STAND UP

FOR RIGHTS

by GERALYN EDWARD

A FORMER ADVISER to Government says a country should not have to defend its right to self-determination even within CARICOM because member countries are still sovereign states.

Dr George Belle, dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI), said: "We are a community of sovereign states . . . you should not have to defend your rights to self-determination of your people . . . you have to defend your space.

"You still have to do that because you are not in a union.

"That is something that frightens some of the members . . . The minute you start to talk about political union, know that Jamaica is going to run."

Belle made the comments on Friday night as he delivered the feature address to graduates of the Professional Training Programme in International Trade Policy offered by the UWI's Shridath Ramphal Centre For International Trade Law, Policy and Services.

The social scientist said he was an adviser at CARICOM Heads of Government conferences between 2003 and 2008 on "attempts to build the governance institutions for the implementation of the CARICOM Single Market & Economy".

Belle told the graduates if CARICOM heads had established commissioners, as was advised, many of the problems faced by regional leaders today would have been eliminated.

"If we had had a commissioner to deal with migration, a lot of the embarrassment to the politicians that they are facing right now, they would not be faced with.

"A politician is always looking over his shoulder about how many votes he's going to lose by saying whatever. Who are you going to embarrass?

"How much pressure you're going to get and therefore he can say certain things or he says things in a particular way," Belle said.

The academic added: "But if you had a man with a mandate who could go out there and preach to people that these are the complications and what are the realities, this is what the situation really is, he would take that burden off the politician because they remain political leaders of sovereign states." (GE)