Akash Sama­roo

Re­port­ing from Ja­maica

In a part­ing mes­sage as she demit­ted of­fice as Cari­com Chair, Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley is­sued a cryp­tic warn­ing about a loom­ing threat, one that she cau­tioned could un­der­mine the in­de­pen­dence and sov­er­eign­ty of mem­ber states and pose the great­est chal­lenge to re­gion­al free­dom since the era of in­de­pen­dence.

To­wards the end of her rough­ly 30-minute ad­dress, one she be­gan by stress­ing the ur­gent need for greater uni­ty with­in Cari­com, Prime Min­is­ter Mot­t­ley said, “It is my view that in the ab­sence of an in­ter­na­tion­al rules-based or­der, and we are see­ing it be­ing threat­ened day by day, in the ab­sence of an in­ter­na­tion­al rules-based or­der, coun­tries such as ours will find it dif­fi­cult to sur­vive.”

A rules-based or­der (RBO) is a sys­tem through which coun­tries con­duct their re­la­tions and re­solve dis­putes based on es­tab­lished norms, treaties and agree­ments, rather than sole­ly on pow­er pol­i­tics or mil­i­tary might.

Prime Min­is­ter Mot­t­ley sug­gest­ed that coun­tries fol­low such guide­lines, adding that the price of sov­er­eign­ty had changed.

“The price of sov­er­eign­ty now ex­tends to our abil­i­ty to con­trol our in­for­ma­tion and to gen­er­ate our con­tent. We have to be able to own our own satel­lites, and not be the vic­tim of some­body pulling them on us be­cause they do not like the po­si­tion we took on a war across the world, some­where or some­place.”

Mot­t­ley did not name any par­tic­u­lar na­tion as an of­fend­er, but her words came in the con­text of the on­go­ing con­flict be­tween Is­rael and Pales­tine, as well as the re­cent high-in­ten­si­ty war be­tween Is­rael and Iran. The Unit­ed States is one of Is­rael’s ma­jor al­lies.

The Bar­ba­dos prime min­is­ter went on to plead, “We have to gen­er­ate our own con­tent, be­cause it is on­ly us who know our re­al­i­ty, and we can­not sim­ply be the vic­tims of oth­er peo­ple’s judge­ment as to who we are and what we stand for.”

As she held up her mo­bile phone for the au­di­ence, the out­go­ing Cari­com chair de­clared, “If we don’t do these things, then we will fail to recog­nise that the new ar­ma­da and the new flotil­la are not the ships that came and brought our fore­fa­thers here un­der protest. But in fact, the new ar­ma­da and the new flotil­la is that which will con­trol our mind. And we know what Mar­cus Mosi­ah Gar­vey told us about eman­ci­pat­ing our mind from men­tal slav­ery.”

As the prime min­is­ter con­clud­ed, she said, “If ever there was a time for us to lis­ten to these en­treaties, it is now. And as we do these se­ri­ous things, let us not re­mem­ber that we as Caribbean peo­ple have a flair, that we know how to walk and talk, that we know how to talk and dance, that we know how to sing and move and re­flect.”