Centrifugal force

摘要

Founded to speed independence from Britain, the West Indies Federation lasted just four years before breaking up on May 31st 1962. The plan had been to forge a Canadian-style federal country from a far-flung archipelago. But Jamaicans, worried about bankrolling weaker islands, voted in a referendum to leave, prompting the federation to disband. "The politicians betrayed the dreams of a whole idealistic generation," recalls Sheilah Solomon, who finished training to be a federation diplomat on the day of Jamaica's referendum.