by David Comissiong
It is important that we all understand that the concept of a regional Zone of Peace is one that is rooted in international law.
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It should be noted that on the 30th of June 1978, at the Tenth Special Assembly of the United Nations General Assembly, a Resolution was adopted which called for and authorized “the establishment of zones of peace in various regions of the world under appropriate conditions to be clearly defined and determined freely by the States concerned in the zone, taking into account the characteristics of the zone and the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and in conformity with international law……”
It is against this background therefore that in October 1979, Grenada (under the leadership of late Prime Minister Maurice Bishop) co-sponsored an Organization of American States (OAS) Resolution that called on all states to recognize the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace.
In the operative part of the 1979 Resolution that Grenada successfully piloted through the OAS, the General Assembly of the OAS resolved as follows:-
1. “To express its deep concern over the heightening of tension in the (Caribbean) sub-region resulting from the recent increases in military activity in the Caribbean area.
2. To repudiate the concept of the region, or any of its sub-regions, as a sphere of influence for any power.
3. To stress its support for the principles of ideological pluralism and peaceful co-existence, which are essential to the peace, stability and development of the region.
4. To call upon all states to recognise the region as a Zone of Peace, and to devote all their efforts, in appropriate regional and international forums, to the advancement of this concept.”
Having established this impregnable International Law foundation for the principle that the Caribbean must at all times be treated and respected as a Zone of Peace, CARICOM governments and statesmen then proceeded in the following years to further elucidate the specific elements of the definition of a Caribbean Zone of Peace.
For example, in 1986 Prime Minister Errol Barrow declared in an historic address to the opening ceremony of the CARICOM Heads of Government conference in Guyana as follows:-
“My position remains clear that the Caribbean must be recognised and respected as a Zone of Peace…I have said, and I repeat that while I am Prime Minister of Barbados our territory will not be used to intimidate any of our neighbours: be that neighbour Cuba or the USA. And I do not believe that size is necessarily the only criterion for determining these matters. It is important to let people know where you stand…in what is a moral commitment to peace in our region.”
But perhaps, the most significant development in this regard has been the January 2014 Zone of Peace Declaration which was unanimously adopted in Havana, Cuba by the member states of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) – a hemisphere-wide organization which includes all of the independent nations of the Caribbean and the Americas, with the exception of the United States of America and Canada.
Our Governments, having acknowledged that “peace is a supreme asset and a legitimate aspiration of all peoples”, declared Latin America and the Caribbean to be a Zone of Peace based on the following principles :-
*Our permanent commitment to solve disputes through peaceful means with the aim of uprooting forever the threat or use of force in our region;
*The commitment of the States of the region….not to intervene, directly or indirectly, in the internal affairs of any other State and to observe the principles of national sovereignty, equal rights and self- determination of peoples;
*The commitment of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean to foster cooperation and friendly relations among themselves and with other nations irrespective of differences in their political, economic, and social systems; to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours ; and
*The commitment to fully respect the inalienable right of every State to choose its political, economic, social and cultural system, as an essential condition to ensure peaceful coexistence among nations.
And it may be usefully noted here that the leader of the Trinidad and Tobago delegation to that 2014 CELAC conference that produced the Zone of Peace Declaration was Trinidad and Tobago’s then Prime Minister, the Hon. Kamla Persad Bissessar.
It is therefore precisely these Zone of Peace principles that our CARICOM Governments now need to look to for guidance when they are confronted with the phenomenon of US warships and a US nuclear sub-marine sailing into the waters of the Southern Caribbean, targeting Venezuela, and blowing the occupants of small vessels into oblivion without any process of interdiction, arrest, trial, conviction or sentence.
