KINGSTON, Jamaica - The relationship of Jamaica with its Caribbean neighbours in a regional organisation was first publicly discussed at a conference in Montego Bay in 1947, called by the British secretary of state, Arthur Creech Jones, to discuss the question of regional political integration.
From this opening discussion, 11 years later, the West Indies Federation was born, comprising 10 English-speaking countries, none independent. All were seeking independence through the federal structure.
The Federation was ill-fated from the start. It was based on the strength of a common heritage, from which was to be forged a common destiny of political, economic and social development, through integration. If the commonalities of the Federation were its strength, its diversities were its weakness: population size, wide income spread and economic performance, differences and distances between political power centres and, from Jamaica's point of view, lack of socialisation with the other member countries and their people.