The Caribbean Community in a Changing Hemisphere

• Author: Vaughan A. Lewis
• Pages: 161-174

THE CARIBBEAN COMMUNITY

IN A CHANGING HEMISPHERE

Vaughan A. Lewis*

12

This chapter sets out to examine issues

pertaining to the Caribbean Community

states’ location in contemporary hemispheric

relations, and to make some projections and

recommendations regarding their functioning

in the context of the evolution of these relations.

The relations involve the interactions between

the dominant power, the United States, and its

geographical neighbours, Canada and Mexico.

It also encompasses the countries of South

America and what are today referred to as the

Emerging powers in the Hemisphere, and the

states of the Caribbean Basin.

Our analysis proceeds from a perspective

which relates to an understanding of the

changing parameters of Hemispheric relations

as the second half of the 20th century in which

CARICOM states attained their independence,

has turned into a 21st century in which the

evolving nature of both global political and

economic relations have begun to take new

forms. A further perspective relates to the

Caribbean Community states as, by and large,

the smallest entities in the Hemisphere, raising

in turn the question of how they can locate, or

relocate themselves, as economic and political

entities in the changing environment, and

what diplomatic instruments and perspectives

are necessary to facilitate this.

CARICOM States as new states in

the evolving system

It goes without saying that the citizens

of the Caribbean Community live in a world

substantially different from the year 1972,

when the four independent and, as they

were referred to, More Developed Countries

of CARICOM (Jamaica, Trinidad and

Tobago, Guyana and Barbados) established

diplomatic relations with Cuba. In the case

of Jamaica, these relations were, in fact, being

elevated from the consular level maintained at

independence in 1962, that decision ref‌lecting

the long-standing presence of a large number

of persons of Jamaican descent in Cuba.

Sir Shridath Ramphal, then Foreign

Minister of Guyana, has provided us with

a brief, but enlightening memoir of the

circumstances of the time, and the context in

which that diplomatic recognition took place.1

For this was indeed a period of deep hostility

of the United States of America towards Cuba,

and it led the US to look askance, and with

deep concern, at what we can refer to as the

“Four Countries Initiative”. In an era in which

the largest of the South and Central American

countries had continued to subscribe to the

Organisation of American States embargo on

diplomatic relations with Cuba, it seemed a

safe American presumption that these states

and their governments were safely in the

Western Camp, and would continue to follow

suit.

The world of that time was, primarily,

the world of the Cold War, with Cuba having

evaded American economic and political

isolation by transiting to the “world socialist

system”. Cuba thus evaded isolation, and

provided an example of an alternative mode