Regional leaders risk losing focus as CARICOM dispute overshadows urgent economic threats
By Mark Brantley | Premier of Nevis, Leader of the Opposition
Mark Brantley is a regional political leader whose public commentary focuses on Caribbean governance, diplomacy, and regional affairs.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not represent the editorial position of Unitedpac St Lucia News.
A procedural dispute over the reappointment of CARICOM’s Secretary General has divided regional leaders and dominated Caribbean political commentary for weeks. The controversy, which has seen the reappointment of Carla Barnett questioned and calls for her exit from prominent regional voices, has consumed attention at the highest levels of Caribbean governance. As global instability tightens its grip on small island economies, Hon Mark Brantley, Premier of Nevis and Leader of the Opposition in St Kitts and Nevis, makes the case that the region’s attention is urgently misplaced.
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There has been a torrent of back and forth recently over whether the Secretary General of CARICOM was properly re-appointed to a second term at the recently concluded meeting of Heads at a retreat in Nevis. Public statement and counter public statement has been the order of the day. Pundits across the Caribbean have been weighing in pouring fuel on a raging fire.
Here is my take on this ongoing saga:
Given the new geopolitical realities we now face and the near collapse of the global rules based order; given the wars currently being fought and the attendant ruin awaiting Caribbean economies, arguing vociferously over how the Secretary General was reappointed is a regrettable waste of otherwise valuable Caribbean time. A mole hill has been allowed to become a mountain.
More than ever our Caribbean needs sober, mature, thoughtful leadership not distraction and picong.
The single mother of 3 in Curepe, in Tivoli, in Cayon, in Gingerland is singularly unconcerned with whether Secretary General Carla Barnett has been properly re-appointed. She is concerned with the rising cost of electricity, food, transportation, cooking gas. She is up at nights anxious over how to keep her 3 young children fed and in school.
Caribbean economies are facing an existential threat from the conflagration in Iran and the wider Middle East. This shouting across the Caribbean Sea demonstrates yet again why many feel that regional leadership has lost touch with the realities of regional life.
Alas if only we saw this same energy from regional leadership on the vexing issues of Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela. If only we saw from regional leadership the outlines of a plan to guide our interaction with the Great and Middle Powers of this new and increasingly dangerous world.
The re-appointment (or not) of the Secretary General of CARICOM at this time of global turbulence is as irrelevant an issue as anyone can conjure.
My advice? Reconvene a meeting of Heads. Put the re-appointment of the Secretary General as the single issue on the agenda. Vote on it consistent with the CARICOM Treaty. Count the ayes and the nays. Make an announcement. Then allow us to move on to real issues that have real impact on real people in our region.
In a world of big issues we of the Caribbean must stop working so hard to major in minors.
Hon Mark Brantley is Premier of Nevis and Leader of the Opposition in St Kitts and Nevis. He writes on Caribbean governance, diplomacy, and regional affairs.
