St Vincent’s Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves will lead a new committee to further regional freedom of movement

Prime Minister of St Vincent Dr Ralph Gonsalves has been appointed to head a committee of regional prime ministers to develop strategies for moving the integration process forward.
The committee of five includes the prime ministers of Jamaica, Antigua/Barbuda, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago. This group is expected to devise ways to accelerate the deepening of the integration process, define the role and functions of the Caricom Secretariat, examine new financing arrangements and put measures in place to speed up the Single Market and Economy (CSME).
The committee came out of a special consultation between Caricom and Heads of Government and Civil Society, which took place at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Port-of-Spain last Saturday.
The theme of the consultation was Options for Governance in the Caribbean, and was an initiative by Prime Minister Manning of Trinidad and Tobago to look at ways to accelerate the process of regional integration.
Two separate papers on the issue were presented by UWI and the Barbados delegation for discussion, during which participants lamented the slow pace of the integration process. Prime Minister Gonsalves’ committee will report to the next Heads of Government meeting in Jamaica in July.
In addition, during his inaugural lecture in the Distinguished Lecture Series commemorating the 30th Anniversary of Caricom Gonsalves spoke on the theme “Our Caribbean Civilization and its Prospects” and reinforced the importance of unity in the Caribbean.
He too lamented the lack of hassle-free travel that still exists in some areas of the region. He said the free movement of Caribbean people continues to be a problem while North American and Europeans enjoy the privilege.
Meanwhile, the Caribbean Community’s Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) has urged its member states to stick to the deadlines for implementation of the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME).
COTED has urged member states to accelerate the implementation of the key elements of the CSME. The meeting recognised that some member states were unable to implement decisions due to limited human resources and agreed on steps to assist those who were affected by this limitation.
The affected member states were requested to identify their difficulties and the technical assistance required to overcome them and indicate to the Caricom Secretariat and its CSME Unit in Barbados which has overall responsibility for overseeing implementation of the CSME.

Parliamentary Commissioner Selwyn Vincent says tax workshop is necessary

The Secretariat, with the assistance of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has also established a Legal Drafting Facility in Georgetown, Guyana, led by Duke Pollard, the former Legal Consultant to the Secretary-General, to assist the Attorneys-General Chambers in the Community with the drafting of the necessary legislation for the implementation of the CSME.
Trinidad and Tobago offered to help other member states by providing technical assistance in areas requested.
On external trade matters the Council took note of the status of negotiations with Costa Rica and Canada towards trade agreements as well as the position with the Caricom-Venezuela Trade Agreement. In the case of Venezuela, the Joint Council, which had been established under the 1992 Caricom/Venezuela Trade and Investment Agreement has not met for five years.
The Ministers also received a report from the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (RNM) in respect of multi-lateral negotiations with particular reference to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the ACP-EU arrangements and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
Member states were encouraged to improve their participation in the negotiating process towards the FTAA. A greater presence by member states, the Council said would lend support to the Caricom Lead Negotiators in the various groups set up under the FTAA process. Member states were urged to submit their offers on market access in the areas of agriculture, services, investment and government procurement.
Within the ACP-EU arrangements, the Council took note of the need to begin preparations for negotiations of an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union. The EPAs are a feature of the Cotonou Agreement, which governs relations between Europe and the countries of the African Caribbean Pacific Group which are principally former colonies of the European countries.
With the preparations for the WTO negotiations picking up pace prior to the Cancun, Mexico Ministerial meeting later this year, the Council reminded Member states of the urgency to submit their negotiating proposals in agriculture and offers and requests with respect to services in order to meet the established deadlines.

Lady Janice Compton: Defending her family’s name

It was during his Christmas message that Prime Minister Kenny Anthony advised St Lucians that things weren’t going to be easy and that everyone would have to pull in their belts. I did not hear the message, but it certainly was all the talk in various forums for some days.
Not too long after the Prime Minister’s exhortations, government announced that former US President Bill Clinton would be visiting St Lucia. A visit by a former US President, while something we might all consider a pleasant experience, has to involve some cost. Former President Clinton after all, makes a living from delivering speeches in return for large remunerations. Coupled with that, the hotel, entertainment, security expenses, to mention a few, certainly all adds up.
And so my husband, as did others, asked a question: Who was funding such an exercise? It was a question any St Lucian had a right to ask. When it comes to matters of government there is meant to be transparency and accountability.
I recall some years ago when St Lucia hosted the First Ladies Conference of Latin America and the Caribbean, I was heavily criticised by the St Lucia Party and the question raised by them in Parliament as to the cost of that conference.
And so my husband asked the question and, lo and behold, screams and shouts from every corner.
Someone called and jokingly said: “I see they have set the DOWS on your husband.” I asked what the DOWS were. He laughed and replied, “The Dogs of War.”
Another person remarked that whenever my husband comments on anything he has a laugh watching how “they all jump up and start making noise like a bunch of yard fowls that think a mongoose is around.”
These comments were made in jest, but it really is not a laughing matter, for what has happened in St Lucia is that St Lucians in positions of responsibility who should provide the checks and balances in our society, are remaining deafeningly silent for fear that the “DOWS” will savage them.
By the DOWS, I mean the likes of Leo, Shelton, Claudius or Earl, or, if it is a big enough issue or big enough prey, one of the big guns, say Minister Pierre who is usually assigned to my husband with his “old and passé” line.
I have come to realise that all this clacking and barking and savaging comes from a fear of Sir John Compton, for who better knows from his years of experience in government what is—or rather is not—happening in government today.
This government spent over a million dollars of tax payers’ money on an inquiry intending to bury Sir John. When that wasn’t enough they privately threatened him and some endeavoured to demean him. I have to say that on these occasions such behaviour speaks more of the character of the bestower than of the recipient.
Power can be a very heady thing. Lasting power is granted to only a few—and political power is often fleeting. What is important, however, is not what the power is but how best one uses that power.
I have said before that during my husband’s term in office as Prime Minister we tried to live as normally as was possible—and in a manner that we would always live. And we raised our children that way and instilled in them the value of every human being.
I have written also that my husband was given a car that he never kept—that it was given to the nation. And so we come to the matter of the car.
In 1996, April to be precise, the month my husband retired as Prime Minister, he told me that someone was sending a car for him. I recall laughing and reminding him of the times during our marriage that he would remark that he could have been a millionaire in this political life, given the number of times persons had tried to bribe him, but that he had always said he liked to sleep at night.
I told him that our car was seven years old and that we would stay with the seven year old car and sleep at night.
The following week I went to the Prime Minister’s official residence to speak to my husband on a certain matter and in passing through the garage, I saw a new car bearing a government number plate. I asked my husband about it and he said he had given the car to the government for the Prime Minister’s use. It was the week before he left the office of the Prime Minister.
Someone last week sent me a copy of the STAR’s report of the St Lucia Labour Party’s meeting on the Castries Market Steps which claimed that Mr Chagoury had sent a car to the nation and suggested that my husband had tried during this administration to get it for himself.
This kind of misinformation brings to mind a comment last week in a BBC report about a British Labour Party government document, released to bolster support for the Iraq War. An American/Arab postgraduate student claims that some of his ten-year-old thesis was plagiarised to produce this document. The British Labour Party MP Glenda Jackson, in criticising her government, spoke of “misinformation as the parliamentary term for lying.”
Here are the facts and St Lucians will decide for themselves:
It was said on the Market Steps that my husband sat in a car in Paris and said how nice a car was (nothing wrong in commenting on a car). Mr Chagoury is said to have replied that since he liked it he would send one for him.
Why would Mr Chagoury send a car for my husband to enjoy and give it to the government just a matter of days before Sir John was leaving office?
Why would Sir John receive a vehicle while he was Prime Minister, put a government number plate on it, hand it over to Dr Vaughan Lewis to use for a year and then wait until Dr Anthony is in office to get it back?
Why would Sir John receive a new car and not keep it and wait for it to have been driven by a number of different persons and a year and half later try to claim it?
It has been alleged that ministers in this government received expensive paintings and that one accepted an all-expenses paid holiday touring Italy—ten days in Venice, Florence and Rome—for himself and his girlfriend. That is a matter for those persons to answer. What brings me to comment is that the replies were about a watch and a car and not about the original allegations. I say “allegations” because these references have been made by others. It is now the norm for this administration. Make a noise in one corner to divert attention away from the reality in the other.
The saddest part of this saga is that I spoke of this car to a minister in the government and at the end of the conversation, he commented, “It was the right thing to do to give it to the nation.” That minister chose not to remember that conversation. Instead, the St Lucia Labour party tried sully my husband’s name rather than answer the questions I can only assume they wished to avoid.
There is nothing of integrity, nothing gentlemanly, admirable or decent in sullying a person’s reputation in this manner.
Over the years, the Labour Party has used this policy of misinformation knowing that some of their mud will always stick.
This administration came to office on a promise of integrity, transparency, honesty and fairness—of which there is little sign.
In closing, may I say that Sir john Compton was the Prime Minister who chose through his tenure in office to drive his pick-up whenever he could. He would be found in an official car only when he had to appear officially somewhere. There was the yellow pick-up, the red one, the white one, the silver grey one and today there is the green one.
The last official car purchased during his tenure in office was a Toyota Cressida in 1989. It remained as the official car for the seven years following.
This administration by contrast has spent something in the region of half a million dollars (that’s duty-free prices—a million dollars equivalent duty paid) on luxury, top of the line cars for the Prime Minister’s use during the last five years. Not to mention for the Ministers and favoured contracted friends.
The Labour Party has always been promoted as the party of the poor and depressed, while the UWP was said to represent the privileged. Put to stand side by side today, I wonder if anyone would see the truth in such a thought.
It is not often that I have shared my thoughts over the years—mainly when the name and reputation of our family has been threatened. On these occasions, there has been much anger from the Labour ranks. Apparently one is meant to bear the slings and arrows and never respond. Only they must respond en force.
I imagine the DOWS and the chickens will be pointing in my direction soon all scrambling to protect their territory. I have spoken for mine. But it is the deafening silence of the checks and balances that will be more in my thoughts, those who have lost their voice, their courage, their concern and their dignity. This is the sadness I feel along with the overwhelming sadness that those one might have respected, could so belittle themselves to so deceive.

The St Lucia Animal Protection Society has launched a bid to prevent a highly controversial circus from visiting the island.
The Mexico-based Suarez Brothers Circus, which travels throughout the Caribbean, began performing in Puerto Rico in 2001 with seven polar bears and two black bears.
According to SLAPS, the circus has sparked international outcry over the mistreatment of these bears, and criticism from biologist and other scientists for using Artic marine animals such as polar bears in a highly unsuitable tropical environment.
As a result of consistent pressure on the circus by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), the polar bears have been transferred to zoos, but the circus still has a number of black bears which the organisation says are kept in filthy, cramped and unsuitable living conditions. Black bears are not afforded the same protection as polar bears under US Federal Laws.
However, since arriving on US soil, Peta says the US Department of Agriculture has cited the circus for keeping the bears in rodent-infested conditions, for failure to provide veterinary care, and for repeatedly failing to properly contain potentially dangerous animals.
And now, it appears the circus may be attempting to find sponsorship in St Lucia so that the travelling show can hit the island’s shores.
“We would like to ensure that before we accept the presence of this type of spectacle in our country, that people are fully apprised of the facts and able to make informed decisions,” said SLAPS president, Jane Tipson. “The SLAPS executive would like to think that anyone considering sponsoring the Suarez Brothers Circus to come to St Lucia will thoroughly research the facts on this travelling show which is, in fact a continuing nightmare for the animals concerned.”
The society’s president said whatever “tiny educational benefit” could be gleaned from such a show, is far outweighed by the “gruesome” conditions the animals are kept in and the “horrible suffering this causes.”
Ms Tipson said her organisation was available to answer any questions about the circus that would-be sponsors might have.
In the meantime, both SLAPS and Peta have written to Prime Minister Kenny Anthony to caution him about the circus and to inform him about the controversy which surrounds the Suarez Brothers’ treatment of its performing animals.
In addition, Peta outlined its plans to rescue the black bears being held by the circus and to get them moved to more humane conditions in zoos on the US mainland.
“We hope that you will support our efforts to rescue the remaining two black bears by simply refusing to allow the Suarez Brothers Circus to bring its black bears to your island,” Peta wrote to the Prime Minister. “Newspapers around the world have reported the sad plight of these miserable bears.”