Salutations

It is a pleasure and an honour for me to be present at this Fourth Anniversary Awards Ceremony of the Caribbean-Guyana Institute for Democracy. The Secretary-General, His Excellency Edwin Carrington, unfortunately, has been unable to attend and has asked me to convey warmest congratulations and his very best wishes to you. I speak to you on his behalf.

I also extend congratulations on behalf of the Caribbean Community to the Executive Board and members of the CGID. CARICOM salutes the Institute for its work in the advocacy and promotion of democracy and good governance. You in the Diaspora are our champions for such causes which can only have tremendous long-term benefit for the sustainable social and economic development of our Region and its people.

The issues of democracy and good governance continue to be central to the spirit and letter of our regional integration arrangements. These principles have been enshrined in the CARICOM Charter of Civil Society, which was adopted by the Conference of Heads of Government in 1997, in keeping with a recommendation of the West Indian Commission. The Commission saw the need for a good-governance instrument which would provide the normative moorings and a qualitative character for the Community.

In representing the character of the Caribbean Community and its people, the Charter addresses a broad range of human activities encompassing, for example, principles such as: Respect for Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms; Human Dignity; the Right to Life; Liberty and Security of the Person; Equality Before the Law; Access to Information; Religious and Cultural Diversity; Personal Responsibility; and the social, political and economic rights of groups such as workers, women, children and the family.

As the West Indian Commission pointed out in 1992: "The Charter can become the soul of the Community, which needs a soul, if it is to command the loyalty of the people of CARICOM."

The Charter has been employed as a useful tool for mediation within the Community. Its fundamental principles continue to anchor efforts at maintaining social cohesion within and among the nations of CARICOM. Despite the fact that it is not a document that is legally binding on the Governments of the Region, our Community of sovereign states continues to give practical expression to the democratic principles embodied in the Charter. After all, as you are aware, democracy has been the bedrock of our Caribbean civilisation over the decades since political independence and, indeed, dating back to our colonial experience.

As we bring the integration movement closer to the people and seek to further democratise the modalities and institutions of our Community, we now have in place the Assembly of Caribbean Community Parliamentarians (ACCP), which is recognised as an institution of CARICOM in the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas establishing the Caribbean Community including the CARICOM Single Market and Economy.

While it is a deliberative and not a legislative body, the Assembly is an important forum where regional issues can be discussed. As the only forum in the Community at which both governments and Parliamentary Oppositions within Member States have been represented, the ACCP constitutes a vital mechanism for broad-based participation. At present, efforts are underway to strengthen this institution to take account of changes in our Community in response to internal and external dynamics. This includes the consideration of mechanisms to give greater voice to civil society.

As our nations consolidate our hard earned political independence and move towards achieving economic independence for the sustained prosperity of our people, the enhancement of the functioning of the Assembly, and the entrenchment of the Charter as a legally binding document, become even more necessary. In the case of the Charter, the fact that it is already reflected in the preamble to the Revised Treaty can be interpreted as a positive, albeit tentative, step in this direction.

The Revised Treaty puts us firmly on the road to creating a new economic architecture that involves the establishment of the CARICOM Single Market by 2005, and the movement to a Single Economy, for which an indicative timeline is 2008. The 1989 decision to establish the CSME was a step to deepen the integration movement and to better respond to the challenges and opportunities presented by globalisation. While the Common Market focused on liberalising trade in goods, the Caribbean Single Market and Economy expands this to include, for example, trade in services, and the free movement of all factors of production, including skilled labour. It also deepens economic cooperation among Member States.

This process towards the CSME continues to benefit from the skills, intellect and visionary leadership of Prime Minister Owen Arthur - the worthy and deserving recipient of the "Democracy Prize" for 2004.

The Community therefore salutes Prime Minister Arthur for the historic contribution he has made to Caribbean regional integration, particularly the development of the CSME and the promotion and support of Community institutions and mechanisms. We in CARICOM are fortunate to have such a staunch, knowledgeable and dynamic advocate and champion leading the drive for closer and more practical integration of the Region, as he expertly discharges his responsibility as the Head of Government with responsibility for the CSME in the Community's Quasi-Cabinet.

CARICOM Heads of Government, meeting in Trinidad and Tobago earlier this week, in special session, recommitted themselves to advance the regional integration movement as a vehicle for the economic and social development of all Member States, their peoples and the Caribbean Region as a whole. At this meeting some far-reaching decisions were taken, about which Prime Minister Arthur will no doubt inform you.

We in CARICOM applaud the work of the Caribbean-Guyana Institute for Democracy towards the educational, cultural and economic development of the Region. You continue to perform an important role in placing the spotlight on the critical issues that affect our Community and our peoples.

We are encouraged by the achievements of groupings such as CGID. The Secretary-General often says that: "the Caribbean home has many rooms". The full engagement of groups, such yours, creates a room for the Diaspora within the Caribbean home. We therefore take this opportunity to urge all Caribbean people abroad to embrace the evolving vision of the Caribbean Community and to participate with us in the integration process as we face new challenges to regional development and prosperity.

As CARICOM countries take their sovereign place in the world, organisations such as CGID can and do make an invaluable contribution towards enhancing our relations with the international community. Here in the United States, the potential exists for you to play an even greater role as advocates on behalf of the Caribbean. The CGID has been doing an excellent job of articulating CARICOM positions in the corridors of power As you seek to insert into existing US-Caribbean relations additional dimensions relevant to the contemporary needs of our societies and our people, the need to embrace a broader view of the concept of security and threats thereto is only one example of what you can seek to accomplish.

You are well aware of the social and economic vulnerability of the countries in our Region in the face of HIV/AIDS, drug trafficking and natural disasters, among other threats. The latter was demonstrated only recently in the passage of hurricanes through our Region. In this regard, the Community extends its support and solidarity to the hurricane-affected countries as they seek to recover and rebuild their economies.

The social patterns of globalisation demonstrate clearly that the "people boundaries" of CARICOM go well beyond the physical boundaries of our individual Member States or the geography of our region. Indeed, new advances in communications technology make such geography, history.

In closing, I wish to paraphrase from our Poet Laureate to point to our oneness as a Caribbean people and the synergy we generate, scattered in far-flung places though we may be. In his Nobel Lecture, Derek Walcott says:

"...That is the Antillean experience, this shipwreck of fragments, these echoes, these shards of a huge tribal vocabulary, these partially remembered customs, and they are not decayed but strong. They survived the Middle Passage and the...ship that carried the first indentured Indians from the port of Madras to the cane fields of Felicity, that carried the chained Cromwellian convict and the Sephardic Jew, the Chinese grocer and the Lebanese merchant selling cloth samples on his bicycle. And here they are, all in a single Caribbean...".

Whether we are here in North America, or in Europe or Asia, Caribbean people remain part of the mosaic of the Caribbean; their aspirations remain the same; their striving for the well being of Caribbean people never ceases; their sense of obligation to ensure the development of our Region remains constant. I congratulate the CGID on keeping the home fires burning and wish you continued success.