JIS
Heads of government pose for an official photograph following bilateral discussions in Montego Bay, last year. From left, (back row): Minister of Energy and Public Utilities of Barbados, Anthony Wood; Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bahamas, Fred Mitchell; Minister of Housing and Lands of Dominica, Reginald Austrie; CARICOM Secretary General, Edwin Carrington; Chief Minister of Montserrat, John Osborne; Minister of Agriculture, Land, Forestry and Fishries of Grenada, Gregory Bowen; Minister of Labour and Small Micro Enterprise Development of Trinidad & Tobago, Senator Danny Montano; Minister of Natural Resources of Suriname, Dr. Gregory Rusland; From left (front row): Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Baldwin Spencer; Deputy Prime Minister of Belize, John Briceno; President of the Dominican Republic, Leonel Fernandez Reyna; President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Hugo Chavez Frias; Prime Minister of Jamaica, P.J. Patterson; President of the Republic of Cuba, Fidel Castro Ruiz, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines; Dr. Ralph Gonsalves; Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis, Dr. Denzil Douglas and Prime Minister of Guyana, Sam Hinds.
KINGSTON (JIS):
IT IS not by chance that the University of the West Indies (UWI) has been chosen as the venue for the symbolic signing of the CARICOM Single Market (CSM), which will take place in late January. The fact is that both institutions share a symbolic relationship.
In 1965, when the leaders of Barbados, British Guiana and Antigua and Barbuda signed an agreement in Dickensen Bay, Antigua to establish the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA), it was the UWI, which began three studies on the feasibility of integration, specifically on regional trade and economic development.
STUDIES
The studies were: the Dynamic of West Indian Economic Interation by Haveloc Brewster and Clive Thomas; Possibilities for Rationalising Production and Trade in the West indies by Alister McIntyre, Norman Girvan, George Beckford and Eric Armstrong; and Problems of the Caribbean Air Transport Industry by Steve Decastro.
The studies were completed in 1967, the same year that participating CARICOM heads of government decided to proceed with CARIFTA. As detailed by the 2005 publication, CARICOM: Our Caribbean Community, and issued by the CARICOM Secretariat, aspects of the studies were included in this agreement, in conjunction with the 1965 agreement.
Established in 1984 in Mona, Jamaica, as a College of the University of London, the then University College of the West Indies (UCWI), was the first regional tertiary institution. At the time, medicine was the only faculty.
However, in 1960, the St. Augustine campus in Trinidad and Tobago joined the mix when the imperial College of tropical Agriculture merged with the UCWI.
NAME CHANGE
In 1962, at the time, independent from the University of London, the UCWI changed its name to the University of the West Indies (UWI) and in the following year (1963), established its third campus in Cave Hill, Barbados.
Over the decade, some of today's CARICOM prime ministers shared lecture theatres and even halls of residence.
CARICOM prime ministers included in the UWI alumni list are: Kenny Anthony (St. Lucia); Owen Arthur (Barbados); Keith Mitchell (Grenada); Ralph Gonsalves (St. Vincent and the Grenadines); Percival Patterson (Jamaica) and Patrick Manning (Trinidad and Tobago).
Other dignitaries listed among the UWI alumni are: Perlette Louisy, St. Lucia's Governor-General; professor Maxwell Richards, President of Trinidad and Tobago, who is also a past dean of the faculty of engineering and principal of the St. Augustine campus; Secretary General of CARICOM, Dr. Edwin Carrington; Deputy Secretary General of CARICOM, Dr. Eddie Greene; Director General of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), Dr. Len Ishmael; President of the Caribbean Development Bank, Professor Compton Bourne; and Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, Sir Dwight Venner.
In recognition of this relationship between CARICOM and the UWI, the institution's main assembly hall at the Mona Campus displays flags of all CARICOM member and associate states that it serves.
