AMY GOODMAN: President Clinton heads down to the eastern Caribbean tomorrow for a meeting with regional leaders in Bridgetown, Barbados. Like his trip to Central America this week, President Clinton will be dealing with issues related to trade, immigration and the militarization of the drug war.

Joining us to talk about some of these questions is Ricky Singh, a Caribbean journalist and columnist based in Bridgetown, Barbados. He’s written for most of the Caribbean’s leading newspapers and is the regional affairs correspondent for the Caribbean News Agency, known as CANA.

Welcome to Democracy Now!

RICKY SINGH: Good morning, and welcome to you.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, it’s good to be hearing from you in Barbados. Can you tell us what you see as the major issues of the Caribbean that President Clinton and the Caribbean leaders should be dealing with?

RICKY SINGH: They have a common position in the fight against illicit drugs and money laundering. And the American administration has been very consistent in collaborating with the Caribbean region in ensuring the trafficking of cocaine and other drugs into the United States must be curbed as effectively as possible. Current estimates place drugs passing through the Caribbean is about 40% of total consumption in the United States and Europe. The Caribbean countries have no problem in cooperating with the United States and Europe on these matters. But what they have been focusing on primarily is a question of trade and economic aid, because that is very vital to their very survival. And they are coming around to a position which is being articulated as the linkage between the fight against drugs and economic reforms and trade liberalization.

AMY GOODMAN: What does the drug war mean for militaries in the Caribbean?

RICKY SINGH: In terms of what?

AMY GOODMAN: Well —

RICKY SINGH: You mean in terms of their response?

AMY GOODMAN: One of the things that activists have been talking about in Mexico as President Clinton has been there for the last few days is that when money is poured into the drug war, what it actually does is militarize society and strengthen militaries to deal more than just with drugs, but to deal with — 

RICKY SINGH: Ah, good. OK, right, I’m with you. There’s a distinction between money to fight drugs in Latin America and that of the Caribbean region, because moneys allocated to the Caribbean by the United States or Europe or Canada for fighting drugs go directly to the government and have to be identified in terms of disbursements. So there’s no question of it adding to any kind of militarization of the society. There are specific safeguards against that.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk a little about, Ricky Singh, the Shiprider Agreement and what this means, for listeners who are not aware of it at all?

RICKY SINGH: The Shiprider Agreement is basically the United States’ approach to the use of Caribbean territorial waters and airspace in hot pursuit, primarily, of drug traffickers or suspected drug traffickers. Most of the eastern Caribbean territories have already signed on to that agreement. But Jamaica and Barbados have been resisting that until recently, because they were not comfortable with the provisions because it impinges on their jurisdictional sovereignty. And the United States has had to go through the process of renegotiating those agreements. They have succeeded in doing that with Jamaica earlier this week, and they have signed on to it. And they are in the process of concluding a similar agreement with Barbados today, and hopefully that will be signed next week. The intention was to get out of the way the controversies relating to the Shiprider Agreement with the United States prior to the Caribbean-U.S.A. summit, which begins in Barbados on Saturday. They do not want the issues to be confused, because they were very contentious issues. Happily, they have been resolved in a manner that satisfies both the United States, Jamaica and Barbados.

AMY GOODMAN: I know that the late Cheddi Jagan, president of Guyana, while he signed on to the Shiprider Agreement, had serious misgivings about it for basically allowing the U.S. to control the air — the sea waves of the Caribbean. And Barbados has held out the longest, hasn’t, of any Caribbean nation?

RICKY SINGH: Yes, you are right. And that is because they have been insisting on provisions such as compensation, reciprocity, in terms of whether — although, I mean, it may look like of academic interest to some people that you want reciprocal arrangements with the world’s sole superpower. But what they — in fact, it’s a matter of principle. If your vessels are going to come into our waters or territorial space, then we must have a similar right in the event that we have to engage in a hot pursuit, as well. Then the more serious issue was compensation, because the original draft was very vague. And there was a real danger that these small island states may have been held accountable in the event of wrongful arrest and so forth, damage to property, in the course of carrying out anti-drug operations.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me end by asking you this large question, which is: The effect of NAFTA on the Caribbean, where the Caribbean Basin Initiative fits in, and where the U.S. policy toward Cuba — how it affects, for example, your country of Barbados?

RICKY SINGH: Well, first, to the original aspect of your question, and that is that NAFTA has had a negative effect on Caribbean’s trade with the United States, because it has had the effect of undermining the gains that were originally provided for under the Caribbean Basin Initiative that was introduced by President Reagan, because that agreement still excludes about 13 major commodities from the duty-free concessions — among them, apparel, textile, leather goods, petroleum, petroleum-based products. These are major sources of employment and foreign exchange. So it has hurt us because, as you know, the NAFTA agreement has extended certain concessions to Mexico, and Mexico has been eroding our little market that we have with the United States. So that is going to be an area of serious discussion, which, in fact, is not going to be a new discussion. It’s going to be a revisiting of an old discussion that they had first in 1994. And they’re looking forward to President Clinton giving some ground there. Alternatively, if they can enhance the CBI to take care of these problems, while they’re discussing the larger issue of the coming Free Trade Area of the Americas.

AMY GOODMAN: And Cuba?

RICKY SINGH: And Cuba is — both sides, significantly, are trying their very best to avoid discussing it in any official way. But informally, Cuba is very much there, and I suspect it will surface in the plenary session on Sunday morning. The scenario here is that the United States has not requested it to be on the agenda, sensing resentment from the Caribbean delegations. But in the event that the United States exercises its right to put it on the agenda, then the Caribbean will introduce the Helms-Burton Act, in terms of its negative impact on the Caribbean and its right to engage in free trade. So, that is where it is at the present time.

You need to know, and your listeners need to know, that Cuba is the only Caribbean nation that is not going to be present for this summit, as happened in 1994, the Summit of the Americas. And that is not a — that is not a position that the Caribbean governments are happy with, because Cuba has diplomatic relations with all the independent Caribbean states and is a member of the Association of Caribbean States, and therefore they would have liked Cuba to be involved. But it would have been a very contentious issue. And there was a real possibility that if they had raised it initially, the president of the United States may not have agreed to come to the Caribbean for the summit.

AMY GOODMAN: Ricky Singh, I want to thank you very much for joining us from Bridgetown, Barbados, where you are a Caribbean journalist and columnist, writing for many of the Caribbean’s leading newspapers. Thanks for being with us, as we —

RICKY SINGH: Well, I’m glad to be of help.

AMY GOODMAN: Thank you.