18th May 2005

I am pleased to be with you this afternoon.  I bring greetings to you from Nassau and from the Prime Minister with whom I spoke by telephone yesterday in the evening.  I know that he wishes you all well.  He is resting, recuperating and recovering.  I know with some assurance that I carry back with me your best wishes to him.

Today, I am here to talk about the CARICOM Single Market and Economy or CSME.  It has been much abused over the last week, with far too much misinformation being spun about a subject that is not as complicated or difficult as it sounds.   The experience of public education on this matter has been a very interesting one for me.  It demonstrates the power of emotion over logic.

I was really pleased therefore to receive this invitation, and to have obtained the many calls from Abaco including one from my old friend Patrick Bethel about the need to further the public education on the CSME.

Let us start from first principles.  In 1983, The Bahamas government, headed then by the late Sir Lynden O. Pindling, signed the Treaty of Chaguaramas.  The Treaty was named after a town in Trinidad and Tobago.  That Treaty created two organs as it were.  It created the Caribbean Community, thus CARICOM, and then it created the Caribbean Common Market.  The Bahamas decided at that time that it was not in the best interests of our country to join the Common Market because our economy and those of the region were too divergent and we had no manufacturing base to speak of.

In 2001, the Treaty of Chaguaramas was revised; thus, today, we have what is called the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.  This new Treaty has taken the two parts that existed previously and put it into one document.  As a result, if you want to become a part of the Treaty arrangements, or in The Bahamas situation, to continue in the Treaty arrangements you have to sign the one Treaty.  But remember what I said, we never joined the economic side.  What is happening now is that The Bahamas proposes to sign the Revised Treaty but still reserves itself on most of the economic issues, thus leaving us in the same position that we were in under the 1983 Treaty.  No more! No less!

We don’t want to fool people, however, so we have been blunt with the truth.  We have said that the Revised Treaty contains the agreement to move toward a single market and single economy.  However, because of the peculiar nature of The Bahamas, we have decided that we will not pursue those provisions.

In order to do that, The Bahamas will have to enter what is known as reservations to the Treaty.  This means that when we join, entering the reservation pursuant to Article 237 of the Treaty, we will except ourselves from certain of its provisions.

The provisions that we propose to except ourselves from and therefore enter reservations against are those that deal with the free movement of people, the monetary union, the Caribbean Court of Justice on its appellate side and the Common External Tariff or CET.   The Right of Establishment is another issue that has been identified as an area of contention.  However, the Treaty provides for the Right of Establishment principally in areas that earn foreign exchange such as hotels, export manufacturing and even ethnic and specialty restaurants, all of which are already open to foreign investors under the current National Investment Policy.

So, in essence, no retail or wholesale operation in The Bahamas will be threatened by our joining the CSME.

And I could stop my address there.  That is the end of the story really.  What is surprising though is how those proposals have suddenly been transformed into a conspiracy to subvert the sovereignty of The Bahamas.  I wish to quote from a letter by Edward Carrington, the Secretary General of CARICOM, who, in responding to some misinformation in the press in The Bahamas, said that CARICOM has already agreed to accept the reservations on monetary union and the free movement of people.  He also reaffirmed that the decision to sign on to the CARICOM Revised Treaty has no implications for the sovereignty of The Bahamas.

In fact it should be pointed out that The Bahamas has the sovereign right at all times to withdraw from the Treaty.  It also has the ability to block any decision made by CARICOM because Article 28 requires the unanimous agreement of all of the parties before any decisions can be made.

I am sorry it is not a more exciting and difficult story than that.

Yesterday, I was quite embarrassed by a listing in the press of 29 supposedly critical questions for Bahamians to ask the Government about the CSME.  The most telling was the question of, in their words, “putting all political correctness aside, do you want Haitians, Jamaicans and Trinidadians running the economy of The Bahamas?”

Another question was, “which flag will fly over The Bahamas, the CSME flag or The Bahamas flag?”
 
First, let me say that there are no implications for the sovereignty of The Bahamas. Then, let me say why I was embarrassed.  It is obvious that the leading proponents for the other side have not read the Treaty nor do they appear to be current on the present situation with regard to CARICOM.
 
Neither Jamaica nor Trinidad, nor even Haiti when it is re-admitted to the Organs of CARICOM, would have any political say over The Bahamas.  It is neither constitutionally possible, nor constitutionally or politically permissible.  What the question was designed to do was to elicit a response based in prejudice.  We have to be careful how we design our national future and responses to international issues lest we cut off our noses to spite our faces.

I have one further response and that is to their question about the flag.  The first thing I wish to say is that there is no CSME flag.  There is however a Bahamian flag and that flag will continue to fly over The Bahamas.

Both political parties agree with the approach that we have decided with regard to this.  You will see a lowering of the temperature on this over the next few weeks.  The arguments from the opponents have been exhausted.  You can see this with the lengths of the desperation and invention that are taking place.

I will be reporting to the Cabinet shortly the widespread concern that this matter has engendered.  My friends and colleagues are very concerned that this has a personal fall-out on me and worse, on my Party.  Some have suggested that such a campaign is orchestrated to take a personal hit on me.  However, I respond that this as all a part of the political game.

The fact is that truth always outs in the end. We have to be sure that we are rooted in truth.  The fact is a Government often has to make difficult decisions.  The difficult decision today avoids a greater pain later.  That is the role of a leader who has a vision of the future, to be able to position his country so that it can better survive the future.  One hopes that we are able to gently persuade the people of The Bahamas that this is the right decision, to buy into a better future.  Nothing will be forced down anyone’s throat; and please be assured that be no harm will ever be allowed to come to Abaco or any part of The Bahamas by any decision in which I am a part as long as I am a part of the Government.

The Bahamas signed the Treaty in 1983, and I ask you rhetorically, “Was your life changed fundamentally by that decision?”  The plan now is to sign the Revised Treaty to maintain the current relationship that we have with CARICOM and I can assure you that in much the same way as happened in 1983, your lives will not be changed fundamentally by signing the Revised Treaty.

I look forward to the dialogue and I thank you very much for inviting me.