The Caribbean Community

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The Caribbean community THE quest for economic integration in the English-speaking Caribbean started in the 1960s after the collapse of the ill-fated Federation of the British West Indies in 1962. After a vain attempt to revive the federalist idea of political unity, leaders turned increasingly to the concept of economic integration as a means fo preserving ties between the islands and the mainland territories of British Honduras (Belize) and British Guiana (Guyana). The federalist venture, which was singularly encouraged by the colonial power, foundered on the rock of personality clashes, conflicting notions of weak federalism versus strong central federalism, freedom of movement between territories and insular notions of nationalism.

According to Dr. Eric Williams, noted historian and late Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, writing in 1970, "the Federal experience as well as the post-independence situation in the Commonwealth Caribbean showed that the quest for identity and solidarity among the ex-British possessions in the Caribbean had to be pursued by other means--namely, the method of regional economic collaboration and the working out of complementary rather than competitive strategies of economic development."

It was self-evident in the early 1960s that Caribbean countries were linked economically more closely to the metropolitan countries (in particular the former colonial power) than to each other. This factor in itself produced and perpetuated vertical, bi-lateral trading relations between each country on the one hand and countries outside the region on the other hand. As a result, intra-regional, horizontal economic relations, the development of …