Pan-Caribbean Perspective: Colonialism,

Resistance and Reconfiguration

Norman Girvan1

Introduction: definition and scope

In its widest conception, the Caribbean has been said to stretch from the
Northeast of Brazil through most of Middle America and the Antilles to the
South of the United States 2 . In this zone of the Americas, plantation
economy was the dominant mode of colonial-capitalist exploitation, and this
defined the contours of economic, demographic, social, political and cultural
development of the societies that emerged; giving them a form more or less
distinctive from those established in the other parts of the Americas. The
Caribbean Plantation School thus inserted into the intellectual consciousness
of the Anglophone Caribbean, a sense of organic linkage between our
experience and that of the Brazilian people. During the 1960s the work of
these Caribbean scholars drew many insights from the work of the famous
Brazilian economist, Celso Furtado, on the underdevelopment of the
Brazilian northeast and on economic dependency.

1
Revised version of a paper presented at a Seminar on The Caribbean, Strategic Zone in the Americas;
in the series Bolivarian Journeys of the Institute of Latin American Studies (IELA) of the Federal
2
Lloyd Best, Independent Thought and Caribbean Freedom, in Norman Girvan and Owen Jefferson
(eds.) Readings In The Political Economy Of The Caribbean. Mona: New World Group,p.7 (Original in New
World Quarterly, Vol. 3 No.4 1967)

1
Table 1 MANY CARIBBEANS
The Antilles/The Archipelago Islands from the Bahamas to Trinidad
The Caribbean Region Islands plus the three Guianas and Belize
The Caribbean Cultural Zone Caribbean Region plus Caribbean coastal
communities of South and Central America
The Greater Caribbean/El The Circum-Caribbean or Caribbean Basin:
Gran Caribe Caribbean Region plus Mexico, Central America,
Panama, Colombia and Venezuela
The Caribbean World The Caribbean Region and the Caribbean Diaspora
in surrounding areas and in the rest of the world
The Caribbean as Plantation Northeast Brazil, Middle America and the South of
America the United States

Even in a more restrictive sense, there are several conceptions/definitions of

the Caribbean. UNESCOs General History of the Caribbean sees it as region

encompassing not only the islands but also the coastal part of South
America, from Colombia to the Guyanas and the riverine zones of Central
America, in so far as these parts of the mainland were the homes of people
engaged from time to time in activities which linked their lives with people of
the islandsDespite the variety of languages and customs resulting from the
convergence thereby choice or constraintof peoples of diverse cultures,
the Caribbean has many cultural commonalities deriving from the shared
history and experience of its inhabitants3.

This definition, which is rooted in ethno-cultural characteristics, is widely

shared by historians and cultural scholars. From a geo-political viewpoint, it
posits the Caribbean as including parts of the surrounding mainland
countries, but not necessarily these countries in their entirety. Hence, the

3
Federico Mayor, UNESCO General History of the Caribbean. Vol, I, p.v.

2
entire bloc of countries in and around the Sea is often distinguished by
reference to El Gran Caribe, or Greater Caribbean. On the other hand, the
growing importance of the Caribbean Diaspora in metropolitan centres of the
developed countries, has led scholars to treat Diaspora communities as
integral parts of a Caribbean that is not circumscribed by political and
geographic boundaries: the Caribbean world, so to speak.

A major difficulty in using some of these definitions is that socio-economic

data, and polities, are organised according to political boundaries. In the
light of the aims of this Bolivarian Journeys seminar, I have decided to limit
the discussion in this paper to the Caribbean region. This is the group of
states and dependent territories which comprises the entire archipelago;
together with four closely related countries on the Central and South
American mainland 4 . To incorporate the entire Greater Caribbean in the
analysis would seriously distort the picture; by including countries that are
vastly different from those in the archipelago in size and many other
characteristics.

4
Belize, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. The first three are members of the Caribbean
Community; the last is a French Overseas Department, like Martinique and Guadeloupe.

3
4
Table 2 The Caribbean Region: Political Fragmentation
No. Population Per cent (%)

INDEPENDENT STATES 16 38,059,037 87.7

CARICOM (Caribbean Community) 14 16,873,738 38.9

NON-INDEPENDENT ENTITIES 22 5,327,678 12.3

France 8 1,079,273 2.5

Netherlands 6 286,046 0.7

United Kingdom 5 147,057 0.3

United States 3 3,815,302 8.8

TOTAL 38 43,386,715 100.0

Source: author, based on various sources

Table 3 The Caribbean Region : Linguistic Diversity

Language
No. Entities Population % Population
Dutch
7 810,682 1.9
English
19 6,611,524 15.2
French
9 11,072,520 25.5
Spanish1
3 24,891,989 57.4
Total
38 43,386,715 100.0
Kreyol2
5 11,032,734 25.4
Papiamentu3
6 286,046 0.7
1. Includes Puerto Rico
2.Haiti, Dominica ,St Lucia, Martinique & Guadeloupe
3. Dutch non-independent entities
Source: author

5
Fragmentation and diversity

Perhaps the two most notable characteristics of the Caribbean region, when
compared with other sub-regions in the hemisphere, are its political
fragmentation and linguistic diversity. With an aggregate population of
around 44 million, there are 38 identifiable polities; four colonial powers;
and at least four official languages (Tables 2 and 3 5 ). This is a direct
consequence of the role of the Caribbean as an area of rivalry among the
leading metropolitan powers, during the era of colonial expansion in the
Americas. Due to its strategic location astride shipping routes; the large
number of islands, islets and cays; and the availability of abundant water
and fertile land; the islands were coveted, first as naval bases and pirate
hangouts, and subsequently as colonies for the cultivation of tropical
products fetching high prices in Europe. After the initial Spanish incursions
in the 16th century; France, Britain, the Netherlands and Denmark all got
into the act in the 17th and 18th; seizing parts of the Greater Antilles and all
of the Lesser Antilles; and occupying the Guianas. During this period several
islands and mainland colonies changed ownership several times.

In the 20th century the United States entered the picture, displacing Spain in
Cuba and Puerto Rico and acquiring the Danish Virgin Islands. Even today,
the Caribbean is the only part of the Americas (save for the Malvinas) where
there remains a strong presence of colonial powers. Fragmentation has
continued into the modern era, as federal groupings organised by the

5
A variety of Creole languages is also spoken such as Papiamentu, Kreyol, Patois, Srinamtongue, Spanglish
and Jamaican Creole.

6
colonial powers have split apart due to distrust of distant administrations
and the desire for autonomy of locally elected officials6.

The inevitable consequence of fragmentation is the small size of individual

Caribbean jurisdictions. Only six countries have populations of over one
million; 32 other polities have less than one million people each; 16 have
less than 100,000. Constitutional forms include republics, dominions within
the (British) Commonwealth, Free Associated State, Overseas Territories,
Status Aparte, Departments d'outre-mer and Collectivities. Political systems
range from British-type parliamentary systems to U.S.-type presidential
systems and one-party socialist state; and a variety of locally elected
administrations, such as the Regional Councils of metropolitan France.
Hence, these societies bear the imprint of four different colonial systems in
their language, laws, customs and political institutions. Such differences
have enormously complicated the dream of bringing the disparate polities of
the region together into some kind of political association or union.

Ethnicity and culture

The Caribbean has been described as a unique experiment in human history

where ethnicities from every major region on earth have been brought
together7. The original peopleCaribs and Tainos-- were almost all killed off

6
In 1961 the West Indies Federation of 10 British territories broke apart; nine members eventually
becoming independent countries. In the 1970s the island of Anguilla (5,000 people) seceded from the
Federation of St Kitts/Nevis/Anguilla. In 2010 the five-country Federation of the Netherlands Antilles
broke up: two countries becoming autonomous entities within the Kingdom of the Netherlands and
three others became municipalities of the Netherlands.
7
George Lamming, Coming, Coming Home. S.t Martin: House of Nehesi Publishers, 1995:
25; GRACIELA CHAILLOUX LAFFITA, EL GRAN CARIBE: ARQUETIPO DE LA DIVERSIDAD HUMANA 2011.

7
by the European occupation; European settlers were displaced or
supplemented by enslaved Africans; the abolition of slavery saw the
introduction of contract labour from India, China and Java; Jewish and
Lebanese people sought refuge in the islands. In more recent times, intra-
Caribbean migration has responded to the ebb and flow of capitalist decline
and development. While the English, French and Dutch speaking islands are
peopled mostly by African descendants; Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and
Suriname have multi-ethnic populations where Asian Indian descendants are
in the majority or are the largest single group; while the Spanish-speaking
islands are primarily white Hispanic, Mulatto and Black. Significant
populations of original peoples remain in Guyana, Suriname and Belize; with
smaller numbers in some of the islands.

If the African presence is the connecting thread of Caribbean society;

creolisation is the glue. Nettlefords insight of Jamaica as having the melody
of Europe with the rhythm of Africa 8 could be applied to most of the
Caribbean. In Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Suriname, we would add
the rituals and rhythm of India, both Hindu and Muslim; and there are
myriad local variations of this theme according to the particular configuration
of ethnicity and colonial presences.

Yet the Caribbean is certainly not one big multi-ethnic party. In these
societies ethnicity and skin colour are highly correlated with class, income,
social privilege and economic power. In many, a light-skinned minority is at
the top with a Black or darker-skinned majority in the middle and at the
bottom. This profile has been modified by political, social and economic

8
Chapter in Rex Nettleford, Mirror Mirror: Identity, Race and Protest in Jamaica. London: Collins, 1970.

8
developments in the past 50 years; but it has not been transformed. In the
predominantly multi-ethnicAfrican and Asian-descendantcountries,
ethnically based political parties contest each other for control of the state
and for the means of patronage that this brings; contributing to underlying
tensions in race relations.

Uneven development.

In the 17th and 18th centuries the sugar colonies of the Caribbean were
among the richest places on earth, more highly valued than the North
American colonies. The profits enriched capitalists in Britain, France and
Holland; and stimulated shipbuilding and other industries supplying the
Triangular Trade. Very little was invested in economic diversification,
infrastructure, industrial development and educating the population. Hence
after slavery was abolished and the plantations became unprofitable, the
sugar colonies went into decline. Economic growth in Caribbean countries
occurs only when new resource-based exports in metropolitan demand
emerge to fill the void left by the decline of sugar. These have included oil,
bauxite, tourism and off-shore financial services. These new export
industries go through their own cycles of growth and decline; but they have
proven incapable of imparting an independent growth dynamic to Caribbean
economies.

As a result the present-day Caribbean is one of the regions in the world with
the greatest extremes of uneven development. About 4 per cent of the
population live in places where the average per capita income is over
$20,000 (Table 4). All but one of these are small colonial territories that
receive relatively large financial transfers from the metropolitan powers;

9
most also rely heavily on tourism; and several are off-shore financial
centres. Approximately 15 per cent of the population live in countries where
the average income is $10,000--20,000 per capita. In this group we also
find dependent territories receiving metropolitan aid; tourism economies;
off-shore financial centres; and the regions sole energy-exporter.

Table 4 Annual Per Capita Income, 29 Caribbean Polities *

No. of Polities Population
Under $10,000 11 35,960,252
$10,000-20,000 9 5,667,139
20,000+ 9 1,731,469
Total 291 43,358,860
* Data not available for 9 small dependent polities. Latest year available data.
Source: author, based on various sources.

About 60 per cent of Caribbean people live in larger countries where the
average per capita income is in the 1000--$10,000 range. While tourism is
important here, a large part of the population tends to be engaged in
occupations providing lower incomes, such as agriculture and other services.
Finally there is Haiti, a country where the average income is less than $700
average per capita and the vast majority live in acute poverty. Haiti was
severely punished by the imperial powers for its Revolution in which the
enslaved Africans freed themselves and declared their country independent.
Haitians were coerced by France into paying an independence debt which
lasted throughout most of the 19th century and into the first half of the 20th;
this crippled its public finances and made economic development virtually

10
impossible9. Foreign intervention, often in alliance with predatory local elites,
continued in the 20th century and to this very day10.

Uneven development is also shown by the ranking of Caribbean countries in

the global human development tables (Table 5), which ranges from 47th in
the world (Barbados) to 148th (Haiti). Cuba is an outstanding performer in
human development. Cuba has been subjected to an illegal and inhuman
blockade by the United States, hitherto its largest trading partner; for over
half a century; the cumulative cost is well over Cubas annual GDP. But
although Cuba ranks 103rd in the world in per capita income, it ranks 51st in
the world in human development, outperforming the majority of developing
countries and most of its Caribbean neighbours that have higher average
income. Cubas excellent health care and education are what make the
difference.

Table 5 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT LEVEL, 16 CARIBBEAN COUNTRIES*

No. of countries Population
Very High 0 0
High 12 16,859,341
Medium 3 11,206,449
Low 1 9,993,247
Total 16 38,059,037
*Independent countries only. Source: UNDP Human Development Report 2011

9
For a summary, see Hilary Beckles, Haiti: The Hate and the Quake, http://www.normangirvan.info/beckles-
hate-quake/
10
For a recent, post-1990 and post-earthquake treatment of this see Peter Hallward, Exploiting Disaster,
http://www.normangirvan.info/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/hallward-haiti-2010-exploiting-disaster-23-sept-
2010.pdf

11
Tourism

The majority of Caribbean countries now have tourism as their single largest
source of foreign earnings; and the Caribbean region has been classified as
the most tourism-dependent region in the world11. But many people in the
Caribbean view tourism as a mixed blessing. Among its social and economic
pathologies are: resorts often operate as enclaves that buy little from the
local economy; prostitution; exposure of local people to artificial and
unsustainable life styles; environmental degradation; and alienation of
recreational and fishing beaches from the local population.

Dependency

Caribbean economies are amongst the most open and trade-dependent in

the world. But trade preferences for agricultural and manufactured exports
have been dismantled under WTO rules or eroded as a result of NAFTA,
CAFTA and other FTAs. CARICOM countries and the Dominican Republic
signed on to a Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union
in 2008; which will require them to carry out further liberalisation of trade,
services and investment and will institutionalise a relationship of
asymmetrical power with the EU. CARICOM economies have been said to be
among the most highly indebted emerging market economies in the world:
the debt/GDP ratio of CARICOM countries is significantly higher than for the
rest of the countries in the Latin American and Caribbean region12. Most are
also acutely energy-dependent; all are food-import dependent. Caribbean

11
UNDP Caribbean Human Development Report 2012 p. 15. Source WTTC (2011)
http://www.wttc.org/research/economic-imapct-research/regional-reports/caribbean. Tourism
accounts for 25 percent of all foreign exchange earnings, 20 percent of all jobs, and between 20 and 25
percent of the total economy of the Caribbean.
12
79 per cent for CARICOM compared to 30 per cent for the rest of Latin America, in 2010. Based on ECLAC data.

12
economies were more severely affected by the global crisis of 2008-2009
than the rest of the LAC region, and recovered less; because of the fall-off in
tourism, remittances and commodity exports 13 . Three CARICOM countries
were forced to turn to IMF borrowing with the usual conditionalities in deficit
reduction, expenditure cuts, tax increases and IMF supervision.

Dependency is also cultural, intellectual and psychological. Centuries of

colonial brainwashing and colonial education, small size and the absence of
critical intellectual mass have combined to produce a situation where
Caribbean countries, import their ideas, theories, world views and even their
ideas about themselves and their societies14. This is the most difficult aspect
of the colonial legacy to throw off and it is an on-going struggle in the
Caribbean.

Migration

Migration is a major factor in the economic and social life of the Caribbean.
Caribbean countries have lost between 10 and 40 percent of their labour
force 15 from emigration to the developed countries. Remittances from
migrants exceed inflows from foreign direct investment, economic aid, and
sometimes even earnings from tourism and agriculture. But the brain drain
is a big problem as many countries have lost more than 70 percent of their
labour force with more than 12 years of completed schoolingamong the

13
Norman Girvan, Turning to the South: CARICOM, the Southern Cone and ALBA. Unpub. MS, 2012, Figure 1.
Based on ECLAC data.
14
This view was advanced by the New World Group, an intellectual movement, mainly of the Anglophone
Caribbean, in the 1960s. See New World, No. 1, Georgetown (1963).
15 Prachi Misra, Emigration and Brain Drain: Evidence From the Caribbean,
www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2006/wp0625.pdf IMF Working Paper 06/25. 2006. Abstract.

13
highest emigration rates in the world16. The chief causes of emigration are
proximity to metropolitan centres where substantially higher salaries can be
earned; linguistic affinity; superior social and public services in metropolitan
centres; absence of opportunity at home; social and economic inequality and
limited social mobility at home; and escalating crime within these countries.
In spite of the return flow of remittances, migration imposes a heavy cost on
Caribbean countries in the loss of investment in education and training,
scarcities of teachers, nurses, doctors, engineers and skilled artisans, loss of
output, and depletion of the leadership cadre in for driving economic, social
and political change.

Table 6 Migration Rates Of The Tertiary Educated, 1990

Dominican Republic 14.2
Jamaica 67.3
Trinidad and Tobago 57.2
Guyana 77.3
Source: Keith Nurse, Diaspora, Migration and Development in the Caribbean, FOCAL Policy Paper, FPP-04-06.

Transnational crime

The Caribbeans location astride the main trafficking routes from South to
North America and to Europe has served as a magnet for transnational
criminal organisations which pay local drug lords in top dollars and guns to
handle and protect transhipment activities. Local drug lords move into to fill
the vacuum in social and community services created by fiscal cut-backs
associated with structural adjustment programmes. They can corrupt
elements in the local police, army, judiciary and political class and hence can
operate with impunity. These have become major issues in several of the

16 Ibid.

14
larger countries in the region. Citizen surveys show that personal security is
now a leading source of concern and anxiety among citizens in many
countries17. Jamaicas high per capita homicide rate of approximately 50 per
100,000 ranks that country as one of the most violent countries worldwide.
Trinidad and Tobagos homicide rate recently peaked at 40 per 100,000;
while St Lucia, Guyana and Antigua and Barbuda are also around the 20 per
1000,000 mark18.

Resistance, revolution, creation and affirmation

The Caribbean has been the home of violent uprisings against brutality,
exploitation and colonial domination. The slave societies of the 17th and 18th
centuries were wracked by frequent rebellions, strikes and marronage in the
English, Dutch and French sugar colonies, culminating in the successful Saint
Domingue Revolution of 1794-1804; which gave rise to Haiti and pre-
datedand materially supported--the Bolivarian Wars of Independence. In
the 19th centuries there were the Cuban and Puerto Rican independence
struggles. Pan-Africanism emerged in the Anglophone Caribbean as a
reaction to the carving up of the African continent and racial discrimination
at home. In the 1930s there were widespread strikes and labour protests all
over the English speaking Caribbean, formation of labour unions and the
national independence movements. The Triumph of the Cuban Revolution in
1959 consolidated the struggle for self-determination and social justice in
the Caribbean. In the 1960s-1970s there were renewed protest movements
in the English-speaking Caribbean under the banner of Black Power. For a
while Michael Manleys Democratic Socialism in Jamaica seemed to offer a
path to sovereignty and social reform; but this experiment was destabilised

17
UNDP, Caribbean Human Development Report, 2012. Chapter 1, esp. pp. 36-37.
18
UNDP, Loc. Cit., Chart 1.4, p. 21

15
by foreign and local reactionary elements and ended prematurely in 1980;
while in Guyana, Forbes Burnhams Cooperative Socialism degenerated
into corrupt authoritarian rule. Sadly, the Grenadian Revolution of 1979
ended tragically in 1983 as a result of murderous in-fighting. Political
parties in most of the Caribbean today more or less operate within the
neoliberal status quo.

The region has produced heroic figures like Nanny of the Maroons, Bussa, ,
Boukman, Toussaint LOuverture, Dessalines, Bogle, De Cespedes, Marti,
Maceo, Garvey, Butler, Castro and Bishop, to name only some; and
influential political thinkers like C.L.R. James and Aime Cesaire. The quest
for self-realisation, self-affirmation, human dignity and personhood against
the seemingly overwhelming odds of slavery, indentured servitude, racism,
colonialism, imperialism and class oppression have produced great works of
literature, dance, music, sport, scholarship and language as creative
expressions of Caribbean people. Arthur Lewis, Derek Walcott and V.S.
Naipaul, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez; Nobel Laureates all; are products of
the Caribbean; as are the writers Edouard Glissant, Nicolas Guillen and Jean
Price-Mars; singer Bob Marley and many others.

Integration

Discerning thinkers in the Caribbean have long called for regional integration
of the islands as a means of overcoming the limitations of small size and of
securing greater autonomy vis-a-vis larger countries. During the 19th
century the British colonial government promoted federations of its
territories in the eastern Caribbean as a means of effecting economies in
colonial administration; but none of these endured. The Dutch did the same

16
with the Federation of the Netherlands Antilles, which finally fell apart in
2010. In the Anglophone Caribbean, the latest attempt of this kind was the
West Indies Federation (1958-1962), which grouped together ten island
territories. Nationalist politicians saw federation as a route to national
independence. The federation broke apart due to disagreements over
taxation, distribution of the financial burden, freedom of movement, and
division of powers between the federal centre and the individual units. In
brief, the emergent national political elites, tasting political power for the
first time, could not agree among themselves on how much to delegate to
the federal centre.

Yet proof that integration remains an imperative is shown by the continual

attempts to forge an economic association among the formerly federated
islands and beyond. Anglophone countries set up the Caribbean Free Trade
Association (CARIFTA) in 1967, followed by the Caribbean Community and
Common Market (CARICOM) in 1973. Suriname joined CARICOM in 1995
and Haiti In 2002, transforming the Community into a multi-linguistic
grouping. In 2002 CARICOM approved a Revised Treaty to set up a Single
Market and Economy (CSME). These attempts at regional economic
integration have yielded only modest results. CARICOM Intra-regional trade
is just 15 percent of its total foreign trade; over 80 percent of this trade
originates with the exports of Trinidad and Tobago, Caricoms most
industrially advanced state. Intra-regional investment is also small and
confined mainly to the activities of financial firms based in two or three
countries. The narrow production base and international orientation of
CARICOM economies markets limit the gains to be had from market
integration through trade creation.

17
CARICOMs project to create a Single Market and Economy is incomplete; in
recent years implementation has come to a virtual standstill. Member
countries probably perceive few economic benefits by comparison with the
substantial costs of implementation in terms of personnel, legislation,
institutions and regulations. CARICOM has registered much greater success
in functional cooperation in areas such as education, health, disaster
management and security. At the same time, these programmes rely heavily
on donor funding from outside the region. CARICOM also plays a useful role
as interlocutor with extra-regional powers through its foreign policy
coordination; although member states jealously guard their sovereign rights.
CARICOM is generally perceived to be in crisis, due to persistent failures to
implement decisions taken by the Conference of Heads of Governmentthe
so-called implementation deficit. Governance of the Community needs to be
thoroughly reformed to provide a legal basis for decisions by CARICOM
organssupranationalitysupported by an executive machinery to ensure
implementation. But member states have so far been reluctant to move in
this direction.

CARICOMS growing Latin American and Caribbean vocation

Only 13 percent of the foreign trade of CARICOMs with Latin America.

Nevertheless, since attaining political independence the Anglophone
Caribbean has been gradually discovering a broader Caribbean and Latin
American vocation. In the 1960s the New World Group, an intellectual
movement based largely in the University of the West Indies, promoted a
Pan-Caribbean consciousness grounded in common history and the
experience of plantation economy. Attempts to promote a Pan-Caribbean
economic integration group date back to 1963, when Dr Eric Williams, Prime

18
Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, hosted a meeting of Caribbean countries
from all language areas to discuss a Caribbean Economic Community. In
1975 Dr Eric Williams promoted the setting up of Caribbean Development
and Cooperation Committee (CDCC) of ECLAC; which had all the
independent countries and the non-independent territories as members.
However, it would appear that CDCC functions mostly as a mechanism for
dialogue; and tangible results are modest.

In 1994 all 24 states of the Greater Caribbean agreed to set up the

Association of Caribbean States (ACS) as an organisation of cooperation,
consultation and concerted action. ACS focal areas are in trade, transport,
sustainable tourism and natural disasters. Results thus far have been
modest. Early hopes that there would be an ACS free trade area were
frustrated by the launch of the FTAA negotiations; and have not been
revived. The ACS has established inter-governmental cooperation
agreements in the Sustainable Tourism Zone of the Caribbean, Air Transport
and Disaster Management; and hosts the Caribbean Sea Commission for
promoting international recognition of the Caribbean Sea as a special area
for sustainable development.

Nonetheless, solid results are being recorded from CARICOM-Third Party and
in bilateral relations. Francophone Haiti and Dutch-speaking Suriname are
now members of the Community. CARICOM has made free trade agreements
with the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Colombia; and a trade and
economic cooperation agreement with Cuba. Cuban technical cooperation is
extensive: hundreds of Cuban doctors, nurses and teachers serve in
CARICOM countries and hundreds of CARICOM students are on scholarship in
Cuba. Petrocaribe and ALBA have had a huge impact in relieving the

19
pressure of high oil prices and in providing financial support for oil refining
facilities, economic infrastructure and high-impact social assistance projects.
12 of CARICOMs 14 member states are members of Petrocaribe; three are
members of ALBA and two others have declared their intention to join.
Financial cooperation runs into hundreds of millions of dollars.

Two CARICOM countries (Guyana and Suriname) are founding members of

UNASUR and are participating in IIRSA; Guyana has hosted one UNASUR
summit. Belize is a member of the Central American Integration System
(SICA). All CARICOM states attended the first summit of Latin American and
Caribbean states hosted by Brazil in 2008 and the Mexico summit of 2010
and all are founding members of CELAC, attending its inaugural summit in
Caracas in 2011. Trinidad and Tobago, a CARICOM member, hosted the
Summit of Americas in 2009.

Besides Venezuela and Cuba, the other Latin American country with a strong
projection in CARICOM is Brazil. In 2010 the first Brazil-CARICOM summit
was held. 21 cooperation agreements have been signed, providing covering
62 projectsi in agriculture, climate change, education and culture, health,
energy, civil defence, tourism, financing, transport and trade 19 . Most of
Brazils trade with CARICOM is with Trinidad and Tobago, CARICOMs largest
economy; exporting iron ore agglomerate, crude petroleum, plywood and
tobacco and importing petroleum and petrochemical products and Liquefied
Natural Gas (LNG). With Jamaica, Brazil has a joint venture for the
production of ethanol and has provided technical assistance in the sugar
industry. With CARICOMs smaller members it has a variety of cooperation

19
Details on these and other aspects of CARICOM-Brazil relations and CARICOM-ALBA relations in Norman Girvan,
Turning to the South: CARICOM, the Southern Cone and ALBA. Unpub. MS, 2012..

20
programmes featuring mainly scholarships and other kinds of training and
agriculture. Brazil is the main provider of troops to the UN Mission in Haiti
(MINUSTAH) and was one of the largest donors for disaster relief after the
January 2010 earthquake.

Brazil has common borders with Guyana and Suriname and has military
cooperation programmes with both countries for combating drug trafficking
and improving border security. Brazilian-driven IIRSA projects will link the
road systems of the two countries with Brazil, with each other, and with
Venezuela and French Guiana to the east. Hydroelectric development is also
planned. When completed, these projects will reduce the time and cost of
shipments to the south Atlantic from the Brazilian Amazon, and lay the
foundation for greatly expanded trade and investment links among the five
countries. Hence the two CARICOM countries on the South American
mainland could be drawn into a northern South American economic zone
dominated by Brazil and Venezuela. Speculatively, the two countries also
serve as a bridge between CARICOM island countries and South America,
helping to diversify CARICOM and opening up new opportunities in trade,
tourism and investment.

Looking forward

The colonial legacy has resulted in a Caribbean that is divided within itself
and from the kind of linkages with South and Central America that normally
occur with geographical proximity. But this is changing. Across the
Caribbean space, the impetus for integration has been largely driven by
intellectuals and cultural workers who have emphasised commonality of
historical experience and cultural responses originating with the African

21
presence and resistance, rebellion, revolution and affirmation. The
momentum is growing; but it needs to be extended to the east and south of
the hemisphere. It needs to be emphasised that the Caribbean is not an
appendage of Latin America, but is rather an integral part of the American
experience; replacing the fragmented notion of Latin America and the
Caribbean with the integral conception of Our America Martis term. To
this end we need people to people exchange, student exchanges, tourism,
cultural exchange and educational cooperation. Language is a barrier, but it
can be overcome. More powerful are the barriers of the mindof
preconceptions, prejudices and preferences based on colonial-metropolitan
thinking.

The drive towards the unity, independence and self-determination of Latin

America and the Caribbean that has gathered force over the past 10-25
years is now unstoppable. The results of the V and VI Summits of the
Americas of 2009 and 2012 confirmed the emergence of Our America from
under Washingtons shadow. Governments, irrespective of their ideological
complexion, were firm in taking an independent position from that of the
United States, on Cuba and on the drugs problem. This has had a notable
impact on the development of relations between archipelago and mainland;
and between speakers of English, Spanish and Portuguese. UNASUR, ALBA
and CELAC have opened new spaces for trade, financial and technical
cooperation and political relations for the independent states of the
Caribbean. These will undoubtedly continue to grow and flourish. The
academic community has an important role to play, by means of expanded
collaboration and exchange.

June 28, 2012

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