Antigua PM wants Fidel honoured

Antigua PM wants Fidel honoured
By Larry Moonze in Havana, Cuba
Friday July 04, 2008 [04:00]

ANTIGUA and Barbuda Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer has asked the Caribbean Community to bestow retired Cuban leader Fidel Castro the Order of the Caribbean Community (OCC) award for his contribution to the region’s development. Prime Minister Spencer, who is also chairman of the G77 plus China (an economic and trade voice for developing countries particularly at the WTO and Doha Round), further proposed former Jamaican premier Percival J. Patterson for the OCC.

Addressing the 29th CARICOM regular meeting of the heads of government on Tuesday running until today in Dickson Bay, Antigua and Barbuda, Prime Minister Spencer said both Castro and Patterson made great contributions to the cause of Caribbean development and that their recognition would light the path for others to follow.

“I believe that our community should say special thanks to His Excellency Dr Fidel Castro Ruz and grant him the richly deserved recognition,” said Prime Minister Spencer, who is the incoming chairman of the CARICOM. “His personal and his country’s contribution to the development of this region and to its human resources in particular is surely deserving of the highest commendation by this community and a fitting award.”
On Patterson, Prime Minister Spencer said he stood for the good cause of the CARICOM.

He said at the time he was elected into office in March 2004, he had a daunting task of organising a new administration.

Prime Minister Spencer said apart from immediately assuming the CARICOM rotating chairmanship (then), his administration further faced a constitutional mandate requiring his government to present the country’s annual budget within seven days of appointment as Prime Minister.

“Simultaneously, I was confronted with the international crisis that surrounded the controversial removal from Haiti of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide,” he recalled. “In that conjuncture of circumstances, I asked Prime Minister Patterson to continue in the CARICOM chair far beyond his term which had already been extended to accommodate Antigua and Barbuda’s general election period.

Patterson's resolute and effective leadership of the regional agenda in that Haitian crisis distinguished him as a global statesman of the highest order.”

Prime Minister Spencer said CARICOM countries continued to be beacons of democracy, peace and freedom to the rest of the world.

“This comes sharply into focus as the world watches the ongoing tragedy of Zimbabwe,” he said. ”The CARICOM experience stands in stark contrast to the current Zimbabwean scenario.”

Prime Minister Spencer said over the last few years, the peoples of the region, in free and fair elections, which were free from fear, had changed their governments in a majority of member countries.

“In every such instance, there has been acceptance of the will of the electorate and every transition has been swift and smooth,” he said. “Elections in CARICOM countries will continue to be free and fair, free from fear, and held on time, with smooth, orderly transitions between outgoing and incoming governments.”

Prime Minister Spencer said a general election would take place in Grenada next week and that Antigua and Barbuda would go for polls in the first half of 2009.

“Indeed, I take this opportunity to now advise CARICOM and the Organisation of American States and the Commonwealth Secretariat to expect early invitations from the Government of Antigua and Barbuda for observer teams to be ready to be early on the ground to monitor the preparations for our elections, as well as for the conduct of our elections,” he said.

And Prime Minister Spencer said CARICOM summit was taking place at a time of great challenge in the region and for the planet.

He said in the Caribbean, member countries were under growing pressure from escalating energy prices, rising food prices and increasing prices on virtually all products, rampant crime and violence, the devastating effects of climate change, the ravages of obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and HIV/AIDS and the horrors of drug use, drug trafficking and human trafficking.

“Now more than ever, CARICOM is required to act as one,” he said. “There is no doubt that the external world treats us as one. No country, big or small, has the capacity to solve problems such as drug-trafficking, climate change or escalating food prices on its own.” Spencer observed that tourism in the CARICOM, which was a key contributor to the region’s economies, was under serious threat.

He said Caribbean economies were now facing a 17 per cent cutback in airline services from its tourism supply centres in the lower United States together with increases in airfares and new airline charges.
“This makes for bleak perspectives for the region’s tourism driven economies,” Prime Minister Spencer said.

On the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), he said the bloc would enhance the region’s engagement in the multilateral forum.
“To this, CARICOM needs to add a modern, open and democratic regional governance structure that brings coherence and efficiency to the administrations of the member states,” he said.

Prime Minister Spencer said the CARICOM would also address globalisation and issues of competitiveness.

He said globalisation was the single most important key-concept that marked the past decade, and its effects were all around the entire region.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Spencer said the creation of a free and fair multilateral trading system continued to elude the international community.