CARIBBEAN: Islands Dig Deep to Help Hurricane Victims

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Peter Richards

PORT OF SPAIN, Sep 16 2004 (IPS) - âÇ Even cash-strapped Dominica felt obligated to contribute to the nascent rebuilding efforts now underway in the wake of Hurricane Ivan.

Somewhat ironically, Dominica’s 50,000-dollar largesse coincided with the arrival on the island of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) team reviewing economic performance under the three-year Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) programme it has with the Washington-based financial institution.

But such is the determination of the 15-member Caribbean Community (CARICOM) nations to rally to the assistance of Grenada, whose economy was virtually destroyed by the passage of Ivan last week, that Barbados, which had earlier announced a 100,000-dollar aid package, said it would also provide an additional one million dollars in assistance.

"We are not rich, but we will bring what we have available and help reconstruct Grenada," said Suriname’s head of state Runaldo Venetiaan, who chaired an emergency summit of Caribbean leaders in Trinidad on Wednesday.

"We see ourselves as our brother’s keepers. We have all stepped up to the plate," he said.

Meanwhile, Grenada is gamely searching for the proverbial "silver lining" in the devastation caused by the storm.

"In every disaster, we can always see opportunities. It is for us now to use the message of this major destruction to do for our country what we all expect for citizens," Prime Minister Keith Mitchell said in a radio broadcast

Trinidad and Tobago, the only oil-producing member of the CARICOM grouping, has turned out to be a "godfather" to the islands battered by the hurricane.

Port of Spain’s position has been strengthened even more as a result of the windfall from the increased price for oil on the international market.

Prime Minister Patrick Manning had initially announced a 1.6-million-dollar aid package to help both Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the aftermath of the storm. But he increased that figure to 5 million dollars after touring the devastated island of Grenada as well as Jamaica, which also suffered at the hands of a rampaging Ivan, described as the worst storm in the Caribbean’s history.

Manning told his fellow CARICOM leaders that while the damage caused by Ivan was "particularly challenging", it was also an opportunity to strengthen the integration process.

"It provides us with an opportunity to pull together, perhaps to take courses of action that in the not-too-distant future can serve to strengthen and deepen the integration movement of which we have embarked on for some considerable time."

The point was not lost on St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, who told reporters after the summit that "Mother Nature" had provided the impetus needed to move the movement forward.

"Nature has shown that we are one. It has been spoken eloquently so by Ivan.. History has moulded us as one – a diverse people from different lands – but yet the vanity of you and I…want to think that we can buck nature and buck history."

He said the term "refugees" should not be used to describe Grenadians who may as a result of the devastation decide to relocate to other Caribbean countries.

The proposed CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), which provides for the free movement of skilled labour, goods and services, is expected to come on stream by 2006, although some governments have already implemented aspects of the initiative.

While he did not make direct reference to the slow pace of implementation of CSME measures, Gonslaves said that the hurricane provided the region with an opportunity to put the free movement of nationals into perspective, adding that Grenadians should not be viewed as "refugees" but as "my brothers and sisters who are the victims of the forces of nature".

St. Lucia’s Prime Minister Kenny Anthony, upon his return from a tour of the devastated island, had estimated the damage to be in the region of 740 million dollars, but other assessments indicate that the figure will be much higher given the loss of revenue, the destruction of crops and housing.

Last year, Grenada’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was just under 500,000 dollars. The island is one of the world’s leading producers of nutmeg, a crop which has now been virtually wiped out. Agricultural officials say it takes as long as nine years for a nutmeg tree to grow and produce.

CARICOM Secretary General Edwin Carrington told IPS that regional leaders had agreed to establish a pool to assist Grenada in meeting its financial obligations for the next three months, as well as agreeing to approach the international community for assistance.

"Most critically they have made very clear that financial assistance to Grenada should be in the nature of grant and aid not loan," Carrington said, adding that regional countries have also indicated their willingness to float a bond issue through the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) to raise funds for the island.

Further, the Caribbean leaders said they would also support calls for a moratorium on Grenada’s debt repayments, and both Manning and Gonsalves said they would use their address to the new session of the United Nations General Assembly later this month to raise the Grenada issue.

"We do not possess the resources in the region to fix the Grenada disaster. This would require international intervention of the most significant kind," Gonsalves noted.

The European Union announced Wednesday that it was providing 6.5 million dollars in emergency aid to Grenada, and that it would also be exploring "ways to best adapt already committed but still undisbursed funds available to Grenada to the new needs, in close coordination with other donors."

Financial considerations apart, the region has also decided on a number of other initiatives that Carrington termed "the human level".

"They have agreed to design a plan to re-allocate Grenadian examination level students to other member states," he said, noting also that public health issues including sanitation, water quality and waste disposal would also be addressed "in the context of ensuring the adequacy of shelters and in post disaster relief efforts".

Carrington said that the World Bank would be approached to undertake a feasibility study on the provision of insurance coverage for public infrastructure in CARICOM.

Should all these efforts pan out, Hurricane Ivan may indeed have a silver lining.