Resh­ma Ra­goonath

T&T and Ja­maica must use cau­tion when deal­ing with the cur­rent im­mi­gra­tion im­passe, since it will have a di­rect im­pact on the dream of true Caribbean in­te­gra­tion, says Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice leader David Ab­du­lah.Ab­du­lah, who was born in Ja­maica, said "strong lead­er­ship" was re­quired to han­dle the cur­rent T&T/Ja­maica im­passe if it is to be re­solved for the good of the re­gion.The im­passe arose af­ter T&T Im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials de­nied some 13 Ja­maicans en­try in­to this coun­try last week.

The Ja­maican gov­ern­ment, in re­sponse, is­sued an ad­vi­so­ry to Ja­maicans trav­el­ling to T&T. Ja­maica's Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs, ac­cord­ing to a Ja­maica Ob­serv­er ar­ti­cle, al­so said in a re­lease that it was con­cerned at the de­vel­op­ment and con­tin­ues to in­ter­face with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties in T&T on the mat­ter.A cam­paign to boy­cott T&T prod­ucts was al­so start­ed in Ja­maica and on Face­book.

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an has ac­cept­ed an in­vi­ta­tion from his Ja­maican coun­ter­part AJ Nichol­son to meet in Kingston to dis­cuss the im­mi­gra­tion mat­ter.Speak­ing with re­porters at the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU) head­quar­ters in San Fer­nan­do on Wednes­day, Ab­du­lah said im­mi­gra­tion was a key is­sue in Caribbean in­te­gra­tion and lead­ers on both sides must bear that in mind.

"If we want to make Cari­com a liv­ing re­al­i­ty we have to en­sure it is the free move­ment of peo­ple, as well as goods and ser­vices and cap­i­tal," Ab­du­lah said.He warned against tak­ing "this knee-jerk, emo­tion­al re­ac­tion to this is­sue.""We can­not in any way be prej­u­diced and, worse still, we can­not de­gen­er­ate in­to a po­si­tion which would lead to a break-up of Cari­com be­cause we can­not sur­vive as in­di­vid­ual small ter­ri­to­ries in this era of glob­alised cap­i­tal."

He said there is need for se­ri­ous de­bate here in T&T, Ja­maica, Bar­ba­dos and through­out Cari­com on the fu­ture of Cari­com.Ab­du­lah de­scribed some of the re­spons­es in both Ja­maica and in T&T on the is­sue as "ab­solute­ly my­opic and fo­cused on the sur­face."While Ab­du­lah said he does not fore­see a break-up of Cari­com, re­spon­si­ble lead­ers need­ed to make strong state­ments and of­fer strong lead­er­ship on this is­sue, whether they were in the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, labour move­ment, civ­il so­ci­ety or at the lev­el of gov­ern­ment.

"We have to have a clear vi­sion of the fu­ture well-be­ing of all of our cit­i­zens, and fu­ture well-be­ing of all of the cit­i­zens turns on us be­ing an in­te­grat­ed Caribbean," he said.