Twenty years ago on June 18, 1981, the Treaty of Basseterre gave birth to the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). It's founding fathers fashioned a remarkable admixture of functional cooperation between its Member-States and an embryonic confederal structure which possesses the seeds for a further deepening or strengthening in the visionary quest for a confederal political union, at a minimum.

This entity comprising six independent states (Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines), and three British Colonies, Anguilla, British Virgin Islands and Montserrat, has experienced over the past twenty years many changes or shifts in its institutional arrangements but has remained basically steadfast to its original purpose and mandate. That has been a not inconsiderable achievement amidst the tumult in the political economy of the sub-Region and the fundamental rearrangements in the architecture of the international economy and polity.

To be sure, the weaknesses and limitations of the OECS are glaringly obvious, including the repeated failure of many member-states - including Saint Vincent and the Grenadines - to pay on time or at all their subventions, but all this ought not to blind us to the fact that this sub-Regional grouping is pregnant with enormous strengths and possibilities.

The times in which the OECS was born are very different to those of today. It is often forgotten that the late Maurice Bishop, head of the People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada, was a signatory to the Treaty of Basseterre. The fledgling organization struggled with the push and pull of "ideological pluralism" in a context of intense cold war rivalries in a geographical space in close proximity to the most powerful nation the world has ever seen, which nation was itself one of the two ideologically-based super-powers which rivaled each other for world hegemony.

The phenomena of trade liberalization, globalisation and the revolution in information technology had yet to come upon us. In those apparently idyllic days of yore, trade protectionism for bananas and sugar subsidized the sub-Region's production and masked its inefficiencies and lack of competitiveness. Concessionary aid was still flowing. Oh, "bliss was it in that dawn to be alive but to be young was very heaven"

From those seemingly heavenly days, the OECS and its member-countries survived the gospel of the Washington consensus focused upon the mantra of "structural adjustment" which sought to balance the books but, in the process, unbalanced the countries of the sub-Region. The end of the Cold War and the rise of North Atlantic triumphalism have fortuitously occasioned an abandonment of the consensus imposed by the Washingtonians and its replacement by a new consensus centered on "poverty alleviation" and "sustainable development".

The cynics say, not without some merit, that this new consensus is but a new paternalism designed to rinse the consciences of imperium. Still, it is the only show on the road and, in the difficult extant circumstances, we must learn the art and practice of embracing it to our advantage whilst transcending it in our embark upon a new people-centred trajectory in politics and economics. Hopefully, at the end of it all, the OECS or a successor confederal state apparatus, at a minimum, will be around to tell the tale. But it is up to us as a Caribbean people to convert that fractured story into a meaningful history in the interest of our own humanization.

If the truth be told, the earlier years of the OECS and its member-states were neither idyllic nor heavenly. Our countries were poorer then than now; we were less educated than now; we were technologically less advanced than now; we were less politically sophisticated than now; and we were less democratic then than now.

Still, the statistical growth in the sub-Region's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is not manifested in the slums of Kingstown, Castries or Roseau nor in the newly-minted poverty-stricken rural areas in the aftermath of the banana implosion. Thus, for example, the poverty level of 37 per cent of the population in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is wholly unacceptable. But I am sure that the situation would have been even worse if the OECS had not existed.

Even where material progress has been visible in these blessed islands we appear to have lost our souls, our moral compass, our anchor and our rudder; we have let slip our enduring vision of the further ennoblement of our Caribbean civilization. This we must correct, together now!

The OECS, with a population of just over 550,000 at home but with probably thrice that figure overseas and an average per capital GDP of some US$3,000.00 per annum, was formed as a logical extension of the old West Indies Associated States (WISA) arrangement when constitutional independence arrived for its member-states or was on their door steps. Its birth, too came in the aftermath of the failure of the "Little Eight" federal venture in 1965 and the signing of the Treaty of Chaguaramas in 1973 which established CARICOM with its categories of MDCs (More-developed countries) and LDCs (Less-developed countries). The founding fathers of the OECS rightly saw wisdom in consolidating an inner concentric circle of the Region integration movement but with points of relevance and contact to the wider CARICOM.

For over thirty years I have been a passionate and, I believe, reasoned defender and promoter of the idea of a political union of the Caribbean and more urgently of the Windward and Leeward Island, be it in a unitary, federal or confederal political form. For example, I reflect with much pride and comfort, on an article authored in 1971 by Swinburne Lestrade, now OECS Director General, and myself entitled "The Political Aspects of Integration of the Windward and Leeward Islands." At the time Lestrade and I were students at the University of the West Indies. The article can be found in the journal, Caribbean Quarterly, volume 18, Number 2, of June 1972. It was subsequently considered to be worthy of study by the distinguished Caribbean intellectual, the late Dr. Patrick Emmanuel, as one seven Approaches to Caribbean Political Integration which was published in 1987.

Since 1971, Caribbean political integration has been at the heart, soul, mind and body of my political praxis. I say all this not out of immodesty but to lay the personal basis for my affirmation on behalf of a collective known as the Vincentian component of our Caribbean civilization, that as Prime Minister it is my duty to place firmly yet again on the Regional political agenda the issue of the political union of the Caribbean or at least of the OECS member-states. This is a great cause and it is the inescapable destiny of our Caribbean people to be so united. And as the late great statesman from Jamaica, the Right Excellent Norman Washington Manley reminded us at the Montego Bay Conference in 1947 "great causes are not won by doubtful men". I refuse to be among those who entertain doubts on the necessity and desirability of a political union of our Region.

The political party, the Unity Labour Party (ULP), which currently leads the Government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and which I have the honour to lead, stated the following position unequivocally in its Election Manifesto of March, 2001, under the rubic "The Path to Caribbean Natianhood":

"The ULP affirms that the Caribbean possesses a legitimate, authentic and distinct civilization. This Caribbean civilization, which has various national elements at home and in the disaspora, requires a much deeper institutional expression. The ULP will thus work towards a political union of the Caribbean first through deepening political links between Barbados and the OECS and then with other member of CARICOM. In this regard the freedom of movement of peoples is vital. The ULP fully supports, too, the broadening of CARICOM to include non-English speaking Caribbean countries and deepening the processes of economic and functional integration."

As is well-known by now, the ULP won a massive electoral victory in the general elections in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines on March 28, 2001. I take that overwhelming mandate as the democratic authority by which I now speak and act on this issue which is so vital to our survival and progress as a Caribbean people.

Within weeks of my election to the Office of Prime Minister I informed my colleagues at the OECS Authority meeting in Grenada - the first which I ever had the opportunity to attend - that the new Government in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines was prepared immediately to embrace or be embraced in a confederal state arrangement with any other OECS member - country which was prepared to do so. Then at my first ever Board of Governors meeting of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) a few weeks later in May 2001 in Grenada I yet again called for a confederal political union of the Caribbean or parts thereof and urged the CDB to take practical steps to assist in facilitating such a process.

I considered it both explicit and implicit in the CDB's mandate to be engaged in such a noble exercise. Moreover, the CDB in so acting would be traversing the sometimes lonely road which its pioneering Presidents, Sir Arthur Lewis and William Demas, both of blessed memory, had trod with such commitment and distinction. The CDB would fail the Region's people if it walks an economistic path only; CARICOM and the OECS will not be true to the visionary ideals of their founding fathers and will not meet the extant challenges of the new disorder in the Region's political economy if they pursue a purely functional, trading or internal managerial agenda - important as these matters are.

The case for a political union of the OECS in whatever form or for a confederal arrangement, in the first place between Barbados and the OECS, is unanswerably strong. This case has been made repeatedly over the years by Caribbean leaders of great distinction including Prime Minister Owen Arthur of Barbados and Prime Minister Kenny Anthony of St. Lucia. For example, in a speech to the Soroptomist International of Barbados in 1998 entitled "Caribbean Integration: The Future Relationship Between Barbados and the OECS", Dr. Anthony highlighted the factors which predispose and induce us to such an integrative effort. He frankly addressed some of the extant problems in the quest for such a union; he identified, rationally and carefully, the goals of such a union; he identified, rationally and carefully, the goals of such a union; and he explored the possible mechanisms through which a Barbados - OECS confederation can be realized. Above all, though, he approvingly reiterated Sir Arthur Lewis' observation of over three decades ago that:

"Political leaders make federation a question of customs union, freedom of movement, exclusive lists, concurrent lists and the like. All this is secondary. The fundamental reason for federating these islands is that it is the only way that good government can be assured to their peoples".

Traditionally, political scientists and constitutional experts have identified three broad types of political union which separate and independent states may embrace, namely, a unitary political union in which there is a single, unified central government as in the United Kingdom which nevertheless contains England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; a federation as in the United States of America or India in which there is a central government and state levels though with a relatively powerful center; and a confederation in which the state governments by agreement confer certain power or authority to a central government in specified areas but in a general power-sharing arrangement wherein the states are, by and large, more powerful than the centre.

In the context of an OECS political union or an OECS - Barbados nexus, we ought not to frame the discussion conceptually in the traditional categories of unitary state, federation or confederation. We may use the nomenclature as a short-hand indication of whether you are advocating a more centralized unitary State or a more intricately balanced federal arrangement or a looser, more decentralized confederal link-up. In our Regional or sub-Regional circumstances, we ought to pursue the form and content of union which the political market can best bear. Having so fashioned it, we can ascribe it a more precise name. After all, a rose by any other name smells just as sweet.

What, therefore, do I as a practical politician and committed son of our Caribbean civilization consider the most efficacious type of union which the political market can bear?

In answering this query I turn for guidance to some experiences and ideas already lodged in the political market place. On May 27, 1987, in Tortola, Sir James Mitchell former Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, delivered a remarkable speech entitled "To be or not to be a Single Nation: That is the Question". In it he advocated a unitary state of the OECS member-countries and mapped out a fast-track process by which to achieve this end. This initiative led eventually, by way of hiccups and more, to a Regional Constituent Assembly of the Windward Islands in 1991 which fizzled out in a lack of enthusiasm by its fifth and final meeting in St. Lucia in March 1992 and thereafter.

This worthwhile initiative collapsed because, among other things, the political market was inhospitable to a unitary state and the pre-set timelines for the union appeared dictated from above. This initiative foundered amidst suspicious, too, that it was inspired by a Washington-directed agenda and that it was designed to entrench Caribbean Democratic Union (CDU) parties in power. Undoubtedly, in one or two of the Windward Islands certain opposition parties saw Windwards Political Union as a barrier to their chance to win political power in their own countries. The time-table for union clashed, perhaps, with their understandable domestic political ambitions.

Sir James' maximalist approach was fully supported at the time by the late Williams Demas. This maximalist or big bang approach to political integration contended that the scope for a further deepening of merely cooperation, in whatever guise, is limited and, in any event, represents a tilting at windmills and is hardly sufficient or adequate for the challenges at hand. The maximalists demanded that the leaders summon up the political will educate the people about the futility of separateness, and push for a federal or quasi-federal political union union akin to that of a unitary state. They insisted that functionalism or even confederalism would simply drag on for another thirty or so years and effectively delay the arrival of a unified nation-state of the Anglophone Caribbean.

It is easy to be swept along with the maximalist tide. My own heart is in that direction: It finds resonance in our deepest longings and it has the attractiveness of not succumbing to pussy-footing or timidity on a question vital to our progress. But my head tells me something else. It cautious me that our countries' independent sovereignties and island separateness in the current milieu probably prompt a less ambitious venture into political union. In short, we ought to explore a more minimalist approach to political integration but to do so nevertheless with resolution and with commitment to achieving something deeper and larger when the circumstances become more propitious. In short, a strategy and bundle of tactics which emphasize both prudence and enterprise in the way forward.

A fine product of the less ambitious, minimalist school of political integration is the St. Lucian student of international politics and a senior public servant, Earl Huntley, whose Five Steps to Unity: Political Union Revisited and his companion, The Treaty Establishing the Confederation of the Antilles, published in 1995 and 1994 respectively contain many thoughtful ideas on the subject. Huntley essentially advocates confederation of the OECS to build upon the functionalism of the OECS of the OECS and the common currency arrangements of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank. He fashions a carefully-calibrated power-sharing between the centre and the individual states with a rotational leadership between the sitting Prime Ministers. The thorny questions of citizenship, passports and freedom of movement of peoples nevertheless require a proper resolution for any enterprise towards political union to succeed meaningfully.

Historically, one of the central problems of Regional integration efforts has been their tendency to integrate state systems, not peoples or the Caribbean civilization. The West Indies federation emphasized the establishment of formal governmental institutions which were isolated from the people; CARICOM has focused on trading arrangements and the efficacy of the Secretariat; and the OECS has as its raison d'etre eighteen areas of functional cooperation.

All of these have been important and at the second remove touch, and connect with, the people but in none of these unity frameworks has the issue of the freedom of movement of people been favourably addressed or the travel of Caribbean people from one Regional country to another been made hassle free. Indeed, while the technology and availability of Regional transport, air and sea, have made it easier for intra-Caribbean travel, the contemporary states in the Region have put immigration barriers in place which have made it more difficult than in colonial times for a national of one Caribbean country to enter another.

It even goes further than this: Guyanese visitors are, by and large, looked upon with grave suspicion by the immigration authorities of sister CARICOM countries; Americans and Canadians are welcomed with open arms in Barbados whilst St. Lucians and Vincentians are generally treated as unwanted strangers at the gates; Rastafarians are instinctively discriminated against by the immigration and customs officer in practically every country in the Region, possibly save and except Jamaica; and Barbadians are caricatured as "smart men" who must be watched closely at ports of entry and beyond.

All this is totally unacceptable. No federation or confederation or some lesser form of union can truly survive these indignities and irrationalities. To be sure, Caribbean governments have sought to lessen these hardships in the case of graduates of Caribbean universities and other selected categories of professionals. But, useful as this is, it has regrettably strengthened the impression in the minds of ordinary Caribbean folk that "this integration business" is for the elite. Unless and until a thorough pro-active programme of encouraging intra-Caribbean travel and residence is devised by Caribbean governments, Regional integration or political union would not command the requisite degree of popular support as it should.

Accordingly, last week I put to the Prime Ministers of both Dominica, St. Lucia and St. Kitts-Nevis the proposal to abolish between themselves and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, on a reciprocal basis, the requirement for a passport or other such travel document to enter or leave any of these States and to remove the legal hurdle of residence and work permits for citizens of the respective States to live and work in any other. I intend to make a similar proposal personally to every single Head of Government in the other countries of the OECS.

The fears and prejudices which drive the immigration policies of Caribbean States in relation to each other's citizens are without foundation. The notion that criminals would cross borders undetected ignores the huge potential in coordinating police activities and denies the fact that each Caribbean country has its own ballooning body of home-grown criminals. Some people do not yet understand that whilst law-abiding citizens respect territorial boundaries and immigration laws the criminals, by and large, possess the technology of speed boats and other material means by which they easily circumvent immigration laws and the limited coast guard services. So, law-abiding persons are kept out by a maze of infuriating immigration constraints but criminals practically have an "open sesame".

It is time for this to change in favour of those of us who are law-abiding. In any event, the practical effect of more open borders for each other's nationals in the Region would be an equalization of travel between the countries by criminals. The same principle applies to the migration of unemployed persons. Indeed easier migration of the unemployed in the Region is likely to result in more employment since the tendency of migrants is to take honest work in their adopted lands which they would probably not have taken in the land of their birth. Migration and individual initiative go hand in hand. That is the lesson of human civilization the world over. These fears and prejudices prompt the wrong questions and limit conceptual clarity and appropriate action. It is to this issue that my comrade and friend Dr. Kenny Anthony addressed his formidable intellect in his said speech to the soroptimist in Barbados.

On this issue, and referring specifically to Barbados-OECS initiative of January 1998, Dr. Anthony states thus:

" In the recent debate the question has sometimes been asked whether the integration of Barbados with the OECS will mean the Barbados will have to adjust itself to the level of the OECS or will the OECS have to rise to the level of Barbados. The real problem is not the answer to that question but the question itself. It emerges out of a paradigm that does not embrace a strategic conception of integration and the logic of common survival that necessitates it. We live in an increasingly inter-dependent world in which small states face the real danger of moving from a structural position of dependence to a structural condition of irrelevance. To begin by focusing on the smaller and mechanical issues such as currency, inflation policy, government policy and fiscal deficits is to miss the larger picture. We must start from the fundamental acceptance of the imperative to unity and from that elemental impulse, apply the considerable resourcefulness for which our Caribbean is not noted, to the resolution of the logistics."

So, while it is inadvisable to skirt or ignore the troubling details or "logistics" in the mechanics of unification, it is a greater error to dismiss the dynamics of unification, it is a greater error to dismiss the dynamics of the process, and the organic end product of unification, which is to further ennoble and advance in every material particular our Caribbean civilization and its national components.

In my quest for a political union of the OECS member-countries or the Caribbean or of parts thereof, I begin with the affirmation that the Caribbean possesses an independent, authentic, distinct and distinctive civilization stuffed with nobility and that our historic duty is to further ennoble or advance our Caribbean civilization.

Our Region's evolution from a culturally plural social arrangement to a relatively integrated creole society composed almost entirely of migrant peoples from three continents - Africa, Europe and Asia - and occupying a particular geographic space, has made us a unique civilization. The violence and tutelage of colonialism, the bondage of slavery and the trauma of indentureship involving a population mix of indigenous peoples, Anglo-Saxons, Africans, Portuguese, Indians, Chinese, Jews and Arabs have fashioned a distinctive society. No where else in the world does a society exist like the Caribbean with its peculiar geography, special physical environment, distinct history, particular language, and a community of migrant peoples in which there is a non-white and creolised majority.

Perhaps no one has captured in words the essence of all this better than our Region's premier poet, Derek Walcott, in his Nobel lecture, The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory:

"Break a vase and the love that reassembles it is stronger than the love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole. The glue that fits the pieces is the sealing of its original shape. It is such love that reassembles our African and Asiatic fragments, the cracked heirlooms whose restoration shows its white scars. This gathering of broken pieces is the care and pain of the Antilles, and if the pieces are disparate, ill-fitting, they contain more than their original sculpture, those icons and sacred vessels taken for granted on their ancestral places. Antillean art is this restoration of our shattered histories, our shards of vocabulary, our archipelago becoming a synonym for pieces broken off from the original continent."

This reassembling of the African, Asiatic and European fragments forms the basis not only of Antillean art but of our very civilization itself which is at once shaped and yet evolving. And our Caribbean civilization, like all civilizations, has been built on labour, the producers, and the contours of the society fashioned by the social organization of labour. Our civilization, metaphorically, has emerged as containing the songs of the Caribs, Arawaks and Amerindians, the rhythm of Africa, the chords of Asia, the melody of Europe and the lyrics of the Caribbean itself.

That our Caribbean, viewed as a whole, constitutes, a civilization can be gauged from the following characteristics:

(1) Geographical and physical, environmental factors of the archipelago;

(2) A shared history of European conquest, settlement, exploitation, colonialism and empire;

(3) A population mix derived from indigenous peoples, Anglo-Saxons, Africans, Portuguese, Asians, Arabs and Jews;

(4) A core of shared political values adopted and adapted from Western Europe;

(5) A distinct cultural matrix fashioned substantially by, and from, the cultural milieu of Africa, Europe and Asia but with home-grown evolutions or developments;

(6) European languages spoken and written with distinctive Caribbean nuances, flair and usages;

(7) A productive and technological apparatus, though still developing and problematic, which sustains the Caribbean's social, economic and political viability; and

(8) A permanence of being which goes beyond energy, will and creative power which itself is reflected, in part, in an existential connection, not easily definable, but which exists, between Caribbean peoples individually and collectively.

A civilization is not to be assessed merely through the outstanding achievements of individuals within it. But clearly an abundance of individual excellence in various fields of human endeavour is an indicator of the progress of a civilization. In our Caribbean we can point to high achievers aplenty. I need not present a roll call of them here for you to know the truth of this assertion.

The true measure of our civilization lies in the community and the solidarity of the people as a whole in the process of nation building:

• the ordinary workers in agriculture, industry, fisheries and tourism;
• the professionalism and extra efforts of public servants, health personnel, educators, police officers and social workers;
• the collective spirit and endeavours of the youths in tackling community problems;
• the day-to-day travails of women in keeping their families together and guiding their off-spring;
• the struggles of the poor in addressing housing needs, with or without state aid;
• the daily grind of ordinary folk in their quest for greater democratic controls on the state administration and for justice;
• the splendid dominance of the West Indies cricket team and the Cuban baseball squad for nearly twenty years in their respective sports internationally;
• the fifty years of tertiary education provided so far by the University of the West Indies and the two hundred and seventy years of similar work by the University of Havana;
• the twenty years of achievement by the OECS
• the thirty-three years of trading efforts in CARIFTA and CARICOM;
• the heroic battles of the Cuban people in defence of their sovereignty and national independence;
• the striving of our sportsmen, sportswomen, professionals, peasants and workers for excellence;
• the building of friendships internationally between peoples and nations; and
• the collective actions of our peoples in the arts, culture, production, architecture, law, religion, politics and sports.

All these endeavors, and more, of the civilized whole ennoble us. Contrary actions diminish our civilization.

In this new initiative towards a deeper political integration of our sub-Region, or indeed of the larger Region, the ordinary real flesh-and-blood human beings on our lands and seas must agitate for it. And it is the so-called ordinary people who possess the folk wisdom and the energy and will sufficient to sustain the momentum towards a political union. Leadership is undoubtedly critical to the process and it must be certain, unwavering in its quest to achieve a political union. But I will stand or fall by the people's efforts or lack thereof.

As I speak I can see the cynics in academia, politics, the media and business banging on their ancient type-writers or tapping on their modern lap-tops ready with their standard fare of negativism and pessimism about how this or that Regional venture or initiative is unworkable. I ask them to look deeply into their souls and touch their Caribbean essence. I plead with them to reflect carefully on the increasing marginalisation of the Region as separate units and these countries' descent into a structural condition of irrelevance.

Equally, I summon the mass of ordinary people in the OECS and the wider Caribbean to push "the unity" agenda. I call on the trade unions, business groups, community organizations, farmers and youth groupings, political parties and every other organization in civil society to demand that their political leaders take a series of practical steps to establish, as soon as is humanly possible in the circumstances, a confederal political union, at a minimum. Civil society must take the lead. I urge the people of the Region to take their destiny into their hands on this question which is so vital to their progress. Time is not on our side; we cannot procrastinate any further. I repeat: If we do not build a political union on our terms in our interest, others will do so for us on their terms. That is the inescapable choice facing us. And I say so not of simple emotion or mere passion but on a true reflection of our Region's condition.

In the OECS I feel sure that the political leaderships are now ready to move on the matter if pushed by the people. The Region is blessed with a fine crop of leaders both in government and opposition. To be sure, each of us possesses weaknesses and limitations but everyone of us has some merit or distinction. And we ought not to permit worthy competitive politics to blind us to this fact.

So, the people in communion with their leaders could get "the unity" show on the road. And I so urge. I pledge to you that I will play my part to the fullest. On this matter I have a child-like faith and trust which knows not even pain nor death. I am hopeful that this the 20^th anniversary of the OECS would be the event that would spark a re-ignition of the flame of the quest towards a political union.