CARICOM LEADERS ADDRESS CRIME, TOURISM, ECONOMIC

UNCLAS NASSAU 000228

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL ETRD BF XL
SUBJECT: CARICOM LEADERS ADDRESS CRIME, TOURISM, ECONOMIC
COOPERATION IN NASSAU

REF: STATE 17705

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SUMMARY
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1. (U) CARICOM heads of government gathered in Nassau March
7-8 for an inter-sessional Heads of Government meeting that
focused on preventing crime, lowering the cost of living, and
improving domestic economic links with their important
tourism sectors. Reflecting mounting concerns throughout the
region about violent crime, CARICOM leaders agreed to hold a
special summit to address crime concerns in April in
Trinidad, and agreed to Prime Minister Ingraham's proposal to
make tourism a permanent agenda item in view of its singular
economic importance to the region. The Heads of Government
also institutionalized a "functional cooperation" mechanism
under Bahamian leadership within CARICOM but outside of the
single-market framework. This allowed Prime Minister
Ingraham to demonstrate cooperation with CARICOM on The
Bahamas' own terms -- important for him domestically -- while
urging regional responses to global economic challenges,
especially U.S. economic woes which loomed over the
proceedings. END SUMMARY.

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LEADERS MEET AMIDST SPIRALING CRIME AND ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY
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2. (U) Amidst regional anxiety about rising murder rates and
U.S. economic woes, Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham of The
Bahamas chaired the 19th Inter-Sessional Meeting of the
Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community
(CARICOM) in Nassau March 7-8. The Prime Ministers of
Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada,
Haiti, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and
Trinidad and Tobago, as well as the Presidents of Guyana and
Suriname, attended. Cabinet officials represented Montserrat
and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and associate members
Turks and Caicos Islands and Bermuda. The Charge attended
the opening ceremony, a lunch for participants, and an
evening reception following the first day of high-level
meetings. Meetings of the Council for Trade and Economic
Development (COTED) and the Council for Finance and Planning
(COFAP) were held March 3-6, contributing to a lengthy final
communique on March 8. Observers termed the event a success
both from the Bahamian and regional points of view.

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CALLS FOR REGIONAL INTEGRATION, UNITY ON CRIME
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3. (U) At the opening session March 7, Secretary General of
CARICOM Edwin Carrington called for regional unity of purpose
on the goal of integration, saying "time is not on our side."
Citing the weakness in the U.S. economy and high energy
prices as urgent regional challenges, he argued that
integration needed to proceed to a higher level to meet these
rapidly evolving challenges. Prime Minister David Thompson
of Barbados expressed solidarity with Guyana over what he
called senseless crime, in the wake of massacres in Bartica
and Lusignan, and called on CARICOM to offer whatever
assistance was necessary to help Guyana protect its people.
"If one of our member governments is perceived as incapable
of bringing criminals to justice," he said, "then what is
there to stop criminals elsewhere from challenging the
authority of governments?" He also lauded his predecessor,
Owen Arthur, for his contribution to deepening relations
among CARICOM states, in particular through the establishment
of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).


4. (U) Setting the stage for the discussions in his opening
remarks, Prime Minister Ingraham said there had been a
"seminal shift in world relations following the events of
9/11." While today's challenges may not be as dramatic as
those of 9/11 and its aftermath, he maintained that "many of
the issues confronting our people today are just as serious."
Specifically, he observed that the "economic downturn in the
U.S." and "the high and increasing cost of fuel" was
"negatively impacting all of our tourism economies and
increasing the cost of living for our people." He pointed to
the sub-prime meltdown and "collapse" of the U.S. housing
market as factors that would negatively impact travel to the
Caribbean. In the face of these threats, he warned that the
region's tourism sector was "stalling."

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INGRAHAM TOUTS TOURISM, DECRIES CRIME, HIGHLIGHTS HEALTH
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5. (U) To meet these challenges, Ingraham said closer

Caribbean cooperation in tourism was needed, given tourism's
crucial importance for most of the member states. He called
for more to be done in product development, service
standards, marketing, eco-tourism, and sustainable tourism,
and proposed that a special session on tourism be held in
July 2008 in conjunction with CARICOM's annual Heads of
Government meeting. Ingraham drew particular attention to
the inadequacy of links between domestic agriculture and
marine sectors and tourism in many Caribbean economies,
saying "none of us has achieved the all-important goal of
linking our agricultural and marine resources sectors to the
consumer sectors of our economies" in order to lower food
prices and imports, and thereby decrease the cost (and
increase the competitiveness) of the tourism product. He
pointed out that "this makes the threat of the loss of
preferential access to developed world markets for our
exports even more serious." He suggested CARICOM states take
lessons from the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA)
recently concluded with the EU "so as to inform our economic
and commercial relations with our trading partners, near and
far."


6. (U) Prime Minister Ingraham then turned his attention to
shared law enforcement concerns in the region, noting rising
crime levels, an unabated illicit drug trade, and "the
expansion of a gun culture in our region with awful social
and economic consequences." Referring to the HIV-AIDS
pandemic in the region, where infection rates lag behind only
sub-Saharan Africa, Ingraham pointed to the proliferation of
non-communicable diseases (such as obesity or diabetes,
so-called "rich country diseases" whose prevalence is on the
increase in The Bahamas),and highlighted the importance of
promoting wellness as a national policy.

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URGES ECONOMIC COOPERATION OUTSIDE OF CSME
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7. (U) Ingraham hailed the July 2007 Heads of Government
meeting in Barbados which established a CARICOM task force
(now sub-committee) on functional cooperation. Ingraham, who
now chairs this sub-committee, characterized this as "very
correctly" shifting the focus of CARICOM cooperation "away
from the mechanics of economic integration and towards
investment in human and social development." While not
belittling the goal of achieving a single market economy, he
said, "(it) permits the Community to develop proper
mechanisms to increase the participation of non-CSME
member-states like The Bahamas in all of the cooperative
activities of the Community." He expressed the hope that
"this continuing effort by Caribbean leaders to reorganize
and redefine the Community's institutions" would ensure
CARICOM's continued relevance to the region's people.


8. (U) Ingraham called for national and regional responses
to "changing global (economic) realities" to include trade
and investment liberalization and improved education and
access to information technology, as part of making "human
and social development" a pillar of CARICOM work. "This is
essential," he concluded, "if we are to ensure that economic
growth and development in our countries translate into job
creation and entrepreneurial and social opportunity for our
citizens."

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OUTCOMES: CRIME, SECURITY, TOURISM, COST OF LIVING
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9. (U) CARICOM leaders agreed to meeting again in April at a
Special Summit on Regional Security to address crime concerns
and to draft a strategy "to stem the rising tide of violent
criminality" across the region. This summit will be preceded
by an extraordinary joint meeting of police and military
chiefs. The Heads of Government reaffirmed their commitment
to security systems put in place for the Cricket World Cup in
2007, accepted Ingraham's proposal to make tourism a
permanent agenda item in view of its economic importance, and
agreed to devote a day at the July 2008 meeting in Antigua to
tourism. Heads of government addressed the high cost of
living by approving suspension for two years of the Common
External Tariff on a set of commodities identified as having
significant weight in the consumer price index. The Task
Force on Functional Cooperation chaired by Ingraham was
established as a Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee which cited
"human and social development as a pillar of the Community's
work", according to the final communique. Human resource
development, health, HIV-AIDS, free movement of skilled
labor, agriculture, youth development, and moves toward a
single economy were also cited as regional agenda items.

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INTERNATIONAL ISSUES -- AND SHOUT-OUT TO CASTROS
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10. (SBU) Touching on other hemispheric concerns, CARICOM
leaders agreed that the Second Conference on the Caribbean
should take place in New York in June 2008, discussed
bilateral border issues (Belize-Guatemala, Guyana-Venezuela),
welcomed the agreement to settle the Ecuador-Colombia
dispute, and committed to approving the EPA with the EU by
June 30. Heads of Government reiterated their support for
Antigua and Barbuda in their WTO dispute with the U.S. and,
in one discordant note, paid tribute to "His Excellency Fidel
Castro who recently relinquished his presidency of Cuba,
bringing to a close an historic chapter in his political life
and in that of the Caribbean" and extended congratulations to
Raul Castro.

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COMMENT
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11. (SBU) From a domestic Bahamian perspective, Prime
Minister Ingraham appears to have successfully balanced the
country's CARICOM commitments with its CARICOM-skeptical
public by framing cooperation with CARICOM on Bahamian terms
-- that is, outside of CSME, but open to regional responses
to global economic challenges. With a small population and
limited domestic market in a well-developed tourism-based
economy, Bahamian businesses would appear well-placed to take
advantage of sectoral investment opportunities in other
Caribbean markets. And, with its big hotels and millions of
U.S. visitors, The Bahamas is also a lucrative market for
intra-Caribbean exports such as fresh produce. The potential
for intensified Bahamian links with Haiti, for example,
exists in both directions. From a regional perspective, the
Nassau meeting helped frame some potentially beneficial areas
for intensified cooperation such as tourism linkages,
intra-regional transportation, and energy. At the end of the
day, however, crime and global economic uncertainties are the
dominant concerns and looming challenges for the region.
SIEGEL