Tiny Country Puts Forth a Powerful Voice

In the five months since a landslide victory swept Kenny Anthony into power in this tiny Caribbean island nation, the new prime minister has revoked Taiwan’s diplomatic status here and opened his doors to the People’s Republic of China. He has made overtures of friendship to Fidel Castro’s Cuba, and he has even taken on the United States.

In a speech to the United Nations last month, Anthony blasted tough new U.S. immigration laws as well as American efforts that ended preferential British trade deals for the bananas that once drove the economies of small Caribbean nations.

“Market liberalization and economic liberalism represent the hardening of the arteries of human conscience in the sphere of commerce,” Anthony told the United Nations. And the U.S. stance on the trade issue, he added, “is nothing short of a capitulation to the machinations of those who are blinded by free trade and sheer greed.”

After a similar performance before dozens of world leaders at a summit of Commonwealth heads of state in Scotland two weeks ago, the British Broadcasting Corp. dubbed Anthony “one for the future,” a man who “took to the international stage with aplomb.”

At 46, the lawyer, economist and self-avowed social democrat is emerging as an articulate new voice for the world’s small states--especially the Caribbean nations that are struggling to survive in an increasingly competitive global economy.

Combining a doctorate from England’s University of Birmingham with home-grown island charisma, Anthony says his roots on a land that has produced two Nobel laureates--Arthur Lewis for Economics in 1959 and poet Derek Walcott for Literature in 1992--oblige him to advocate issues that go beyond the remote nation of 150,000.

Although several of Anthony’s moves since he and his Labor Party crushed the United Workers Party that had ruled St. Lucia for most of the past three decades appear far left of center, Anthony insists that he is driven by pragmatism, not politics. The United States, he says, has nothing to fear from him.

“We think we can do a lot with the United States,” he said in a recent interview in his simple waterfront office here in St. Lucia’s capital.

His blistering U.N. speech, he said, was “a plea, a crying out to the United States, an expression of the pain we are feeling.”

Anthony said his recognition of China and opening to Cuba should be viewed as economic necessity at a time when the Clinton administration is playing a lead role in opposing subsidies such as the long-standing British banana trade deal that kept the Caribbean island economies afloat. U.S. banana corporations argued successfully before the World Trade Organization that the deals violated free trade.

“Times are turbulent. We have to make decisions that are bold and broad,” he said. “These islands are finding it increasingly difficult to be viable. The world is closing in on us. We have to look for new economic opportunity.”

On Cuba, he said: “We are not an admirer of the Cuban system of government. . . . But Cuba is part of the Caribbean family, and we cannot ignore it just because its political system is different.”

China, in exchange for recognition, has promised to build a sports stadium and a cultural center on the island and launch other free-trade ventures.

And of himself, Anthony said: “I have always described myself as a child of the Caribbean. . . . It is therefore almost expected that I make some sort of contribution.”

Anthony’s humble roots and leadership style belie his emerging regional role.

He has eschewed the trappings of St. Lucia’s traditional ruling elite. He drives himself around the island in a Jeep. He has no personal security. And during his U.N. visit last month, he insisted on taking taxis without U.S. Secret Service protection.

The son of a white landowner and a black housemaid, Anthony’s name, in itself, helps define him. His father neglected parental duties, Anthony said, and he was raised chiefly by his mother, Lucy Anthony, who once sold a cow to raise his college-entrance exam fees. Anthony said he took her name over his father’s “because it’s my way of recognizing her for not disowning duty or devotion.”

“We are poor countries with very limited resources,” he said. “But at the same time, because of our defenselessness and our values, I think we can inspire a new morality in international relations.”

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Advocate for the Underdogs

In office less than a year, St. Lucia Prime Minister Kenny Anthony has been an outspoken advocate for the smallest countries in the world, particularly his neighbors in the Caribbean.