CARIBBEAN Community Heads of Government will today officially mark the 35th anniversary of the region’s economic integration movement that had its historic inauguration at Chaguaramas, in Trinidad and Tobago, as the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) on July 4, 1973.

The leaders present here for the regular mid-year annual summit will today engage in “memory lane” reflections on the initiative inspired by three signatures 46 years ago at Dickenson Bay in Antigua, to establish what became the precursor to CARICOM — the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA).

The trio of signatories — Barbados’ Errol Barrow, Guyana’s Forbes Burnham and Antigua and Barbuda’s Vere Bird — have all long passed on.

But within three years of signing the Dickenson Bay accord, they had the satisfaction to be joined in 1968 by the then Prime Ministers of Trinidad and Tobago (Eric Williams) and Jamaica (Michael Manley) for the ceremonial launch of CARIFTA that paved the way for CARICOM’s inauguration five years later.

Now that the 29th regular Community summit is taking place in Antigua and Barbuda — the first since 20 years ago when the host was the now late “Papa” Vere Bird — the country’s current Prime Minister, Baldwin Spencer, has invited his colleague Heads of Government to return to Dickenson Bay “to reflect on CARICOM priorities, including immediate challenges as well as on medium and long-term strategies…”

None of today’s CARICOM Heads of Government was even a parliamentarian at the time of signing of the CARIFTA. Now, they will all make the journey today to Dickenson Bay, one of the more popular tourist resorts of Antigua and Barbuda, this Leeward Island that likes to remind visitors of its uniqueness in boasting 365 beaches.

Following their final pre-lunch plenary session they will adjourn for lunch, and later be escorted to Dickenson Bay by their colleague host, Prime Minister Spencer, for a closing session that will also approve the Communique of this four-day summit.

What is expected to result from their reflections is a “Declaration of Dickenson Bay” - crafted to inform the region’s people and all relevant stakeholders of the renewal of commitment to press ahead with the essential policies and programmes to transform CARICOM into the promised seamless regional economy over which there currently remains differences in policies and programmes.

Prime Minister Spencer, who is to chair an end-of-summit media briefing this evening, had told his colleagues on Monday evening: “Many of the priorities we will set for CARICOM at this meeting are relevant for our interaction as a region with the international community…Priorities include cementing the CSME framework and the launch of the CARIFORUM Development Fund”.

In outlining his own thoughts on the long, and often rocky road from Dickenson Bay to Chaguaramas and back to Dickenson Bay today, Edwin Carrington, CARICOM’s longest serving Secretary General, was philosophical in commending the efforts of the three visionaries (Barrow, Burnham and Bird) who “bequeathed us with the signing of the Dickenson Bay Agreement”.

For now, we await the decisions they would have made on crucial issues, such as: crime and security; tourism development and regional air transportation; future of agriculture to deal with huge and climbing food imports and threatened food shortages; establishment of the much discussed CARICOM Development Fund; as well as sensitive CSME-readiness matters like free intra-regional movement of Community nationals without hostility and even degrading treatment at some ports of entry.