As we commemorate the 50th Anniversary of CARICOM, we republish the address by Barbados Prime Minister Errol Walton Barrow at the signing ceremony of the Treaty of Chaguaramas, July 4, 1973, in Trinidad and Tobago. Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, comrades and friends, to those who have not been engaged upon the slow process of Caribbean integration, it would appear that this journey commenced at Chaguaramas a few short months ago, …
Dear Editor,
When initially it was given several ‘nick-names’, one was ‘Longest Floating Socialist Bridge’ (referring to Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham during whose regime the Demerara Harbour Bridge was erected). It actually turned out to have floated many years ‘longer’ than the period this major engineering initiative was predicted to last – something like thirty (30) years. Who is counting since? It’s many more now.
Indeed there was little, if any, preconception that it would endure the rate and much moreso the weight, of the flow of traffic currently experienced. More recent generations of regular motor vehicle drivers, not to mention their heavy-duty colleagues, would hardly slow down long enough to reflect on the engineering maintenance feat being performed day and night over the years by too little appreciated groups of dedicated managers and technicians. Nor does one immediately recall any public recognition of the miracle of sustaining this floating bridge