the small Caribbean countries. Anotherhandicapped child had been birthed.
Caricom’s progenitors were very conscious of its handicaps but clearly expressed their intention to carefully monitor its growth and development. Butthe parents reneged on theirpromise and abandoned
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the infantwhile it was barely a toddler. Itwould be naïve to contend thatthe failure of the heads to meet for over seven years was alone responsible for the lack of satisfactory progress towards integration. However, it certainly aggravated exogenous factors like the oil crises and the onset of the debt crisis. It also left the way clear for endogenous problems to fester and spread unhampered. For example, the unworkable nature of the unanimity rule forcritical decision makingin both organs and institutions would have soon become obvious if the heads had met more often in the 1970s.
Additionally, many members used the absence of sanctions for non-compliance with decisions to renege on their obligations, among others to pay their dues. Had the heads met regularly, that and other problems faced by the LDC’s would certainly have surfaced. It would have forced the heads to take corrective action twenty years earlierthan they did, if they were serious abouttheirdesire formeaningful integration. Mostcertainly, Guyana’s abuse of the Caricom Multilateral Clearing Facility would have been contained if notstopped and the reality of ideological pluralism recognised and maybe less acrimoniously accommodated. The potential for gridlock entrenched in the veto powerof individual members and the so importantsecretariat - rendered allbutimpotentin a bid to ensure impartiality - would also have soon become evidentand hopefully dealtwith.
The feeling was, though some writers disagree, that the failure of the heads to meet should be laid squarely at the door of Eric Williams. Some reasons given were his concern over the rise of political objectives in Guyana and Jamaica, disillusionment over the future of Caricom in the light of Venezuela’s political and economic incursions into what Williams may well have regarded as his turf especially given the generosity he had shown with his petro-dollars to members of Caricom. He was also fed up with the incompetence of some of the Caricom leaders and became bitterly disappointed when Jamaica backed out of the smelterdeal.
In the case of Forbes Burnham both his supporters and detractors ascribed political motives to his commitmentto the cause of regionalintegration. A formerministerstated thatthe Caribbean was central to Burnham’s thinking and to his foreign policy, However, foreign policy and domestic policy were two related aspects of nationalpolicy. Foreign policy was aboutservingthe nationalinterests. In arecentwork one author dubbed Burnham’s initiative in respect to the regional integration process as `merely posturings to divert attention from growing unpopularity at home.” However, an examination would reveal that his actions, in light of his restricted options, were no more or less self-centred than those of otherCaribbean leaders, including Williams. Burnham made several attempts to get the heads to meet. However, it as clear that whatever leverage and influence Burnham had possessed after the signing of the Treaty of Chaguaramas, had disappeared underthe disapproval of the new group leaders of Caricom many of whom were fiercely opposed to his ideological orientation. Especially after the assassination of Walter Rodney, Burnham no longer commanded the respectorhad the influence and moral authority to persuade anyone to attend aHeads of Government Conference. By the time the heads met in Ocho Rios in 1982, the year after Williams’ death, Burnham’s influence in Caricom had reached its nadir. Despite a brief resurgence due to the Grenadaproblem, the situation remained the same when he died in 1985. Perhaps it is not withoutsignificance that the initiatives to transform Caricom have taken place afterthe death of these two leaders beginningwith the signing of the Grand Anse declaration and eventually the findings of the West Indian Commission under the title of a Time For Action. It has formed the basis for many of the changes and new instruments introduced over the last several years. More than any other change, however, the creation of the Association of Caribbean States reflects that wider vision of the Caribbean which both leaders but particularly Eric Williams had envisioned.
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