By David Aponte, COHA Research Associate
A Malediction on Haitian Society
Few countries in the hemisphere have suffered through such an extensive run of unqualified repressive regimes and military dictatorships as Haiti. The nearly thirty years of harsh rule under François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, and his son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier that ended in 1986, are likely the most infamous epoch in the painful history of this small French-Creole nation that occupies the western third of the Caribbean island of La Hispaniola. Certainly, the main tool for the maintenance of the regime’s grasp on the population through much of this period was the “Tonton Macoutes,” renamed in 1971 as the Milice de Voluntaires de la Sécurité Nationale —MVSN (Volunteers for National Security). Although this organization no longer formally exists, its legacy of paramilitary violence and sheer brutality still contorts Haitian modern political and economic cultures.
The Birth of Terror
In 1959, only two years after becoming president, “Papa Doc” created a paramilitary force that would report only to him and would be fully empowered to use unremitting violence to maintain the new administration’s authority to summarily dispose of its enemies. This marked the birth of one of the most brutal paramilitary organizations in the hemisphere and was justified by the leader’s profound paranoia towards the threat posed by the regular armed forces. Haiti’s military began to steadily lose a great deal of authority with the consolidation of the François Duvalier regime, which it would not recover until 1986, when the pressure coming from senior military officers played a major role in the fall of Jean-Claude. A spate of coups followed, with military figures occupying the vacancy left by “Baby Doc.”
The Haitians nicknamed this warlord-led goon squad the “Tonton Macoutes,” after the Creole translation of a common myth, about an “uncle” (Tonton) who kidnaps and punishes obstreperous kids by snaring them in a gunnysack (Macoute) and carrying them off to be consumed at breakfast. Consequently, these torturers, kidnapers and extortionists were feared not only by children, but also by the country’s general population, as well as by opposition members and business men not willing to make enforced pay-offs to the authorities. The militia consisted mostly of illiterate fanatics that were converted into ruthless zombie-like gunmen. Their straw hats, blue denim shirts, dark glasses and machetes remain indelibly etched in the minds of millions of Haitians.
Ever since its establishment, this brutal organization had free rein to act unreservedly, disregarding any ethical or civil rights of the citizenry that might interfere with its indiscriminate violence. They were not accountable to any state branch, court or elected body, but rather only to their leader, “Papa Doc.”
The Second Most Feared Man in Haiti
The dictator’s hold on power was guaranteed by the secret police’s terror campaign, and usually, the head of the “Macoutes,” was considered to be extremely close to the dictator. This was especially true under President François Duvalier. Luckner Cambronne was a particularly fierce head of the “Tonton Macoutes” throughout the 1960’s and the beginning of the 1970’s, for two reasons: first, because he was considered perhaps the most powerful and influential man in Haiti during the transition from “Papa” to “Baby Doc,” and second, because of his unique brand of cruelty that enabled him to become very rich and earned him the nickname “Vampire of the Caribbean.”
As a result of his close relationship with “Papa Doc,” Luckner climbed rapidly up Haiti’s power structure and he became the chief plotter of the extortions carried out by his henchmen. Later, he profited by supplying corpses and blood to universities and hospitals in the United States. His brutality was manifest whenever there was a shortage of what he considered raw material (corpses). In that case, he did not hesitate to kill innocent people to facilitate the growth of his “industry.”
In 1971, following an altercation with the Duvalier family regarding his role in post-“Papa Doc” Haiti, Luckner fled to Miami. Nevertheless, he remained an ardent supporter of the Haitian regime until his death in October of 2006. He stated once in the British newspaper The Independent that a “good Duvalierist is prepared to kill his children (for Duvalier) and expects his children to kill their parents for him.” This sentiment displays the rationale of the “Tonton Macoutes,” a goon squad, which was fiercely loyal to but one family and not in any way in the service of the nation or its people. Even though there are some MSVN leaders that were never formally identified in the recent history of Haiti, such as Roger Lafontant, they all are clear examples of the power that the organization and its leaders had and continue to possess to one degree or another, in contemporary Haiti.
Mysticism and Reality
A key characteristic of the structure of the MSVN was that some of the most important members of the “Tonton Macoutes” were vodou leaders, with this belief system currently practiced by roughly half of the country’s population. This religious affiliation gave the “Macoutes” a sense of unearthly authority in the eyes of the public, which allowed them to perform horrific acts without any form of retribution from the Haitian population at large. What this means is that “the ‘Tontons Macoutes’ were part of a conscious strategy to identify spiritual forces and nationalism with loyalty to Duvalier, and to instill fear in [his] opponents.” From their methods to their choice of clothes, vodou always played an important role in their actions.
However, despite the religious nature of vodou, the facts as well as the numbers speak for themselves. These merciless killers murdered over 60,000 Haitians and many more were forced to flee their homes. Consequently, Haiti suffered an unparalleled and crippling brain drain that robbed the small country of many of its most educated citizens.
The militia created a sense of fear through continuous threats against the public as well as frequent random executions. The “Tonton Macoutes” often stoned and burned people alive, regularly following such rites by hanging bodies of their victims in the street as a warning to the population at large. The diversity of the victims was also a measure of the “Macoutes’” cruelty. They could range from a woman in the poorest of neighborhoods who had the temerity to support an opposing politician, all the way to an accommodating foreign diplomat or even a business man who refused to “donate” money for public works (the public works being the pockets of corrupt officials and even the dictator himself).
The Role of the US
For decades, the situation in Haiti kept deteriorating without any calls for international intervention. Although the United States was a preeminently active and interested participant in the development of Haiti’s political culture, it failed to speak out against such atrocities—not even during human rights-focused administrations such as Jimmy Carter’s—as a result of Cold War logic. Washington was certainly far more interested in supporting a pro-American tyrant whose purported task was to stop the spread of communism in the region, rather than protecting the Haitian people by supporting a healthy democracy and a responsible authority in Port-au-Prince. Butch Ashton, a business man who made his fortune during the Duvalier dictatorship by establishing corporations such as Citrus (a fruit exporter) and the Toyota dealership in the country’s capital, vehemently claims that the Tonton Macoute militia was trained by the U.S. Marine Corps and that the highest levels of the American government were complicit in this arrangement.
The US has been an active supporter, albeit from the shadows, even years after the “Tonton Macoute” reign of violence officially was over. The Human Rights Watch reported on Haiti in 2004 and stated, “The United States, notably, showed little enthusiasm for the prosecution of past abuses. Indeed, it even impeded accountability by removing to the US thousands of documents from military and paramilitary headquarters, allowing notorious abusers to flee Haiti, and repeatedly giving safe haven to paramilitary leaders.”
The “Tonton Macoutes”: Legacy and Transformation
The darkness of the “Tonton Macoutes” era may have seemed to subside upon the official dismemberment of the organization, which occurred after “Baby Doc” fled Haiti for France in 1986. However, massacres led by paramilitary groups spawned by the Macoutes continued during the following decade. After 1991, when Aristide was illegally forced to leave the presidency, the vestiges of the MVSN became known as “attachés,” or savage groups of vigilantes attached to government security forces, or crooked political organizations which had the ability to use force against its foes. Consequently, a number of small paramilitary bodies were organized to work with these mafias as “stability” keepers. A good number of these new bodies were being formed by former “Macoutes.” Many of these militias remained nostalgic for the good old days of Duvalierism, with some even attempting to ignite their own reign of terror.
The most feared paramilitary group during the 1990’s emerged as a political presence just as sadistic as the MVSN: the “Revolutionary Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti—FRAPH,” which Toronto Star’s crack journalist Linda Diebel described as modern-Macoutes and not as the political party they claimed to be. The reporter declared that the FRAPH, under goon figure Emmanuel Constant, was even worse than the Duvalierist militia because it was no longer subordinate to one absolute authority. The FRAPH also cooperated with the regular army to persecute Aristide’s followers; this made them even more dangerous than the “Tonton Macoutes”, because in the old days the militia and the legal armed forces were more rivals than allies. This paramilitary group also extended its influence far outside La Hispaniola to diasporas throughout the world, “Fraph also had a presence abroad, with offices in New York, Miami, Montreal and other cities with large Haitian exile communities.”
These ghosts from the past still torment Haitian and U.S. policy: last year a group of civic activists accused the Obama administration of turning a blind-eye to the criminal activity being practiced against Aristide backers and supporters of his Fanmi Lavalas party. The group that was trying to prevent the participation of Haiti’s most popular party in the 2010 elections through the use of indiscriminate violence and political pressure was led by a former paramilitary leader convicted in the U.S. for drug trafficking and money laundering, Guy Philippe.
There a long history of paramilitary violence in Haiti that seems all but unstoppable, regardless of whatever government may be in charge. As Professor Robert Maguire observed in 2002, “the unabated power struggle among the country’s politicians has been joined by a renewal of the kind of paramilitary violence that the vast majority of Haitians hoped had ended with the disbandment of the Haitian Armed Forces in 1995.” But there are some other issues that feed the existence of the paramilitary phenomenon: these factors include drug trafficking, rampant poverty, demoralized police forces, and the primacy of the interests of the elite. All of these factors explain why the remnants of the “Tonton Macoutes” are still a very important part of Haiti’s political and social heritage, even as they and their descendents continue to fragment into small groups with different interests, maintaining their penchant for violence and chaos.
The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, founded in 1975, is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt research and information organization. It has been described on the Senate floor as being "one of the nation's most respected bodies of scholars and policy makers." For more information, visit www.coha.org
March 15, 2010
caribbeannetnews
An International Caribbean Online Log about the news and opinions in the Americas and World. This Caribbean Blog of global reach and appeal is maintained by Bahamian Blogger - Dennis Dames with all readers and subscribers in mind.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
The President of Haiti and the concept of leadership
By Jean H Charles:
The earthquake of January 12, 2010 that shook Port au Prince and its surrounding areas could not find a country so ill prepared for such catastrophe as the Republic of Haiti. It has no building code enforcement mechanism, property insurance is not mandatory; squatting on public land (and on private property) by internal migrants is not prevented by public authority and the Haitian government has failed to heed the advice of national and international experts in preparing its people for elementary steps to be taken in case of an earthquake disaster.
Countless people have died because they have rushed into crumbling buildings thinking they were facing the end of this earth. By contrast, similar or stronger earthquakes in San Francisco, have produced only 64 deaths, and in Chile 200 deaths. Haiti may have more than 500.000 deaths, making this disaster one of the most devastating events in modern history!
It is as such, proper and fit to look into the leadership style of the Haitian government, in particular its president, Rene Preval, to understand why there is such a large discrepancy in the protection of life and lamb in Haiti. I have met President Preval twice in my life. I met him some five years ago, when he was out of power (Preval has been president of Haiti twice) in the bucolic village of Marmelade where he retreated after his first term as president. I was the guest of one of the advisers of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide on his trip to Marmelade as the village was celebrating its patron Saint, Mary Magdalena. My friend was representing the president at the official Catholic mass in the village fiesta.
After the ceremony, friends and officials were invited to the president’s parental home for what I was expecting to be a small gathering with some coffee, Haitian patties and the customary pumpkin soup. To my distress, Preval (not president then) did not offer anything to his guests. I later presented to Mr. Preval my congratulations for dotting his village with the rudiments of good living that I am expecting to see in all the other villages of Haiti: a good school, access to internet, paved streets, a bamboo furniture factory. I suggested to him that such aura of welfare should be extended to the other two surrounding villages of Dondon and St Michel, creating as such a halo of sustainable growth in the region.
He left me thirsty for an answer or even an explanation of why he could not go further. I met President Preval again last year at a meeting arranged by the Clinton Global Initiative in New York while he was an official guest of the annual Conference. I shared with him the project for the decentralization of Haiti, while using some of the funds of the Petro Caribe dollars (an arrangement where Haiti receives oil from Venezuela below market price with 60% paid up front and 40% financed with a soft loan to be repaid in 25 years at one per cent interest) to initiate such a policy. His non-commitment as well as the non-engagement of his economic advisers is symptomatic of the style of government of President Rene Preval.
The president of Haiti does not understand that the buck stops with him. His most important task is to make decision. He would engage commissions for different tasks, but when the commission is over, the president must decide on one alternative or the other, yet the work of one commission after the other is catalogued into a drawer with no cause for action.
President Rene Preval comes from a middle class family in the northern part of Haiti. His father, Claude Preval, was a competent agronomist with a sterling reputation who scaled the rank of public service to become a Minister of Agriculture under President Paul Magloire. Rene did his elementary studies at George Marc College run by a friend of the family, one of the best mathematicians that Haiti has ever had. He was sent later to Brussels to complete his professional studies. To the deception of his father, young Rene was more interested in Marxist dialectic than in pursuing a regular course of study leading to a professional degree. He enrolled on his own in Lumumba University in Moscow.
On his return to Haiti he tried a bakery business, where he reconnected with some friends from Brussels, in particular Claudette Antoine Werleigh, who was engaged with Jean Bertrand Aristide in the underground movement to uproot the dictatorial and military regime of the Duvaliers. He was presented to Aristide by Werleigh; history has it they became like Siamese brothers.
From 1991 until today 2010, in the last twenty years President Rene Preval has occupied one way or the other the seat of power in Haiti. I have again, with permission of a friend, attended a Lavalas-Lewpwa meeting in the town of Terrier Rouge, Haiti, where the members have pledged they would hold power for the next forty years in Haiti.
President Preval’s most important task in ruling Haiti has been to uphold that pledge. No decision is taken without that goal in mind. On his last visit with President Barack Obama last Wednesday, his main request was not to help the millions of Haitians get out of the fetid and horrid tent cities into their ancestral villages with all the amenities that would retain them there; it was instead to get 100 million dollars to conduct an election where he would manipulate the electoral machine to perpetuate his grip unto power.
President Preval and his Siamese brother Jean Bertrand Arisitide during these last twenty years (20) have managed to sink Haiti into an abyss much deeper than the twin father and son Duvaliers have done in their thirty five (35) years of bad and dictatorial governance. He is proud of two achievements: road building and governance continuity. Yet these trophies are pregnant with the seed of corruption. Employees and government officials known as graft specialists are maintained or promoted. The program of road building is funded through the Petro Caribe trust that the president refuses to put into the regular public treasury account for transparency and accountability.
Leadership is the complex set of character that distinguishes one leader from the other. After the depression of 1929, President Herbert Hoover believed that the government should stay out the personal lives of the citizens, as such prolonging the crisis. By contrast, Franklin D. Roosevelt, upon assuming office in 1933, brought a pro-active leadership, offering a new deal to the American citizens, while instilling into the men and the women of America to live according to their means; pennies were saved, belts were tightened. His motto: “The only fear we have to fear is fear itself”, resonates again today. The president used the crisis to attack several fronts at the same time, funding to revitalize business, food and shelter for the needy and job creation in the big projects that last again today; America was reborn, stronger and better.
After the 9/11 attacks, the rest of the world saw itself as American, we thought frivolity was no more a cashable currency but this expression of good will was squandered and not turned into a new blood to push forward the American manifest destiny.
Haiti’s disaster lesson could go to waste if President Preval does not change course in his style of leadership. As President Obama just told President Preval, the country is set for another disaster as the hurricane and the rainy season is on the way. The world cannot continue to look at Haiti with the same detachment that it did in Rwanda or in Burma.
President Preval, as well as his Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive, keeps complaining about the ill-engagement of the international organizations in Haiti yet the appointment of a strong Minister of Coordination with the NGOs (with a small portion of their funding going towards financing that Ministry) would go a long way in helping service providers and Haitian refugees to receive much needed solace.
A project of decentralization with adequate funding going towards the small villages will propel Haiti into an orbit it has never been in before. An influential member of the Preval government has told me he has not been able to convince the government that he should engage into that path, instead of building the tent cities. The horde of refugees is needed for election time. Buying each vote with a token is easier and preferable to the government than the welfare of each individual.
For those guardians of the status quo in Haiti, the souls of those half a million unnecessary deaths will haunt you at night, scratching your feet and preventing the benefit of a peaceful night while turning your days into a mortal zombie!
As I have said in previous columns before the earthquake, the year 2010 is a turning point for Haiti; the whole legislative body, all the mayors, and all the sheriffs of the rural villages as well as a new president must be elected.
As goes Haiti, so goes the rest of the world! It was first to uproot the world order of slavery in 1804; it was again first to propagate the people’s revolution of 1986, it was first to start the food riot in 2004, questioning the developed world payback to their agriculture industry; the chain of earthquakes in this decade has started first with Haiti.
Helping to usher a democratic, fair and competent leader in Haiti, away from the plethora of corrupt, inept and non sensitive Presidents that Haiti have known for the past 60 years, will be the signal that this world is ready to enjoy a string of a better years to come!
March 13, 2010
caribbeannetnews
The earthquake of January 12, 2010 that shook Port au Prince and its surrounding areas could not find a country so ill prepared for such catastrophe as the Republic of Haiti. It has no building code enforcement mechanism, property insurance is not mandatory; squatting on public land (and on private property) by internal migrants is not prevented by public authority and the Haitian government has failed to heed the advice of national and international experts in preparing its people for elementary steps to be taken in case of an earthquake disaster.
Countless people have died because they have rushed into crumbling buildings thinking they were facing the end of this earth. By contrast, similar or stronger earthquakes in San Francisco, have produced only 64 deaths, and in Chile 200 deaths. Haiti may have more than 500.000 deaths, making this disaster one of the most devastating events in modern history! It is as such, proper and fit to look into the leadership style of the Haitian government, in particular its president, Rene Preval, to understand why there is such a large discrepancy in the protection of life and lamb in Haiti. I have met President Preval twice in my life. I met him some five years ago, when he was out of power (Preval has been president of Haiti twice) in the bucolic village of Marmelade where he retreated after his first term as president. I was the guest of one of the advisers of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide on his trip to Marmelade as the village was celebrating its patron Saint, Mary Magdalena. My friend was representing the president at the official Catholic mass in the village fiesta.
After the ceremony, friends and officials were invited to the president’s parental home for what I was expecting to be a small gathering with some coffee, Haitian patties and the customary pumpkin soup. To my distress, Preval (not president then) did not offer anything to his guests. I later presented to Mr. Preval my congratulations for dotting his village with the rudiments of good living that I am expecting to see in all the other villages of Haiti: a good school, access to internet, paved streets, a bamboo furniture factory. I suggested to him that such aura of welfare should be extended to the other two surrounding villages of Dondon and St Michel, creating as such a halo of sustainable growth in the region.
He left me thirsty for an answer or even an explanation of why he could not go further. I met President Preval again last year at a meeting arranged by the Clinton Global Initiative in New York while he was an official guest of the annual Conference. I shared with him the project for the decentralization of Haiti, while using some of the funds of the Petro Caribe dollars (an arrangement where Haiti receives oil from Venezuela below market price with 60% paid up front and 40% financed with a soft loan to be repaid in 25 years at one per cent interest) to initiate such a policy. His non-commitment as well as the non-engagement of his economic advisers is symptomatic of the style of government of President Rene Preval.
The president of Haiti does not understand that the buck stops with him. His most important task is to make decision. He would engage commissions for different tasks, but when the commission is over, the president must decide on one alternative or the other, yet the work of one commission after the other is catalogued into a drawer with no cause for action.
President Rene Preval comes from a middle class family in the northern part of Haiti. His father, Claude Preval, was a competent agronomist with a sterling reputation who scaled the rank of public service to become a Minister of Agriculture under President Paul Magloire. Rene did his elementary studies at George Marc College run by a friend of the family, one of the best mathematicians that Haiti has ever had. He was sent later to Brussels to complete his professional studies. To the deception of his father, young Rene was more interested in Marxist dialectic than in pursuing a regular course of study leading to a professional degree. He enrolled on his own in Lumumba University in Moscow.
On his return to Haiti he tried a bakery business, where he reconnected with some friends from Brussels, in particular Claudette Antoine Werleigh, who was engaged with Jean Bertrand Aristide in the underground movement to uproot the dictatorial and military regime of the Duvaliers. He was presented to Aristide by Werleigh; history has it they became like Siamese brothers.
From 1991 until today 2010, in the last twenty years President Rene Preval has occupied one way or the other the seat of power in Haiti. I have again, with permission of a friend, attended a Lavalas-Lewpwa meeting in the town of Terrier Rouge, Haiti, where the members have pledged they would hold power for the next forty years in Haiti.
President Preval’s most important task in ruling Haiti has been to uphold that pledge. No decision is taken without that goal in mind. On his last visit with President Barack Obama last Wednesday, his main request was not to help the millions of Haitians get out of the fetid and horrid tent cities into their ancestral villages with all the amenities that would retain them there; it was instead to get 100 million dollars to conduct an election where he would manipulate the electoral machine to perpetuate his grip unto power.
President Preval and his Siamese brother Jean Bertrand Arisitide during these last twenty years (20) have managed to sink Haiti into an abyss much deeper than the twin father and son Duvaliers have done in their thirty five (35) years of bad and dictatorial governance. He is proud of two achievements: road building and governance continuity. Yet these trophies are pregnant with the seed of corruption. Employees and government officials known as graft specialists are maintained or promoted. The program of road building is funded through the Petro Caribe trust that the president refuses to put into the regular public treasury account for transparency and accountability.
Leadership is the complex set of character that distinguishes one leader from the other. After the depression of 1929, President Herbert Hoover believed that the government should stay out the personal lives of the citizens, as such prolonging the crisis. By contrast, Franklin D. Roosevelt, upon assuming office in 1933, brought a pro-active leadership, offering a new deal to the American citizens, while instilling into the men and the women of America to live according to their means; pennies were saved, belts were tightened. His motto: “The only fear we have to fear is fear itself”, resonates again today. The president used the crisis to attack several fronts at the same time, funding to revitalize business, food and shelter for the needy and job creation in the big projects that last again today; America was reborn, stronger and better.
After the 9/11 attacks, the rest of the world saw itself as American, we thought frivolity was no more a cashable currency but this expression of good will was squandered and not turned into a new blood to push forward the American manifest destiny.
Haiti’s disaster lesson could go to waste if President Preval does not change course in his style of leadership. As President Obama just told President Preval, the country is set for another disaster as the hurricane and the rainy season is on the way. The world cannot continue to look at Haiti with the same detachment that it did in Rwanda or in Burma.
President Preval, as well as his Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive, keeps complaining about the ill-engagement of the international organizations in Haiti yet the appointment of a strong Minister of Coordination with the NGOs (with a small portion of their funding going towards financing that Ministry) would go a long way in helping service providers and Haitian refugees to receive much needed solace.
A project of decentralization with adequate funding going towards the small villages will propel Haiti into an orbit it has never been in before. An influential member of the Preval government has told me he has not been able to convince the government that he should engage into that path, instead of building the tent cities. The horde of refugees is needed for election time. Buying each vote with a token is easier and preferable to the government than the welfare of each individual.
For those guardians of the status quo in Haiti, the souls of those half a million unnecessary deaths will haunt you at night, scratching your feet and preventing the benefit of a peaceful night while turning your days into a mortal zombie!
As I have said in previous columns before the earthquake, the year 2010 is a turning point for Haiti; the whole legislative body, all the mayors, and all the sheriffs of the rural villages as well as a new president must be elected.
As goes Haiti, so goes the rest of the world! It was first to uproot the world order of slavery in 1804; it was again first to propagate the people’s revolution of 1986, it was first to start the food riot in 2004, questioning the developed world payback to their agriculture industry; the chain of earthquakes in this decade has started first with Haiti.
Helping to usher a democratic, fair and competent leader in Haiti, away from the plethora of corrupt, inept and non sensitive Presidents that Haiti have known for the past 60 years, will be the signal that this world is ready to enjoy a string of a better years to come!
March 13, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Friday, March 12, 2010
Harpooning Caribbean Tourism: Swallowing a dead rat
By Sir Ronald Sanders:
It’s the high seas equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot. Several Caribbean governments are harpooning their own sustainable tourism industry by supporting Japan’s ruthless campaign to continue killing whales.
A group of International Whaling Commission (IWC) nations meeting from March 2 to 4 in Florida is reported to have considered recommending to the full membership that Japan, Iceland and Norway be allowed to hunt whales despite a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling. Japan, in particular, would no longer have to pretend that, in killing thousands of whales every year, it is doing so for “scientific” purposes.
Japan does not deny that meat from slaughtered whales ends up in restaurants and shops.
As this commentary is being written a shipment of whale meat is being transported by ship from Iceland to Japan in an expensive and backward step to resuscitate trade in whale meat. Twenty-six nations condemned Iceland last October for expanding commercial whaling, pointing out that it brings little benefit to Iceland’s economy and great harm to its tourism industry.
Caribbean countries have nothing to gain if the proposal from the IWC’s small working group is adopted by the wider membership. Voting for it would certainly adversely affect the Caribbean’s brand of itself as environmentally friendly, and harm the growing whale-watching aspect of its tourism industry.
A study by a group of Australian economists placed whale-watching as a US$2.1 billion global industry in 2008. In the Caribbean and Central American whale-watching is growing at a rate of 12.8%, three times more than the growth rate of the global tourism industry (4.2%). Countries in the region now earn more than US$54 million from whale-watching as part of their tourism product, while earnings from whaling are practically zero.
Despite this, members of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and Suriname have routinely supported Japan’s efforts in the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to slaughter whales every year in defiance of the international prohibition.
Significantly, an international meeting in Martinique from 18 to 21 February on “Sustainable ‘blue’ tourism in the Caribbean” strongly urged Caribbean governments “to give their full support and encouragement to whale-watching activities as a valid and sustainable means of protecting marine mammal populations and creating jobs, earning foreign exchange and providing sustainable livelihoods for fishermen and local coastal communities” . In making this call, the participants – the majority of whom were from the Caribbean – recalled that in 2008, the Prime Minister of Dominica Roosevelt Skerrit took the “principled position” to withdraw his Government's support for whaling at the IWC as being “incompatible” with Dominica's brand as a “Nature Isle”. They called on the leaders of other OECS countries to join him.
The stand-off at the IWC between whale killing by Japan and its supportive small states, and whale conservation by countries such as Brazil, Costa Rica, India, the United States, South Africa, Germany and Australia, has dragged-on for some time. Last year, the small working group was established to try to bring an end to the impasse. Many hoped that the group’s work would result in strong proposals to ensure that IWC rules are fully respected and implemented, and that whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale sanctuary would be phased out swiftly.
However, it appears that the small group has been coerced into entertaining a different kind of discussion – one in which Japan will be allowed to violate the rules the IWC itself has set and to ignore sanctuaries that have been established. One of the members of the group said that nations must “swallow a dead rat”.
Experts from around the world are deeply troubled by the proposals emerging from the group. The proposals include:
· No provisions to ensure that the existing ban on international
trade in whale products is respected;
· Authorizing the killing of sperm whales.
· Continued whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary;
· Weakening of the IWC as a rule making and regulatory international body, encouraging unrestrained actions by individual nations.
Many governments have gotten away with supporting Japan because their publics are not fully aware that, apart from a small number of indigenous communities in the world, only an elite group in Japan consistently eat whale meat.
In the Caribbean, Japanese Associations have paid for the production and broadcast of television programmes which falsely promote whale-killing as a beneficial activity because whales eat fish in Caribbean waters depriving the local population of fish. This claim has been proven, scientifically, to be untrue.
Evidence of the abhorrence of whale killing and its adverse effect on the world’s biodiversity is the fact that an Oscar was recently awarded to “The Cove” - a documentary film depicting the grisly slaughter of dolphins by Japanese in a cove in south-western Japan.
Kevin Rudd, Australia’s prime minister, last month threatened to take action against Japan at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over its Antarctic whale hunt. And, in New Zealand, the foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Labour Party, Chris Carter, has called on the government to join Australia in taking Japan to the ICJ.
But, Japan remains determined in its stance, not only on whaling but on fisheries generally. Indeed, Japan is so obdurate that it has stated categorically that it will “opt out” of its obligation to stop importing Atlantic bluefin tuna if members of the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species vote this month to add the fish to the treaty’s list of most-protected species. In other words, Japan will only respect those international rules that suit it.
Japan’s stance is bad news for small countries which depend, for their own survival, on international rules and respect for them within the UN framework.
Japan has helped to make rules that are imposed on small states – rules with which small countries been forced to comply or be punished. Among these are the regulatory and tax information requirements of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
If the proposals of the small working group are permitted by governments to proceed, Japan, Iceland and Norway will have a free hand, and Japan will no longer need to lure the support of small Caribbean countries in the IWC.
In June, the IWC will hold its annual meeting in Morocco. That’s the time that the OECS and Suriname governments should join the government of Dominica in taking a principled position that upholds their own interest.
March 12, 2010
caribbeannetnews
It’s the high seas equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot. Several Caribbean governments are harpooning their own sustainable tourism industry by supporting Japan’s ruthless campaign to continue killing whales.
A group of International Whaling Commission (IWC) nations meeting from March 2 to 4 in Florida is reported to have considered recommending to the full membership that Japan, Iceland and Norway be allowed to hunt whales despite a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling. Japan, in particular, would no longer have to pretend that, in killing thousands of whales every year, it is doing so for “scientific” purposes.
Japan does not deny that meat from slaughtered whales ends up in restaurants and shops. As this commentary is being written a shipment of whale meat is being transported by ship from Iceland to Japan in an expensive and backward step to resuscitate trade in whale meat. Twenty-six nations condemned Iceland last October for expanding commercial whaling, pointing out that it brings little benefit to Iceland’s economy and great harm to its tourism industry.
Caribbean countries have nothing to gain if the proposal from the IWC’s small working group is adopted by the wider membership. Voting for it would certainly adversely affect the Caribbean’s brand of itself as environmentally friendly, and harm the growing whale-watching aspect of its tourism industry.
A study by a group of Australian economists placed whale-watching as a US$2.1 billion global industry in 2008. In the Caribbean and Central American whale-watching is growing at a rate of 12.8%, three times more than the growth rate of the global tourism industry (4.2%). Countries in the region now earn more than US$54 million from whale-watching as part of their tourism product, while earnings from whaling are practically zero.
Despite this, members of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and Suriname have routinely supported Japan’s efforts in the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to slaughter whales every year in defiance of the international prohibition.
Significantly, an international meeting in Martinique from 18 to 21 February on “Sustainable ‘blue’ tourism in the Caribbean” strongly urged Caribbean governments “to give their full support and encouragement to whale-watching activities as a valid and sustainable means of protecting marine mammal populations and creating jobs, earning foreign exchange and providing sustainable livelihoods for fishermen and local coastal communities” . In making this call, the participants – the majority of whom were from the Caribbean – recalled that in 2008, the Prime Minister of Dominica Roosevelt Skerrit took the “principled position” to withdraw his Government's support for whaling at the IWC as being “incompatible” with Dominica's brand as a “Nature Isle”. They called on the leaders of other OECS countries to join him.
The stand-off at the IWC between whale killing by Japan and its supportive small states, and whale conservation by countries such as Brazil, Costa Rica, India, the United States, South Africa, Germany and Australia, has dragged-on for some time. Last year, the small working group was established to try to bring an end to the impasse. Many hoped that the group’s work would result in strong proposals to ensure that IWC rules are fully respected and implemented, and that whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale sanctuary would be phased out swiftly.
However, it appears that the small group has been coerced into entertaining a different kind of discussion – one in which Japan will be allowed to violate the rules the IWC itself has set and to ignore sanctuaries that have been established. One of the members of the group said that nations must “swallow a dead rat”.
Experts from around the world are deeply troubled by the proposals emerging from the group. The proposals include:
· No provisions to ensure that the existing ban on international
trade in whale products is respected;
· Authorizing the killing of sperm whales.
· Continued whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary;
· Weakening of the IWC as a rule making and regulatory international body, encouraging unrestrained actions by individual nations.
Many governments have gotten away with supporting Japan because their publics are not fully aware that, apart from a small number of indigenous communities in the world, only an elite group in Japan consistently eat whale meat.
In the Caribbean, Japanese Associations have paid for the production and broadcast of television programmes which falsely promote whale-killing as a beneficial activity because whales eat fish in Caribbean waters depriving the local population of fish. This claim has been proven, scientifically, to be untrue.
Evidence of the abhorrence of whale killing and its adverse effect on the world’s biodiversity is the fact that an Oscar was recently awarded to “The Cove” - a documentary film depicting the grisly slaughter of dolphins by Japanese in a cove in south-western Japan.
Kevin Rudd, Australia’s prime minister, last month threatened to take action against Japan at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over its Antarctic whale hunt. And, in New Zealand, the foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Labour Party, Chris Carter, has called on the government to join Australia in taking Japan to the ICJ.
But, Japan remains determined in its stance, not only on whaling but on fisheries generally. Indeed, Japan is so obdurate that it has stated categorically that it will “opt out” of its obligation to stop importing Atlantic bluefin tuna if members of the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species vote this month to add the fish to the treaty’s list of most-protected species. In other words, Japan will only respect those international rules that suit it.
Japan’s stance is bad news for small countries which depend, for their own survival, on international rules and respect for them within the UN framework.
Japan has helped to make rules that are imposed on small states – rules with which small countries been forced to comply or be punished. Among these are the regulatory and tax information requirements of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
If the proposals of the small working group are permitted by governments to proceed, Japan, Iceland and Norway will have a free hand, and Japan will no longer need to lure the support of small Caribbean countries in the IWC.
In June, the IWC will hold its annual meeting in Morocco. That’s the time that the OECS and Suriname governments should join the government of Dominica in taking a principled position that upholds their own interest.
March 12, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Bahamas: Time for income tax?
By Scott Armstrong ~ Guardian Business Editor ~ scott@nasguard.com
twitter.com/guardianbiz:
While the news was being digested that The Bahamas was now back on the the international tax white list, one well-known financier called for the government to look again at the nation's tax structure.
Paul Moss, managing director of the financial services company Dominion Management Services Ltd, welcomed the news that The Bahamas had signed the 12 Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs) he warned that it would only be a question of time before the G20 and the OECD wanted more.
He said: "While the government should be congratulated for having acted appropriately to have the Bahamas removed off the grey list, it is a momentary victory as it will not be long before the OECD coming knocking again with more demands.
"When you give them an inch they take the proverbial mile and this is why I have called for the Bahamas to change its tax structure so that we could avoid these kinds of demands. We ought to now become proactive by introducing income tax with a low flat rate so we are no longer accused of being a tax heaven which makes us at the whim of the OECD.
"I am tired of saying it but sometimes you must repeat until our leaders get it. Only when we become a taxed jurisdiction (income tax) would we be left lone.
"Now is the perfect opportunity for us to engage in this dialog and seek to sign double taxation agreement with every country in the world if necessary.
"This is serious business and we cannot afford to continue to be reactionary in this regard. I now call on the professionals in private practice and the government to sit and maturely map out a new tax regime which will also have the desired affect of bring more money to the treasury as we as making it more equitable for the poor".
Thursday March 11, 2010
thenassauguardian
twitter.com/guardianbiz:
While the news was being digested that The Bahamas was now back on the the international tax white list, one well-known financier called for the government to look again at the nation's tax structure.
Paul Moss, managing director of the financial services company Dominion Management Services Ltd, welcomed the news that The Bahamas had signed the 12 Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs) he warned that it would only be a question of time before the G20 and the OECD wanted more.
He said: "While the government should be congratulated for having acted appropriately to have the Bahamas removed off the grey list, it is a momentary victory as it will not be long before the OECD coming knocking again with more demands.
"When you give them an inch they take the proverbial mile and this is why I have called for the Bahamas to change its tax structure so that we could avoid these kinds of demands. We ought to now become proactive by introducing income tax with a low flat rate so we are no longer accused of being a tax heaven which makes us at the whim of the OECD.
"I am tired of saying it but sometimes you must repeat until our leaders get it. Only when we become a taxed jurisdiction (income tax) would we be left lone.
"Now is the perfect opportunity for us to engage in this dialog and seek to sign double taxation agreement with every country in the world if necessary.
"This is serious business and we cannot afford to continue to be reactionary in this regard. I now call on the professionals in private practice and the government to sit and maturely map out a new tax regime which will also have the desired affect of bring more money to the treasury as we as making it more equitable for the poor".
Thursday March 11, 2010
thenassauguardian
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
RESTAVEK...: A HIDDEN EVIL
Insight - tribune242:
"The restavek culture is being exported from Haiti to other Caribbean countries. It is very much slavery and I think it's going to increase exponentially now."
-Aaron Cohen
I WOULD wager that few Bahamians lose sleep contemplating the tortures endured by an 11-year-old girl forced into the sex trade, or imagine themselves in the shoes of a young boy, barely a toddler, sold to strangers and forced to work tirelessly for his survival.
For most people, the ability to empathise with extreme suffering decreases in proportion to its distance from their normal experience, and most of us in the Bahamas are thankful these scenarios play themselves out elsewhere.
However according to one human rights pioneer, we are fooling ourselves - modern day slaves are being trafficked in this country right under our noses and the trade may be set to explode.
American activist Aaron Cohen is widely considered to be the world's foremost expert on modern-day slavery. He is credited with rescuing numerous young girls from enslavement as sex workers and many young men from child soldiering camps.
He travels the world to shed light on the reality that the trade in human beings is alive and well in virtually every modern society. He notes that with 27 million slaves worldwide and another million sold into slavery each year, there are more enslaved people now than at any time in human history.
When I spoke with Mr Cohen, he was leaving New York after giving a speech at the UN on the status of women. Later this month, he is off to Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic to talk about what he considers an issue of the utmost urgency - the fallout from the earthquake in Haiti, which was until recently a central hub for the trafficking of humans.
Mr Cohen told me he believes the disaster in Haiti has severely curtailed the ability of organised crime to use that country for the transshipment of domestic and sex slaves, and that other countries in the Caribbean, particularly Jamaica and the Bahamas, are prime candidates to take up the slack.
He said: "I think the effect of the disaster on slavery in the Caribbean is going to be this: number one, there is going to be more poverty in Haiti and therefore an exodus; that's already being witnessed statistically.
"Second, in the past, in human trafficking just like in drugs and arms trafficking, you have criminal organisations that use countries of origin, transit and destination to operate their illicit businesses. Haiti previously was both a destination country and a transit country. Girls coming out of the Dominican Republic were transited out of Haiti to Europe, to the Bahamas, to Jamaica, to the United States. What's going to happen now is, because of the increased scrutiny in Haiti because of the international presence, we're going to see this transit business spread to the nearby Caribbean."
As proof, Mr Cohen pointed to what happened after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, a capital of organised crime, drug and human trafficking.
"When the disaster occurred, there was an 80 per cent increase in murders in Houston, Texas. There was the same increase in human trafficking, and now Houston is the hub of human trafficking in the United States. I would imagine that's what's going to happen to the Bahamas," he said.
Mr Cohen noted that the existing culture of illegal immigration from Haiti makes the Bahamas a particularly "soft target" and therefore an ideal replacement as a transit location for captive people.
"It is highly probable, if not statistically provable, that the Bahamas will have an increase in human trafficking from the disaster in Haiti," he said.
According to Mr Cohen, what makes modern-day slavery particularly insidious is the fact that it is largely invisible.
The transatlantic slave trade, while monstrous, was at least tangible and had limits, could be argued against and protested.
Now, slavery is a covert phenomenon, and those who take part in it - either by smuggling someone else's children or selling their own - may only do so once or twice in their lives out of financial necessity. It is governed by no rules or central authorities, respects no treaties or boundaries, and is immune to rational or moral entreaties.
"You can buy crystal vases in a store and they are very transparent, but paper cups aren't, and they're disposable," Mr Cohen said. "Slavery is like that -- it is no longer an item that stays in the family for a lifetime; it's a disposable commodity, so it's very hidden."
He noted two additional factors that obscure the signs of human trafficking in the Bahamas in particular. Firstly, the reluctance of law enforcement to aggressively tackle prostitution - which often relies on foreign women tricked or forced into the sex trade. The occasional raids aside, virtually every resident of Nassau can name at least one brothel operating without interference from the police.
The second factor is the introduction, through illegal immigration, of the Haitian "restavek" system.
Restavek - which means in Creole "one who stays with" - is a system whereby poor rural families send their children to stay with and work for urban families as domestic servants. They are usually between the ages of five and 14, as Haitian law requires workers 15 and older to be paid. Sometimes the children are sold, but sometimes no money changes hands.
Cultural standards are of course relative - as seen in the International Labour Organisation's condemnation of the use of packing boys in Bahamian supermarkets - and in Haiti, the system is seen as a normal facet of society.
But anti-slavery campaigners like Mr Cohen emphasise that the lack of regulation means these children are often subjected to severe abuse and exploitation. "I don't even like to use the term domestic servants," he said, "because it conjures up an image of some moral, legal employment model and that's not what we're talking about."
He added that the likelihood of physical and sexual abuse increases when the system is transplanted outside Haiti, particularly to countries like the Bahamas, where the immigrant population is subjected to discrimination and often treated as subhuman.
Jean-Robert Cadet, founder of the Restavek Foundation which works to raise awareness of this phenomenon, was once a restavek himself. He says that as a "domestic slave", he endured years of physical and emotional abuse, working seven days a week with no pay and no time for recreation or rest. According to his website, restavekfreedom.org, there are an estimated 300,000 restavek children in Haiti.
Mr Cohen is eager to investigate the extent of the problem here, but as a rule does not request government co-operation for his investigations, as authorities in many countries are themselves tied up in the trafficking of drugs, arms and people.
His organisation, Causecast, tries instead to work with non-governmental organisations and human rights activists to identify, interview and hopefully rescue victims of human trafficking, while gathering sufficient evidence to prosecute offenders. Unfortunately, he says, the modern slave trade is hidden in the Bahamas to such an extent that even local activists are unaware of it.
He said: "One of the reasons we chose not to come to the Bahamas is because although we know the restavek culture has spilled over to that country and the sex trafficking trail (leads there), I don't have an organisation there that I can partner with as far as infrastructure and support.
"I spoke to a number of activists who told me there is no slavery, and I sort of took a step back when I heard that. I thought, 'My goodness, even some of the activists who are interested in combating this problem think that there is no slavery'.
"But there is no way around the fact that slavery is the fastest growing illegal enterprise in the world. It has already passed arms sales to become the number two illicit business in the world, period.
"The fact that the restaveks are there would indicate to me that there is an enormous amount of exploitation going on in the Bahamas and the country is at risk of falling into the tentacles of organised crime in the Caribbean.
"When someone says there is no slavery, it's because they haven't educated themselves on the issue properly."
So, is Mr Cohen right? His views are certainly supported by the United States government.
The US State Department's 2009 Trafficking in Persons report states that "Haitian women, men, and children are trafficked into the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, the United States, Europe, Canada, and Jamaica for exploitation in domestic service, agriculture, and construction. Trafficked Dominican women and girls are forced into prostitution."
The report further notes that the Bahamas is a destination country for "men and women trafficked from Haiti and other Caribbean countries primarily for the purpose of forced labour, and women from Jamaica and other countries trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation."
In 2008, parliament passed the Trafficking in Persons Prevention and Suppression Act which sets out penalties for offenders that range from three years to life imprisonment.
The State Department's report acknowledged this, but criticised the continuing tendency of law enforcement to conflate human trafficking with human smuggling - the transportation of persons engaging in illegal immigration voluntarily.
It also said the Bahamas failed to take steps to identify the casualties of the trade among vulnerable populations - such as foreign women and girls engaged in prostitution or women and girls intercepted while being smuggled in for this purpose - preferring to repatriate them as violators of immigration laws rather than offer them help as victims.
According to Mr Cohen, addressing this last point is vital. He said: "The average age of a woman who is prostituted is 11 years old. That makes them victims. They should not be treated as the criminals.
"The Bahamas needs to wake up and move towards the model the Scandinavians have created. Here's how it works: they have criminalised the demand, but they recognise that you cannot arrest a prostitute who is 14 and servicing a client who is 42 and then treat her like the criminal and let him go free. Yet that's happening even in the United States. The women, the victims, should be decriminalised and receive services and the Johns should face criminal prosecution."
He feels that treating such women merely as illegal immigrants - not to mention the children we send back to Haiti on a regular basis without inquiring about their identity or circumstances - amounts to punishing slaves for their condition of slavery and heaping further misery upon people who have already endured unimaginable suffering.
What do you think?
Email:
pnunez@tribunemedia.net
March 08, 2010
tribune242
"The restavek culture is being exported from Haiti to other Caribbean countries. It is very much slavery and I think it's going to increase exponentially now."
-Aaron Cohen
I WOULD wager that few Bahamians lose sleep contemplating the tortures endured by an 11-year-old girl forced into the sex trade, or imagine themselves in the shoes of a young boy, barely a toddler, sold to strangers and forced to work tirelessly for his survival.
For most people, the ability to empathise with extreme suffering decreases in proportion to its distance from their normal experience, and most of us in the Bahamas are thankful these scenarios play themselves out elsewhere.
However according to one human rights pioneer, we are fooling ourselves - modern day slaves are being trafficked in this country right under our noses and the trade may be set to explode.
American activist Aaron Cohen is widely considered to be the world's foremost expert on modern-day slavery. He is credited with rescuing numerous young girls from enslavement as sex workers and many young men from child soldiering camps.
He travels the world to shed light on the reality that the trade in human beings is alive and well in virtually every modern society. He notes that with 27 million slaves worldwide and another million sold into slavery each year, there are more enslaved people now than at any time in human history.
When I spoke with Mr Cohen, he was leaving New York after giving a speech at the UN on the status of women. Later this month, he is off to Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic to talk about what he considers an issue of the utmost urgency - the fallout from the earthquake in Haiti, which was until recently a central hub for the trafficking of humans.
Mr Cohen told me he believes the disaster in Haiti has severely curtailed the ability of organised crime to use that country for the transshipment of domestic and sex slaves, and that other countries in the Caribbean, particularly Jamaica and the Bahamas, are prime candidates to take up the slack.
He said: "I think the effect of the disaster on slavery in the Caribbean is going to be this: number one, there is going to be more poverty in Haiti and therefore an exodus; that's already being witnessed statistically.
"Second, in the past, in human trafficking just like in drugs and arms trafficking, you have criminal organisations that use countries of origin, transit and destination to operate their illicit businesses. Haiti previously was both a destination country and a transit country. Girls coming out of the Dominican Republic were transited out of Haiti to Europe, to the Bahamas, to Jamaica, to the United States. What's going to happen now is, because of the increased scrutiny in Haiti because of the international presence, we're going to see this transit business spread to the nearby Caribbean."
As proof, Mr Cohen pointed to what happened after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, a capital of organised crime, drug and human trafficking.
"When the disaster occurred, there was an 80 per cent increase in murders in Houston, Texas. There was the same increase in human trafficking, and now Houston is the hub of human trafficking in the United States. I would imagine that's what's going to happen to the Bahamas," he said.
Mr Cohen noted that the existing culture of illegal immigration from Haiti makes the Bahamas a particularly "soft target" and therefore an ideal replacement as a transit location for captive people.
"It is highly probable, if not statistically provable, that the Bahamas will have an increase in human trafficking from the disaster in Haiti," he said.
According to Mr Cohen, what makes modern-day slavery particularly insidious is the fact that it is largely invisible.
The transatlantic slave trade, while monstrous, was at least tangible and had limits, could be argued against and protested.
Now, slavery is a covert phenomenon, and those who take part in it - either by smuggling someone else's children or selling their own - may only do so once or twice in their lives out of financial necessity. It is governed by no rules or central authorities, respects no treaties or boundaries, and is immune to rational or moral entreaties.
"You can buy crystal vases in a store and they are very transparent, but paper cups aren't, and they're disposable," Mr Cohen said. "Slavery is like that -- it is no longer an item that stays in the family for a lifetime; it's a disposable commodity, so it's very hidden."
He noted two additional factors that obscure the signs of human trafficking in the Bahamas in particular. Firstly, the reluctance of law enforcement to aggressively tackle prostitution - which often relies on foreign women tricked or forced into the sex trade. The occasional raids aside, virtually every resident of Nassau can name at least one brothel operating without interference from the police.
The second factor is the introduction, through illegal immigration, of the Haitian "restavek" system.
Restavek - which means in Creole "one who stays with" - is a system whereby poor rural families send their children to stay with and work for urban families as domestic servants. They are usually between the ages of five and 14, as Haitian law requires workers 15 and older to be paid. Sometimes the children are sold, but sometimes no money changes hands.
Cultural standards are of course relative - as seen in the International Labour Organisation's condemnation of the use of packing boys in Bahamian supermarkets - and in Haiti, the system is seen as a normal facet of society.
But anti-slavery campaigners like Mr Cohen emphasise that the lack of regulation means these children are often subjected to severe abuse and exploitation. "I don't even like to use the term domestic servants," he said, "because it conjures up an image of some moral, legal employment model and that's not what we're talking about."
He added that the likelihood of physical and sexual abuse increases when the system is transplanted outside Haiti, particularly to countries like the Bahamas, where the immigrant population is subjected to discrimination and often treated as subhuman.
Jean-Robert Cadet, founder of the Restavek Foundation which works to raise awareness of this phenomenon, was once a restavek himself. He says that as a "domestic slave", he endured years of physical and emotional abuse, working seven days a week with no pay and no time for recreation or rest. According to his website, restavekfreedom.org, there are an estimated 300,000 restavek children in Haiti.
Mr Cohen is eager to investigate the extent of the problem here, but as a rule does not request government co-operation for his investigations, as authorities in many countries are themselves tied up in the trafficking of drugs, arms and people.
His organisation, Causecast, tries instead to work with non-governmental organisations and human rights activists to identify, interview and hopefully rescue victims of human trafficking, while gathering sufficient evidence to prosecute offenders. Unfortunately, he says, the modern slave trade is hidden in the Bahamas to such an extent that even local activists are unaware of it.
He said: "One of the reasons we chose not to come to the Bahamas is because although we know the restavek culture has spilled over to that country and the sex trafficking trail (leads there), I don't have an organisation there that I can partner with as far as infrastructure and support.
"I spoke to a number of activists who told me there is no slavery, and I sort of took a step back when I heard that. I thought, 'My goodness, even some of the activists who are interested in combating this problem think that there is no slavery'.
"But there is no way around the fact that slavery is the fastest growing illegal enterprise in the world. It has already passed arms sales to become the number two illicit business in the world, period.
"The fact that the restaveks are there would indicate to me that there is an enormous amount of exploitation going on in the Bahamas and the country is at risk of falling into the tentacles of organised crime in the Caribbean.
"When someone says there is no slavery, it's because they haven't educated themselves on the issue properly."
So, is Mr Cohen right? His views are certainly supported by the United States government.
The US State Department's 2009 Trafficking in Persons report states that "Haitian women, men, and children are trafficked into the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, the United States, Europe, Canada, and Jamaica for exploitation in domestic service, agriculture, and construction. Trafficked Dominican women and girls are forced into prostitution."
The report further notes that the Bahamas is a destination country for "men and women trafficked from Haiti and other Caribbean countries primarily for the purpose of forced labour, and women from Jamaica and other countries trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation."
In 2008, parliament passed the Trafficking in Persons Prevention and Suppression Act which sets out penalties for offenders that range from three years to life imprisonment.
The State Department's report acknowledged this, but criticised the continuing tendency of law enforcement to conflate human trafficking with human smuggling - the transportation of persons engaging in illegal immigration voluntarily.
It also said the Bahamas failed to take steps to identify the casualties of the trade among vulnerable populations - such as foreign women and girls engaged in prostitution or women and girls intercepted while being smuggled in for this purpose - preferring to repatriate them as violators of immigration laws rather than offer them help as victims.
According to Mr Cohen, addressing this last point is vital. He said: "The average age of a woman who is prostituted is 11 years old. That makes them victims. They should not be treated as the criminals.
"The Bahamas needs to wake up and move towards the model the Scandinavians have created. Here's how it works: they have criminalised the demand, but they recognise that you cannot arrest a prostitute who is 14 and servicing a client who is 42 and then treat her like the criminal and let him go free. Yet that's happening even in the United States. The women, the victims, should be decriminalised and receive services and the Johns should face criminal prosecution."
He feels that treating such women merely as illegal immigrants - not to mention the children we send back to Haiti on a regular basis without inquiring about their identity or circumstances - amounts to punishing slaves for their condition of slavery and heaping further misery upon people who have already endured unimaginable suffering.
What do you think?
Email:
pnunez@tribunemedia.net
March 08, 2010
tribune242
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Hugo Chavez Frias: "We are not Anti-American, We are Anti-Imperialism"
By Cindy Sheehan:
My request to interview President Hugo Chavez Frias of Venezuela was finally granted on March 2nd while we were down in Montevideo, Uruguay with President Chavez for the inauguration of the new left-ish president and freedom fighter, Jose Mujica.
The reasons I went down to Venezuela with my team of two cameramen were two-fold.
First of all, I just got tired of all the misinformation that is spread in the US about President Chavez and the people’s Bolivarian Revolution. In only one example, the National Endowment for Democracy (another Orwellian named agency that receives federal money to supplant democracy) spends millions of dollars every year in Venezuela trying to destabilize Chavez’s democratically elected government.
The other reason we went to Venezuela was to be inspired and energized by the revolution and try to inspire and energize others in the states to rise up against the oppressive ruling class here and take power back into our own hands.
Empowerment of the poorest or least educated citizens of Venezuela is the goal of the Bolivarian Revolution. President Chavez said in the interview that “Power has five principles” and the first one is Education and he calls Venezuela a “big school.” Indeed since the revolution began 11 years ago, literacy rate has risen significantly to where now 99% of the population is now literate.
People Power is another principle of power and we witnessed this in a very dramatic fashion in the barrio of San Agustin in Caracas. San Agustin was a shantytown built on the sides of some very steep and tall hills—the only way the citizens could get to and from their homes was to climb up and down some very steep and treacherous stairs. Well, two years ago, the neighborhood formed a committee and proposed that the government build a tram through the hills and on January 20th, the dreams of the citizens of San Agustin became a reality and the Metro Cable was christened. Not only did the residents get a new tram, but many of the shacks were torn down and new apartments were built. Residents had priority for low, or no, interest loans to buy the apartments.
Even though I am very afraid of heights, I rode the Metro Cable to the top of the hill and we were awarded with amazing views of Caracas and the distant mountains. All the red, gleaming tramcars are given names of places in Venezuela or revolutionary slogans. But our “treat” was still ahead of us when we made our way down the side of the hill by those steep and treacherous stairs. In combination with the stairs and the heat, by the time we were at the bottom, my legs were shaking like Jello and my heart was thumping. I could not even imagine walking up those stairs! Young children, pregnant women, pregnant women with young children, old people, etc, had to go up and down the stairs to get to an from their homes! With the installation of the tram, the lives of the people of San Agustin were improved immeasurably and it is all due to the education and sense of empowerment that comes from organizing and ultimate victory.
The Metro Cable serves about 12,000 people per day at a cost of ten cents per round trip ticket—and all of the employees come from the barrio.
After the trip up the hill and steep climb down, we met with the community organizers after a traditional Venezuelan lunch of beans, rice, fried plantains and a little bit of meat for the meat eaters. Note: the “traditional” Venezuelan lunch is identical to the traditional Venezuelan breakfast and is very yummy.
About 98% of the organizers were women who spoke very articulately and passionately about how their lives have improved since Chavez arose to power from the people’s revolution and how they would defend Chavez and the revolution with their very lives.
Knowledge is power and perhaps that’s why before the Revolution, only primary school was free and fees were charged for secondary education. Now in Venezuela, school is free all the way through doctoral studies. We see how the ruling class in our own country is gutting education and are tying to make it as difficult as possible to get a University education. A smart and thinking public is a dangerous public.
There is so much to write about our trip and about the Bolivarian Revolution that this will have to be a series of articles by necessity. We learned so much!
Also, my complete interview with President Chavez will be available soon in audio and video and then a full-length documentary entitled:TODOS SOMOS AMERICANOS (We are all Americans) will hopefully be available and premiere by June 1st.
There is a very touching scene at the end of my interview with President Chavez when President Evo Morales of Bolivia comes in the room. President Morales was also in Montevideo for Mujica’s inauguration.
I asked both the presidents if they had any words of inspiration for the people of the US. They both emphasized the need for grassroots unity, but they especially wanted to stress their affection for the people of the US.
With President Morales standing by his side and nodding vigorously, President Chavez said: “We are NOT anti-American, we ARE anti-Imperialism.”
Yo tambien, mis hermanos.
March 8th 2010
venezuelanalysis
Monday, March 8, 2010
Bahamas: Nurse shortage could hamper nation's development
By Krystel Rolle ~ Guardian Staff Reporter ~ krystel@nasguard.com:
A severe shortage of nurses could cripple the nation's development, according to a World Bank report, which named The Bahamas among a group of Caribbean countries that suffers from the deficiency.
The report, which was released last week, noted that nursing shortages across the English-speaking Caribbean limit access to and the quality of health services and affect the region's competitiveness.
The report revealed, "According to (the study) 'The Nurse Labor and Education Markets in the English-speaking CARICOM - Issues and Options for Reform,' the region is facing a rapidly growing shortage of nurses as demand for quality health care increases due to an aging population, and high numbers of nurses emigrate, drawn by higher paying jobs in Canada, the UK and the USA."
Pointing to the severity of The Bahamas' shortage on Thursday, Minister of Health Dr. Hubert Minnis said The Bahamas has 26 nurses to every 10,000 people, while countries like the United States have 100 nurses per 10,000 people.
"And they are short," Dr. Minnis said, referring to the United States.
"The World Bank estimates that there are 7,800 nurses working in the English-speaking Caribbean (CARICOM), or 1.25 nurses per 1,000 people, roughly one-tenth the concentration in some OECD countries. In addition, demand for nurses exceeds their supply throughout the region: 3,300 or 30 percent of all positions in the sector were vacant at the time of the study."
The World Bank said such shortages can hinder the Caribbean.
"These shortages have tangible impacts that may compromise the ability of English-speaking CARICOM countries to meet their key health care service needs, especially in the areas of disease prevention and care. In addition, the shortage of highly-trained nurses reduces the capacity of countries to offer quality health care at a time when Caribbean countries aim to attract businesses and retirees as an important pillar of growth."
The World Bank said in the coming years, demand for nurses in the English-speaking Caribbean will increase due to the health needs of the aging population.
"Under current education and labor market conditions, however, supply will slightly decrease. The World Bank expects that unmet demand for nurses will more than triple during the next 15 years — from 3,300 nurses in 2006 to 10,700 nurses in 2025."
A study undertaken by an international research group and recently highlighted by Health Minister Dr. Minnis has determined that The Bahamas has an aging population.
An aging population is usually characterized by an increase in a population's mean and median ages, a decline in the proportion comprised of children and young adults, and a rise in the proportion that is elderly.
Minnis said over the next 20 years the number of young persons in the population will diminish.
"We will find that the numbers of individuals between the ages of zero to 20 will decrease, whereas the number of individuals between the ages of 45-65 and older will increase," Dr. Minnis said last week.
Meantime, the World Bank said data suggests that the number of English-speaking CARICOM trained nurses working in Canada, the UK and the US is about 21,500, which is about three times higher than the workforce in the English-speaking CARICOM.
"The new World Bank report also points to high demand for nurse education but low completion rates (55 percent) as a challenge and an opportunity in tackling nurse shortages," the report said. "Having more nurse tutors available, maximizing completion rates and accepting more students into programs would significantly bolster the number of new nurses entering the health system."
To meet the demand for nurses in the English-speaking Caribbean, the report suggests Caribbean countries increase training capacity; manage migration; strengthen data quality and availability; and adopt a regional approach.
"Given the size and the linkages of local nurse labor markets, no country in the region is in a position to efficiently tackle the challenges ahead on its own," the report said. "Therefore, countries should ideally join forces and adopt a regional approach to increasing training capacity, managing migration and strengthening the evidence-base, if possible, with technical and financial support from countries where a large part of their nurse workforce will tend to migrate to Canada, the UK and the US."
Dr. Minnis said The Ministry of Health is already working to alleviate the problem. According to him there are currently 127 high school students participating in his ministry's nursing program. He added that the ministry is looking to launch a program for junior high school students.
He said the government has provided 53 scholarships for students studying nursing. Additionally, he said there are 155 nursing students in The College of The Bahamas.
The English-speaking Caribbean includes Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago.
March 08, 2010
thenassauguardian
A severe shortage of nurses could cripple the nation's development, according to a World Bank report, which named The Bahamas among a group of Caribbean countries that suffers from the deficiency.
The report, which was released last week, noted that nursing shortages across the English-speaking Caribbean limit access to and the quality of health services and affect the region's competitiveness.
The report revealed, "According to (the study) 'The Nurse Labor and Education Markets in the English-speaking CARICOM - Issues and Options for Reform,' the region is facing a rapidly growing shortage of nurses as demand for quality health care increases due to an aging population, and high numbers of nurses emigrate, drawn by higher paying jobs in Canada, the UK and the USA."
Pointing to the severity of The Bahamas' shortage on Thursday, Minister of Health Dr. Hubert Minnis said The Bahamas has 26 nurses to every 10,000 people, while countries like the United States have 100 nurses per 10,000 people.
"And they are short," Dr. Minnis said, referring to the United States.
"The World Bank estimates that there are 7,800 nurses working in the English-speaking Caribbean (CARICOM), or 1.25 nurses per 1,000 people, roughly one-tenth the concentration in some OECD countries. In addition, demand for nurses exceeds their supply throughout the region: 3,300 or 30 percent of all positions in the sector were vacant at the time of the study."
The World Bank said such shortages can hinder the Caribbean.
"These shortages have tangible impacts that may compromise the ability of English-speaking CARICOM countries to meet their key health care service needs, especially in the areas of disease prevention and care. In addition, the shortage of highly-trained nurses reduces the capacity of countries to offer quality health care at a time when Caribbean countries aim to attract businesses and retirees as an important pillar of growth."
The World Bank said in the coming years, demand for nurses in the English-speaking Caribbean will increase due to the health needs of the aging population.
"Under current education and labor market conditions, however, supply will slightly decrease. The World Bank expects that unmet demand for nurses will more than triple during the next 15 years — from 3,300 nurses in 2006 to 10,700 nurses in 2025."
A study undertaken by an international research group and recently highlighted by Health Minister Dr. Minnis has determined that The Bahamas has an aging population.
An aging population is usually characterized by an increase in a population's mean and median ages, a decline in the proportion comprised of children and young adults, and a rise in the proportion that is elderly.
Minnis said over the next 20 years the number of young persons in the population will diminish.
"We will find that the numbers of individuals between the ages of zero to 20 will decrease, whereas the number of individuals between the ages of 45-65 and older will increase," Dr. Minnis said last week.
Meantime, the World Bank said data suggests that the number of English-speaking CARICOM trained nurses working in Canada, the UK and the US is about 21,500, which is about three times higher than the workforce in the English-speaking CARICOM.
"The new World Bank report also points to high demand for nurse education but low completion rates (55 percent) as a challenge and an opportunity in tackling nurse shortages," the report said. "Having more nurse tutors available, maximizing completion rates and accepting more students into programs would significantly bolster the number of new nurses entering the health system."
To meet the demand for nurses in the English-speaking Caribbean, the report suggests Caribbean countries increase training capacity; manage migration; strengthen data quality and availability; and adopt a regional approach.
"Given the size and the linkages of local nurse labor markets, no country in the region is in a position to efficiently tackle the challenges ahead on its own," the report said. "Therefore, countries should ideally join forces and adopt a regional approach to increasing training capacity, managing migration and strengthening the evidence-base, if possible, with technical and financial support from countries where a large part of their nurse workforce will tend to migrate to Canada, the UK and the US."
Dr. Minnis said The Ministry of Health is already working to alleviate the problem. According to him there are currently 127 high school students participating in his ministry's nursing program. He added that the ministry is looking to launch a program for junior high school students.
He said the government has provided 53 scholarships for students studying nursing. Additionally, he said there are 155 nursing students in The College of The Bahamas.
The English-speaking Caribbean includes Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago.
March 08, 2010
thenassauguardian
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Jamaica: Aftermath of the Dudus extradition
Mark Wignall
A week or so after the extradition, downtown Kingston, effectively void of its 'protector', has become one vast no-man's land. The outburst of violence began at the moment his extradition was announced.
Police personnel in full battle gear and soldiers from the JDF are out in their numbers, day and night, but for all the good that their presence has done to ensure a full or even partial return of commercial activity, they could have instead remained at their homes or at their assigned stations.
The spate of shootings in two weeks has left 20 dead, comprising three members of the security forces, eight vendors, three shoppers, one storeowner and five young men described by the CCN as "gunmen who had brazenly opened fire on the security forces using high-powered automatic weaponry".
The 20 dead are, however, just those confined to the immediate environs of downtown Kingston. From Flanker in St James all the way to Yallahs in the east, the violent flare-ups have been very unpredictable, but the biggest problem facing the security forces is the seeming ability of the roving bands of gunmen to strike and then blend seamlessly into the various communities. So far the death toll related to these sporadic outbursts of violence outside of the Kingston Metropolitan Area (KMA) has been 15, including two additional members of the security forces, eight members of the public and five gunmen.
Two days ago, a statement made by the prime minister explaining his reasons for accepting the resignation of Security Minister Dwight Nelson, by my own gleanings at street level, has been received by the public with much scepticism. "Nelson neva did a gwaan good anyway. But fi fire di man now is only trying to mek it look like seh him a du sup'm. Dat cyaan fool wi. A him fi resign."
In his statement, the prime minister made it clear that the security forces would have the matter under control "in a matter of days". When pressed by Cliff Hughes to give the nation an indication as to when a new security minister would be appointed, a visibly peeved Golding stared down Hughes and shot back, "The priority now is stemming the tide of violence that has gripped this nation for the last two weeks. That has to be the nation's priority! Next question."
Over the last two days, most businessplaces in the KMA, Spanish Town, May Pen, and to a lesser extent in key sections on the outskirts of the second city, have remained closed as fear becomes the only commodity in the marketplace. Three days ago when I drove along sections of Red Hills Road, lower Constant Spring Road, Hope Road and upper Maxfield Avenue, I saw little activity except vehicles carrying soldiers and police. Thoroughfares such as Grants Pen Road, Waltham Park Road, Olympic Way and Spanish Town Road are not places I would advise readers of this column to pass through.
The sense I had was that the security forces were confounded by the sporadic outburst of gunfire. With a dusk-to-dawn curfew in most parish capitals, some main towns and key sections of both cities, the country seems ready to roll over and go to bed for a long spell.
As it appears, there is some evidence that gunmen with notional attachments to the PNP have been teaming up with those in the forefront; various spokespersons in the PNP have been calling for an islandwide state of emergency. Meanwhile, the information minister has dismissed the idea that the prime minister has formally requested the Americans to send in the Marines.
What happens if Dudus stays
OK, before you start to conclude that I am a purveyor of fear and that I am selling it in support of the JLP administration's refusal to sign the extradition order for Mr Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, boss of all bosses in West Kingston, let me simply state that I was merely attempting to give you my best version of likely happenings based on how the grand game of politics, in the last 50 years, has meshed with the street elements in order to ensure that the JLP and PNP tribes can remain in their parasitic relationship with the people of this country.
A well-known, highly successful businessman who is a friend, wrote recently, "What if I said that the feeling I get, outside of the partisan biases, is that the greatest fear among the citizenry has to do with a feeling that Dudus brings a sense of stability and that this would change to anarchy were he removed... A fear of the perceived awesome firepower in the hands of men incapable of reason and seeking only individual power, in the many islandwide communities that are under the sphere of influence of Tivoli -- The Mother of all Garrisons, according to former Commissioner Hardley Lewin -- bearing in mind the alleged superior firepower and the many in the police force who were schooled and placed there deliberately by dons."
The PNP when it was in power never failed to provoke Tivoli Gardens into violent outbursts when it suited them to do so. I am not saying that the gunmen in Tivoli Gardens were armed by the politicians because I have no evidence of this. Indeed, at this juncture of our sordid history where politicians have been neutered and the street elements attached to them no longer call them boss, the typical gunman in an inner-city community would probably balk at the idea that a politician gave him a gun.
Created by Eddie Seaga, Tivoli Gardens and the wider West Kingston constituency became the template for the PNP's response to fighting fire with fire. As the PNP's South St Andrew constituency became the first line of defence in hitting back at armed young men from Tivoli in the 1970s, the JLP ensured that Rema was well placed as a stub extending from its border with Denham Town a few blocks into South St Andrew.
Rema gunmen were the front-line warriors, ostensibly keeping the PNP horde from raiding further south and pushing Tivoli into the sea. When Rema behaved badly, its gunmen were always seen to be expendable. Just ask those old enough to recount the massacre carried out by Tivoli on Rema in 1984.
My friend added, for contextual support that, "This may very well be the opportunity to clean slate... but for this to be successful... superior, disciplined and coordinated intelligence and force would have to be applied from day one of any such initiative. The old truism 'one can't be half pregnant' is appropriate here."
He then asks a question which focuses on the ability of the state to summon the will to rescue its soul.
"Is Jamaica capable of this, when the target is a friend of those who must summon the political will, mobilise and coordinate this intelligence and force - having ostracised the most likely source of needed assistance? Some things are more easily said than done, and never lose sight of the fact that in Jamaica, the hierarchy is: Self, Party, then Country. This statesman thing is a mere chapter of our history not likely to be repeated."
Question: Who is the 'most likely source of the needed assistance'? No points for a correct answer.
From day one I had suggested that based on how the US extradition request had described the activities of Dudus, automatically his closest political allies would become his most feared enemies. But based on the information coming out of the JLP government, the US authorities must now go back and find some other grounds on which to make a new request.
Is the JLP government saying to the US government that it (the US) has breached that treaty? Let us appreciate that the JLP Cabinet has many members who are quick to give 'respect' to Dudus, therefore, as we know 'fear' follows 'respect'.
To say to the US authorities, "Hell no, he won't go" is to accept that if Mr Coke is as bad and influential as they say he is, then we in Jamaica ought to have known about it and done something about it. Essentially the Americans are saying, "Jamaica, you are incapable of running a viable country. You have accepted our money, our kindness. Now shut the @!/! up and abide by our treaty."
The power of the Americans to cripple our tourist industry by issuing travel advisories is probably the worst action that could be taken, but seeing that we will need every cent of tourism earnings in order to pay back the IMF, it is my view that the Americans will not be doing this any time soon.
If the Americans suspect that the Dudus they have investigated has surrogates with American visas, revoking those visas could be a start. Don't get me wrong, I am not in any way linking the revoking of Wayne Chen's visa with the Dudus extradition request.
The fact is, if Jamaica fails to exercise what most Jamaicans see as the sensible option, the US authorities can bring into play many surreptitious options that only a CIA operative could conjure up.
It is my personal belief that any decision to extradite Dudus lies squarely in Tivoli Gardens. But it could be that the Government is playing two hands in the one game.
On one hand, it opens up publicly and defends the 'sovereign rights of our citizens' and earns the wrath of the citizenry. On the other hand, the possibility is that it could be holding covert meetings with the US authorities simply because it knows that whatever the US wants, the US gets.
One online commentator summed it up as follows, "The only party that holds any cards, aside from Dudus, is the USA. Bruce Golding is simply a noisy spectator. This situation has made it clear that the coup d'état took place many years ago. Dudus is the King of Jamaica!"
March 07, 2010
jamaicaobserver
A week or so after the extradition, downtown Kingston, effectively void of its 'protector', has become one vast no-man's land. The outburst of violence began at the moment his extradition was announced.
Police personnel in full battle gear and soldiers from the JDF are out in their numbers, day and night, but for all the good that their presence has done to ensure a full or even partial return of commercial activity, they could have instead remained at their homes or at their assigned stations.
The spate of shootings in two weeks has left 20 dead, comprising three members of the security forces, eight vendors, three shoppers, one storeowner and five young men described by the CCN as "gunmen who had brazenly opened fire on the security forces using high-powered automatic weaponry".
The 20 dead are, however, just those confined to the immediate environs of downtown Kingston. From Flanker in St James all the way to Yallahs in the east, the violent flare-ups have been very unpredictable, but the biggest problem facing the security forces is the seeming ability of the roving bands of gunmen to strike and then blend seamlessly into the various communities. So far the death toll related to these sporadic outbursts of violence outside of the Kingston Metropolitan Area (KMA) has been 15, including two additional members of the security forces, eight members of the public and five gunmen.
Two days ago, a statement made by the prime minister explaining his reasons for accepting the resignation of Security Minister Dwight Nelson, by my own gleanings at street level, has been received by the public with much scepticism. "Nelson neva did a gwaan good anyway. But fi fire di man now is only trying to mek it look like seh him a du sup'm. Dat cyaan fool wi. A him fi resign."
In his statement, the prime minister made it clear that the security forces would have the matter under control "in a matter of days". When pressed by Cliff Hughes to give the nation an indication as to when a new security minister would be appointed, a visibly peeved Golding stared down Hughes and shot back, "The priority now is stemming the tide of violence that has gripped this nation for the last two weeks. That has to be the nation's priority! Next question."
Over the last two days, most businessplaces in the KMA, Spanish Town, May Pen, and to a lesser extent in key sections on the outskirts of the second city, have remained closed as fear becomes the only commodity in the marketplace. Three days ago when I drove along sections of Red Hills Road, lower Constant Spring Road, Hope Road and upper Maxfield Avenue, I saw little activity except vehicles carrying soldiers and police. Thoroughfares such as Grants Pen Road, Waltham Park Road, Olympic Way and Spanish Town Road are not places I would advise readers of this column to pass through.
The sense I had was that the security forces were confounded by the sporadic outburst of gunfire. With a dusk-to-dawn curfew in most parish capitals, some main towns and key sections of both cities, the country seems ready to roll over and go to bed for a long spell.
As it appears, there is some evidence that gunmen with notional attachments to the PNP have been teaming up with those in the forefront; various spokespersons in the PNP have been calling for an islandwide state of emergency. Meanwhile, the information minister has dismissed the idea that the prime minister has formally requested the Americans to send in the Marines.
What happens if Dudus stays
OK, before you start to conclude that I am a purveyor of fear and that I am selling it in support of the JLP administration's refusal to sign the extradition order for Mr Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, boss of all bosses in West Kingston, let me simply state that I was merely attempting to give you my best version of likely happenings based on how the grand game of politics, in the last 50 years, has meshed with the street elements in order to ensure that the JLP and PNP tribes can remain in their parasitic relationship with the people of this country.
A well-known, highly successful businessman who is a friend, wrote recently, "What if I said that the feeling I get, outside of the partisan biases, is that the greatest fear among the citizenry has to do with a feeling that Dudus brings a sense of stability and that this would change to anarchy were he removed... A fear of the perceived awesome firepower in the hands of men incapable of reason and seeking only individual power, in the many islandwide communities that are under the sphere of influence of Tivoli -- The Mother of all Garrisons, according to former Commissioner Hardley Lewin -- bearing in mind the alleged superior firepower and the many in the police force who were schooled and placed there deliberately by dons."
The PNP when it was in power never failed to provoke Tivoli Gardens into violent outbursts when it suited them to do so. I am not saying that the gunmen in Tivoli Gardens were armed by the politicians because I have no evidence of this. Indeed, at this juncture of our sordid history where politicians have been neutered and the street elements attached to them no longer call them boss, the typical gunman in an inner-city community would probably balk at the idea that a politician gave him a gun.
Created by Eddie Seaga, Tivoli Gardens and the wider West Kingston constituency became the template for the PNP's response to fighting fire with fire. As the PNP's South St Andrew constituency became the first line of defence in hitting back at armed young men from Tivoli in the 1970s, the JLP ensured that Rema was well placed as a stub extending from its border with Denham Town a few blocks into South St Andrew.
Rema gunmen were the front-line warriors, ostensibly keeping the PNP horde from raiding further south and pushing Tivoli into the sea. When Rema behaved badly, its gunmen were always seen to be expendable. Just ask those old enough to recount the massacre carried out by Tivoli on Rema in 1984.
My friend added, for contextual support that, "This may very well be the opportunity to clean slate... but for this to be successful... superior, disciplined and coordinated intelligence and force would have to be applied from day one of any such initiative. The old truism 'one can't be half pregnant' is appropriate here."
He then asks a question which focuses on the ability of the state to summon the will to rescue its soul.
"Is Jamaica capable of this, when the target is a friend of those who must summon the political will, mobilise and coordinate this intelligence and force - having ostracised the most likely source of needed assistance? Some things are more easily said than done, and never lose sight of the fact that in Jamaica, the hierarchy is: Self, Party, then Country. This statesman thing is a mere chapter of our history not likely to be repeated."
Question: Who is the 'most likely source of the needed assistance'? No points for a correct answer.
From day one I had suggested that based on how the US extradition request had described the activities of Dudus, automatically his closest political allies would become his most feared enemies. But based on the information coming out of the JLP government, the US authorities must now go back and find some other grounds on which to make a new request.
Is the JLP government saying to the US government that it (the US) has breached that treaty? Let us appreciate that the JLP Cabinet has many members who are quick to give 'respect' to Dudus, therefore, as we know 'fear' follows 'respect'.
To say to the US authorities, "Hell no, he won't go" is to accept that if Mr Coke is as bad and influential as they say he is, then we in Jamaica ought to have known about it and done something about it. Essentially the Americans are saying, "Jamaica, you are incapable of running a viable country. You have accepted our money, our kindness. Now shut the @!/! up and abide by our treaty."
The power of the Americans to cripple our tourist industry by issuing travel advisories is probably the worst action that could be taken, but seeing that we will need every cent of tourism earnings in order to pay back the IMF, it is my view that the Americans will not be doing this any time soon.
If the Americans suspect that the Dudus they have investigated has surrogates with American visas, revoking those visas could be a start. Don't get me wrong, I am not in any way linking the revoking of Wayne Chen's visa with the Dudus extradition request.
The fact is, if Jamaica fails to exercise what most Jamaicans see as the sensible option, the US authorities can bring into play many surreptitious options that only a CIA operative could conjure up.
It is my personal belief that any decision to extradite Dudus lies squarely in Tivoli Gardens. But it could be that the Government is playing two hands in the one game.
On one hand, it opens up publicly and defends the 'sovereign rights of our citizens' and earns the wrath of the citizenry. On the other hand, the possibility is that it could be holding covert meetings with the US authorities simply because it knows that whatever the US wants, the US gets.
One online commentator summed it up as follows, "The only party that holds any cards, aside from Dudus, is the USA. Bruce Golding is simply a noisy spectator. This situation has made it clear that the coup d'état took place many years ago. Dudus is the King of Jamaica!"
March 07, 2010
jamaicaobserver
Cases of 'bullying' US politics
Analysis by Rickey Singh
IT would be a pity if the rest of our Caribbean Community governments do not see it necessary to acquaint themselves with the circumstances of the current sharp dispute between Jamaica and the United States over Washington's demand for the extradition of Jamaican Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.
Given the commitment to the rule of law in our Caribbean civilisation, it is good to have an independent judicial system as final arbiter in the current dispute over the extradition of a Jamaican wanted by American authorities for alleged narco-trafficking and related crimes.
In a sense, the explosion of the bitter extradition row resulting from Jamaica's refusal to extradite Coke is a classic case of déjà vu in terms of relations between Washington and Kingston under different administrations.
As it was under previous governments of the now Opposition People's National Party (PNP), and the administrations of both presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush, Jamaica remains a favourite "punching bag" in America's diversion to cover up its own woeful failures to effectively deal with its immense problem as the world's biggest consumer of illegal drugs as well as its involvement in gun-running linked to narco-trafficking.
This observation should not be misconstrued as support for Coke, or any other Jamaican or Caricom national whose alleged criminal activities can threaten national security as well as undermine good bilateral relations with the USA and other traditional external allies.
The 'Coke extradition case' reminds us of other instances of the USA wielding the 'big stick' to force small and poor states in this and other regions to genuflect to the assumed legal demands of Washington.
'Silver Dollar' and 'Shiprider'
A typical example of the USA's 'big stick' approach would be the threatened financial sanctions against Jamaica by the then Bill Clinton administration over a then PNP government, led by PJ Patterson, amid a raging bitter dispute involving alleged violations under of a then prevailing Maritime Counter-Narcotics Co-operation Agreement (the 1996 case of the fishing boat Silver Dollar).
A shining example of Caricom solidarity was demonstrated at an extraordinary summit in Barbados hosted by then Prime Minister Owen Arthur.
It was to frustrate Washington, which had threatened sanctions with the emergence of major changes to controversial provisions in the "Maritime Counter-Narcotics (Shiprider) Agreement" which, for its part, Trinidad and Tobago had earlier hastily signed in its original format.
Jamaica's signing with the USA of the revised protocol to the 1997 'Shiprider' pact had ended a chilling episode of political tension, and new cordial relations were flowering in Kingston (then under PNP rule) and other Caricom capitals with the USA when President Clinton showed up in Barbados in May 1997 for the historic summit that resulted in a far-reaching "Partnership for Sovereignty and Security".
Subsequently, however, under the administration of President George W Bush, there was to be another example of bullying tactics by a Washington administration against small and vulnerable economies.
In this case it was related to Caribbean countries that signed and ratified the Rome Treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC), to concur with a demand from Washington to exonerate from extradition US citizens wanted by the ICC for specific crimes.
Failure to agree, they were made to understand, would mean losing whatever military assistance they normally received from dear "Uncle Sam".
Such is Washington's concept of "democracy" and "sovereignty' when dealing with small and poor states like ours in the Caribbean -- something for which it is occasionally applauded by sections of the region's media.
Among the countries that had both signed and ratified the Rome Treaty were Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, and St Vincent and the Grenadines. Antigua and Barbuda genuflected; Barbados and St Vincent and the Grenadines refused.
Jamaica, Guyana and St Lucia had signed but not ratified the treaty and, consequently, there was no need to pressure them into concurring with Washington's demand. These are just two examples of Uncle Sam's arrogance to push small and poor states into a corner.
Golding's Stand
In the current political episode involving Coke, Prime Minister Golding has made it clear that it is NOT a case of his Government's refusal to co-operate with Washington.
Jamaica's objection relates to the manner in which the USA was muscling its way to secure Coke's extradition, even to the extent of obtaining information illegally by violating key provisions of the Extradition Treaty between the two countries.
According to an irate Golding, who has vowed to pay, if necessary, "the political price" for his handling of the extradition request of August 25 last year, the evidence submitted is based on a violation of Jamaica's Interception of Communications Act.
He went on to state that "constitutional rights do not begin at Liguanea" (location of the United States Embassy in Kingston).
Given the nature of competitive party politics for state power, the Opposition PNP may have its own reason for an earlier press statement that accused the Golding administration of not "expeditiously" responding to the US request for the extradition of Coke.
Yet the PNP can hardly forget its own very unpleasant experiences while in government in dealing with differences with Washington on matters of narco-trafficking.
An example would be the impasse over the so-called Silver Dollar Affair that had led then Foreign Minister Seymour Mullings to accuse Washington of breaching Jamaica's sovereignty.
Cubana Tragedy
The Caribbean Community would be quite aware of Washington's unflattering record in honouring requests for the extradition of those in the USA wanted for outrageous criminal acts in other nations.
Foremost in the minds of Caribbean people would be two Cuban émigrés currently being sheltered in the USA from prosecution for their involvement in the 1976 bombing of the Cubana aircraft off Barbados in which all 73 people on board perished.
One of the terrorists in that Cubana tragedy, Orlando Bosch, a medical doctor, was given a presidential pardon by the senior George Bush, following his illegal entry into the USA after fleeing Venezuela, from where his partner in crime, Luis Posada Carriles, was to later escape. Carriles, after a 'protected' stay in Panama, also illegally entered the USA.
Washington continues to ignore Caricom's request for him to face a court trial for the biggest ever act of terrorism in a Caribbean jurisdiction.
March 07, 2010
jamaicaobserver
IT would be a pity if the rest of our Caribbean Community governments do not see it necessary to acquaint themselves with the circumstances of the current sharp dispute between Jamaica and the United States over Washington's demand for the extradition of Jamaican Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.
Prime Minister Bruce Golding should consider briefing his Caricom counterparts, if he has not already done so, as well as have a candid discussion with the parliamentary Opposition.
For what is at stake seems to be much more than the individual human rights of Coke, regardless of the fact that he is the strongman in the Tivoli Gardens community -- a known political stronghold of the prime minister's governing Jamaica Labour Party.
The very sovereignty of Jamaica seems to be at stake in its Government's defence of its constitutional right, within the framework of an existing bilateral extradition treaty it has with the USA, which would require extending that right for a ruling by the courts in Jamaica BEFORE Coke could be handed over to US authorities, or that such a process be denied.
Given the commitment to the rule of law in our Caribbean civilisation, it is good to have an independent judicial system as final arbiter in the current dispute over the extradition of a Jamaican wanted by American authorities for alleged narco-trafficking and related crimes.
In a sense, the explosion of the bitter extradition row resulting from Jamaica's refusal to extradite Coke is a classic case of déjà vu in terms of relations between Washington and Kingston under different administrations.
As it was under previous governments of the now Opposition People's National Party (PNP), and the administrations of both presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush, Jamaica remains a favourite "punching bag" in America's diversion to cover up its own woeful failures to effectively deal with its immense problem as the world's biggest consumer of illegal drugs as well as its involvement in gun-running linked to narco-trafficking.
This observation should not be misconstrued as support for Coke, or any other Jamaican or Caricom national whose alleged criminal activities can threaten national security as well as undermine good bilateral relations with the USA and other traditional external allies.
The 'Coke extradition case' reminds us of other instances of the USA wielding the 'big stick' to force small and poor states in this and other regions to genuflect to the assumed legal demands of Washington.
'Silver Dollar' and 'Shiprider'
A typical example of the USA's 'big stick' approach would be the threatened financial sanctions against Jamaica by the then Bill Clinton administration over a then PNP government, led by PJ Patterson, amid a raging bitter dispute involving alleged violations under of a then prevailing Maritime Counter-Narcotics Co-operation Agreement (the 1996 case of the fishing boat Silver Dollar).
A shining example of Caricom solidarity was demonstrated at an extraordinary summit in Barbados hosted by then Prime Minister Owen Arthur.
It was to frustrate Washington, which had threatened sanctions with the emergence of major changes to controversial provisions in the "Maritime Counter-Narcotics (Shiprider) Agreement" which, for its part, Trinidad and Tobago had earlier hastily signed in its original format.
Jamaica's signing with the USA of the revised protocol to the 1997 'Shiprider' pact had ended a chilling episode of political tension, and new cordial relations were flowering in Kingston (then under PNP rule) and other Caricom capitals with the USA when President Clinton showed up in Barbados in May 1997 for the historic summit that resulted in a far-reaching "Partnership for Sovereignty and Security".
Subsequently, however, under the administration of President George W Bush, there was to be another example of bullying tactics by a Washington administration against small and vulnerable economies.
In this case it was related to Caribbean countries that signed and ratified the Rome Treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC), to concur with a demand from Washington to exonerate from extradition US citizens wanted by the ICC for specific crimes.
Failure to agree, they were made to understand, would mean losing whatever military assistance they normally received from dear "Uncle Sam".
Such is Washington's concept of "democracy" and "sovereignty' when dealing with small and poor states like ours in the Caribbean -- something for which it is occasionally applauded by sections of the region's media.
Among the countries that had both signed and ratified the Rome Treaty were Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, and St Vincent and the Grenadines. Antigua and Barbuda genuflected; Barbados and St Vincent and the Grenadines refused.
Jamaica, Guyana and St Lucia had signed but not ratified the treaty and, consequently, there was no need to pressure them into concurring with Washington's demand. These are just two examples of Uncle Sam's arrogance to push small and poor states into a corner.
Golding's Stand
In the current political episode involving Coke, Prime Minister Golding has made it clear that it is NOT a case of his Government's refusal to co-operate with Washington.
Jamaica's objection relates to the manner in which the USA was muscling its way to secure Coke's extradition, even to the extent of obtaining information illegally by violating key provisions of the Extradition Treaty between the two countries.
According to an irate Golding, who has vowed to pay, if necessary, "the political price" for his handling of the extradition request of August 25 last year, the evidence submitted is based on a violation of Jamaica's Interception of Communications Act.
He went on to state that "constitutional rights do not begin at Liguanea" (location of the United States Embassy in Kingston).
Given the nature of competitive party politics for state power, the Opposition PNP may have its own reason for an earlier press statement that accused the Golding administration of not "expeditiously" responding to the US request for the extradition of Coke.
Yet the PNP can hardly forget its own very unpleasant experiences while in government in dealing with differences with Washington on matters of narco-trafficking.
An example would be the impasse over the so-called Silver Dollar Affair that had led then Foreign Minister Seymour Mullings to accuse Washington of breaching Jamaica's sovereignty.
Cubana Tragedy
The Caribbean Community would be quite aware of Washington's unflattering record in honouring requests for the extradition of those in the USA wanted for outrageous criminal acts in other nations.
Foremost in the minds of Caribbean people would be two Cuban émigrés currently being sheltered in the USA from prosecution for their involvement in the 1976 bombing of the Cubana aircraft off Barbados in which all 73 people on board perished.
One of the terrorists in that Cubana tragedy, Orlando Bosch, a medical doctor, was given a presidential pardon by the senior George Bush, following his illegal entry into the USA after fleeing Venezuela, from where his partner in crime, Luis Posada Carriles, was to later escape. Carriles, after a 'protected' stay in Panama, also illegally entered the USA.
Washington continues to ignore Caricom's request for him to face a court trial for the biggest ever act of terrorism in a Caribbean jurisdiction.
March 07, 2010
jamaicaobserver
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Chile and Haiti: A tale of two quakes
By David Roberts
Following the latest two big earthquakes to hit the region, the one in Haiti on January 12 and the one in central-southern Chile on February 27, many people have been comparing the catastrophes and questioning why so many people died in the Haiti event - up to 300,000, while the capital Port-au-Prince was pretty much flattened - and relatively few in Chile, at around 800, according to the latest count.
The earthquake in Chile, measuring 8.8 on the Richter scale, was supposedly 700 times more powerful than the one in Haiti, which measured 7.0. According to the scientists, one additional decimal point on the Richter scale means 10 times more energy is released, and while that may be difficult to believe in terms of how an earth tremor feels (a 4.1 certainly doesn't feel 10 times more powerful than a 4.0, for instance), the Chilean event was certainly much more powerful than the one in Haiti.
There are of course obvious reasons why the Chilean earthquake led to considerably less destruction and loss of life than the Haiti one. Building standards are very different, and that's a lesson that Chile has learnt from massive earthquakes in the past that caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people, such as Chillán in 1939 and Valdivia in 1960 (at 9.5 on the Richter scale the most powerful one ever registered), after which much stricter building codes were introduced. Many buildings in Port-au-Prince collapsed because they were not constructed using steel rebars to reinforce the concrete, while poverty and poor living conditions in general led to many more deaths than would otherwise have been the case, not to mention those many fatalities and injuries that resulted from inadequate rescue equipment and services, nor the illnesses that followed because of poor water supplies.
Another factor partly explaining the relatively modest damage - "relatively" is the key word here, as damage is initially estimated at up to US$30bn - and numbers of victims in Chilean earthquakes in recent decades is that they tend to be deeper in the ground than in many other parts of the world.
Indeed, on occasions some Chileans appear to be proud of the fact that their country seems to largely resist such powerful quakes, at least compared to other nations like Haiti, China or Iran, for example. There is, however, no room for complacency, and standards must be improved further. The February 27 event caused major destruction, even to modern infrastructure facilities that should have emerged unscathed, such as Santiago's so-called earthquake-proof airport (fortunately there were relatively few passengers in the terminal at the time), recently built highways and even an overpass on Santiago's beltway collapsed, and all that despite the quake in the capital measuring "only" 8.0. Several apartment blocks built just a few years ago came down or were severely damaged. To make matters worse, and this too demonstrates how far Chile still has to go in terms of development, many of the homes destroyed have no proper insurance coverage.
Then mistakes were made in the response by the authorities to the quake, most notably the navy ruling out a tsunami, which hit the coast of central-southern Chile a few minutes later, killing hundreds (including some in Juan Fernández archipelago).
In the event of a massive earthquake it is perhaps inevitable, wherever it occurs, that certain damage will ensue, and the authorities cannot take all the blame. Look at the telephone networks for instance, so vital in terms of a major disaster. One can expect the landlines to go down, but it seems mighty strange that just one of three mobile companies appeared to manage to keep its network operating.
Fortunately, Chilean authorities appear to be well aware of the shortcomings, so the onus now will be on the new government led by Sebastián Piñera to take up the reins and further improve standards.
bnamericas
Friday, March 5, 2010
Disasters need more than prayers - CARICOM
By Sir Ronald Sanders:
To date, CARICOM countries have not been able to mobilize support for Chile and have virtually left the problem to be tackled by the Chilean government, the United States of America, better-off Latin American nations and the international institutions. CARICOM countries simply do not have the resources in any form to cope with massive disasters within their own member states, let alone to provide help to other countries.
In this regard, CARICOM countries need to thank God that the 7.0 earthquake that buckled Haiti did not extend into Jamaica.
Nonetheless, high praise should be given to CARICOM countries for their efforts, at both the level of governments and the public, to help Haiti. In proportion to their capacity, many of them have been very generous.
Barbados has now emerged as the country which, on a per capita basis, has pledged the most to Haiti’s relief and reconstruction. Prime Minister David Thompson has revealed that the Barbados government is donating US$1 million to Haiti, the same figure as the governments of the two countries at either end of CARICOM’s economic scale - oil-rich Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana, the poorest country, in per capita income terms, after Haiti in the region.
While Guyana’s contribution was exemplary, the donation of Barbados is outstanding for not only has the government pledged US$1 million, but it has been shouldering the costs for the operations of the Regional Security System (RSS) that has provided much needed security and other services to Haiti. Barbados shares the RSS with six island-territories of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) but Thompson revealed that “no other contributions have been forthcoming” from other states.
CARICOM countries gave as much as they could. They did so directly and through the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA). But, at the end of the day, large though the contribution was in relation to the means of these countries, it was a drop in the Ocean measured against the scale of Haiti’s needs. Haiti required the large scale assistance of countries such as the United States, Canada, France, Brazil and the international institutions like the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
In early March at a meeting of CARICOM finance ministers, Secretary-General, Edwin Carrington, declared that the region “cannot fail to take cognizance of the near similar situation (to Haiti) which has befallen Chile.” He urged assistance ‘to the best of our ability at this time”.
The number of dead and injured in Chile was not as great as in Haiti even though the 8.8 tremor was much stronger than the earthquake that bowed Haiti. Nonetheless, as this commentary is being written, the United Nations Office for the coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, reports that 723 people were killed and 2 million (about 10 per cent of the population) have been made homeless and are walking the streets. Six regions were declared as zones of catastrophe.
But CARICOM countries are already over-stretched in Haiti. It is doubtful that any of them, except perhaps for Trinidad and Tobago, could make anything more than a token gesture of assistance to Chile.
Fortunately, there are governments that can provide immediate relief assistance and Chile has the financial capacity to undertake the reconstruction that has been estimate, so far, at US$30 billion - 15 per cent of Chile's annual economic output. The country is the best managed in Latin America with a public debt of only 6 per cent of its GDP. By comparison, the majority of CARICOM countries have a debt to GDP ratio of one hundred per cent and more.
Further, over the last decade Chile saved much of the profits from sales of copper by state-owned mines and taxes on private miners. Its sovereign wealth funds now hold about US$15 billion. With this kind of record and assets, Chile will easily be able to access capital markets at low interest rates for rebuilding.
How to establish machinery for avoiding huge human and infrastructural catastrophes as a result of natural disasters is something that should now be actively exercising the minds of Caribbean leaders.
St Kitts-Nevis Prime Minister Denzil Douglas recently observed that “there is a wave of volcanic activity that is taking place in this region” and he called on his country’s National Emergency Management Agency “to review the country’s capacity to deal with an earthquake”. He would know that to do so the Agency would require greater resources from the government than it now has.
Among the factors that all governments should take into account is the legislation and enforcement of far better building standards than now exists. Equally, they should all subscribe to the Caribbean Catastrophe Facility Risk Insurance Facility which paid out very quickly to Haiti and gave the government some resources to help rebuild the broken country.
The underlying point about all this is that CARICOM countries could not cope with two disasters simultaneously among its own membership, and while they have been valiant in Haiti in relation to their means, their financial contribution to Haiti was miniscule. Nonetheless, disaster threatens them in the form of hurricanes and earthquakes and they are ill-prepared to cope – a fact that international financial institutions and large countries should take into account by ceasing to graduate them from concessionary lending; urgently addressing their burdensome commercial debt problems; and stopping the demand in the World Trade Organisation and in trade agreements that they give reciprocal treatment to countries and regions much larger than they are.
Of course, the principal lesson to be learned from the experience of Haiti and Chile is that the countries that will recover faster and reconstruct quicker from disasters are the ones with the prudently run economies that benefit from greater resources. In this connection, CARICOM countries could make their economies stronger by accelerating the completion of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy with an effective governance structure.
Praying that disaster does not kick down the doors of two or more CARICOM countries at the same time won’t be enough.
caribbeannetnews
The massive earthquakes in Haiti and Chile within six weeks of each other, on January12 and February 27 respectively, revealed the limited capacity of Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries to respond to disasters on this scale.
In this regard, CARICOM countries need to thank God that the 7.0 earthquake that buckled Haiti did not extend into Jamaica.
Nonetheless, high praise should be given to CARICOM countries for their efforts, at both the level of governments and the public, to help Haiti. In proportion to their capacity, many of them have been very generous.
Barbados has now emerged as the country which, on a per capita basis, has pledged the most to Haiti’s relief and reconstruction. Prime Minister David Thompson has revealed that the Barbados government is donating US$1 million to Haiti, the same figure as the governments of the two countries at either end of CARICOM’s economic scale - oil-rich Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana, the poorest country, in per capita income terms, after Haiti in the region.
While Guyana’s contribution was exemplary, the donation of Barbados is outstanding for not only has the government pledged US$1 million, but it has been shouldering the costs for the operations of the Regional Security System (RSS) that has provided much needed security and other services to Haiti. Barbados shares the RSS with six island-territories of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) but Thompson revealed that “no other contributions have been forthcoming” from other states.
CARICOM countries gave as much as they could. They did so directly and through the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA). But, at the end of the day, large though the contribution was in relation to the means of these countries, it was a drop in the Ocean measured against the scale of Haiti’s needs. Haiti required the large scale assistance of countries such as the United States, Canada, France, Brazil and the international institutions like the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
In early March at a meeting of CARICOM finance ministers, Secretary-General, Edwin Carrington, declared that the region “cannot fail to take cognizance of the near similar situation (to Haiti) which has befallen Chile.” He urged assistance ‘to the best of our ability at this time”.
The number of dead and injured in Chile was not as great as in Haiti even though the 8.8 tremor was much stronger than the earthquake that bowed Haiti. Nonetheless, as this commentary is being written, the United Nations Office for the coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, reports that 723 people were killed and 2 million (about 10 per cent of the population) have been made homeless and are walking the streets. Six regions were declared as zones of catastrophe.
But CARICOM countries are already over-stretched in Haiti. It is doubtful that any of them, except perhaps for Trinidad and Tobago, could make anything more than a token gesture of assistance to Chile.
Fortunately, there are governments that can provide immediate relief assistance and Chile has the financial capacity to undertake the reconstruction that has been estimate, so far, at US$30 billion - 15 per cent of Chile's annual economic output. The country is the best managed in Latin America with a public debt of only 6 per cent of its GDP. By comparison, the majority of CARICOM countries have a debt to GDP ratio of one hundred per cent and more.
Further, over the last decade Chile saved much of the profits from sales of copper by state-owned mines and taxes on private miners. Its sovereign wealth funds now hold about US$15 billion. With this kind of record and assets, Chile will easily be able to access capital markets at low interest rates for rebuilding.
How to establish machinery for avoiding huge human and infrastructural catastrophes as a result of natural disasters is something that should now be actively exercising the minds of Caribbean leaders.
St Kitts-Nevis Prime Minister Denzil Douglas recently observed that “there is a wave of volcanic activity that is taking place in this region” and he called on his country’s National Emergency Management Agency “to review the country’s capacity to deal with an earthquake”. He would know that to do so the Agency would require greater resources from the government than it now has.
Among the factors that all governments should take into account is the legislation and enforcement of far better building standards than now exists. Equally, they should all subscribe to the Caribbean Catastrophe Facility Risk Insurance Facility which paid out very quickly to Haiti and gave the government some resources to help rebuild the broken country.
The underlying point about all this is that CARICOM countries could not cope with two disasters simultaneously among its own membership, and while they have been valiant in Haiti in relation to their means, their financial contribution to Haiti was miniscule. Nonetheless, disaster threatens them in the form of hurricanes and earthquakes and they are ill-prepared to cope – a fact that international financial institutions and large countries should take into account by ceasing to graduate them from concessionary lending; urgently addressing their burdensome commercial debt problems; and stopping the demand in the World Trade Organisation and in trade agreements that they give reciprocal treatment to countries and regions much larger than they are.
Of course, the principal lesson to be learned from the experience of Haiti and Chile is that the countries that will recover faster and reconstruct quicker from disasters are the ones with the prudently run economies that benefit from greater resources. In this connection, CARICOM countries could make their economies stronger by accelerating the completion of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy with an effective governance structure.
Praying that disaster does not kick down the doors of two or more CARICOM countries at the same time won’t be enough.
caribbeannetnews
Thursday, March 4, 2010
The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) goes beyond cooperation, says Mexican economist
HAVANA, Cuba (ACN) -- The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) is an institution that goes beyond cooperation among its member countries as it includes monetary and financial integration, said Mexican economy expert.
Jaime Estay, with the Autonomous University of Puebla spoke about the topic on the third day of sessions of the 12th International Meeting on Globalization and Development Problems underway in Havana.
The academician said ALBA has found solutions to deal with the current world financial crisis generated by a global monetary disorder resulting from the weakness of the US dollar and by policies implemented by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Estay pointed out that Latin America is leading national and multilateral actions at regional level to mitigate the negative effects of the crisis on local economies.
The Mexican expert described as inadmissible that Group 20, constituted by industrialized and emerging nations, were entrusted with the responsibility of adopting the measures to overcome the world economic crisis.
G-20 undertook the roll without paying attention to the fact that the UN General Assembly, made up by 192 member countries, was summoned for a meeting to analyze the world situation deal and ended with plans of actions set up.
Estay said G-20 has not touched structural features of the global economy and mentioned as an example of such behavior the fact that the IMF has paradoxically grown stronger lately instead of having disappeared for being one of the leading originators of serious monetary and financial problems.
Likewise, attending Havana’s meeting, Manfred Brenefeld, with the University of Ottawa, Canada, warned that the crisis has driven the world to follow the path to social democracy or fascism in certain countries, politically speaking.
According to the Canadian expert, the most effective and plausible way would be social democracy, but as a prelude to new true socialism, which he said should be credible and possible for the peoples.
Our mission is to make that Socialism understandable, Brenefeld said.
With some 1,000 Cuban and foreign participants, the 12th Int’l Meeting on Globalization and Development Problems will run until next Friday, March 5 in Havana.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Jaime Estay, with the Autonomous University of Puebla spoke about the topic on the third day of sessions of the 12th International Meeting on Globalization and Development Problems underway in Havana.
The academician said ALBA has found solutions to deal with the current world financial crisis generated by a global monetary disorder resulting from the weakness of the US dollar and by policies implemented by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Estay pointed out that Latin America is leading national and multilateral actions at regional level to mitigate the negative effects of the crisis on local economies.
The Mexican expert described as inadmissible that Group 20, constituted by industrialized and emerging nations, were entrusted with the responsibility of adopting the measures to overcome the world economic crisis.
G-20 undertook the roll without paying attention to the fact that the UN General Assembly, made up by 192 member countries, was summoned for a meeting to analyze the world situation deal and ended with plans of actions set up.
Estay said G-20 has not touched structural features of the global economy and mentioned as an example of such behavior the fact that the IMF has paradoxically grown stronger lately instead of having disappeared for being one of the leading originators of serious monetary and financial problems.
Likewise, attending Havana’s meeting, Manfred Brenefeld, with the University of Ottawa, Canada, warned that the crisis has driven the world to follow the path to social democracy or fascism in certain countries, politically speaking.
According to the Canadian expert, the most effective and plausible way would be social democracy, but as a prelude to new true socialism, which he said should be credible and possible for the peoples.
Our mission is to make that Socialism understandable, Brenefeld said.
With some 1,000 Cuban and foreign participants, the 12th Int’l Meeting on Globalization and Development Problems will run until next Friday, March 5 in Havana.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Monday, March 1, 2010
Disappearing reefs threaten marine life
tribune242/editorial:
WE WANT to thank our loyal readers who from time to time send us news item they think might interest us, but which we might have missed.
In the past week we have received information picked up on the BBC about the lack of needed knowledge in the Caribbean about the warning signs of an approaching tsunami, and information from London's Mail Online about disappearing coral reefs.
The Mail article by David Derbyshire in San Diego reports scientists as predicting that the rising acid levels in the "seas and the warmer ocean temperatures are wiping out the spectacular reefs enjoyed by millions of divers, tourists and wildlife lovers.
"The destruction would also be a disaster for tropical fish and marine life which use coral reefs as nurseries and feeding grounds," Mr Derbyshire wrote.
Dr Jacob Silverman from the Carnegie Institution in Washington, was quoted as saying that rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were making seas more acidic.
And so, although scientists are disputing whether global man-caused greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is warming the climate, there now is evidence that it is certainly warming our seas, creating more acid, which in turn is breaking up subterranean coral.
Dr Silverman's studies have led him to believe that reefs stop growing and start breaking up when the amount of greenhouse gas reaches twice its pre-industrial level.
He predicted that if present trends continue this could happen by the end of the century.
"These ecosystems, which harbour the highest diversity of marine life in the oceans, may be severely reduced within less than 100 years," he said.
Dr Silverman told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego that reef-building corals are highly sensitive to the acidity and temperature of the seawater in which they grow.
To illustrate the article a dramatic photograph was shown of a mass of dead coral, bleached white. The photo was taken at Australia's Great Barrier Reef, known for its abundant marine life. Scientists believe that rising levels of acid in the sea will kill these reefs within a century.
If man does nothing to reverse this trend, and if it continues at the present rate, another source of man's food will disappear. Recently, there was the bee scare. Scientists were alarmed at the rapidly decreasing colony of bees. Without them there would be no pollination, and without pollination man's food chain would collapse.
Recently, we saw a scientist showing a Bahamian farmer how to care for tomato plants. He told him that every day he should stop at each plant and gently agitate the branch with a flick of the finger. We asked why. "Pollination," he replied, "we have to do the work of the bees, when there are no bees."
And so man's fish supply is being threatened, his meat supply is threatened -- no feed for the animals -- and his plant supply is threatened, while man still debates whether it's necessary to reduce industrial carbon-dioxide emissions. So whichever way we approach the problem, man is digging his own grave. And don't forget, the homes of Bahamians sit atop coral reefs.
And now for the lack of knowledge in the Caribbean to recognise an approaching tsunami.
Dr Hermann Fritz, a civil engineering professor from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and four Haitian colleagues travelled around the coast of Haiti gathering information about a tsunami that was triggered by the 7.0 Port-au-Prince earthquake.
"This was a relatively small event," Dr Fritz told BBC News. "Most of the fatalities were due to the earthquake, but at least three victims we know of survived the earthquake and were hit by the wave."
These three victims were a father and his two young sons. They were standing close to the shore in Petit Paradis, watching the wave instead of heading for higher ground.
"And on the border [with the Dominican Republic], fishermen were taking photos and videos of the draw-down of the sea," he said.
This ominous draw-back in the water level is a classic sign that a big wave is approaching.
"It demonstrated a lack of [tsunami] education," Dr Fritz said. "It was pure luck that the misinformation did not kill more people in this case."
And on Saturday before the all-clear was called on the tsunami watch in Hawaii -- the result of the Chile earthquake -- a CNN announcer reporting from high ground drew viewers attention to a lone figure on the beach below watching as the ocean sucked the sea from the beach. He was obviously a tourist unaware that this was the first sign of an approaching tsunami.
Instead of fleeing for high ground, he stood and watched.
March 01, 2010
tribune242
WE WANT to thank our loyal readers who from time to time send us news item they think might interest us, but which we might have missed.
In the past week we have received information picked up on the BBC about the lack of needed knowledge in the Caribbean about the warning signs of an approaching tsunami, and information from London's Mail Online about disappearing coral reefs.
The Mail article by David Derbyshire in San Diego reports scientists as predicting that the rising acid levels in the "seas and the warmer ocean temperatures are wiping out the spectacular reefs enjoyed by millions of divers, tourists and wildlife lovers.
"The destruction would also be a disaster for tropical fish and marine life which use coral reefs as nurseries and feeding grounds," Mr Derbyshire wrote.
Dr Jacob Silverman from the Carnegie Institution in Washington, was quoted as saying that rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were making seas more acidic.
And so, although scientists are disputing whether global man-caused greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is warming the climate, there now is evidence that it is certainly warming our seas, creating more acid, which in turn is breaking up subterranean coral.
Dr Silverman's studies have led him to believe that reefs stop growing and start breaking up when the amount of greenhouse gas reaches twice its pre-industrial level.
He predicted that if present trends continue this could happen by the end of the century.
"These ecosystems, which harbour the highest diversity of marine life in the oceans, may be severely reduced within less than 100 years," he said.
Dr Silverman told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego that reef-building corals are highly sensitive to the acidity and temperature of the seawater in which they grow.
To illustrate the article a dramatic photograph was shown of a mass of dead coral, bleached white. The photo was taken at Australia's Great Barrier Reef, known for its abundant marine life. Scientists believe that rising levels of acid in the sea will kill these reefs within a century.
If man does nothing to reverse this trend, and if it continues at the present rate, another source of man's food will disappear. Recently, there was the bee scare. Scientists were alarmed at the rapidly decreasing colony of bees. Without them there would be no pollination, and without pollination man's food chain would collapse.
Recently, we saw a scientist showing a Bahamian farmer how to care for tomato plants. He told him that every day he should stop at each plant and gently agitate the branch with a flick of the finger. We asked why. "Pollination," he replied, "we have to do the work of the bees, when there are no bees."
And so man's fish supply is being threatened, his meat supply is threatened -- no feed for the animals -- and his plant supply is threatened, while man still debates whether it's necessary to reduce industrial carbon-dioxide emissions. So whichever way we approach the problem, man is digging his own grave. And don't forget, the homes of Bahamians sit atop coral reefs.
And now for the lack of knowledge in the Caribbean to recognise an approaching tsunami.
Dr Hermann Fritz, a civil engineering professor from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and four Haitian colleagues travelled around the coast of Haiti gathering information about a tsunami that was triggered by the 7.0 Port-au-Prince earthquake.
"This was a relatively small event," Dr Fritz told BBC News. "Most of the fatalities were due to the earthquake, but at least three victims we know of survived the earthquake and were hit by the wave."
These three victims were a father and his two young sons. They were standing close to the shore in Petit Paradis, watching the wave instead of heading for higher ground.
"And on the border [with the Dominican Republic], fishermen were taking photos and videos of the draw-down of the sea," he said.
This ominous draw-back in the water level is a classic sign that a big wave is approaching.
"It demonstrated a lack of [tsunami] education," Dr Fritz said. "It was pure luck that the misinformation did not kill more people in this case."
And on Saturday before the all-clear was called on the tsunami watch in Hawaii -- the result of the Chile earthquake -- a CNN announcer reporting from high ground drew viewers attention to a lone figure on the beach below watching as the ocean sucked the sea from the beach. He was obviously a tourist unaware that this was the first sign of an approaching tsunami.
Instead of fleeing for high ground, he stood and watched.
March 01, 2010
tribune242
Sunday, February 28, 2010
To OAS or not to OAS: that is the question
Ronald Sanders
At a meeting of leaders of Latin America and the Caribbean on February 23, Caribbean Community (Caricom) governments supported a joint "Declaration on (the) Falklands Islands Issue".
The Declaration "confirmed their support of Argentina's legitimate rights in the sovereignty dispute with the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands Issue", and recalled "regional interest in having the governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom resume negotiations to find a fair, peaceful and definitive solution to the dispute over the sovereignty" of the Falklands/Malvinas islands. They went further to call on the European Union (EU) countries to amend their charter to remove the Falkland Islands from the list of overseas territories associated with the EU.
The support of Latin American countries for Argentina in this matter is quite understandable. They have links of language, culture, history and proximity that go back centuries.
But the support of Caricom countries for Argentina's "legitimate rights" is puzzling. Both the UK and Argentina have claimed the Falklands/Malvinas for almost 200 years. So what now makes Argentina's rights more "legitimate" than Britain's? And why call for "negotiations" between Argentina and Britain to find "a fair, peaceful and definitive solution" to the dispute if it has already been decided that Argentina's rights are "legitimate"?
Unless there is something they have not made public, this position by Caribbean governments appears on the surface to run counter to their own national interests.
The Caribbean has always strongly supported a people's right to self-determination. It is in fulfilment of their own right to self-determination that Caribbean Community (Caricom) countries are independent states. In this regard, since the people of the Falklands/Malvinas have consistently and overwhelmingly chosen to be British, Caribbean governments would certainly not argue that the manifest wish of the people of the Falklands/Malvinas should be ignored, particularly since Britain has exercised de facto sovereignty over the islands continuously since 1833.
The national interests of 12 of the 14 independent Caricom countries are much more bound up with Britain than they are with Argentina. Caricom's trade with Britain far exceeds trade with Argentina; investment in Caricom countries from Britain is much greater than any investment from Argentina; official development assistance from Britain to Caricom countries directly and indirectly (through the European Union and the Commonwealth for instance) is much larger than any assistance from Argentina; the number of tourists from Britain to Caricom countries is considerably greater than from Argentina; and far more Caricom nationals live, work and study in Britain than in Argentina.
What appears to have triggered this discussion at the 33-nation Cancun meeting is the fact that a British oil exploration company, Desire Petroleum Plc, announced that it had started drilling for oil 60 miles (100 kilometres) north of the Falklands/Malvinas. Argentina objects to this development.
In giving support to Argentina, Caricom countries run the risk of compromising their own interest. For instance, where would they stand if Venezuela objected to oil exploration off part of Guyana, despite long-standing international arbitrations and agreements confirming Guyana's title? Also, where would these countries stand if Venezuela objected to oil explorations that might be granted by some of them near Aves Island/Bird Rock to which Venezuela lays claim? In the case of Belize where Guatemala claims the entire country, the same argument applies.
Then we come to the matter of the creation of a grouping of these 33 countries that excludes Canada and the United States. Some of the Latin American leaders - in particular those with a strong anti-American position - proclaimed to the media that this new grouping should replace the Organisation of American States (OAS).
Well, replacing the OAS is simply in no country's interest - not even those with the most rabid anti-American governments. There has to be a forum in the Hemisphere where all its countries are represented and where discussions can take place at all levels of government and on all issues. And that organisation is clearly the already well-established OAS. In this regard, Cuba should return to the OAS and the exclusion of the present elected government of Honduras should cease.
In any event, I suspect that only a very few governments touted the idea of an "alternative" organisation to the OAS and even fewer would have supported it. Certainly for Caricom countries, there is no other organisation in which they can engage the US government on a regular and sustained basis at all levels. That alone makes the OAS worthwhile for them.
Further, Caricom governments greatly value their relations with Canada, which has been an ally and partner for generations in the Hemisphere and in the Commonwealth. They would want deeper, not distant relations with Canada.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with Latin American and Caribbean countries establishing a grouping that is not an alternative to the OAS, but is additional to it.
However, no one should believe that it will be anything more than an opportunity for dialogue at the leadership level. It will have no secretariat and therefore little means of implementing decisions; decisions will have to be made by consensus, therefore no binding decisions will be made. In truth, the grouping is so amorphous and is made up of countries at such different levels of development and with such differing interests and ambitions, that its meetings will largely be obligatory and its decisions only declaratory.
The Summit "Declaration of Cancun" does have as one of its objectives "the co-ordination of regional positions ahead of meetings and conferences of global reach... to project the region and increase its influence". This is to be welcomed provided that the view of smaller Caribbean islands are seriously considered and reflected by the larger Latin American states.
This brings us to the OAS itself. The US government should regard this move by Latin American and Caribbean countries to set up a Hemispheric grouping, which deliberately excludes it, as a firm warning that its neglect of Latin America and the Caribbean's development needs and issues, and its oftentimes casual dismissal of their positions is not in the interest of the United States. The authorities in Washington need to engage Latin American and Caribbean countries as genuine partners and neighbours, and a strengthened and revitalised OAS is the place to do so.
In this connection, Caricom countries should indicate their support for the re-election on March 23 of the incumbent Secretary General José Miguel Insulza. His task over the last five years in a fractious organisation, which also relies on consensus for decision-making, has not been easy. But he has tried to introduce reforms and he has been the most forceful secretary general the OAS has seen for a long time. Additionally, he has been very mindful of his obligations to his Caribbean member states.
He has also taken on Hugo Chavez over violations of media freedom in Venezuela and he has not been afraid to point out shortcomings by the US government. To have offended both these adversaries, he must have done something right for the rest.
Over the next five and final years as secretary general, Insulza can be bold in giving the OAS real direction in reforming its mandate and establishing it as a meaningful forum for settling hemispheric issues and advancing democracy, development and human rights.
Responses and previous commentaries at: www.sirronaldsanders.com
Sir Ronald Sanders is a consultant and former Caribbean diplomat.
February 28, 2010
jamaicaobserver
At a meeting of leaders of Latin America and the Caribbean on February 23, Caribbean Community (Caricom) governments supported a joint "Declaration on (the) Falklands Islands Issue".
The Declaration "confirmed their support of Argentina's legitimate rights in the sovereignty dispute with the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands Issue", and recalled "regional interest in having the governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom resume negotiations to find a fair, peaceful and definitive solution to the dispute over the sovereignty" of the Falklands/Malvinas islands. They went further to call on the European Union (EU) countries to amend their charter to remove the Falkland Islands from the list of overseas territories associated with the EU.
The support of Latin American countries for Argentina in this matter is quite understandable. They have links of language, culture, history and proximity that go back centuries.
But the support of Caricom countries for Argentina's "legitimate rights" is puzzling. Both the UK and Argentina have claimed the Falklands/Malvinas for almost 200 years. So what now makes Argentina's rights more "legitimate" than Britain's? And why call for "negotiations" between Argentina and Britain to find "a fair, peaceful and definitive solution" to the dispute if it has already been decided that Argentina's rights are "legitimate"?
Unless there is something they have not made public, this position by Caribbean governments appears on the surface to run counter to their own national interests.
The Caribbean has always strongly supported a people's right to self-determination. It is in fulfilment of their own right to self-determination that Caribbean Community (Caricom) countries are independent states. In this regard, since the people of the Falklands/Malvinas have consistently and overwhelmingly chosen to be British, Caribbean governments would certainly not argue that the manifest wish of the people of the Falklands/Malvinas should be ignored, particularly since Britain has exercised de facto sovereignty over the islands continuously since 1833.
The national interests of 12 of the 14 independent Caricom countries are much more bound up with Britain than they are with Argentina. Caricom's trade with Britain far exceeds trade with Argentina; investment in Caricom countries from Britain is much greater than any investment from Argentina; official development assistance from Britain to Caricom countries directly and indirectly (through the European Union and the Commonwealth for instance) is much larger than any assistance from Argentina; the number of tourists from Britain to Caricom countries is considerably greater than from Argentina; and far more Caricom nationals live, work and study in Britain than in Argentina.
What appears to have triggered this discussion at the 33-nation Cancun meeting is the fact that a British oil exploration company, Desire Petroleum Plc, announced that it had started drilling for oil 60 miles (100 kilometres) north of the Falklands/Malvinas. Argentina objects to this development.
In giving support to Argentina, Caricom countries run the risk of compromising their own interest. For instance, where would they stand if Venezuela objected to oil exploration off part of Guyana, despite long-standing international arbitrations and agreements confirming Guyana's title? Also, where would these countries stand if Venezuela objected to oil explorations that might be granted by some of them near Aves Island/Bird Rock to which Venezuela lays claim? In the case of Belize where Guatemala claims the entire country, the same argument applies.
Then we come to the matter of the creation of a grouping of these 33 countries that excludes Canada and the United States. Some of the Latin American leaders - in particular those with a strong anti-American position - proclaimed to the media that this new grouping should replace the Organisation of American States (OAS).
Well, replacing the OAS is simply in no country's interest - not even those with the most rabid anti-American governments. There has to be a forum in the Hemisphere where all its countries are represented and where discussions can take place at all levels of government and on all issues. And that organisation is clearly the already well-established OAS. In this regard, Cuba should return to the OAS and the exclusion of the present elected government of Honduras should cease.
In any event, I suspect that only a very few governments touted the idea of an "alternative" organisation to the OAS and even fewer would have supported it. Certainly for Caricom countries, there is no other organisation in which they can engage the US government on a regular and sustained basis at all levels. That alone makes the OAS worthwhile for them.
Further, Caricom governments greatly value their relations with Canada, which has been an ally and partner for generations in the Hemisphere and in the Commonwealth. They would want deeper, not distant relations with Canada.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with Latin American and Caribbean countries establishing a grouping that is not an alternative to the OAS, but is additional to it.
However, no one should believe that it will be anything more than an opportunity for dialogue at the leadership level. It will have no secretariat and therefore little means of implementing decisions; decisions will have to be made by consensus, therefore no binding decisions will be made. In truth, the grouping is so amorphous and is made up of countries at such different levels of development and with such differing interests and ambitions, that its meetings will largely be obligatory and its decisions only declaratory.
The Summit "Declaration of Cancun" does have as one of its objectives "the co-ordination of regional positions ahead of meetings and conferences of global reach... to project the region and increase its influence". This is to be welcomed provided that the view of smaller Caribbean islands are seriously considered and reflected by the larger Latin American states.
This brings us to the OAS itself. The US government should regard this move by Latin American and Caribbean countries to set up a Hemispheric grouping, which deliberately excludes it, as a firm warning that its neglect of Latin America and the Caribbean's development needs and issues, and its oftentimes casual dismissal of their positions is not in the interest of the United States. The authorities in Washington need to engage Latin American and Caribbean countries as genuine partners and neighbours, and a strengthened and revitalised OAS is the place to do so.
In this connection, Caricom countries should indicate their support for the re-election on March 23 of the incumbent Secretary General José Miguel Insulza. His task over the last five years in a fractious organisation, which also relies on consensus for decision-making, has not been easy. But he has tried to introduce reforms and he has been the most forceful secretary general the OAS has seen for a long time. Additionally, he has been very mindful of his obligations to his Caribbean member states.
He has also taken on Hugo Chavez over violations of media freedom in Venezuela and he has not been afraid to point out shortcomings by the US government. To have offended both these adversaries, he must have done something right for the rest.
Over the next five and final years as secretary general, Insulza can be bold in giving the OAS real direction in reforming its mandate and establishing it as a meaningful forum for settling hemispheric issues and advancing democracy, development and human rights.
Responses and previous commentaries at: www.sirronaldsanders.com
Sir Ronald Sanders is a consultant and former Caribbean diplomat.
February 28, 2010
jamaicaobserver
Saturday, February 27, 2010
The shamelessness of the United States government
ONE out of every four prisoners in the world is in a U.S. penitentiary. The composition of these prisoners is profoundly racist: one out of every 15 black adults is incarcerated; one out of every 9 is aged 20-34 years; and one out of every 36 Hispanics. Two-thirds of those serving life sentences are African Americans or Latinos, and in the case of New York state, only 16.3% of prisoners are white.
Every year, 7,000 people die in U.S. prisons, many of them murdered or suicides.
For example, U.S. prison guards routinely use Taser guns on prisoners. According to a recent report, 230 U.S. citizens have died as a result of the use of these weapons since 2001. The report refers to the case of a county jail in Garfield, Colorado, accused of regularly using Taser guns and pepper spray on prisoners, and then tying them to chairs in extreme positions for hours at a time.
It was recently reported that 72 people have died in the last five years in immigrant detention centers.
A report released by the U.S. Justice Department during W. Bush’s final term in office said that 22,480 prisoners in state and federal penitentiaries were HIV positive or AIDS patients, and an estimated 176 state and 27 federal prisoners died from AIDS-related causes. For example, a September 20, 2007 article in the Los Angeles Times reported that 426 cases of death were recorded in California prisons in 2006 as stemming from belated medical treatment. Eighteen of these deaths were considered "preventable" and 48 others as "possibly preventable." A 41-year-old diabetic patient, Rodolfo Ramos, died after having been left abandoned and covered in his own feces for one week. Prison officials did not provide him with medical treatment even though they were aware of his condition.
In at least 40 of the country’s 50 states, courts treat juveniles of 14 to 18 years old like adults. About 200,000 minors in the United States are subjected to trials in courts for adults, even though it has been demonstrated that this proceeding is wrong.
Juveniles in 13 juvenile detention centers in the United States suffer from high rates of sexual abuse, and an average of one out of every three incarcerated minors report being attacked.
Approximately 283,000 prisoners are mentally ill, four times the number of patients in psychiatric hospitals.
In U.S. state and federal prisons, 4.5% of prisoners have suffered one or more sexual attack, and 2.9% report having suffered incidents involving prison staff. In addition, 0.5% reported having been sexually assaulted both by other prisoners and by prison staff.
Physical, direct forms of brutal treatment and torture of prisoners are endemic to U.S. prisons. A British film released a few years ago, Torture: America’s Brutal Prisons, features footage from prison security cameras in Florida, Texas, Arizona and California, in which guards can be seen severely beating prisoners – even killing some – and using Taser guns and electric prods, attack dogs, chemical sprays and dangerous paralyzing devices.
However, the most harmful effect of this prolonged isolation is that the mental abuse of prisoners affects them alarmingly. Many prisoners go crazy (if they weren’t already mentally ill), or commit suicide, as a result of this inhuman punishment. They are in restricted segregated units, and many of them are also in isolation – but the government does not release that information. The majority of prisoners in the United States who are in isolation have been so for more than five years.
Translated by Granma International
granma.cu
Every year, 7,000 people die in U.S. prisons, many of them murdered or suicides.
For example, U.S. prison guards routinely use Taser guns on prisoners. According to a recent report, 230 U.S. citizens have died as a result of the use of these weapons since 2001. The report refers to the case of a county jail in Garfield, Colorado, accused of regularly using Taser guns and pepper spray on prisoners, and then tying them to chairs in extreme positions for hours at a time.
It was recently reported that 72 people have died in the last five years in immigrant detention centers.
A report released by the U.S. Justice Department during W. Bush’s final term in office said that 22,480 prisoners in state and federal penitentiaries were HIV positive or AIDS patients, and an estimated 176 state and 27 federal prisoners died from AIDS-related causes. For example, a September 20, 2007 article in the Los Angeles Times reported that 426 cases of death were recorded in California prisons in 2006 as stemming from belated medical treatment. Eighteen of these deaths were considered "preventable" and 48 others as "possibly preventable." A 41-year-old diabetic patient, Rodolfo Ramos, died after having been left abandoned and covered in his own feces for one week. Prison officials did not provide him with medical treatment even though they were aware of his condition.
In at least 40 of the country’s 50 states, courts treat juveniles of 14 to 18 years old like adults. About 200,000 minors in the United States are subjected to trials in courts for adults, even though it has been demonstrated that this proceeding is wrong.
Juveniles in 13 juvenile detention centers in the United States suffer from high rates of sexual abuse, and an average of one out of every three incarcerated minors report being attacked.
Approximately 283,000 prisoners are mentally ill, four times the number of patients in psychiatric hospitals.
In U.S. state and federal prisons, 4.5% of prisoners have suffered one or more sexual attack, and 2.9% report having suffered incidents involving prison staff. In addition, 0.5% reported having been sexually assaulted both by other prisoners and by prison staff.
Physical, direct forms of brutal treatment and torture of prisoners are endemic to U.S. prisons. A British film released a few years ago, Torture: America’s Brutal Prisons, features footage from prison security cameras in Florida, Texas, Arizona and California, in which guards can be seen severely beating prisoners – even killing some – and using Taser guns and electric prods, attack dogs, chemical sprays and dangerous paralyzing devices.
However, the most harmful effect of this prolonged isolation is that the mental abuse of prisoners affects them alarmingly. Many prisoners go crazy (if they weren’t already mentally ill), or commit suicide, as a result of this inhuman punishment. They are in restricted segregated units, and many of them are also in isolation – but the government does not release that information. The majority of prisoners in the United States who are in isolation have been so for more than five years.
Translated by Granma International
granma.cu
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