Hurricane Ivan – Test of Caribbean unity
Our Readers' Opinions
September 17, 2004
Hurricane Ivan – Test of Caribbean unity

Editor: Hurricane Ivan has just brought to the Caribbean the benefits of Caribbean political unity.
If the governments of all the affected Caribbean countries wanted to send some of their citizens to other Caribbean countries, they could not have done so due to immigration issues such as visa requirements and passports. {{more}} The same way that we could not have sent them to America or Great Britain.
But under a united Caribbean, this would have been possible. Why shouldn’t citizens be able to run to Cuba, the Bahamas or Guyana to seek refuge until it was safe to return?
We keep fighting a losing battle in a small area. We keep separating ourselves from each other to the detriment of our brothers and sisters across the Caribbean and to our own citizens in the country in which we were born. Should we not be fighting independence to unite the Caribbean and separate ourselves from the colonial gods or are we going to continue to allow our nations to dissipate in the eyes of stupidity and stubbornness?
Our so-called Caribbean leaders have to now explain themselves to us. But we as a Caribbean people must demand that union. Marcus Garvey said, “Jamaica, will never know its full potential until its back is against the wall.” Well that was not just a Jamaican warning, it was a Caribbean warning as well.

Caribbean Unity.
HOWARD FOSTER