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Caribbean Islands Controversial Security Issues
After the signing of the RSS Memorandum of Understanding in
1982, some opposition groups in the Eastern Caribbean charged that
the security plan was a United States idea, designed to keep
conservative, pro-United States governments in power. These groups,
and particularly Barbados' Democratic Labour Party (DLP),
criticized the alleged secretiveness of their governments'
participation in the RSS and in developing the SSUs. Conservative
leaders, such as Dominica's Charles, countered that the RSS idea
was developed by Caribbean leaders and that there was nothing
secret about Dominica's RSS activities, which usually involved
coast guard assistance, or its SSU, which carried out normal police
duties when not training or exercising as a unit.
In addition to the regional debate over the pros and cons of
the RSS itself, two related security issues were controversial in
the 1980s: a proposal to establish a Regional Defence Force (RDF)
and charges of "militarization" of the Eastern Caribbean. The plan
to establish a regional force had been canceled in the late 1960s
as a result of disagreements over the location of the proposed
force and its leadership, in which country ultimate authority over
it should reside, and logistical problems and financial
constraints. The idea of establishing an RDF was again considered
by the Eastern Caribbean islands in 1976, as well as shortly after
the Grenada coup in 1979, but was shelved on both occasions owing
to practical and political obstacles. During 1980 serious talks got
underway on establishing a 120-member regional defense force "to
deal with any internal armed threat to an elected government."
Barbadian prime minister Adams revived the RDF proposal in 1982
when the RSS was formed, but it was rejected as too costly.
Undeterred, he again brought up the idea at the RSS meeting held in
Castries, St. Lucia, in February 1983. By formally introducing his
so-called "Adams Doctrine" in a speech to the annual conference of
his governing BLP on January 21, 1984, Adams emerged as the
principal proponent for establishing an RDF in the region. He
recommended one regional army, consisting of 1,000 to 1,800 troops,
instead of a number of national armies, because a combined force
would provide an additional safeguard against insurrections,
mercenaries, and military revolts.
An RDF would have been unprecedented for a region that had been
guarded mainly by police since the islands began to become
independent from Britain in the early 1960s. Despite their
considerable strategic importance, none of the Eastern Caribbean
islands had maintained more than a token military force. Only
Barbados and Antigua and Barbuda still had defense forces in the
late 1980s. The Barbados Defence Force (BDF), formerly the long-
standing Barbados Regiment, was created by the BLP government in
1979. Comprising army, marine, and air divisions, the BDF was
reported in 1986 to have from 300 to 1,800 troops (the latter
figure was announced by Prime Minister Barrow himself). Most
knowledgeable observers generally agreed, however, that the BDF had
about 500 members. The 115-member Antigua and Barbuda Defence Force
lacked the training, equipment, and organization of the BDF.
The other English-speaking islands in the Eastern Caribbean
also were guarded mainly by police. Dominica's prime minister
Charles disbanded the Dominican Defence Force in April 1981 after
at least five key officers were implicated in a failed coup attempt
involving United States and Canadian mercenaries. In 1979 the same
force had intervened in a crowd-control incident and opened fire,
killing two persons. The resulting constitutional crisis led to the
dismissal from office of then-prime minister Patrick John. St.
Kitts and Nevis also abolished its fourteen-year-old defense force
in 1981, owing to its costliness and ineffectiveness, and converted
its soldiers into policemen and firemen. It retained only its
Volunteer Defence Force and the Royal St. Christopher and Nevis
Police Force.
The RDF proposal would have expanded the 1982 RSS agreement to
include a regional ground force element. Adams explained that the
RDF proposal called for "the abandonment of individual defence
forces and the incorporation of the existing forces into a regional
force which would have a unified command under general political
direction." According to St. Lucian prime minister Compton, the RDF
would move into any island "which showed signs of invasion from
internal subversion or outside intruders."
The RSS Council of Ministers, meeting in Bridgetown on February
7, 1984, studied a report on the implications of establishing an
RDF. These leaders also raised the RDF question the next day in a
meeting with visiting United States secretary of state George P.
Shultz, with whom Prime Minister Adams held a private meeting. By
that time, the RDF proposal envisioned an 1,800-member force
costing US$100 million over 5 years (a figure that included
purchases of helicopters and coast guard vessels).
In a meeting at BDF headquarters in Bridgetown on March 17,
1984, the leaders of the six RSS island nations resumed discussion
of the proposal to establish an RDF instead of national armies. By
October, however, they had scaled down plans for a Barbados-based
RDF, primarily owing to the cost factor but also in response to
charges of militarization of the region. Some critics were
concerned that an RDF would divert scarce funds from badly needed
economic development projects. Mitchell, who took office as prime
minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines in a landslide victory
in July 1984, announced that his New Democratic Party (NDP) was
opposed to heavy spending on arms and armies in the region because
of concerns about "militarization."
A five-year plan proposed at the RSS meeting held on November
23, 1984, called for expanding the multilateral RDF into a
permanent Caribbean Defence Force. With headquarters in Barbados
and garrisons in Grenada and Antigua and Barbuda, it would have
consisted of about 1,800 personnel, including 700 combat infantry
troops and some 1,100 members of coast guard and air support
elements. Implementation of the initiative, however, would have
been dependent on increases in United States security assistance
and exemption from a technical United States legislative
restriction prohibiting the provision of foreign police training.
When regional military leaders estimated the cost of the proposed
RDF at US$60 million over five years, Washington rapidly cooled on
the idea.
When Adams died from a heart attack in March 1985, the RDF plan
lost its main advocate. After Barrow took office as prime minister
in Barbados in May 1986, he joined ranks with Prime Minister
Mitchell of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and succeeded in
blocking the RDF proposal. Opposition to the RDF idea among some
island leaders also was a factor in its demise. Nevertheless,
Antigua and Barbuda's prime minister Vere Cornwall Bird, Sr., still
advocated the establishment of an independent, regional collective
defense and security system in order to counter what he perceived
to be a communist threat aimed at destabilizing the OECS member
states.
The efforts by the English-speaking islands of the Eastern
Caribbean to establish an RDF and an RSS, with both British and
United States military assistance, were characterized by critics as
tantamount to militarizing the region. Some academics contended
that the region had become militarized. Even OECS director Vaughan
Lewis expressed reservations about the possible political
consequences of establishing SSUs on the islands. "The
reinforcement of local security systems," he explained, "leads to
an upsetting of the balance between the various socio-political
sectors . . . . The modernization process suggests to the military
a sense of their own particular status as the only virtuous sector-
-as the guardians of the system . . . . This sets the basis for the
coup and counter-coup system."
In 1986 the two most outspoken proponents of the militarization
charge were prime ministers Barrow and Mitchell of Barbados and St.
Vincent and the Grenadines, respectively. At his first news
conference on June 2, 1986, Barrow told reporters that he held
reservations on the RSS similar to those held by Mitchell,
including the suspicion that the RSS idea had United States
origins. Although both leaders kept their nations in the RSS, they
declined to allow their RSS forces to participate in at least two
RSS exercises in 1985 and 1986. Barrow and Mitchell also stressed
the need for training the police forces of the RSS member countries
in internal security measures, instead of providing military-style
training for defense and paramilitary forces.
In a letter dated September 2, 1986, and addressed to the prime
ministers of the other RSS member states, Barrow stated his
government's "strong reservations over the use of our resources for
militaristic purposes or for unjustifiable usurpation of the
sovereignty of our country by alien influences." At the same time,
Barrow announced that Barbados would not agree to upgrade the RSS
Memorandum of Understanding to the status of a treaty but would
continue using it as the basis for security cooperation between
Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean. Other regional leaders,
principally prime ministers Charles of Dominica and Bird of Antigua
and Barbuda, strongly defended the RSS and rejected the
militarization argument. Barrow's death from a heart attack in
early June 1987 removed the leading critic of the alleged
militarization of the subregion.
By 1987 the charges of militarization seemed to have been
overstated. Unlike in Bishop's Grenada, the Eastern Caribbean
appeared to lack the usual indicators of militarization, such as
the formation of people's militias, military involvement in
government, military buildups, or significant shares of GDP being
devoted to the military sector. Spending increases for police and
security forces appeared to be directed toward antidrug operations.
Whereas the proportion of expenditures on the military in Trinidad
and Tobago, Jamaica, and Guyana more than doubled during the 1972-
79 period, none of these governments were considered to have
particularly close relations with the United States.
The one-to-four ratio of United States military and economic
assistance to the Eastern Caribbean in FY 1986 did not suggest a
United States effort to militarize the subregion either. Although
police force elements acquired paramilitary capabilities with
United States assistance, these SSUs were limited to about eighty
members each. Moreover, the largest defense force in the subregion,
the BDF, had only about 500 members. In some circumstances,
however, there appeared to be a potential for SSUs to be misused as
a political instrument in support of or against a governing party.
The holding of RSS military exercises with United States forces
also was a new development for the subregion.
* * *
Yereth Kahn Knowles's doctoral dissertation, Beyond the
Caribbean States, offers a scholarly account of post-World War
II efforts to form federations and a regional security system.
Useful information on the RSS is also contained in the following
journal articles: Bernard Diederich's "The End of West Indian
Innocence: Arming the Police"; Gary P. Lewis's "Prospects for a
Regional Security System in the Eastern Caribbean"; and Graham
Norton's "Defending the Eastern Caribbean." Relevant discussions of
the militarization issue are Dion E. Phillips's "The Increasing
Emphasis on Security and Defense in the Eastern Caribbean" and
David A. Simmons's "Militarization of the Caribbean: Concerns for
National and Regional Security."
Especially useful journal articles on strategic affairs include
Edward A. Padelford's "Caribbean Security and U.S. Political-
Military Presence"; Vaughan A. Lewis's "The US and the Caribbean:
Issues of Economics and Security"; and George Black's "Mare
Nostrum: U.S. Security Policy in the English-Speaking Caribbean."
Books with insightful discussions of the strategic setting include
those by Harold Mitchell, Lester D. Langley, John Bartlow Martin,
Robert Agro-Melina and John Cronin, Thomas D. Anderson, and Robert
J. Hanks. (For further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)
Data as of November 1987
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