The OECS Secretariat’s observance of the 26th Anniversary of the Signing of the Treaty of Basseterre that established the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States will resonate as an enlightening experience. On a wonderful “weather friendly” OECS Day, Monday June 18th, OECS staff in ceremony, rendered the OECS Song. Some witnessed for the first (The OECS flag was officially unfurled to highlight the OECS 25th Anniversary activities in St. Kitts-Nevis.) time the hoisting of our flag.

Prayers and blessings were conducted for the OECS 26th anniversary. Members of staff were also encouraged to sustain pride in the institution and its mandate. This moment of reflection and praise continued with Lucy Jn Charles, Executive Secretary to the Director General presenting her supervisor’s OECS Day Message since Dr. Len Ishmael, along with the Director of the OECS Economic Affairs Division Randy Cato represented the region along with OECS heads at high level talks in the USA.

Dr Ishmael’s address highlighted major achievements over the past year such as the first OECS International Development Conference, an OECS Flag and Song as well as the opening of an OECS Office in Puerto Rico. The Director General’s speech also acknowledged upcoming exploratory missions to further deepen the integration process while enhancing sectors such as tourism, investment and transportation, as well as create strategic alliances and build on existing ties:The OECS will for example, during this upcoming year, work to establish closer ties with Brazil which, along with India and China, are emerging economic giants in the developing world. I expect to visit Brazil again in August to make presentations on the OECS, to the Brazilian Senatorial Committee on Foreign relations. Benefits for our OECS people arising from this relationship will include training in diplomacy and fiscal administration among other areas, technical and cultural exchanges, support to the health sector and small industry development.

Officer in Charge at the OECS Secretariat, Francis Burnett conveyed the OECS 26th Anniversary address on behalf of the new Chairman of the OECS Authority Prime Minister of Dominica Hon. Roosevelt Skerrit. In his address the chairman commented on the expectations of the sub-region within the wider CARICOM integration process: “Our new OECS Flag and OECS Song are symbols of the OECS model of integration. The OECS as a grouping is continuing to assert itself in the world in a number of ways, notably playing a vital role in the WTO trade negotiations in Geneva with the Group of Small and Vulnerable Economies. Regional entities and arrangements such as the the OECS Pharmaceutical Procurement Service, the AIDS Project and the Eastern Caribbean Telecommunications Authority,  our Overseas Representational Missions all continue to serve us well and to reinforce our sense of common identity.”

An eye opening lecture by integrationist, and former St. Lucia Ambassador to CARICOM Earl Huntley was a fitting finish to this day of reflection and praise. Huntley, author of The Union of East Caribbean States: Thoughts on a Form” gave an abstract perspective of the OECS model of integration through the Grenada experience focusing on the Grenada Revolution in 1983. Huntley suggested that OECS heads consider a treaty that further reflects a spirit of oneness in the Eastern Caribbean: “I will urge OECS Governments to go beyond the new treaty of just an economic union and pursue a new treaty of union much broader in scope than the economic union, one which will capture that sense, that feeling, that realization that they are a political community in the Eastern Caribbean, a community that was in fact born 26 years ago but was baptized in the 1983 Grenada experience. So at 26 years after its birth and 24 years after its baptism, it is time to give the OECS the clothes of manhood; a treaty which truly says that we are one in the Eastern Caribbean.”-Huntley

Prior to the OECS Day event primary school students paid an anniversary visit to the OECS Secretariat where they received attractive reading material and dialogued with officers at the OECS Secretariat on the various functions of the institution. The children showed their eagerness to demonstrate knowledge of issues under the purview of the OECS Secretariat such as environmental awareness and the history of the institution. The kids even recorded a “Happy Birthday OECS” greeting which was aired on a special OECS News link feature on OECS Day. That special News-Link programme also played an excerpt of the OECS Song “Stay up OECS”.