CASTRIES, St. Lucia – Prime Minister Patrick Manning has warned that Trinidad and Tobago could “pay in blood” if it fails to enter into an economic and political union with the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States.

Addressing a special convention of the ruling People’s National Movement on Sunday, Manning said the economic problems confronting the Eastern Caribbean pose a threat to the economy and wellbeing of his oil-rich twin-island republic.

“You want to come, the doors are open. We are not trying to mash up anything,” he said, in an apparent response to concerns expressed by Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding that the Trinidad-OECS union would pose problems for the larger Caribbean Community organization.

Trinidad and Tobago, St. Lucia, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines have indicated their willingness to form an economic and political union by 2013. The move has been supported by the other members of the OECS.

A special committee headed by former St. Lucia Premier Dr. Vaughan Lewis and Trinidadian diplomat Dr. Cuthbert Joseph has submitted a report outlining the path to union.

Manning said the proposed union was open to all Caribbean countries and pointed out that economic blocs were consolidating the world over as countries seek to consolidate their future socio-economic development.

He stressed that Trinidad has no desire to dominate the union.

“We do not have the resources to dominate,” he said, adding that Trinidad and Tobago could not assume the debt of all the OECS countries.

“What we are after is a collaborative arrangement, economically and politically, that would redound to the benefit of all ... uplifting the standard of all countries of the region,” Manning said.

“Whether we in Trinidad and Tobago like it or not, we cannot stand idly by and watch the Caribbean in this economic situation and do nothing about it. We will pay in blood for taking such a position,” he said.

He said the potential threats to Trinidad include mass illegal migration of the people of the Eastern Caribbean states, an increase in drug activity and a decline in the country’s manufacturing sector due to diminished regional demand for its exports.

Manning also indicated that Caricom would need to address the Venezuela-led Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, or ALBA, which was born as a response to Washington’s now-dead initiative for the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Noting that several Caricom countries have joined ALBA, he said the Caribbean Community may now have to hold talks with Venezuela to ensure that ALBA is not pursued to the detriment of regional integration. EFE