Thank you for inviting me to participate with you in this important dialogue. It was a pleasure for me to accept the invitation, not only because of the special regard and respect I have for ANSA MACAL, but because of the opportunity this has afforded me to interact with key members in the regional private sector, a sector which has a critical role to play in the implementation of the ongoing project that we call the CARICOM Single Market and Economy.
Members of Parliament,
Excellency, Dean of the CARICOM High Commissioners,
Excellencies of the Diplomatic Corps,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen_
I am very pleased to be here representing CARICOM at this celebration of the 28th Anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Chaguaramas establishing the Caribbean Community and the 20th Anniversary of the establishment of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States - the OECS.
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.
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The Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Mr. Edwin Carrington, said June 19 that, according to a survey made by the Caribbean Epidemiological Centre (CAREC), the Region is the region hardest hit in the world by HIV/AIDS, second only to sub-Saharan Africa. |
The Member States of the Caribbean Community have followed with continued interest, the evolution of the political crisis in Haiti. They did so against the background of the Region's continued concern about the political crisis in that country and the impact of that crisis on the Haitian people, whose democratic, social and economic aspirations it holds dear.
Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Mr. Edwin Carrington will lead a team of CARICOM Secretariat's officials for a media clinic in The Bahamas on 19 June, 2001 at the Radisson Cable Beach Resort. The four-hour session, which starts at 9 a.m., forms part of activities leading up to the 22nd Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM, which will be held in The Bahamas from 3-6 July, 2001.
The Caribbean Management Development Association (CaMDA) held its Sixth Annual International Conference in Nassau, The Bahamas, from 5-8 June 2001. A non-governmental voluntary association of management professionals, the Association seeks to develop the management capacity of the Caribbean Region, and had as its Conference theme, "The 21st Century Learning Organisation - Strengthening Management Capabilities and Competitive Strategies in the New Global Economy".
Vidiadhar Surajpra-sad Naipaul was born in1932 in Chaguanas, Trinidad, close to Port of Spain, in a family descended from immigrants from the north of India. His grandfather worked in a sugar cane plantation and his father was a journalist and writer. At the age of 18 Naipaul travelled to England where, after studying at University College at Oxford, be was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1953. From then on he continued to live in England (since the 70s in Wiltshire, close to Stonehenge) but he has also spent a great deal of time travelling in Asia, Africa and America.
Barbadian Sir George Alleyne’s exceptional accomplishments in public and international health earned him the deserving honour of membership of the Order of the Caribbean Community in the fourth conferment of 2001.
“His passion for the Caribbean cradled the Central American State of Belize into the arms of the Community” – words of introduction in the citation given for the Rt. Honourable George Cadle Price, “Father of the Nation” of Belize and OCC Awardee of 2001.
The political record of this great statesman dates back to CARIFTA, the precursor of the Caribbean Community.