It began as a group of former British colonies, led by four of the Caribbean’s fiercest and most independent-thinking leaders of their day when it came to foreign policy.
Realizing, however, that their strength as small states lay in their unity, especially during the Cold War, the four pioneers of the Caribbean Community, or CARICOM, joined forces to create the framework for a common market and what integrationists hoped would be a political union to determine the policy of the region.
Fifty years later, that alliance, led at the time by prime ministers Errol Barrow of Barbados, Forbes Burnham of Guyana, Norman Manley of Jamaica and Eric Williams of Trinidad and Tobago, is today a regional political and economic grouping of 15 Caribbean countries that includes French-speaking Haiti and Dutch-speaking Suriname. All but one, Montserrat, a British dependent territory in the eastern Caribbean, are independent. The other five British dependent territories of the Caribbean region are associate members.
