Chair of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) Dr Ter­rance Drew has is­sued a mes­sage fol­low­ing the death of for­mer Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Rod­er­ick Rain­ford.

In a state­ment from the CARI­COM Sec­re­tari­at in Turkeyen, Greater George­town, Guyana, the Com­mu­ni­ty said it learnt of Rain­ford’s pass­ing. Rain­ford served as Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al from 1983 to 1992.

Rain­ford, a na­tion­al of Ja­maica, al­so served as Deputy Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al. He led the Sec­re­tari­at dur­ing a pe­ri­od that in­clud­ed high oil prices and Cold War ten­sions which af­fect­ed the re­gion. The state­ment said he ad­dressed the re­gion­al im­pact of the 1983 mil­i­tary in­va­sion of Grena­da and worked on re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion, in­clud­ing the 1989 Grand Anse De­c­la­ra­tion.