Hailing Lloyd; next Rainford

CLIVE LLOYD’S elevation to membership of the Order of the Caribbean Community (OCC) is an obviously right decision by the region’s leaders. Lloyd was not only a talented and successful cricketer, but an outstanding captain of the West Indies cricket team, which, on their own, would make his choice uncontroversial. But beyond that the statistics of his play and captaincy, the quality of his leadership captured the essence of the award and the core of the idea of CARICOM: that the product of the region is more than the sum of its individual parts, and that the islands in the Caribbean Sea, from which the members of his team came, represented a civilisation as worthy of any in the world.

But, even as this newspaper unreservedly celebrates the honouring of Clive Lloyd, we also wonder at the continued oversight of community’s leaders with respect to Roderick Rainford, a former CARICOM secretarygeneral who served the regional integration movement long and faithfully, during a most difficult period.

Unless he has himself declined nomination, Mr Rainford’s absence from the list of OCC awardees is made more obvious by the fact that former CARICOM secretaries-general who served two terms have been inducted into the Order of the Caribbean Community.

Instituted in 1992, the OCC is reserved for Caribbean nationals whose legacies in the region’s economic, political, social and cultural life are deemed to be extraordinary.

DESERVES HIS PLACE

Lloyd joins three West Indian cricketers and cricket captains in this pantheon of outstanding people: the legendary Garfield Sobers of Barbados; Brian Lara of Trinidad and Tobago; and Viv Richards of Antigua and Barbuda. And there is no question that he deserves his place. In 110 Test matches in which he batted 175 times, Lloyd scored 7,515 runs at an average of 46.67. In the days before T20 matches, he played in 87 one-day internationals (ODI), batted 69 times and scored 1,977 runs at an average of 39.54. These statistics place him on the cusp of greatness for a batsman who played so long.

But it was as captain of the phenomenal team of the late 1970s into the 1980s that his skills as a leader and the larger conceptual frame within which he placedWest Indies cricket showed. Lloyd was not their creator, but after his team’s mauling by Australia in 1976, he played a major role in honing the outstanding talents of a group of young players into an almost unbeatable combination that dominated global cricket for a decade and a half.The four-pronged pace attack he inspired, and with batsmen of the calibre of Richards, the West Indies generated awe and fear among opposing teams.

Lloyd captained the West Indies 74 times in Test matches and won 36 times, with only 12 defeats. There was an outstanding stretch of 27 matches without a defeat.

Clive Lloyd’s approach to the captaincy, in moulding disparate individuals into a cohesive and professional unit, shares the philosophical underpinnings of Caribbean Community and for which it continues to strive through the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).

RAINFORD

It is unlikely that any CARICOM secretary-general put more into the effort, with greater equanimity, and in more difficult circumstances, than Mr Rainford, a Jamaica-born regional public servant.

He joined the CARICOM secretariat in 1980 as a deputy secretary to the Barbadian Kurleigh King. He became the secretary-general when Dr King resigned in 1983. Mr Rainford stayed in the post for a decade, during a period of regional tensions, including over the US invasion of Grenada after the implosion of Maurice Bishop’s revolutionary government, and disputes over trade and problematic regional payments mechanisms.

It is possible that the calm and composure with which Mr Rainford approached his job masked his effectiveness in preventing further deterioration in CARICOM.

Significantly, it was during Mr Rainford’s tenure that CARICOM leaders issued the 1989 Grand Anse Declaration in Grenada that is the basis of the CSME, one of whose most important planks, the free movement of citizens within the community, is, fingers crossed, to come fully into effect at the end of March.

It was also while Mr Rainford was secretary-general that CARICOM leaders established the Ramphal Commission to review the operation of the community and make recommendations for its governance. The Ramphal Commission report, Time for Action, was launched in 1992, just as Mr Rainford was leaving office. Nonetheless, that report, like the Grand Anse Declaration, remains a hallmark event in CARICOM.

Two of Mr Rainford’s successors, Edwin Carrington (Trinidad andTobago) and Ambassador Irwin LaRocque, who both served two terms, were made members of the Order of the Caribbean Community. Two other inductees, William Demas and Alister McIntyre, served single terms, but otherwise also served with distinction in other regional institutions.

It is hardly likely that Rodrick Rainford is judged by his very brief post-CARICOM stint as governor of the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ), during which, it emerged, the central bank’s staff were buying foreign exchange on the black market. It was a secret strategy that preceded Mr Rainford’s tenure, of which he knew nothing.

When the purchases were disclosed, Mr Rainford was truthful that they had happened, decently took responsibility and resigned, protecting the bank from lasting institutional damage.

The opinions on this page, except for The Editorial, do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Gleaner.