CARICOM: Caribbean Community
The Caribbean Community and Common Market was established on August 1st 1973 and its goal is to promote regional integration of the Caribbean Islands, such as the Bahamas and Haiti, and the neighboring main land countries. The Bahamas has been a member of the Caribbean Community since July 4th 1983, and Haiti is the last country that joined CARICOM as a member on July 3rd 2002. This union, which is between fifteen countries in the Caribbean, aims to prosper the economic and political status of the countries and strengthen the foreign affairs among the neighboring countries. The Caricom has four pillars of regional integration which are economic integration, foreign policy coordination, human and social development, and security and they are used to improve the standards of living by expanding trade and economic relations with other countries. Although Haiti is the oldest nation in the Caribbean to gain its independence, it the newest member of the CARICOM Community.
Haiti has been attempting to be a member of CARICOM since the early years of the institution, however, there was not much support from the Caribbean Community. One might argue that this might be due to the issue of language difference since the main language spoken in Haiti is Creole, however others were skeptical and concerned about the honesty of Haiti’s intentions for joining the CARICOM community. In a report from 1998, “Jerry Tardieu commented that ‘… Haiti’s admission into CARICOM appears to be more politically motivated than economically justified’” (Smith, 184), however, this explanation means that the country would be isolated from its neighboring countries.