PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana Chronicle - FORTY years subsequent to the leaders of Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica affixing their signatures to the Treaty of Chaguaramas, establishing the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the present generation of Caribbean leaders took more than two hours to re-enact the signing, symbolically, in Chaguaramas, Trinidad and Tobago.
CARICOM leaders have gathered in that country for the 34th regular meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community.
It was at Chaguaramas, on the north western peninsula of Trinidad, that Errol Barrow (Barbados), Norman Manley (Jamaica), Dr. Eric Williams (Trinidad and Tobago) and Forbes Burnham (Guyana) met to discuss ways of determining closer Regional cooperation. Four decades on, the present batch of Regional leaders are of the view that CARICOM has a major role to play in the socio-economic development of the Caribbean Region.
The Regional leaders also counselled that it was crucial that the Regional grouping surmount its implementation deficit and allow Caribbean people, particularly the younger generation, to see and feel the benefits of integration.