‘CARICOM must continue to exist’

‘I am of the firm opinion that CARICOM must continue to exist, but it must exist for the purpose of improving the quality of life of all our people. If it does not succeed in doing this, then we must abandon it. We must emphasise that we are not in CARICOM merely to show that there is ‘unity’ among us in the English-speaking Caribbean – no, we are in CARICOM because the unity it aims at achieving will bring benefits to all our people.
Therefore, we must work hard at making CARICOM what it should be, what it was meant to be, what, in our dignified and formal speeches, we (with tongue in cheek), say it is. We must all have the political will to carry out the decisions we take. We must all be prepared to bring our people close at hand to understand why we take certain decisions. The P.R. job is the hardest and only those with faith can teach the lesson,can preach the gospel. Because, I will repeat, even if you find it boring, that unless we can take our people along the path we want to tread, we can never succeed. – Dame Mary Eugenia Charles, former Prime Minister of Dominica, at the Eighth Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM, Guyana, 30 June-3 July, 1987