PM: Be steadfast

Leaders of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) must hold steadfast in their beliefs and values on the advancement of regional integration, without succumbing to influences from foreign entities.

These strong views came from Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, as she addressed specially invited guests of the Errol Walton Barrow Centenary Gala Fund-raising Cocktail and Dinner held on Saturday at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre (LESC).

These comments come in light of a proposed visit by United States Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, to Jamaica this Tuesday, to address select members of CARICOM on the developments in Venezuela and the Middle East.

Though Prime Minister Mottley welcomes any chance to discuss regional issues, it is unacceptable for her to have Barbados’ Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Dr. Jerome Walcott, attend any such meeting without the whole of CARICOM being present.

“We don’t look to pick fights. I don’t look to pick fights, but I am conscious that if this country does not stand for something, then it will fall for anything. As chairman of CARICOM, it is impossible for me to agree that my foreign minister should attend a meeting with anyone, to which members of CARICOM are not invited. If some are invited and not all, then it is an attempt to divide,” she stated.

During her speech, she recounted how the Late Errol Barrow and other former Prime Ministers of Barbados, were adamant in their stance that the island must never pursue or encourage any actions that places its citizens at the mercy of any other states for any short term gains.

“That sense of commitment to principle, and that sense of commitment to the thesis expressed by him [Errol Barrow] that we have lived by, ‘friends of all satellites of none’, is really what inspires us in this position today. Therefore it did not take a lot of thought in what our decision should be because this country does not pretend to be what it is not and does not pretend to have that which it doesn't, but it does aspire to be sincere and to be correct and to be moral and to be principled,” Mottley stressed.

It was her hope, that many of the regions leaders would hold steadfast in their loyalty to the revered West Indian identity of staying true to one’s beliefs, as Errol Barrow did during nation’s earlier years of independence.

“Errol Barrow delivered himself of the quotation; ‘I am a West Indian, and there is no one who is more West Indian by birth, inclination, or otherwise than I am.’ I have come to understand that that statement was not just rhetoric, but it was a commitment to the kind of society, and to the kind of policies that would build a strong vibrant West Indian nation. Understanding that if we are divided, we can’t be able to achieve for our people, that which ought to be a natural inheritance and legacy as a platform, to be able to ensure that we can create global citizens with West Indian values,” she explained.