ST JOHN’S, Antigua - Today, the nine countries, comprising the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, will reflect on how far they have come since that red letter day of June 18, 1981, when the Treaty of Basseterre was signed, bringing the organisation into being. Many years later, on that same date in 2010, the revised treaty came into being with its focus being economic union and having a single space.
As looking back is integral to moving forward, the territories, no doubt, will today, be recalling their triumphs and their travails on the way to making the entity a functional body, living up to its mandate of the “economic harmonisation, and integration, protection of human and legal rights, the encouragement of good governance between countries and dependencies in the Eastern Caribbean.
The original signatories to the treaty have all, save one, moved off the political stage, but they can all be proud of the pact to which they penned their signatures, those many years ago.