EDITORIAL - The CARICOM bogey

At every new slight, perceived or real, Jamaicans tend to attack the regional question, including this country's membership in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), with knee-jerk, emotional rants.

So, there are again calls - including by important persons in business and politics - for the boycott of products from Trinidad and Tobago over the refusal of entry into that country last week of 13 Jamaicans.

This newspaper, as we have in the past, rejects such visceral responses to complex issues and again urges a mature, fact-based debate on the CARICOM question, lest Jamaica lose sight of its best interest and make irrational decisions. Happily, up to now, the Simpson Miller administration has resisted such pressure.

While the efforts on this front by Foreign Minister A.J. Nicholson are appreciated, it is now urgent that the Government begin a broad, popular dialogue involving all stakeholders.

This process should start with the deconstruction of Jamaica's CARICOM relations and the perceived problems individually analysed and addressed. In this respect, there are two main issues to be looked at: trade and the free movement of people within the region.

On the matter of trade, the quarrel is primarily with Trinidad and Tobago, the Community's strongest and major manufacturer. More than 90 per cent of our near US$1-billion trade deficit with CARICOM is with Trinidad and Tobago.

Jamaica's manufacturers have primary complaints against the Trinidadians: that Port-of-Spain uses its domestically available cheap energy to subsidise its enterprises, that it cheats on CARICOM rules-of-origin requirements, and that it uses non-tariff barriers to deny access to its markets by Jamaicans.

Unfortunately, Jamaican complainants have not presented hard evidence to substantiate their allegations. Nor have they used administrative or legal mechanisms afforded by the CARICOM treaty to enforce their rights.

Further, there is usually a conflation of domestic policy failures that impede the country's export competitiveness with the supposed cheating by regional partners. In that context, it has been easy to ask for respite from CARICOM obligations, or, for the more extreme, full withdrawal from the Community - though that will, of itself, not change Jamaica's economic dynamics.

Discrimination when travelling

Jamaicans complain of discrimination when they travel in the region. It was such a concern, on a personal level, that was challenged at the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) by Shanique Myrie, over her treatment in Barbados. The CCJ has established the minimum standards that CARICOM citizens should expect when they travel in the region.

But the right of entry to another CARICOM member state, while expected, is not absolute: visitors, whether Jamaicans or persons of other nationalities, as the regime now stands, have to satisfy minimum criteria. Jamaicans, therefore, must expect, and should demand, no lesser treatment, when they travel in the Community, than any other CARICOM national. Indeed, our prime minister has, rightly, made clear that Jamaica will play by the rules.

However, even as we hold others to their obligations, it may not always be that they are breaking the rules, as is often inferred.

The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.