The people's four
Publication: Sun on Saturday
Date: Sat, May 10, 1997
Page: 3
Byline: Terry Ally
CARIBBEAN LEADERS meeting with United States President Bill Clinton this morning have been urged to raise four major concerns with him.
The matters came out of yesterday's People Forum, which drew 28 panellists from seven Caribbean countries and examined a series of issues of concern to the Caribbean people.
In the 21-point document that was to be circulated to the Heads of Government last night, the forum lauded Prime Minister Owen Arthur for his stance on the Shiprider Agreement "up to this point".
It urged him not to sign the document without first publishing the text in the local newspapers and taking the matter to Parliament for a two-thirds majority vote.
It said the US would take no less a stance.
The forum unanimously deplored that other countries had signed the agreement without the people's approval and urged them to insist on renegotiations.
The heads were also urged to insist that a date be set for a follow-up meeting to discuss the unwanted Helms-Burton Act.
A conference aimed at radically restructuring the international monetary regulatory system of the Bretton Woods Institutions was another matter the forum wanted the heads to raise with Clinton.
The conference also called on Clinton to drop his opposition to the marketing arrangements with the European Union for Caribbean bananas, rum and sugar.
Director of the Clement Payne Cultural Centre, David Comissiong, said he expected the heads to take the recommendations "very seriously".
"I do not expect Mr. Arthur, the Prime Minister of my country, to sign any agreement without first bringing that agreement to me and the public and the Parliament of Barbados . . . (otherwise) it (would be) a very serious infraction of our rights as citizens."
Opposition Antiguan senator, Tim Hector, supported that position.
"Today is the first day in the history of the region that the matters which we discussed today were put before any section of the people of the Caribbean in so systematic a scrutiny and, if that systematic scrutiny does not deserve the attention and does not speak for the people of the Caribbean, then I do not know that a summit among leaders is more extensive and progressive than this audience here which represents the Caribbean people in all their diverse reality."