Bdos: Depends on what the meaning of 'hijack' is

SPEAKING during the Estimates debate in Parliament, Minister of Education, Youth Affairs and Sports Reginald Farley opined that the United States of America (USA) had, through their preoccupation with “trade and terrorism,” succeeded in “hijacking” the whole free trade deliberation process.

The Minister recalled Barbados’ collaboration under a 1994 Summit of the Americas initiative where, along with 33 other hemispheric territories (Cuba excepted), succeeded in reaching agreement “on a broad framework so rais[ing] the tide of prosperity within the hemisphere, that all of the individual ‘boats’ of the countries would rise with the tide.”

Spanning such areas as good governance, justice, security, trade, education – “particularly focusing on the digital-divide” and health, the Minister therefore described the diversion of attention away from this promising regional initiative as “hijack.” He noted instead, that “all that we hear about, of all those broad areas are two: trade, through the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)...and the other issue that gets some attention is security, [if only when] pushed as a one-dimensional element, that is the fight against terrorism.”