Caribbean Community Information

Brief background:

The West Indies or more popularly known as the Caribbean consists of a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea. The name "West Indies" originated from Christopher Columbus’ misconception when he thought he landed in the East Indies (Asia) in 1492 thereby naming the chain of islands the Indies. When his mistake was “discovered” by the Spanish crown, the islands were later renamed West Indies; this was to differentiate them from the East Indies (Spice Islands) in the Pacific Ocean, which is present day Indonesia. The name "Caribbean" was derived from the Caribs a group of the dominant ‘native Indian’ tribes who inhabited the region during that time. However, the entire Caribbean archipelago was once inhabited by a peaceful, friendly and gentle tribe of Amerindians called the Arawaks. So generous and guileless were these people that they embraced Columbus and his crew of Spaniards, they provided them with some of the basics for their survival on the Islands, only to be repaid by being mercilessly enslaved and ‘slaughtered’ so that within a few decades not one Arawak was alive.

The West Indies consist of the Greater and Lesser Antilles and the Bahamas which is about 27 territories including sovereign states, overseas departments, and dependencies. Geographically Guyana is not considered a part of the West Indies since it is situated on the continent of South America. However, due to the fact that Guyana and the rest of the English-speaking countries in the Caribbean share a common bond with it's colonial past and the ‘slaves and indentured servants’ who were brought to these colonies it is thus associated with the West Indies.

Introduction: On January 3, 1958, the West Indies Federation (WIF) was established by the introduction of the British Caribbean Federation Act of 1956. The WIF comprised of ten former English-speaking colonies of the British Empire - (Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, the then St Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, Saint Lucia, St Vincent and Trinidad and Tobago). The idea behind the creation of the WIF was to forge a unified political structure which would be granted independent status from the British as a single state similar to the Canadian Confederation, or the Australian Federation. However, before independence could be attained, due to internal political conflicts amongst the colonies fortunately or unfortunately, the WIF ‘collapsed’ on May 31, 1962. The legacies of the WIF are the West Indies Cricket Team and the University of the West Indies.

Tim Merrill in his country study series for the US Library of Congress noted that under the PNC administration Guyana has consistently encouraged greater unity among the English-speaking Caribbean countries, which is a sharp contrast to the policies of the PPP during the 1950s. Merrill claimed that the Jagan government had refused to join the WIF because of his perception that Indo-Guyanese were concerned about becoming an ethnic minority within the Federation. As opposed to an independent Guyana, whereby the Indo-Guyanese would be in the majority, and Jagan hoped that such an arrangement would secure political power for the Indo-Guyanese and the PPP.

Following the demise of the WIF, the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) was founded by Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago on 15 December 1965. They were joined on 1 July 1968 by Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla (the latter was part of St. Kitts-Nevis at that time), Saint Lucia, St Vincent, the Grenadines, followed on 1 August 1968, by Montserrat, Jamaica and finally in 1971 by Belize (then British Honduras). Subsequently, on July 4th 1973 following the signing of the Treaty of Chaguaramas in Trinidad and Tobago, CARIFTA became the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Caricom Headquarters with its headquarters in Guyana. Since then the Bahamas, Haiti and Suriname have become members of the Community, and Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands and The Turks and Caicos Islands were admitted as Associate Members.

Caribbean Leaders signing the treaty establishing CARICOM on July 4th 1973

Signing of the Treaty of Chaguaramas on 4th July 1973. Seated from left to right: Errol Barrow (Barbados); Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham (Guyana); Eric Williams (Trinidad and Tobago); and Michael Manley (Jamaica).