ST. VINCENT PM LASHES OUT OVER BARBADOS IMMIGRATION POLICY

UNCLAS BRIDGETOWN 000294

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL PBTS XL
SUBJECT: ST. VINCENT PM LASHES OUT OVER BARBADOS IMMIGRATION POLICY

REF: BRIDGETOWN 293


1. (U) St. Vincent Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves leveled unusually
sharp criticism against a fellow CARICOM member at a speech to the
St. Vincent parliament May 14. While stopping just short of calling
out Barbados PM David Thompson by name, Gonsalves strongly
castigated Barbados for a recently-announced tightening of its
immigration policies (reftel). Accusing "some political leaders" of
"stoking chauvinistic fires which are latent in our Caribbean
societies," Gonsalves said the new policy might cause St. Vincent to
consider withdrawing from the CARICOM Single Market and Economy
(CSME). Gonsalves also complained more broadly about "malignant
xenophobia" in the CARICOM space against Guyanese, Jamaicans,
Vincentians, St. Lucians, and Grenadians.


2. (U) Asked for a reaction upon his return from Cuba that night,
PM Thompson downplayed Gonsalves' outburst and said he hoped to
address the PM's concerns face-to-face at an upcoming meeting of
OECS leaders to which Barbados had been invited. In a dig at
Gonsalves' outburst, Thompson noted it was not his practice to
"shout across the Caribbean Sea" as a means of dialogue among
Caribbean leaders.


3. (SBU) There is in fact a good deal of discrimination within the
region, felt particularly by Guyanese communities. Barbados often
sees itself as set apart from the rest of the Eastern Caribbean by
virtue of its higher levels of development and its high per capita
GDP (at around $19,000, among the highest levels in the hemisphere).
This friction, coupled with CARICOM's bureaucratic inefficiency and
turf competition between Barbados and Trinidad to be the CARICOM
region's security hub, highlights the difficulties CARICOM faces in
realizing its stated aim of closer integration. Barbados' new
immigration policy, which has received mostly negative attention in
the region so far, is both an example of the "haves" in the
Caribbean being unwilling to integrate with the "have nots," and a
further indication of the Thompson government's desire to "fence in"
the economy to provide more opportunities for Barbadians.


4. (SBU) Meanwhile, should CSME atrophy as Gonsalves has indicated,
there could be fresh impetus to move forward on closer integration
within the smaller, more manageable OECS sub-regional grouping.
Gonsalves has been a champion of OECS integration (which already has
some strong roots with a common currency and central bank),and
paired up last year with Trinidad PM Manning to entice OECS leaders
to welcome Trinidad into the OECS fold (OECS leaders were cool to
the idea, and it does not appear to have gone anywhere). Absent
Trinidad, greater OECS political and economic integration could make
sense - these islands are more similar in outlook and economic
circumstance than is the case in the broader CARICOM community,
where Jamaica, the Bahamas, Trinidad, Guyana, and smaller countries
like Dominica or St. Kitts often find common ground elusive.

HARDT