As Holness skips CARICOM meeting, Mottley warns against nationalism
Published:Wednesday | February 19, 2020 | 12:00 AMPaul Clarke/Gleaner Writer
While Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness has decided to skip the 31st Intersessional Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM, citing “pressing national issues” for his absence, the bloc’s chairman, Mia Mottley, has warned against external forces that seek to divide the region in an age of nationalism.
Her speech covered the region’s response to the rampaging novel coronavirus, regional security, climate change, and the possible need for reforms in the governance structure of CARICOM.
Holness pulled out of the two-day conference being held at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre at the last-minute. Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade minister Kamina Johnson Smith is leading the Jamaican delegation.
A statement from Jamaica House, issued at the very hour Mottley was delivering her speech yesterday, stated that Holness did not make the engagement due to “pressing national matters and to ensure the constitutional composition of the Cabinet”.
It is unclear whether Holness’ decision may be linked to issues surrounding the recent visit of United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the open discord it spawned within CARICOM.
It is believed Pompeo’s visit was to rubber-stamp Jamaica’s support for Venezuela’s Juan Guaido, who is being backed by the US to wrest political control from embattled President Nicolas Maduro.
FAMILY OF PEOPLE
Mottley urged CARICOM leaders to focus their attention on challenges facing the Caribbean Community and reminded the heads of government that the regional grouping represented a family of people who shared more than a common history.
“I want us today to remember that F comes before I, and that I mean specifically that family comes before ideology,“ said Mottley.
She added: “This is a critical moment for us as a Community to understand that whether the challenges be with respect to chronic non-communicable diseases, which is the insidious killer among our people, or whether the challenge be the more-talked-about and definite existential crisis of climate affecting us through hurricanes, as it literally has torn many of our countries apart. “
She also used the occasion to draw attention to deficits in the governance and funding model of CARICOM, suggesting that the Rose Hall declaration of 2013 be revisited.
Further, Mottley said that self-examination within the regional bloc was needed at a time when the demands are higher, as the CARICOM Secretariat has been functioning with EC$30 million less than it did 10 years ago.