News
August 20, 2004

Owen Arthur to go alone on Haiti

In the latest twist in CARCOM Haiti relations, Barbados Prime Minister Owen Arthur has been reported Wednesday by the BBC as threatening to “go it alone” if his colleagues do not arrive at consensus on the region’s rapprochment with the interim regime of Gerard Latortue.{{more}}
This position by the Barbadian leader comes in the wake of the stated reluctance by three of his counterparts, St. Vincent and the Greandines’s Dr Ralph Gonsalves, Dr. Kenny Anthony of St.Lucia and Guyana’s President Barrat Jagdeo to jump ahead with embracing the Latortue regime.
Meanwhile Caricom Chairman Keith Mitchell had been calling for a special meeting of Heads of Government to resolve ourstanding differences. The 14 Heads of Government had been expected to officially communicate, as expected this week, their respective responses to a proposal from the Caricom bureau to “fully engage” with the Latortue regime on the basis of recommendations outlined by a fact-finding ministerial mission to Port-au-Prince last month.
But while his Grenada counterpart has called for the meeting, St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves said that “no case has been made out to justify an urgent meeting of Heads of Government on Haiti…”
It is anyone’s guess how this issue will finally play itself out.