G.G. says Heads Conference is no Talk Shop

Contact: John Emmanuel

Tuesday, October 10, 2000 - St. Lucia’s Governor General Her Excellency Dame Pearlette Louisy has sought to enlighten critics who have labeled the Sixth Conference of Heads of State of CARICOM currently taking place at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Rodney Bay as merely a talk shop.

According to the Governor General, who is serving as Chairperson of this year’s conference, although being non-executive Heads of State, the region’s Governors General can and do influence significantly, policy and programmes of their individual governments.

According to Dame Pearlette, "Our annual meetings have quietly but firmly asserted our belief in the region’s common identity and shared future. We have therefore appreciated the importance of a common understanding of our role in enhancing the quality of life of the people we serve and of bringing our individual countries and the region to the point where they can assert themselves in this new world order. Therefore, at a time when global pressures at threatening the very survival of small nation states, we cannot but redouble our efforts at joint action based on mutual interests and facilitated by frequent dialogue and communication."

She is of the view that the region’s Governors General have been operating well within their purview to influence political thought and institutional direction in the national interest. "This role together with the other constitutional roles namely to express national identity, to symbolize unity, to be the expression of order and balance as a non-political head of state, to be the symbol and representative of nation and state, to be the focus on national ceremonial occasions summarizes only in part, the functions of the office of Head of State in our regional context," she told her audience.

The Sixth Conference of Heads of State of CARICOM is being attended by all of the non-executive Heads of State of the region, with the exception of Dominica’s Governor General His Excellency Vernon Shaw. The Theme for the conference is the Growing Phenomenon of Globalization.

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