By Earl Bousquet
CASTRIES, St Lucia – Caribbean and African leaders met at summit level this week, for the first time since Independence on the continent and in the region in the mid-20th Century – and since Caribbean pioneers, decades earlier helped build post-Slavery bridges between the descendants of the enslaved on both sides of the Atlantic.
The September 7 meeting was held under the theme: ‘Unity Across Continents and Oceans: Opportunities for Deepening Integration’ and was aimed at ‘Promoting closer collaboration between Africa Diaspora, People of African Descent and the Caribbean and Pacific region and institutions.’
Jointly hosted by Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta and Antigua and Barbuda’s prime minister and CARICOM chairman Gaston Brown, the meeting had long been a work-in-progress.
Realizing dreams
Hosted online, it brought together leaders and the continental and regional entities that together represent 79 nations and over two billion people, to examine areas of increased communication, cooperation and cooperation, to face common challenges and grab common opportunities.
The meeting also realized dreams of the likes of Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta and Nelson Mandela, Fidel Castro, W. Arthur Lewis, Walter Rodney, Bob Marley, Malcolm X, Sekou Ture (Stokley Carmichael), Maurice Bishop and Rosie Douglas, among the many who carved the way for today.
The Caribbean and African leaders identified several areas of possible cooperation – from the fight against COIVID-19 to sharing experiences and natural resources to improve the lives of people on the continent and the region.
They each also noted the historicity of the event – the first time continental and regional leaders met in a shared common space since the establishment of the Pan African Congress (PAC) in the 1900s and a subsequent PAC Congress in Manchester in 1945 that was also attended by Caribbean delegates.
CARICOM leaders who spoke included, prime minister Gaston Brown of Antigua and Barbuda and Mia Mottley of Barbados, Belize’s Don Briceno, Dominica’s Roosevelt Skerrit, Jamaica’s Andrew Holness, Saint Lucia’s Philip J. Pierre, St Vincent and the Grenadines’ Dr Ralph Gonsalves, Trinidad and Tobago’s Dr Rowley and Guyana’s president Irfan Ali.
African presentations were by presidents Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya, Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa and presidents of Angola, Malawi, Rwanda and Zimbabwe, plus the vice president of Tanzania.
Setting the stage
Host president Kenyatta, whose father Jomo Kenyatta was his nation’s independence leader and attended the Manchester PAC conference, said the conference set the stage for African-Caribbean cooperation in building ‘partnerships across the ocean to boost the blue economy among other likely possibilities.
He said Climate Change ‘remains an existential threat to us all’, noting that 94 percent of global malaria cases were in Africa and Global Warming also resulting in ‘rising sea levels and ocean acidification in the Caribbean.’
President Kenyatta also said COVID ‘has redefined health systems and changed traditional approaches and responses, but also presented mutual challenges that constitute ‘a wake-up call for all of us in the developing world to mount a common response.’
He also identified debt sustainability as ‘impossible to maintain’ and called for innovative solutions that would marry the resources and technologies of Africa and the Caribbean.
President Kenyatta, whose father was also successfully represented in the colonial courts during his trial for leading his nation’s fight for independence by the late legendary Jamaican Defense Counsel Dudley Thompson, started his opening address quoting Martin Luthier King, saying: ‘We live together as brothers or perish together as fools.’
And he ended saying the summit marked ‘the first baby steps for Africans at home and abroad…’, committing Kenya to continuation of building on those steps.
Still underdeveloped
Prime minister Gaston Brown said: ‘Europe had underdeveloped both Africa and the Caribbean’, leaving a ‘legacy of poverty, malnutrition and illiteracy that still keeps in underdevelopment…’
Noting, ‘There was never any trade during enslavement,’ he added that the inequalities generated by slavery were still evident in the unequal distribution of COVID vaccines, with European Union (EU) member-states able to today boast 70 percent of their populations fully vaccinated and the US at 60 percent, while Africa is at only 3 percent.
‘We cannot continue like that and we must fight to change this,’ ptime minister Brown urged, adding that recent experiences have shown the continent and the region have the medical platforms to make this happen.
He noted that with Africa’s 1.4 billion people at home and abroad and the continent and the CARICOM region together having as many as 69 votes at the UN, they can harness their ‘global bargaining power’ to promote and pursue joint endeavours.
Four proposals
The CARICOM chairman offered four proposals for consideration by his peers:
A formal entity uniting Caribbean and African states; annual recognition of September 7 as AFRICA-CARICOM Day; annual AU-CARICOM Summits to coordinate cooperation; and preparation of a Charter for AU-CARICOM plans and proposals, to be submitted in six months for consideration by the leaders.
Prime minister Brown urged, however, that all steps should be taken ‘not to bureaucratize the initiative’; and concluded noting the nations and people represented at the virtual table are ‘branches of a single tree with the same roots’ who now must aim to ‘reach the sky, because together we can.’
Common ties
Trinidad and Tobago’s Dr Keith Rowley noted the conference took place during the observance of the UN’s Decade for People of African Descent and outlined the twin-island republic’s long history of direct and shared ties with the AU and individual African nations.
He welcomed the new opportunities opened up for continuing bilateral and multilateral cooperation, as evidenced in the sharing of vaccines secured by Africa with the Caribbean through the African Medicine Supplies Platform that his country and other CARICOM nations have benefitted from.
Dr Rowley also referred to the contributions of the likes of Trinidad and Tobago’s George Padmore, CLR James and Eric Williams to earlier Caribbean-African connections; and ended his presentation quoting Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah who said: ‘I am not African because I was born in Africa, but because Africa was born in me.’
Air transport
Barbados prime minister, Mia Mottley recalled her own role in the preparatory talks for the conference, but also noted that besides governments increasing contacts and cooperation, Caribbean and African peoples are also anxious to meet each other.
She, therefore, called for increased speed to launch air transport contacts between the continent and the region; and also proposed that ‘as an international sport’ Cricket also be taken to the continent on a wider scale.
The Barbados leader also submitted four proposals for direct air links (‘Even if we have to subsidize it…’); Higher levels of public and private sector cooperation; A joint Africa-Caribbean media platform for shared ‘daily imagery’ of people and nations; and for African and Caribbean participation in the September 21 anniversary of the 2000 Durban Conference that set the stage for today’s levels of African-Caribbean cooperation.
Selfless contributions
St Vincent and the Grenadines prime minister, Dr Ralph Gonsalves, departing from his prepared text, recalled attending college in Uganda (four decades ago) and traced his identification with the region’s support for the African National Liberation Movements in the 60s and 70s, all the way up to the liberation of South Africa in 1992.
He also noted the significance of the summit being co-hosted by the sons of Jomo Kenyatta and Antigua and Barbuda’s Vere Bird to also speak on two aspects nobody else addressed: Africa’s Cuba-Caribbean connection and reparations.
Recalling Cuba’s ‘heroic and selfless contributions to the liberation and national reconstruction struggles of African states like Angola and Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Dr Gonsalves called on African and Caribbean leaders to also make ‘a practical commitment’ to support Cuba in its fight against the twin deadly challenges of ‘imperialisms’ decades-old US blockades and the current COVID pandemic.
‘They (Cubans) will not ask, but it’s our duty to offer them support because we owe it to them,’ he added.
Implementation mechanisms
Also mentioning another issue raised by none other, prime minister Gonsalves called on his counterparts to ensure a greater level of cooperation between Africa, the Caribbean and the diaspora in support of demands for ‘Reparations for Genocide and Enslavement’, driven by an unprecedented joint movement by 14 CARICOM governments in 2013 on EU nations the practiced and benefitted from enslavement in the former British, French and Dutch Caribbean nations involved.
Dr Gonsalves said: ‘The time has come to build mechanisms for implementation of all that’s been advocated’ and urged his colleagues to not limit the levels of cooperation only between Africa and the CARICOM region, but to widen it to include Brazil’s 110 million people of African descent and the 24 independent nations washed by the Caribbean Sea (within the Association of Caribbean states) 14 of which belong to CARICOM.
Widening integration
Calling for CARICOM to establish a special Africa-Brazil-Caribbean Commission beyond the current summit forum, the Vincentian prime minister said the continent and the wider Caribbean region – 79 nations with way-over a billion people and 70 million in the Diaspora – ‘can do more to deepen our integration and cooperation to improve our people’s lives.’
Dr Gonsalves said Marcus Garvey and his United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) called for African-Caribbean unity ‘at a time when none of our countries was independent’ — and now is a good time to achieve that.
With St Vincent and the Grenadines about to end its term as the smallest island nation and the only CARICOM nation as a Non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, Dr Gonsalves recalled the cooperation between the three African member-states and his multi-island nation (A3+1) and urged that the Caribbean should always aim at being represented on the UN’s top Council.
‘This summit must be successful because two billion people depend on us,’ he noted, adding: ‘We need to look beyond, to a vision that Africa and the Caribbean, Latin America and the Diaspora will support and be part of.’
Gonsalves, the longest-serving CARICOM head of government and a prime mover of the CARICOM quest for reparations, closed by saying:
‘I feel energized and privileged, after all those years, to be here… The struggle continues.’
Shared approaches
Guyana’s president Irfan Ali noted that Africa-Caribbean ties are based on ‘blood, history and culture’ and that the meeting was coming just ahead of the 2021 UN General Assembly and the COP 26 Climate Change Summit in Glasgow giving ‘sufficient time to share ideas for common approaches’ to preparation for those important global gatherings.
He said Georgetown was also interested in displaying and sharing experiences in ‘Low Carbon Strategies’ and ‘compensation’ for developing countries for adoption and development of Blue Economy and Food Security and Safety strategies.
Noting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were under threat, the Guyana president also agreed that Africa and the Caribbean should together combat the COVID pandemic’s effects, concluding too that ‘Economic integration must have one objective: prosperity for all our people.’
New Free Trade
Jamaica’s prime minister, Andrew Holness said the magnitude of events on the continent and in the region, in the recent past, all point to the importance of cooperation and an African-Caribbean Free Trade Area (ACFTA) can open up new ways for it to be pursued through investment, scientific research, healthcare cooperation and development of creative industries.
He lamented that COVID-19 had delayed the several exchange visits earlier planned between Caribbean and African leaders, but said possibilities for increasing air transport have proven fruitful, with the inaugural direct flight between Lagos (Nigeria) and Kingston last December.
The Jamaica prime minister said the summit was ‘a dream of Marcus Garvey and Nelson Mandela and others, so let’s do it for them – and for us.’
Reasons to be proud
Saint Lucia’s new prime minister, Philip J. Pierre, attending his first international summit since being sworn-in on July 28, recalled promising in his inaugural Annual Emancipation Day Address to the Nation (four days after taking charge of the national reins) – to ensure citizens have more reason to be proud of their African heritage.
He also spoke on Climate Change and cooperation in the fight against COVID. Read Pierre’s address here.
Excitement and expectations
Dominica’s prime minister, Roosevelt Skerrit said urgent progress was needed on all that was discussed and his island nation stood ready to play its part.
He shared the ‘excitement and expectations across the Caribbean and Africa’ for closer cooperation and contact between the continent and the region – and supported the call for an annual summit.
Collective anxiety
With the vast majority of leaders on both sides supporting an annual summit, the summit mandated the ministry of foreign affairs of Kenya to work with other stakeholders to present a list of proposals, in six months, for consideration for an agenda for the second CARICOM-AU Summit.
The meeting also embraced an earlier call by prime minister Brown for September 7 to be designated annually by CARICOM and the AU as AFRICA-CARIBBEAN Day.
But the meeting was much more than just symbolic, as it also included participation by the continental and regional entities responsible for driving the processes towards closer integration between the continent, such as the African Exim Bank and the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the AU and CARICOM Secretariats and heads of the respective African and Caribbean Commissions for Development.
As per usual, the Western media houses did not give the first and biggest summit of its kind the attention it deserved by potentially representing two billion people on both sides of the Atlantic.
The meeting pledged to take early and quick steps to begin to erase the Middle Passage and the dreaded ‘Great Triangle’ from the current cross-Atlantic equation and replace it with direct and multilateral ties that will unite Africans at home and abroad and — Caribbean people everywhere.
That the leaders all agreed to meet annually (instead of bi-annually as originally proposed) is a sure indication of their collective anxiety to revive and recreate historic connections and to summon the diplomatic leverage that can come from 79 nations representing almost two billion people today.
The summit certainly left much room for optimism on the continent and in the region; now for the action(s) to give life to the ancient dreams and current visions.
