Order of the Caribbean Community (OCC)

Kamaluddin Mohammed, former Trinidad and Tobago cabinet minister and ambassador to CARICOM, is this year’s recipient of the region’s highest award, the Order of the Caribbean Community (OCC).The Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community, at its 33rd Regular Meeting in Saint Lucia, conferred this honour for the decisive role Mohammed played in the’ Replanting of the Caribbean Vineyard.

As the 20th century came to a close, the Caribbean Community continued to be confronted with major challenges and urgent tasks. The changes in the international political and economic system became pronounced after the collapse of the Soviet system in 1989. The world was then configured as unipolar and characterised by a new phase of globalisation. This new phase of globalisation expressed itself in many ways.

THE MOST HONOURABLE P. J. PATTERSON, ON, PC, OE, QC UPON BEING AWARDED THE ORDER OF THE CARIBBEAN COMMUNITY (OCC), 2 JULY 2009
As I join the pantheon of previous recipients who have made their indelible stamp on the rich tapestry of the Caribbean in the fields of academia, learning, literature, law, sports, medicine, political and institutional leadership, I feel proud and privileged to have been considered so deserving.

CITATION FOR THE ORDER OF THE CARIBBEAN COMMUNITY, 2008

The computer was a mere thought in 1933, the year Rex Nettleford was born in the parish of Trelawny on the edge of Jamaica’s Cockpit Country. In those days, babies googled when they were fed and felt content – as, no doubt, did baby Nettleford whose mother lavished him with loving care.

CHB : CITATION FOR THE ORDER OF THE CARIBBEAN COMMUNITY 2008

CITATION FOR THE ORDER OF THE CARIBBEAN COMMUNITY (OCC) 2008

  
The distance from Grand Bay in the south east corner of Dominica to Government House in Roseau is not much more than ten miles but for His Excellency Dr. Nicholas Joseph Orville Liverpool, President of the Commonwealth of Dominica, it has been an extraordinary journey by way of Britain, most of the Western world, and every country of the Commonwealth Caribbean.

CITATION FOR THE ORDER OF THE CARIBBEAN COMMUNITY (OCC) 2008

Sir John Melvin Compton, OCC Awardee of 2002, is a Vincentian by birth but sculpted his reputation and legacy as political leader extraordinaire out of the throes of Saint Lucia’s development.

Sir John Compton’s political evolution from Chief Minister, Premier and Prime Minister of Saint Lucia symbolises the interconnectedness of the comity of Caribbean nations and the benefits of free inter territorial movement.

Lloyd Algernon Best, one of Trinidad and Tobago’s most acclaimed intellectuals, is the recipient of the OCC, conferred in 2002.

Described as “economist, politician, publicist, political commentator, philosopher and ‘doctor of doctor politics'”, Lloyd Best developed an intimate relationship with the University of the West Indies, beginning his illustrious multifaceted career as a Junior Research Fellow in 1958 at the Institute of Social and Economic Research of the UWI in Jamaica.

15 May 1919 – Dame Mary Eugenia Charles has the distinction of being the first female lawyer in her native land of Dominica and the first female to be elected Prime Minister in the Caribbean.

Her entry into the political arena came in 1968 owing to the attempt of the Dominica Labour Party (DLP) to have a Sedition Act passed. From then onward she never looked back and confidently blazed the trail for what was to become a distinguished course of statesmanship.