Press Release 513/2010
CARICOM SG CALLS FOR UK’S RESTORATION OF CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN TCI
(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) His Excellency Edwin Carrington, Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretary-General on Friday sent out a call to the United Kingdom (UK), through its newly accredited Plenipotentiary Representative, His Excellency Paul Brummell, for the restoration of constitutional government in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Speaking on 10 December from the Georgetown, Guyana Headquarters of the CARICOM Secretariat, Sir Edwin said that the Community saw the UK’s imposition of indefinite direct rule in that Associate Member of the Community as being “totally at odds with the development of good governance, including improved fiscal and administrative management, in the Turks and Caicos Islands.”
“CARICOM contends that those objectives of Her Majesty’s Government cannot be met by the continued effective disenfranchisement of the Turks and Caicos Islanders or by the denial of their inalienable right to shape their own future.”
For this reason, he said that CARICOM looked forward to the restoration by the UK’s new administration of the “islanders’ full franchise.”
The Secretary-General noted that the Community and the UK had benefited over the years, from “frank and open dialogue” and had “co-operated constructively” in defence of common values such as good governance, democracy; respect for the rule of law and for the basic, inalienable rights of all peoples.
“We must strive to remain guardians of these all too fragile and important tenets of modern civilization. It is in all of our interests,” Sir Edwin said.
The CARICOM Secretary-General said that the 7th meeting of the CARICOM-UK Forum due to be held in 2011 in Grenada, the first meeting between CARICOM Foreign Ministers and new Foreign Secretary of the UK, the Honourable William Hague, should be a “most fruitful opportunity” for the strengthening of UK-Caribbean relations.
