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Washington, March 25, 2003: Let me begin by thanking the Director of the Center For Hemispheric and Defense Studies (CHDS), Dr. Margaret Daley-Hayes, and Professor Dr. Thomaz Costa for this kind invitation. I am never unaware of the small size of my country and thus consider this invitation to be a signal honour for Antigua and Barbuda. I thank Dr. Costa for his generous introduction.
METHODOLOGY: I will proceed with my topic in the following manner. First, I will undertake an accounting of the inter-agency and international coordinating security mechanisms that bring the countries of the Caribbean into contact with the other countries of the Americas. Although Dr. Costa and I agreed that I would examine "security coordination among the countries of The Americas", I am compelled by limitations of knowledge and time to focus only upon those institutions wherein the interests of the Caribbean and of the other countries of the Americas intersect. In other words, we will examine only those institutions and mechanisms that are common to The Americas and the Caribbean.
Then, I will relate the strategy adopted by the Caribbean countries to maximize the benefits of their membership while playing a constructive, even a leadership role within those institutions. This approach will allow for an evaluation of the outcomes.
I will then close by looking to the future. To the extent that I can reasonably extrapolate from today's events the need for, or the likely creation of, new mechanisms and institutions, I will dare to speculate about the future. I can give you a foretaste by telling you this much. Given the willingness of the USA to resort to the use of force in a post-September-11-world, and when small states, once deemed peripheral to the functioning of the world power system, can frustrate the attempt of the lone super-power to exert its will over its brainchild -the United Nations- then, democracy among states has now become a reality, made so by democracy within states. I will explain this further.
AN ACCOUNTING OF THE INSTITUTIONS:
The Organization of the American States (OAS) and the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) are the two pre-eminent institutions that serve the function of bringing the Caribbean and the Americas together. The OAS, described in its Charter as an agency of the United Nations, is the premier institution, and its Committee on Hemispheric Security is the mechanism that allows it to address the challenges which principally concern you during the course at CHDS. The Association of Caribbean States is an idea that is still being designed. The third institution which brings the Caribbean and the Americas together is the United Nations. Its regional sub-group, the GRULAC, is its greatest expression of this collaboration and competition.
THE OAS: When Canada became a member of the OAS in 1991, it brought to bear its considerable moral authority and goodwill on the creation of the OAS Committee on Hemispheric Security. The Committee's purpose was and is to provide a forum for the examination of the security concerns of the states of the hemisphere and to make such recommendations as are deemed appropriate. Article 2.a. of the OAS Charter proclaims that one of the essential purposes of the OAS is "to strengthen peace and security" among the countries of the hemisphere.
The OAS, as you are aware, holds a three-day General Assembly once per year, which the Charter deems its highest organ. It is usually led by the Foreign Ministers of the 34 member-states. When the Assembly adjourns, the authority to make decisions is vested in a Permanent Council of Ambassadors, which meets twice per month. That Permanent Council has spawned four Committees: The Administrative and Budgetary Committee; the Juridical and Political Committee; the Meetings and Conferences Committee; and the Committee on Hemispheric Security. These committees each meet, on average, once per week. CUBA AND THE OAS: Bear in mind that Cuba is absent from the OAS, and the USA is absent from the ACS. The USA is absent from the ACS because Cuba is included; and Cuba is absent from the OAS providing the USA does not wish it included. Let me tell you how and why. Many of you may already know that during the "Cuban Missile Crisis" of 1962, the USA sought and was successful in having Cuba suspended from the OAS. In 1962, the great majority of states in Latin America were led by dictatorships.
It is easier for a democracy to compel a desired outcome, or have its way, with a dictatorship than with another democracy, regardless of the differences in size.
Notice the great fight within the UN Security Council two weeks ago to get Mexico and Chile to vote in favor of a resolution that would authorize the use of force. Public opinion in Chile and Mexico, I dare surmise, would not permit their governments to vote in favor of such a resolution, and so states that were once considered mere vassals of the USA had to turn down the US request for a "yes" vote on a resolution that was deemed exceedingly important to the USA. In 1962, only Mexico resisted the USA; every other Latin American and the (then) two Caribbean states-members of the OAS capitulated and Cuba was suspended. In 2003, the Governments of Mexico and Chile, aware of the cost that they would bear if they satisfied the US request, were sufficiently emboldened by democracy within their borders to resist the USA. It was a remarkable moment in the conquest of democracy.
Let me lend another explanation for the 1962 outcome. The Headquarters of the OAS is not only based here in Washington, but the budget of the OAS is a lopsided affair. Six countries meet 95% of the US $76 million dollar budget, and the USA pays 60% of that amount. Caribbean countries, Central American countries and several of our poor brethren from South America, twenty-eight altogether today, contribute the remaining 5%. It was the same in 1962. Influence and power are commodities that are bought with material resources, within institutions. Whenever the distribution of financial obligations are lopsided, the influence quotient follows the same gradient.
Antigua and Barbuda's annual contribution is about US $25,000; the USA's contribution exceeds US $42 millions. We like to think that we make up for this paltry fiscal contribution by providing valuable leadership. Some say its megalomania. In my soon-to-be-published book: The Roaring Mouse, I argue that a small state can hit above its weight by using its superior moral platform -handed to us by our history- its diplomats' intelligence and sheer will to provide admired leadership in multilateral institutions.
So that when we read in the Washington papers that the overthrow of Chavez in Venezuela may have been orchestrated with help from powerful states, we objected loudly in a way that Brazil dared not. We were relying on our superior moral platform and our courage of conviction. When the USA denounced the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, we pounded our shoes on the desks of the UN, figuratively, in condemnation of such a dishonorable and dangerous act. The sheer will to survive and to prosper drives us to speak as though we were a powerful state.
The OAS remains the most important regional institution for bridging the gap between the countries of the Americas and the countries of the Caribbean.
THE ACS: The Association of Caribbean States is a more recent idea which was conceived among the CARICOM group of states. The English-speaking Caribbean countries desired an institution which reflected in name and composition the acronym that they had appropriated to themselves, by the 1973 Chaguaramas Treaty. That treaty created the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM). The ACS is the closest working mechanism for collaboration among all the countries that share the Caribbean Sea. All the independent CARICOM states, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, all of Central America and Panama are members. The Caribbean Sea touches their borders.
France is present, representing Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guyana. Holland is present, representing Curaco, Aruba and the Netherlands Antillees. Britain is present, representing the several English-speaking countries that remain non-independent territories. Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands are very much in the Caribbean but the US is not present, because of Cuba's presence. The Caribbean remains a theater for power politics.
I explain to audiences all the time that the Caribbean was the Middle East of the 17th, and 18th centuries. New weapons of war were tried out by powerful European states, in centuries past. During the three hundred years preceding the twentieth century, Europeans fought over sugar and slaves and territory. Whenever a product enjoys an enviable array of market forces, such that the supply can never satisfy the demand for it, states have demonstrated a willingness to go to war and to kill in order to ensure an advantageous supply. Oil can still be had in plentiful supply. But Iraq was so greedy that it invaded Kuwait in 1990 in an attempt to exercise greater control over the supply. That invasion could not stand.
The Association of Caribbean States attempts to preserve our Caribbean Sea as the valuable patrimony that it has turned out to be in an era of global tourism, international shipping lanes, Law of the Sea rights, and other benefits that are yet to be determined by future history.
THE UNITED NATIONS: A third institution where there is interaction and coordination among the countries of the Americas is The United Nations. When the UN was created in 1945, it had a membership of 51 states. Today, 191 member-states comprise its membership. For ease of management, the UN membership is divided among five regional groups.
The African Group of States is the largest and consists of 54 members. The Asian and Pacific Group is next, followed by the Latin American and Caribbean Group, the Western European and Other Group, and the Eastern European Group, in descending order of size. Canada and the US, though countries of the Americas, are members of the Western European and Other Group, as are Australia and New Zealand.
When the decision was being made to create regional blocs, back in 1962, following the first explosion of membership, all the white guys chose to stick together. The self-exclusion of the USA from the GRULAC has allowed for more substantive decision-making among the 34 states. Although there is still an asymmetrical distribution of size and wealth among the 34 states, the USA's absence has reduced significantly the tendency to discuss and decide on only peripheral issues, as allowed within the WEOG Group.
THE CARIBBEAN STRATEGY
We begin our discussion by agreeing to accept a basic premise. That premise is that the world is divided into two types of states: powerful and powerless. The small island-state which I represent -and which is somewhat characteristic of all Caribbean states- falls into the "powerless" category.
Power can be measured by the size of a country's military, the size of its economy, the role which it plays on the UN Security Council, or in international politics. I believe that all Caribbean states accept as a premise of their existence that they are "powerless".
Power is not to be confused with leverage. Though a state is powerless, it may nevertheless be able to exercise leverage in situations where the support of that state is required in order to achieve a specific purpose. Or, in instances where the moral authority of a disinterested state can yield a leadership role, a small state may exercise leverage which far exceeds its material and physical limitations. Caribbean states and their leadership have learned how to leverage sovereignty. This attempt to play a role in inter- state affairs, larger than a country's size would seemingly allow, is what can be labeled as "strategizing".
THE CARIBBEAN STRATEGY: How do Caribbean states formulate strategy so that they achieve ends which exceed the ability of any single Caribbean state to achieve on its own? In two words: they collaborate. The system by which collaboration occurs is found in the institutions which the states established. As I earlier remarked, the Caribbean States in 1973 established the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM). As the years passed, the states created several supporting institutions which have enabled the CARICOM to pool their sovereignty.
Powerful and medium-sized states, created before the anti-colonial struggle of the 1950s, see sovereignty, I would argue, in an old-fashioned way. CARICOM states view sovereignty through modern lenses. In my view, these youthful states have a pragmatic and utilitarian view of sovereignty and thus can strategize to trade-off pieces of that sovereignty in order to enhance their material well-being and to enlarge their standing in inter-state affairs.
The popular press and the artists from the region make out that Caribbean governments are a failure at cooperation and uniting. Nothing is further from the truth. In my view, Caribbean governments earn high marks for their collaborative efforts and joint achievements. When I served at the United Nations, before the fall of the Soviet Union, the US used to complain that the USSR had three votes in the General Assembly viz: Beylorussia, Ukraine and USSR. I once overheard another diplomat from the Eastern bloc remonstrating. "How could the US complain about the USSR's three? The USA had fifteen its own and fourteen from the countries of the Caribbean!"
Truth be told, we vote only 80% of the time with the USA at the UN. Israel votes 100% of the time with the USA, no matter the issue. Each year, the US State Department publishes a summary of voting trends at the UN. I am relying on the USA's own figures.
I tell this story to illuminate a fact. How a sub-region sees itself may not comport with the way in which others perceive that sub-region and hence how those others react to that sub-region. By collaborating in all forums where we find ourselves the OAS, The ACS, the UN, the Commonwealth- the CARICOM states have marketed the idea, unwittingly or deliberately, that they are a regional state.
THE REGIONAL STATE: In 1997, when I led my country's delegation to the OAS General Assembly in Lima, Peru, I unveiled this new idea of the regional state. It is almost a contradiction in terms, but it has become a chapter in my yet-to-be published book The Roaring Mouse. In a nutshell, a regional state can be said to exist when a group of sovereign and independent states agree to subordinate the rights of sovereignty of each in order to achieve a common good which is intended to strengthen the participating membership.
The six independent and sovereign countries of the OECS (Organization of East Caribbean States) and Montserrat are more a regional state than any other operating multi-state entity on the planet, I would assert.
The establishment in 1983 of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) which issues a single currency for all seven, is a working model of collaboration at its best.
The establishment of the Regional Security System (RSS) in 1983, when all six states, Barbados and Montserrat, agreed to pool their militaries and police in a defense and security experiment, surpassing NATO in the trust and confidence displayed by the treaty-members, is another example of collaboration at its highest. The naming of a single Ambassador in Ottawa and Brussels, and for a time in London, to represent all six states is a marvelous example of a regional state at work. The collective purchase and ownership, here in Washington and in London, of a single building much like a condominium- in which the OECS members' Embassies are housed, sharing costs and common spaces, and allowing their representatives to collaborate extensively, are persuasive examples of a regional state at work.
The University of the West Indies (UWI) is a working example of nineteen states and territories building a better tertiary learning institution than any single small state (on its own) could hope to materialize. UWI is also a shining example of collaboration at its highest in the building of a regional state.
I am reluctant, but I will venture on to a slippery slope, to argue that the West Indies Cricket Team is one of the soundest bonding instruments in our complex matrix of institutions designed to ensure the permanence of our regional state. Despite our recurring failure recently, West Indies cricketers shall return as successful Titans, fulfilling the ambitions in sports which small states achieve in inter-state politics by collaboration, sheer will, and the contribution of intellect.
THREE INTERNATIONAL AND COORDIANTION AMBITIONS
I am limited by time and so will only address three other international cooperation ambitions which the CARICOM states hope to achieve in their interaction with the countries of the Americas: i. selling a new security paradigm to our partners; ii. reversing global warming; and iii. addressing successfully the challenges posed by new-age terrorism.
SELLING A NEW SECURITY PARADIGM TO OUR PARTNERS: In many of the largest and most powerful states, security is sold as the ability to defend against an invading enemy state. The traditional notion of security and defense is military centered. Yet, for a small Caribbean island-state, no longer a trophy of conquest for warring European powers, security and defense require us to respond in a manner that does not lend for military solutions. We must defend against natural disasters, environmental vandalism, global warming; we defend against non-state actors involved in drug trafficking, transnational crime, and threats to our sovereignty posed by terrorist networks.
Our defense and security are thus multi-dimensional in scope, requiring a paradigm shift away from the old model of security and defense as requiring weaponry response only. The states of the Americas at first resisted this new doctrine. Since 1991, when the OAS Committee on Hemispheric Security was created, we have pressed for this paradigm shift. Two months ago in St. Vincent, at the Second High Level Conference on the Special Security Concerns of the Small Island States, there was no longer ant disagreement. In May, when the OAS members gather in Mexico, they will again conclude as reflected in the Draft Declaration now making the rounds- that this new paradigm is not confined to small island-states. A case which proves our claim goes back three years.
In the summer of 2000, US Vice President Al Gore went before the United Nations Security Council to declare HIV/AIDS a security problem. Since HIV/AIDS does not have a military solution and does not involve the legitimacy of the use of force, critics remarked that the administration was engaged in over-stretch by bringing the challenge before the UN Security Council. We disagree with the critics. HIV/AIDS is a serious security challenge for the Caribbean small island-state, and for many larger and poor states within the Americas and elsewhere.
REVERSING GLOBAL WARMING: Our planet is 3,500,000,000 years old. Our sun is halfway through its life and will thus last another three and one-half billion years give or take a few million- along with our earth. Humans have been on this planet for about one million years. Yet, human civilization is only ten thousand years old. Prior to ten thousand years ago, humans were hunters and gatherers. We began to domesticate wild plants and animals, grow excess food and thus could support a leadership class and cities, a mere ten thousand years ago.
The evidence shows that this transformation became possible when the earth's beastly climate became beneficent and predictable, ten thousand years ago after the last ice-age ended, and when trillions of tons of carbon were buried within the bowels of the earth. By returning billions of tons of carbon back into the atmosphere, we are returning the earth's climate to the beastly, unpredictable condition which existed prior to 10,000 years ago.
Two hundred years ago, when humans began what is known as the industrial revolution, which brought us many of the instruments of development, we unwittingly commenced a return of the earth's climate to its beastly state. As you are aware, the inventions by which we now live have been introduced within the past century. In 1900 there were no automobiles, no airplanes, no electricity as we know it. There were no telephones, no televisions, no satellites, no computers. There was no viagra.
The twentieth century was the most inventive era in humanity's history, and the United States was the cradle of many of those inventions. None of those inventions can function without energy. Yet, fossil fuels provide 84% of the energy consumed in the USA and 80% of all the energy produced worldwide. The result of our energy production systems, globally, is the emission of more than 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide and other particulate matter into our atmosphere annually.
Although 191 states exist, I believe that the alternative to fossil fuels will come from the most inventive state in human history the United States. If the United States does not quickly find an alternative to the current system for producing energy, I am persuaded that the glorious civilization which has given us so many indescribable bounties will go the way of all previous human civilizations. The Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations is also of the view that by increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, we are changing the earth's climate in ways that are likely to prove destructive of human civilization.
Decades before civilization crumbles, low lying islands in the Caribbean and the Pacific and coastal regions of South and Central America are likely to be buried by swollen oceans, after first having been battered intermittently by annual summer storms and hurricanes. Our ambition is like every other human society's: to save ourselves.
The method by which we have pursued that ambition, somewhat successfully, is at the OAS, the ACS, the Commonwealth and the United Nations. The UN is our principal organ through collaboration with all the earth's small island-states, called the AOSIS. We successfully promulgated the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol. But there is a backing away from these important instruments, ostensibly because major polluters from the developing world are excluded from making commitments. We reject that as disingenuous.
ADDRESSING SUCCESSFULLY THE CHALLENGES POSED BY NEW-AGE TERRORISM: I was in a hotel in Lima, Peru, along with the US Secretary of State, preparing to adopt the Inter-American Democratic Charter, on the morning of September 11, 2001. When 19 criminals chose to perpetrate those heinous acts against the USA, profound changes took place in the threat perception levels and the economic performance of small island-states from that day onwards.
The leaders of Caribbean small island-states had accepted their vulnerability but with a degree of detachment. One cannot be perpetually in a state of crisis, and given the economic dominance of tourism in many Caribbean countries, happiness is an important ingredient in our national character. After September 11, the Caribbean recognized that those who are bent on destroying civilization, utilizing the same tools which generate economic success, are extremely difficult to dissuade. Every country in the Americas and the Caribbean therefore joined the fight against terrorism by signing on to the ten United Nations Conventions which had already been promulgated.
The Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, approved by the United Nations on 9 December 1999, was quickly adopted by many Caribbean countries whose economies were also partly reliant on financial services. Caribbean diplomats also participated actively in the negotiations leading up to the OAS Convention Against Terrorism, concluded on March 25, 2002. We believe that collaboration among police agencies will be the surest means to confront the terrorist evils although there can be no absolute guarantee against the recurrence of another devastating terrorist act.
In fact, my delegation to the Inter-American Defense Board has asked that 60 year-old institution to conduct a study on the best defense mechanism which Caribbean states can adopt to mitigate the harmful effects which would flow from an accident or a deliberate attack on nuclear-waste-bearing ships which traverse the Caribbean Sea twice per year. More than 40,000 ship-voyages are recorded through the Panama Canal and the Caribbean Sea each year. 12,000 or 30% of those are for transporting hazardous wastes. Since these substances are legitimate items of trade, one cannot compel a stoppage. It would seem to Caribbean governments that not to have contingency plans in place, given the probabilities, is to be grossly negligent. The Inter-American Defense Board may get around to providing such a study if we do not let Mexico and Brazil get in the way.
CONCLUSION:
I began my remarks by reflecting on our current state of affairs and demonstrated how small Caribbean states, anxious to increase their leverage and their material gains, have formulated strategy and developed mechanisms for international cooperation and coordination with the states of the Americas. As I close, I want to glance into the rear view mirror, primarily because it will help me to anticipate what is up ahead. I am a firm believer that history holds the platforms on which one can stand to divine the future.
In 1900 there were 60 nation-states. In 2003, there are 191. The history of the past century can clearly be said to be one of the fracturing of empires. The Austro-Hungarian, the Belgian, the British, the Danish, Dutch, Ethiopian, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Ottoman, Portuguese, Russian, Soviet and Spanish empires have been reduced and many more and many smaller states have been created. The Caribbean thinkers may have a continuing interest in the decline of the British Empire, but the collapse of the USSR and Yugoslavia in the past decades may actually be more instructive.
In the case of the British Empire in the Caribbean, her subjects had a different hue, spoke the language differently, and had been once her slaves. Hence, it is easy to declare a separation from that history. In the USSR and Yugoslavia, the peoples shared much in common. Ethnic differences existed, but there was not the same lengthy history of oppression and degradation associated with the Soviet conquest. There is a yearning for self-determination within very large political units which can sometimes be quenched only by a separation. This was true in Yugoslavia
Having separated from their colonial masters, can the small states of the Caribbean survive in a world of terrorists, and drug traffickers, and global warming, and hazardous cargo, while relying upon tourism and offshore financial services, and Internet gaming? Small states can indeed survive the new century and maybe the new millennium. However, order and peace must reign for the small Caribbean state to thrive. The vulnerability of a small state to disorder in the economic system can be devastating. Following September 11, for example, the cost of operating international airports and purchasing imports increased precipitously while earnings declined.
Forty-one years ago, the first of the English speaking Caribbean countries emerged from the dungeons of colonialism. Once in a position to govern self, the people of the Caribbean began to demonstrate extraordinary fortitude and skill. In their domestic affairs, the Caribbean states have reversed three hundred years of degradation and exploitation. Yet, much more remains to be done. The Caribbean people are still ill housed, too many suffer ill health, and illiteracy. The Bahamas and Barbados may be the two most successful, and even those two states will admit the need for greater development.
In their inter-state relations, especially with the countries of the Americas, the Caribbean states have shown tremendous skill and pragmatism, learning to invent and to improvise to meet the ever changing and dynamic needs of a political system which does not give credit for historical impediments. If we are to continue to be significant players, we will have to further refine our methods for many others are learning from us, imitating us, and, like cricket, the strategy works only when a few are applying it.
I am delighted to be able to share my views knowing full well that as a diplomat from a very small state the opportunities afforded me are not many and I must make the most of the few, just like my country must make the most of the little which it has. I thank the CHDS for its invitation and I thank you for listening.