Representatives of CARICOM countries heading into this weekﾒs Caribbean Council for Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR) meeting will be placing strong emphasis on protecting against the hazard of a nuclear accident, according to Senator Knowlson Gift, Foreign Affairs Minister of Trinidad and Tobago.
Senator Gift and Bahamas Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell held a briefing Tuesday to give further details on the topics expected to be discussed during COFCOR.
“We are looking at the protection of the Caribbean Sea as a nuclear free area,” Senator Gift said.
Minister Mitchell indicated that this is an imperative of all CARICOM countries, whose economies are at significant risk should an accident occur in the Caribbean Sea from waste transshipped through the region by countries, including Japan.
“United Nations presentations of all CARICOM countries, including The Bahamas have said to Japan in particular that has been sending nuclear material through the waters of this region that nuclear material should not be passed through our seas,” he said.
Minister Mitchell pointed out that the region does not have the mechanisms to check for plausible safeguards in the shipment of this material.
“The fact is that a single accident could ruin entire economies in this region dependant as they are on the environment for the regionﾴs survival,” he said.
In a statement issued back in July of 1999, CARICOM nations said, “they had grave cause to reiterate their unwavering opposition and that of the people of the Caribbean to this blatant and persistent misuse of the Caribbean Sea for the transshipment of highly toxic nuclear material.”
CARICOM said its stance was fully supported by the April 1999 Summit of the 25-member Association of Caribbean States (ACS) which rejected the continuous use of the Caribbean Sea “for the transport of nuclear and toxic waste.”
The statement went on to say, “The Heads of Government were particularly outraged at the callous and contemptuous disregard of their appeals by the governments of France, the United Kingdom and Japan to desist from this dangerous misuse of the Caribbean Sea.”
The community also expressed its regrets that its appeals to the United States to use its authority in control of the passage of the vessels through the Panama Canal “fell on deaf ears.”
Coming out of its Heads of Government meeting in Port-of-Spain for its 20th regular session in July 1999, CARICOM “vowed to take all necessary steps to protect their people and the fragile ecology of the Caribbean Sea from this highly dangerous threat to which they are now habitually exposed, as well as to safeguard the livelihood of the millions of people who depend on that unique resource for their well-being.”
COFCOR will officially open Wednesday at the Our Lucaya Resort and will close out on June 3.
Other issues to be discussed will be the political situation in Haiti and United Nations reform.
Minister Mitchell, who chairs COFCOR, said the 16th Meeting of the Council of Ministers will convene Friday and will set the agenda for the CARICOM Heads of Government meeting in St. Lucia in July.
Sharon Williams, The Bahama Journal
