CASTRIES, St Lucia (CMC):

Prime Minister Stephenson King says he wants his fellow Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders to take urgent action to facilitate the free movement of people throughout the region.

King said that as far as his government is concerned, problems related to travel through the region by Caribbean nationals continue to pose a major challenge to the dream of 'one Caribbean'.

He said that the crux of the matter is that while the region pays lip service to the one Caribbean ideal, the reality is that individual countries may be focused on protecting job opportunities at home for their nationals.

"We have received complaints, and throughout the region there have always been complaints from St Lucians who travel to other countries, whether it is to Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados or Antigua, there are situations where St Lucians complain of either harassment or being denied entry and are sent back home," the prime minister said.

Concerns raised

King is not the first CARICOM leader to raise such concerns. Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves of St. Vincent and the Grenadines has been among the most vocal about recent developments regarding immigration within the regional grouping of countries.

Gonsalves blasted Barbadian authorities for the treatment that some of his nationals had received in Bridgetown, adding that seemingly across CARICOM, some nationalities — including those from his country, Guyana and Jamaica — have been targeted unfairly.

According to his St Lucian counterpart, Gonsalves was not off the mark by saying that such actions go against the spirit of CARICOM's regional integration process.

"this is not the kind of environment that we would want to establish within a Caribbean Community. We have to continue to pursue the ideals of one Caribbean and we have got to get over those hurdles and the prime minister of St Vincent does have a basis for making those statements," King said.

He contends that Caribbean leaders must act on the concerns about impediments to travel in the region and put measures in place to arrest the problem.

"We have a common purpose which is building a Caribbean nation. And we can't, at this stage, begin to place doors at our ports of entry and begin to profile our nationals by saying "you are Guyanese, I am not going to allow you to come in," said King, whose government recently ended an amnesty offered to immigrants living in St Lucia illegally to regularise their status.

"Fifty years ago, St Lucians moved to Guyana in droves, so if Guyanese now have the urge to travel, we cannot today begin to feel that our country is ours and ours alone."

Took advantage

The Home Affairs Ministry said 300 people, the majority of whom hail from Guyana, took advantage of the grace period to regularise their status here. To have qualified for the amnesty, foreign nationals needed to have resided here for three years and more, and not have a criminal record.

The issue of the treatment of CARICOM nationals in other member states is surely expected to be raised at the July 2-5 summit of regional leaders in Guyana.

The Guyanese president, Bharrat Jagdeo, has also been voicing his concern about the treatment of his nationals in Barbados as a result of a new immigration policy that gives CARICOM nationals who meet the required stipulations until the end of November to get their immigration status regularised or face removal from the country. In recent weeks, many Guyanese have complained that they are being rounded up — sometimes in the middle of the night — in immigration raids and being deported to Georgetown.

Left: Dr Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines. Right: Bharrat Jagdeo, president of Guyana. - File photos