Even with the present upsurge of the dancehall beat, authentic reggae remains a dominant force and continues to be such even up to the present day... The importance of the reggae phenomenon has led music administrators to designate July 1 as international reggae day each year

The Emergence Of Reggae

jamaica-gleaner

Jamaica, W.I.

The name reggae has come to be accepted by many as the generic name for all Jamaican popular music since about 1960. But to those of us who lived with the music and understand the changes it went through will know that reggae is only one of several types of Jamaican music.

It is different from ska, rocksteady and dancehall, and occupies a specific period which began in late 1967. Jamaican popular music, since 1960, can therefore be roughly divided into four eras, each of which had its particular beat: ska (1962-1966), rocksteady (1966-1967/68), and reggae (1968-1983). From 1983, the prevalent beat was reggae’s offspring, dancehall.

However, there is one period of Jamaican music that has consistently been overlooked by musicologists. It is a period I would choose to call the pre-ska era, the earlier part of which was dominated by Jamaican mento music (approximately 1951-1956) – a type of calypso-flavoured music said to be rooted in the Jamaican slave plantation system and which was indigenous to Jamaica.

Forced to get creative

Between 1957 and 1960, Jamaican music was dominated by rhythm and blues and boogie recordings patterned off the American blues, which was very popular in Jamaican dance halls in the mid to late 1950s.

When the American blues records began ‘drying up’ and disappeared from American record shelves, Jamaican producers, promoters and sound system operators had no alternative but to make and produce their own recordings with the same flavour as the American ones in order to keep their business alive. Recordings like Oh Mannie Oh, and How Can I Be Sure by Higgs and Wilson,Boogie In My Bones and Little Sheila by Laurel Aitken, Muriel by Alton and Eddy andLolipop Girl by The Jiving Juniors were examples of popular recordings during that period, which also marked the birth of the Jamaican recording industry.

The first shift in the Jamaican music beat away from the mento rhythms was observed when Bunny and Skully recorded a cut entitled Another Chance, which Skully himself claimed was done between 1953 and 1954. On the heels of this came the Jamaican rhythm and blues and boogies, which evolved into what became known as the ska beat.

Jamaican popular music then went through several changes, culminating with reggae and dancehall beats. These metamorphoses have impacted reggae music to the extent that it has become an international phenomenon
Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Dennis Brown and Peter Tosh have played more than ordinary roles in establishing this phenomenon. As early as 1968, Marley’s Trench Town Rock and Brown’s No Man Is An Island a year later, signalled the direction in which the music was going. Cliff’s The Harder They Come helped to put Jamaica on the international music map when it appeared in a movie of the same name.

Possessing a sense of conviction, a lack of pretence and a natural intensity in the beat, reggae music grew by leaps and bounds across several continents during the 1970s, bolstered by more than half a dozen top-class albums by the reggae king Bob Marley for producer Chris Blackwell.

Many masters

At home, the initial impact was felt through recordings like The Cables’s Baby Why, The Heptones I Shall Be Released and Alton Ellis’s Breaking Up, among others.

What is most interesting is the many artistes and producers who lay claim to doing the first reggae recording and creating the reggae beat. For all intents and purposes, Toots Hibbert of the Maytals vocal group seemed to be the first to mention the name reggae in a song, although he never ever claimed to be the inventor.

Most musicologists, however, accept Larry and Alvin’s Nanny Goat, done for producer Clement Dodd in 1968, as the first recording with a true reggae feel. It was like the guitar on the delay meshed with an organ shuffle, one source claimed.

But in a sense, reggae combines all the previous forms of Jamaican popular music – the ska riff on top of a slowed down rocksteady bass line, with a touch of mento. Dodd, the producer of Nanny Goat, claims that he returned from England just before the reggae beat started with a few gadgets, like a delay, which influenced that Nanny Goat beat. Singer Stranger Cole, on the other hand, claims that his recording ofBangarang, done for producer Bunny Lee, was the first reggae song. Another record producer, Clancy Eccles, claims he started the beat.

Unsung legend

In the midst of all of this, there was a 1965 recording titled Heavenless by a Studio One aggregation that possessed a distinct reggae beat, yet no mention was ever made of this recording as being the first reggae song.

Many musicologists agree that the birth of reggae was a spontaneous act born out of experimentation with the existing rocksteady beat. Others claim it was a deliberate attempt by some musicians to change the beat from rocksteady to something that was more lively and exciting. The theory has also been advanced that new producers like Eccles, Lee Scratch Perry and Bunny Lee, couldn’t always get the regular musicians, who almost invariably worked for Dodd and Duke Reid, so they resorted to less-experienced musicians who tried something different and unwittingly created a completely new rhythm.

Even with the present upsurge of the dancehall beat, authentic reggae remains a dominant force and continues to be such even up to the present day. The importance of the reggae phenomenon has led music administrators to designate July 1 as international reggae day each year.

January 15, 2012

jamaica-gleaner

Bond rating agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) downgrades France, Austria in mass euro zone rating cut

S&P downgrades France, Austria in mass euro zone rating cut

Bond rating agency Standard & Poor's has downgraded the credit ratings of nine euro zone countries, stripping France and Austria of their top ranking, a move that may complicate the currency union’s efforts to endure a worsening debt crisis.

The triple-A ratings of France and Austria have been cut by one notch to AA+, the agency said in a press release.

Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia also suffered a one-notch downgrade, while the ratings of Italy, Spain, Portugal and Cyprus have been cut by two levels.

"Today's rating actions are primarily driven by our assessment that the policy initiatives that have been taken by European policymakers in recent weeks may be insufficient to fully address ongoing systemic stresses in the eurozone," the agency said on its website.

Germany, by far the strongest economy in Europe and main contributor to Europe’s bailout fund for troubled economies, as well as Finland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg maintained their triple-A ratings.

A deal reached by the EU countries during the Decemebr 9 summit in Brussels, which provides for the creation of a fiscal union to deepen the integration of national budgets, "has not produced a breakthrough of sufficient size and scope to fully address the eurozone's financial problems," the agency said.

"In our opinion, the political agreement does not supply sufficient additional resources or operational flexibility to bolster European rescue operations, or extend enough support for those eurozone sovereigns subjected to heightened market pressures," the statement reads.

MOSCOW, January 14 (RIA Novosti)

rian.ru

Bahamas Blog International

Thanks to the foresight of our Bahamian constitutional fathers who adeptly negotiated with the British, The Bahamas is now a modern, stable, successful parliamentary democracy

Understanding Bahamian parliamentary democracy

Front Porch

Today, 45 years to the day of the attainment of majority rule, there is chronic and widespread ignorance of our system of government and national constitution.  Sadly, no longer surprisingly, so-called “informed” people in civil society, academia, business and “the press corps” are among the woefully uninformed.

Many of them regurgitate effluvia on the supposed problems of our parliamentary democracy on matters ranging from “checks and balances” to collective responsibility and the constitutional powers of the prime minister.

Mesmerized by American politics including the theatrics that substitute for news on U.S. cable news, some local commentators cannot utter “checks” without mindlessly adding “balances”, with seemingly limited appreciation for either term.

The supposed corrective measures to repair our supposedly broken democracy are, to paraphrase attorney Andrew Allen in the context of shallow arguments for term limits, superficial non-solutions to imaginary problems.

One recent and egregious example is an opinion piece entitled, “The Bahamas: A Constitutional Dictatorship?”  The commentary is callow.  It lacks depth and breadth.  One wonders how conversant the columnist is with the Bahamian constitution, our constitutional history and the rudimentary history and philosophy of parliamentary democracy.

Noise

It is important to have a diversity of opinion on the issues of the day.  But opinion devoid of or sloppy with facts, by personalities helping to form the opinions of others through talk radio, television, the Internet and in the print media, is just more noise.  Public dialogue is impoverished not enriched when opinions are divorced from critical thinking and fact-finding.

The column in question descended into unthinking rhetoric and a cavalcade of contradictions partly because it was based on and began with false premises, so nauseatingly repeated that they have become accepted as fact:

“We have an anachronistic, colonial governance system that is no longer suitable for the needs of our developing nation in this 21st century.  We inherited this Westminster system of governance from the British.”

It is difficult to take seriously opinions that get basic facts wrong.  To discuss the issue of governance we need to get our language and concepts in order.  The appellation Westminster system of governance is not quite precise and misses some critical differences between Bahamian and British parliamentary democracy.

For instance, at Westminster the British parliament is sovereign.  There is no supreme law or written constitution in Britain.  By a simple majority of parliament in Britain fundamental rights can be altered and the monarchy itself can be abolished.

The Bahamas has a written constitution with clearly defined checks on power.  Before certain fundamental provisions of the constitution (entrenched and specially entrenched) can be changed, a two-thirds or three-quarters majority vote of both Houses of Parliament is required.

Furthermore, the proposed changes must be approved by the electorate in a referendum before they can become law.  This process is an innovation that is not enjoyed by all parliamentary democracies, including some in the Caribbean.

It gives the Bahamian people direct control over the fundamental provisions of the Constitution, including provisions relating to citizenship, fundamental rights and freedoms, and the establishment of our national governmental institutions.

There are frameworks, templates and provisions utilized by most countries, including former British colonies, in the drafting of national constitutions.  Still, The Bahamas does not have a cookie cutter constitution.  Any suggestion to that effect is misleading and does not fully acknowledge or appreciate the role played by our constitutional fathers in the framing of the independence constitution.

Larger

A number of the customs and traditions used in the much larger British parliamentary system are not germane to and would be unworkable in our context.  With a 650-member House of Commons compared to our much smaller House of Assembly, our practice of parliamentary democracy is necessarily different.

The assertion that we have a colonial system of governance in itself is patently not true.  Furthermore, it contradicts the assertion, made in the same breath, that we have a Westminster model of governance.

Under the colonial system of governance the Colony of the Bahama Islands had a parliament that was, in the words of the late Bahamian constitutional expert the Hon. Eugene Dupuch, “representative but not responsible”.

There was no Cabinet, but there was an Executive Council, presided over by the British governor, who enjoyed enormous power.  There was also a system of boards, forerunners to government ministries, with the governor enjoying ultimate control over major decisions by the boards.

The dismantling of that colonial system began with the 1964 Constitution that was negotiated in London the previous year.  That Constitution ushered in a large measure of internal self-rule with the British governor still retaining some powers including defense, security and foreign affairs.  That process continued with the 1969 Constitution, when more power devolved to the Cabinet, and was completed with the Independence Constitution of 1973.

Thanks to the foresight of our Bahamian constitutional fathers who adeptly negotiated with the British, The Bahamas is now a modern, stable, successful parliamentary democracy.  While there were differences between the Bahamian political parties at the Independence Conference on a few matters relating to rights, there was general agreement on matters of governance.

We no more have a colonial system of governance than India, Australia, Jamaica, Barbados or Canada, fellow parliamentary democracies in the Commonwealth of Nations.  Anything but anachronistic, this system has proven to be durable, flexible and workable across cultures, countries and centuries.

Unfortunately, many who should know better believe that parliamentary democracy itself is antiquated, and that the United States has a better system of government, and one that is inherently more advisable or workable.  This is a fallacy to which we will have to return.

There are many non-Commonwealth nations which have opted for parliamentary democracy.  They have similarly discovered a certain genius within the system, the rudiments of which are hundreds of years old having evolved into one of the more effective systems of government in human history.

frontporchguardian@gmail.com

www.bahamapundit.com

Jan 10, 2012

thenassauguardian

caribbean Blog International

...how The Bahamas could effectively create a new industry by focusing on renewable energy...

RENEWABLE ENERGY 'AMAZING CHANCE' FOR DIVERSIFICATION

By NEIL HARTNELL
Tribune Business Editor

Nassau, The Bahamas

THE Bahamas has an "incredible opportunity" to diversify its economy by becoming a renewable energy exporter, a leading Caribbean expert yesterday saying it could emulate Israel's 92 per cent penetration rate if it acted now to prevent the competition "blotting it out".

Jerry Butler, chairman and principal consultant of the Caribbean Renewable Energy Forum (CREF), said matching the likes of Israel on sustainable energy take-up was "not a pipe dream" for The Bahamas if the political will and leadership were there, and the correct plan implemented.

Noting The Bahamas' renewable energy export potential, given its proximity to the US, the world's largest energy consumer with 25 per cent of the global market, Mr Butler added that a substantial domestic industry could be created through cutting this nation's annual $1.2 billion fuel import bill by 25-33 per cent.

Noting the regional lead established by the likes of Trinidad & Tobago and Barbados, the latter of which has a 95 per cent residential solar water heater penetration rate, the CREF chairman said his organisation had helped the latter nation to create a $10 million smart fund for renewable energy investments.

After the CREF conference was staged in Barbados last year, that fund attracted another $80 million, funds now available for Barbadians to partner with international financiers and developers on renewable energy projects.

Explaining how The Bahamas could effectively create a new industry by focusing on renewable energy, Mr Butler said: "It's a policy and never-ending journey that starts from the top....."

Noting the "age old focus on diversification" of the economy, Mr Butler, the former Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) country head for The Bahamas, added: "I truly believe that given what I've been able to accomplish with my team elsewhere in the Caribbean, a diverse sector of opportunity The Bahamas should focus on is renewable energy, both for domestic and security needs, and opportunities for international export."

This nation's proximity to the US, the nation that consumes 25 per cent of the world's energy supplies, meant "an incredible opportunity exists for us to provide a client base and financing to help the Bahamas' prosper".

Mr Butler, giving a preview of his contribution to this Thursday's Bahamas Business Outlook conference, said: "The incredible opportunity we have in the Bahamas will be lost to other jurisdictions if we do not take the chance to move on it on an erstwhile, consistent and well thought-out method. "

When asked by Tribune Business how long The Bahamas' window of opportunity to become a renewable energy leader would last, Mr Butler said: "Our window of opportunity will last as long as oil prices continue to rise, and as long as the competition remains in a working condition that has not blotted us out."

Multiple jurisdictions had plans to not only embrace renewable energy domestically, but export it. As examples, Mr Butler referred to Trinidad's 2020 policy, which aims to build on its own substantial gas and energy reserves to pave the way to renewables, and Barbados's 2025 policy, which speaks to growing this as a sector.

A Barbadian renewable energy company, he added, already had two representatives in The Bahamas, and was looking to export some 100,000 solar water heaters to other Caribbean nations.

"A Bahamian could very much have been involved in doing that," Mr Butler said. "The window of opportunity is there as long as the competition does not blot us out."

Apart from export opportunities, the CREF chairman said The Bahamas' annual $1.2 billion fuel import bill gave it the chance to develop a sustainable renewable energy sector for supplying the domestic market.

Just seizing a 30-40 per cent market share from fossil fuels would free up $300-$400 million annually for a renewable energy industry, Mr Butler said. "That's a lot of people they can employ," he added.

The CREF chairman added that he had driven from south to north Brazil without having to fill up his car once with fossil fuels. The Latin American nation, which has one-quarter of the Bahamas' per capita GDP, had reduced its fossil fuel reliance through ethanol and ethanol derivatives, and there was no reason why this nation could not follow suit.

Pointing out that The Bahamas Electricity Corporation's (BEC) financial and generational inefficiencies were not new, Mr Butler said its reliance on fossil fuels to run generators that were primarily slow speed diesel was "unsustainable".

"BEC cannot continue to be subject to world oil prices and pass them on to you as a surcharge," Mr Butler added. But, if it was able to derive a percentage of its generation needs from renewable sources, the impact of oil price volatility would be reduced, and the outflow of US dollars and foreign currency reduced.

Describing this as "a win-win" for utilities such as BEC, Mr Butler suggested the Bahamas could even split off power generation from its distribution and transmission. Depending on how it was implemented, this could permit businesses and homeowners to receive credits for selling excess power back to the BEC grid, and allow independent power producers (IPPs) to reach commercial agreements with BEC to supply it with electricity.

This would ultimately reduce electricity prices for Bahamian consumers, who have to put up with fuel surcharges that have averaged $0.28 per kilowatt hour (KwH) over the past two years. This compared to $0.42 per KwH in Jamaica, but just $0.18 per KwH in Miami.

Mr Butler said Bahamian homeowners could likely install solar power to run their homes at a $0.19 per KwH cost, "empowering" themselves and steering the country in "a totally different direction" on energy.

Noting that it was not impossible to see the day when the likes of the airport, hotels and government buildings had solar panels installed on the roof, Mr Butler said Germany - which saw sun for just two-thirds of the year maximum - already had a 26 per cent renewable energy penetration rate.

"It's a totally different visionary concept for what could be in the Bahamas," Mr Butler said. "It's not a pipe dream. This is workable for the Bahamas. We just need a vision that can be implemented with the right people, and need Bahamians behind it to sustain it."

Mr Butler added that by just focusing on energy conservation and efficiency, though initiatives such as replacing incandescent light bulbs with CFLs, and placing timers on hot water heaters, the average electricity bill could be cut by 40 per cent.

January 10, 2012

tribune242

Has neoliberalism knocked feminism sideways?

By Rahila Gupta

How should feminists read our current times?   A major economic crisis rocks the developed world.   While austerity measures don’t appear to be working across Europe, the mildly Keynesian efforts of Obama to kick-start the US economy have had only a marginal effect.   The Occupy movement has gone global and the public disorder in the summer, with more disorder being predicted by the police, are an indication of deep discontent with the system.   Yet we have seen an enthusiastic and vibrant third wave of youthful feminism emerge in the past decade.  At the rate at which these waves arise, it will be some time before the rock of patriarchy will be worn smooth.

The current phase of capitalism – neo-liberalism – which began with Thatcher and Reagan in the 1970s, promotes privatisation and deregulation in order to safeguard the freedom of the individual to compete and consume without interference from a bloated state.   According to David Harvey, a Marxist academic, the world stumbled towards neo-liberalism in response to the last major recession in the 70s when ‘the uneasy compact between capital and labour brokered by an interventionist state’ broke down.  The UK government, for example, was obliged by the International Monetary Fund to cut expenditure on the welfare state in order to balance the books.   The post-war settlement had given labour more than its due, and it was time for the upper classes to claw these gains back.

The fact that second wave feminism and neoliberalism flourished from the 1970s onwards has led some to argue, notably Nancy Fraser, that feminism ‘served to legitimate a structural transformation of capitalist society’.  I am with Nancy Fraser in so far as she says that there is a convergence, a coinciding of second wave feminism and neo-liberalism, even that feminism thrived in these conditions.   It is well known that in an attempt to renew and survive, capitalism co-opts the opposition to its own ends.  If part of the project of neoliberalism is to shrink the size of the state, it serves its purpose to co-opt the feminist critique that the state is both paternalistic and patriarchal.  Critiques of the nanny state from the right may chime with feminist concerns.   However, the right has little to say about patriarchy.    What is left out of the co-option process is equally significant.   The critique of the state mounted by feminists such as Elizabeth Wilson when state capitalism was at the height of its powers suited neoliberal capitalists seeking deregulation and a reduced role for the state.

Fraser’s analysis does not explain the current resurgence of feminism at a time when the shine of neoliberalism has faded.  It is not so much that feminism legitimised neoliberalism, but that neoliberal values created a space for a bright, brassy and ultimately fake feminism - the ‘I really, really want’ girl-power ushered in by the Spice Girls.   This transitional period between second wave and the current wave of feminism (which some commentators characterised as post-feminist) represented the archetypal appropriation of the feminist agenda, shorn of its political context, by neoliberalism.   Incidentally, many of us rejected the label post-feminist because it felt like an attempt to chuck feminism into the dustbin of history and to deny the continuing need for it.   In hindsight, there was something different going on in that lull between the two waves in the 70s and 80s and today; the voice of feminism was being drowned out by its loud, brassy sisters.

If the culture of neoliberalism had something to offer women, it was the idea of agency, of choice freely exercised, free even of patriarchal restraints.   It emphasised self-sufficiency of the individual while at the same time undermining those collective struggles or institutions which make self-sufficiency possible.   The world was your oyster – all you needed to do was compete successfully in the marketplace.   The flexible worker, in order to make herself acceptable to the world of work, may even go so far as to remodel herself through cosmetic surgery, all the while under the illusion that she was in control of her life.   In her essay on ‘Feminism’ in a forthcoming book, Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies, Clare Chambers argues that liberal capitalism is committed to what she calls the ‘fetishism of choice’.  If women choose things that disadvantage them and entrench differences, it legitimates inequality because the inequality arises from the choices they make.   The few women who do well out of the sex industry do not believe that their work entrenches inequality because it is freely chosen, because prostitution is seen as a liberation from the drudgery of cleaning jobs.  Choice is their weapon against feminist objections.   In their so-called free expression of their sexuality, they are challenging nothing in the neoliberal schema because the work reduces women to the status of meat and commodity.   

Neoliberalism had other impacts: on the actual day-to-day political and social commitments of those concerned with gender justice.   At first feminists stood to benefit from the state’s gradual shedding of its functions which began under Thatcher, in that classic double-edged way in which capitalism operates. Southall Black Sisters (SBS) was founded in the same year that she came to power.   We who set up anti-racist, feminist and other community groups in the 80s complained that we were providing services which should have been part of the remit of the state – and that we were doing it for half the cost at the expense of our pensions (none), maternity rights (shockingly for a feminist group, none), working all the hours in the day with no employment protection – all this self-exploitation justified by our commitment to the cause.  The up side of it was that the service we provided was grounded in political insights into the nature of patriarchy, racism and class.

But this was only the half of it.   Over the next thirty years, the grants culture morphed into contracts and commissioning.  Why?  Partly because neoliberal ideology popularises the view that grants make us complacent whereas commissioning brings in competition, the ideal Petri dish for human development.  But competition for funding destroyed the solidarities we worked so hard at building with other women’s groups.  ‘Value for money’ concerns led to the introduction of targets; meeting them sometimes needed an element of creativity – how do you quantify success in supporting a woman facing domestic violence if she does not choose to leave her violent partner?  These outcomes take a long time and the short-termist, box-ticking culture of neoliberalism destroys the integrity of such work.

Fortunately, the neoliberal project of rolling back the state is not yet complete; some of the state institutions from the earlier, statist period came to SBS’s rescue.  The judiciary, hardly a bastion of progressive wisdom, put a break on the commissioning process when SBS challenged Ealing Council’s decision to offer the domestic violence “contract” to all comers without having carried out a proper race equality impact assessment first. It was the equality duties placed on the state as a result of earlier political campaigns which, in this case, attempted to inject equality concerns into a depoliticised culture which is what neo-liberalism aims to create.

Additionally, the ‘best value’, the more for less principle opens the door to any provider as long as they can prove that they have some track record.  It is precisely this de-politicised culture that allowed the Home Office to take away the contract from POPPY for services to trafficked women, the foremost agency in the field, and award it to Salvation Army.   It didn’t matter that the women may not have easy access to abortion advice or services, that the service is provided within a strong Christian ethos, that the umbrella body, Churches Against Sex Trafficking in Europe or CHASTE - to which the Salvation army belongs, also bids for government contracts to lock up trafficked women on their way to being deported in the same safe house where trafficked women are fighting for their right to remain; one building is both prison and refuge. The climate in which we operate has become so depoliticised that agencies in the field who want to differentiate themselves from the faith sector call themselves the ‘violence against women sector’ and not feminists!

While the state plays an important role in safeguarding the rights of women, a state in hock to the neoliberal project can damage the health of vulnerable sections of society.   Black women, in particular, are alive to the contradictions that the state polices their communities more heavily and uses harsh immigration rules instead of better resources when we turn to it for protection against issues like forced marriage.

This marketisation of the voluntary sector is neoliberalism’s attempt to find new markets.  It thrives on the continuous expansion of markets; hence the growing privatisation of what had been regarded as off-limits – public utilities, education, prisons, social housing – but we are reaching saturation point.   Neoliberalism is no longer delivering growth in the developed world, and therefore profit, the holy grail of capitalism as we can deduce from the mess in Europe and America.   David Harvey believes that the main achievement of neo-liberalism has been re-distributive; money has flowed from the poor to the business elites.  Our latest budget makes the poor rather than the rich pay for growth programmes to kick start the economy.   In Brazil, Nestle has targeted people earning less than $2 a day by launching a floating supermarket along the Amazon selling fizzy drinks and milk powder – so we have the obscenity of obesity and malnourishment sitting side by side.  If this is not scraping the barrel then I don’t know what is.

I believe we are witnessing an implosion of neo-liberalism but the opposition to it has yet to take a concrete shape.   As Elaine Husband of the New Democratic Party in Canada said, people are tired of being trickled down on.   How do we re-capture the state from the neoliberal project to which it is in hock?  What is the way forward?  A new society hovers on the horizon and feminism should play an important part in shaping it.

I’m no Mystic Meg but here are some issues worth considering: Resistance is important.   That’s one of the reasons why the neoliberal project developed unevenly.   Thatcher privatised many things, but left the NHS alone because there would be fierce resistance although David Cameron seems less daunted by it; women have often been the
backbone of resistance movements, from the miners’ wives onwards to Skychef and Gate Gourmet, second wave feminists from the 70s are both strengthened by and need to nurture the current wave; we need to let go of growth as a gold standard of economic health. Serge Latouche, a French academic, argues for 'degrowth' or contraction economics.  Growth in terms of meeting real human need makes sense, growth achieved through consumerism does not; the market needs the state more than the state needs the market as we have seen from the massive injection of government funds to rescue the banking sector; neoliberalism has encouraged the growth of a permanent underclass, usually made up of illegal immigrants and predominantly women in some categories, who live completely outside the system, which makes a nonsense of democracy’s commitment to universalism.

Feminism needs to guard against atomisation – which is what neoliberalism thrives on.  We should be a transformative movement, should recognise, understand, analyse what damage neo-liberalism has done to all our traditional allies.   We need to get involved in the major movements of our time, to redraw the links, participate in Occupy London, fight religious fundamentalism as well as sexual violence, wage inequality and poverty.   These may be old goals for a new culture but they can do with re-stating as we haven’t got there yet.

This article stems from an ippr roundtable discussion on Gender Justice, Society and the State, held in December 2011 to examine the role of the state in delivering gender justice and whether the culture of neo-liberalism had anything to offer women.

4 January 2012

opendemocracy.net

The Caribbean: Where tyrants and terrorists prowl at ease!

By Rebecca Theodore

Like something from the planet Krypton, a blinding flare and surreal atmospheric light disguise the cerulean beauty of the Caribbean Sea. Fear revels in the image of a radioactive glow and mushroom clouds soar in swirling winds. Oceans can no longer separate sovereign nations from massive meltdowns. A despot prowls at ease in my backyard. He denounces American imperialism and calls for a new world order free of US leadership.

Behold the tyrant! Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- President of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

I watch the flaming lights blazing across the Caribbean skies and a thousand voices sound the dreadful happenings.

Iran is intensifying bilateral relations with ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America) in the Caribbean. Amidst escalating threats in the Strait of Homuz, a dispute between Teheran and the West over the manufacture of atomic weapons, Iran is feeding uranium into its first and only nuclear power plant and strengthening ties with Venezuela and other Latin American countries. Foreign terrorists have national identity cards that identify them as Venezuelan citizens.

“Lord have mercy,” they cry. There is a lethal, anti-Semitic, aspiring genocidist, loose in the Caribbean. Has President Obama failed in his efforts to get Iran to abandon its nuclear program? Why are we vulnerable after billions have been spent to fight insurgents and terrorist in the Middle East?

And they utter profanities against the ghost of Einstein.

American embassies, consulates, corporate headquarters, energy pipelines and Jewish-sponsored community centers and citizens are ready targets but American officials are asleep at the wheel.

“If countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us,” is their only pronouncement but, regrettably enough, that fist is tightly clenched.

There is no extended hand.

As yellow smoke whirls into light, Iran cajoles in its Hezbollah presence in Latin America, and ALBA nations are rapidly becoming aides in the acquisition of nuclear weapons of the apocalypse. Dominica, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda are conceding their freedoms in the political and economic domains and are no longer free negotiators within the assemblies of CARICOM.

But they don’t care.

Venezuela has at last ruptured CARICOM’s hymen from behind. The bandage of trust bleeds. The birth of a modern ‘Frankenstein monster’ yields into being.

A “doppelganger!” I learnt from the papers that Chavez and Ahmadinejad share joint paternity.

Out from the murky, quivering flames Ahmadinejad hastens the return of the Twelfth Imam in genocidal tempest right on America’s southern doorstep.

Will Islamic terrorist bombs rain in Atlanta, Washington and New York as well?

And in the midst of flames tossing against the firmament, I lay speechless. Nuclear energy was once the hope of humanity's future. The atom promised a boundless supply of power and possibly world peace but now faces are placed on stories of leukemia, breast cancer, stillbirths, and government deception.

I look out my window. It’s swampy, almost glaucous, and military advocates, peace activists and disillusioned scientists stare in amazement. The batteries of life are spent. Scientific discoveries of nuclear weapons are our own demise. Our pristine Caribbean home is now a nuclear waste dump.

Herein lies the harsh realities of the ideal.

January 9, 2012

caribbeannewsnow

The Christian community in Jamaica is grappling with the dilemma of how to embrace homosexuals while not condoning their sexual orientation and lifestyle... ...Jamaica is a pluralistic society as well as a robust democracy... And I prefer this to a theocracy

Church Picking On Gays


By Byron Buckley , Contributor

ALAS, PRIME Minister Portia Simpson Miller has named her Cabinet, notwithstanding the fear and hysteria expressed by some clergymen during the recent election campaign, about the possible inclusion of homosexuals in her administration.

Indeed, the overwhelming political mandate, in terms of seat count and geographic spread, given to Mrs Simpson Miller and her party is perhaps a rebuff to those who sought to vilify her position that she would appoint persons to Cabinet positions based on merit rather than sexual orientation.

It is shameful and scandalous for a Christian to support the victimisation (beat the B-man) and discrimination (job denial) of homosexuals and any other groups of persons.

The Christian community in Jamaica is grappling with the dilemma of how to embrace homosexuals while not condoning their sexual orientation and lifestyle.

Why do Christians regard homosexuality as an exceptional or grievous sin?

It is in a Christian's 'DNA' to object to homosexual practices. After all, homosexuality runs counter to the natural principle of procreation established by God. Copulation by Adam and Eve (not Steve) ensures the continuation of the human race. In underscoring this point, God, through Scripture, has regarded homosexuality and bestiality as morally reprehensible.

unnatural, sinful and inimical

Throughout Old and New Testament Scripture, God has expressed displeasure at men and women engaging in unnatural sexual acts with persons of the same sex. The Bible has even come out against men behaving effeminately. Importantly, the Bible forbids other kinds of sexual immorality, including fornication, incest, divorce/adultery and prostitution. Indeed, St Paul told Christians at Corinth that persons who practised homosexuality, adultery and idolatry, among other sins, would not enter God's kingdom.

So, the Church is on message in its opposition to homosexuality. And this article is not a call for the Church to abandon its teaching and stance against homosexuality as unnatural, sinful and inimical to procreation and family life as designed by God.

However, this is a critique of the Church's extreme and selective attitude towards homosexuality and those who practise it - which is contrary to Christians' mission to share the good news with ALL.

New Testament writers refer to homosexuality as part of sexual immorality in general. So to be consistent, the Church should oppose, with equal energy, adultery, fornication, wife-swapping, incest, paedophilia and the high rate of broken marriages. The Church can't cherry-pick its favourite sin to oppose. Homosexuals see straight through this double standard and ask, 'Why discriminate and victimise us?'

What's the real reason Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed? Although Christians often point to the destruction of these cities as caused by rampant homosexuality, there is reason to believe the practice was one of a suite of sinful behaviours that God found offensive. The Hebrew prophet Ezekiel explained the iniquity of Sodom and Gomorrah as pride, fullness of bread (material wealth), abundance of idleness (hedonism), lack of care for the poor and needy, haughtiness and abominable (homosexual) practices.

transformative mission

So, again, Christians have chosen to take their own meaning or emphasis from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. A more apt message to take away is that as a society, we should ensure that material prosperity does not cause us to descend into an orgy of immorality and sensuality. We should also ensure that we take care of the disadvantaged, the poor and needy. This is why Christians should never be found in the position where they are supporting harm being done to anyone - especially with the Church's dismal record during the Crusades and the transatlantic slave trade.

The transformative mission of the Church requires it to display a higher standard of behaviour towards homosexuals. Christians should be leading the way generally in protecting the welfare of homosexuals. Christians can't join the rowdy chorus of 'kill or beat the B-man.' The challenge for the Church is to establish a caring and grace-filled environment that enables it to share the transformative gospel with homosexuals as well. Jesus Christ came to heal the broken-hearted and set the captives free - in short, to transform lives.

The Church cannot be selective about who it ministers to, nor can it place boundaries against groups - such as homosexuals - as if they are beyond God's love.

I believe while there are persons who have accepted their homosexual orientation, others have not. This is where the Church has a mission to offer counsel and healing. But a condemnatory stance by the Church will only drive away such persons who are likely to be befriended by the wrong crowd.

The homophobic (I deliberately choose this word) reaction by some church leaders and Christians is tactically foolish. In the grand culture war and cosmic struggle between good and evil, Christians must secure victory with the weapon of love, which will bring transformation to individual lives.

Maybe Christians have adopted a hard line against homosexuals because, in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, God destroyed, rather than mercifully saving them.

But that's not the full story: Sodom and Gomorrah could have been saved if there were enough righteous people there! In the final analysis, no matter how repulsed Christians are by the haughtiness of some homosexuals, we should leave their fate to God.

In the meantime, we anticipate the PM carrying through her campaign promise to debate and review the law against buggery, allowing legislators to vote according to their conscience and upon their constituents' advice.

No doubt, the voice of the Church and faith-based community will be heard. After all, Jamaica is a pluralistic society as well as a robust democracy. And I prefer this to a theocracy.

Byron Buckley is an associate editor at The Gleaner. The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the newspaper. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and byron.buckley@gleanerjm.com.

January 8, 2012

jamaica-gleaner

October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis - Cuba

October 1962 Missile Crisis

President John F. Kennedy did not react with common sense to the U.S. defeat at the Bay of Pigs. He sought revenge. The Taylor Commission, established by the President to analyze the fiasco, recommended initiating new political, military, economic and propaganda measures "against Castro." The report led to the preparation and implementation of a new undercover operations plan, known as Operation Mongoose, which beginning in November 1961 unleashed thousands of terrorist acts, sabotage, assassination attempts and armed attacks.

Some months later, General Maxwell D. Taylor, at that time serving as head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the President that he did not think it would be possible to overthrow the Cuban government without a direct U.S. intervention and recommended a "more aggressive" course of action than Operation Mongoose. He proposed an escalation of the operations authorized by Kennedy to create an incident which could precipitate a massive surprise air attack and/or invasion.

On March 7, 1962, the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed "creating a provocation which would justify U.S. military action" and just two days later, the Secretary of Defense submitted to the Joint Chiefs of Staff a set of measures designed to serve as the pretext for such an intervention in Cuba.

Amidst the escalating tension orchestrated by the United States, on May 29, 1962, a Soviet delegation, led by a member of the Communist Party Central Committee Presidium, arrived in Cuba with a proposal to install ballistic nuclear missiles on the island, in order to protect the country from U.S. invasion and strengthen the world’s socialist positions.

THE AGREEMENT

The leadership of the Revolution and the Soviet government signed an agreement establishing military collaboration in the defense of Cuba’s national territory. Despite the fact that the agreement was totally within the boundaries of international law and its signing was a prerogative of sovereign states, the Soviet leadership did not accept the Cuban proposal to make the decisions public, which served as a pretext for the Kennedy administration to precipitate a crisis.

On June 20, 1962, the Soviet General Staff approved the assignment of officers and troops for Operation Anadyr. Commandante Raúl Castro went to Moscow July 3-16 to announce the Cuban-Soviet agreement as a sovereign agreement between the two nations. Nevertheless, the Soviets insisted on keeping the operations secret, which was not possible given their magnitude and the continual U.S. reconnaissance flights over Cuban territory.

Soviet troops began to arrive in Cuba during the first week of August. U.S. intelligence had already detected anti-aircraft missiles, MIG-21 aircraft and unidentified constructions, as well as the presence of Soviet military experts. On October 16, the United States U-2’s confirmed ballistic nuclear missile bases in San Cristóbal, Pinar del Río province and on this same day, around 11:00am, Kennedy convened a meeting of officials who would later become the Executive Committee of the National Security Council. The group studied various proposals for action over the course of five days and on October 20, decided to impose a "naval blockade" on Cuba, for which five task forces were established.

Beginning on October 21, U.S. Armed Forces were moved from the status of peacetime defense (DEFCON–5) to high alert (DEFCON–3) and ordered to relocate anti-aircraft forces to prepare for combat, reinforce the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo, evacuate families and civilians from the base, and deploy the forces necessary to impose the blockade.

THE CRISIS

On October 22, with the U.S. naval blockade in place and the mobilization of forces to bomb or invade Cuba, the so-called Missile Crisis unfolded. Kennedy demanded the withdrawal of Soviet strategic weapons from Cuba and announced the naval blockade to which the Revolutionary Armed Forces responded with a combat alert for all units and a popular mobilization to confront the possibility of an invasion of gigantic proportions that could unleash a nuclear holocaust.

U.S. reconnaissance flights increased to such an extent that, on October 26, Fidel ordered that, the following day, enemy aircraft flying at low altitudes be fired upon. Given the insolence of the U.S. government, a U-2 was downed with an anti-aircraft missile over Oriente province on October 27, one of the most charged moments during the crisis.

October 26th through the 31st, there was an exchange of messages between Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel. Those sent by Khrushchev made clear the unilateral manner in which the Soviets were acting and their underestimation of Cuba, while those of Fidel warned of the imminent dangers and expressed Cuba’s commitment to revolutionary principles.

On Sunday, October 28, the Kremlin communicated to Washington that orders had been given to halt construction of missile bases in Cuba, to dismantle those in existence and return the nuclear missiles to the USSR. The U.S. responded with a demand to inspect Cuban territory to verify the operations. That afternoon, Cuba rejected the inspection which the two super-powers had agreed to and announced its five point position.

The United States and the Soviet Union reached an agreement based on a proposal made by Khrushchev on October 26 and the U.S. inspected the weapons aboard Soviet ships outside of Cuban territorial waters, which for the two super-powers marked the end of the crisis. The naval blockade was suspended October 30 and 31, for a visit by United Nations General Secretary U. Thant to Cuba, and re-established November 1. At 6:45 pm on November 20, Kennedy ordered the lifting of the blockade and on the 22nd the Revolutionary government declared a return to normalcy on the island, on war footing since October 22.

Havana. January 5, 2012

granma.cu

More on the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis

The Arab Spring of 2011 in global context... ...no other event in world politics had such wide-ranging effects both in the region and far beyond

Uncertain World: The Arab Spring in global context

By Fyodor Lukyanov


Much has been written about the Arab Spring of 2011 and rightly so: no other event in world politics had such wide-ranging effects both in the region and far beyond.

The process that began in the waning days of 2010 has toppled regimes in four countries (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen), reinvigorated political Islam, intensified competition among regional powers both in terms of geopolitical ambitions and the Sunni-Shiite confrontation, and led to a reevaluation of NATO’s role in the world. Finally, it has again raised questions about democratization as a means of resolving problems and the meaning of democracy in the modern world.

The countries at the center of the storm are not the poorest or least developed, with the exception of Yemen. So, these upheavals cannot be reduced to strictly economic factors. The authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, which have remained virtually unchanged since the middle of the 20th century, were long considered the only model of governance suitable for the region. However, the changes in the last few decades have made them look increasingly anachronistic, all the more so since the revolution in the media has made international experiences available to the Arab masses , not the overwhelming majority, but a broad enough swathe of society to provoke change.

Legitimacy is the key issue. It is no accident that the conservative Gulf monarchies, where power is inherited, were shaken but unhurt by the Arab Spring, whereas autocratic republics with formally elected presidents who sought to transfer power to an heir crumbled under popular discontent.

Islamic political parties have clearly come out on top in countries that have already held elections (Tunisia and Egypt), and Islamists are becoming more active in countries that have yet to hold democratic elections (Libya, Yemen and Syria). This is no surprise; decades of one-man or at least one-party rule have left no other foundation for building a new political system.

Democracy can develop further in the Middle East if secular parties are established in addition to Islamic ones and if the forces of political Islam are interested in building modern institutions. Otherwise, the democratic spring will serve only to legitimize a new anti-democratic model, this time Islamic in nature.

Two oil monarchies, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are at the forefront of the struggle for regional leadership. Their efforts have turned the Arab League, long derided as a club of dictators, into an instrument of regime change (the only exception being Bahrain, where Saudi interference helped suppress the Shiite protest movement) and a pretext for intervention (NATO’s operation in Libya largely succeeded due to Arab support).

The confluence of three processes, great power rivalry in the region (Riyadh - Tehran), Sunni-Shiite confrontation, and increasing international concern over the Iranian nuclear program, is changing the regional context. The risk of military action will increase next year. With the growing alignment of interests among such diverse countries as Saudi Arabia and Israel and the upcoming presidential election in the United States, the prospect of military conflict is rising. The Iranian-Shiite element is moving to the fore in the struggle over Syria. Arab pressure on the Alawite regime increasingly resembles a proxy war against an Iranian ally.

NATO’s intervention in Libya showed that the alliance’s military capability is limited and that the organization itself has become much less of a monolith. In fact, the bombing of Libya was less a NATO operation than an example of individual countries pursuing their own interests. France and Britain gained from their leading role in this campaign, while the United States used Libya to test a model in which leadership is relegated to the Europeans when a conflict is primarily their concern.

This year has yielded contradictory results for the fate of democracy. The invasion of Libya was legally presented as enforcing a no-fly zone, though in reality its direct aim was regime change. The bombing in support of Libya’s “democratic forces,” that is, one side in the civil war, about which nothing was known at the time, went far beyond the bounds of decency, regardless of what you think about the Gaddafi regime. The 20-year transformation of democracy and humanitarian protection from a noble idea to a cynical instrument reached its apogee in Libya and largely discredited these concepts.

Even so, democracy, or rather the desire for the transition of power and the refusal to accept permanent regimes, has taken root and spread all over the world. The public in Egypt and Libya rejected attempts of their leaders to transfer power to heirs. Essentially the same thing happened in other places, such as Transnistria, where people refused to vote for their long-standing ruler or Moscow’s choic, and instead backed an independent candidate. The same phenomenon was seen in Russia, where Vladimir Putin’s unilateral decision to return to the presidency turned the political atmosphere against the government.

Attempts to impose democracy produce the opposite effect but it is impossible to suppress people’s natural desire to express their political views. This is the result not only of 2011 but of the 20 years since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

11:12 05/01/2012

rian.ru

Bahamas Blog International

The CARICOM blueprint for illicit drug trafficking

by Melissa Beale, Research Associate for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs



The 1970s marked the dawning of the drug trafficking phenomenon in the Caribbean. Since then, the tentacles of this multibillion-dollar illegal industry has plagued the West Indian islands with expanding drug cartel ramifications from Central and South America which continue to make use of the islands as a channel to deliver supplies to high-demand markets in the United States and Europe. Drug cartels use the Caribbean as a mode of transit, mainly because of its geographic layout. The cartographic projection of the Caribbean islands provides an advantage to drug cartels which make good use of its long coastlines to transport narcotics by means of fishing boats, speedboats, freighter shipments, yachts, and other modes of small commercial, as well as private sea transportation conveyances, along with light aircraft. For instance, The Bahamas is a favored transit point for Jamaican marijuana and South American cocaine cultivated and processed specifically for sale in the United States. Due to the far-flung Caribbean archipelago that contains over 700 islands spread across some 15,000 square miles[1], only thirty or forty of which are inhabited, thus making it difficult to regulate and detect such illegal activities taking place in such waters. In addition, “small commercial and private conveyances along short-distance maritime and aerial routes”[2] also contribute to what has become a security dilemma.



New Developments: The Spillover Along the U.S./Mexico Border Control



Mexico is infamous for its out-of-control gang violence that escalated from 2006 onward, when President Felipe Calderón began putting increased security pressure on drug trafficking organizations, as well as began to militarize the anti-drug war. In the 1980s and early 1990s, most drugs were trafficked into the U.S. from the Caribbean to South Florida.[3] Currently, however, Mexico is the primary supplier of methamphetamine to the U.S, and is responsible for 95 percent of all cocaine entering the country. With the current tightening of the Mexican/U.S. borders, drug traffickers once again have returned to the Caribbean to transport their narcotics. Due to this increased trafficking in the region, alliances and hostilities also have developed between Central and South American criminal groups and their Caribbean counterparts. As a result, drug and gang violence has been exacerbated along with other associated malignant socioeconomic indicators throughout the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), as part of the spill over from the rest of Latin America.



U.S./Caribbean Tactics



Along with the U.S.’ present tightening of its border with Mexico, there seems to be a significant shift in Washington’s focus on international security issues towards the Caribbean, with the creation of the Caribbean-U.S. Security Cooperation Dialogue. This annual event was established in 2010, to deal specifically with drug- related issues. [4] In accordance to a news report, the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations was charged that the new subcommittee responsible for creating the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI) to control and reduce drug trafficking and related violence within the region, which Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), would oversee the hearing. The CBSI has now decided to expand its focus to provide job training for youth and to help end corruption throughout the CARICOM region. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who attended the Caribbean-U.S. Security Cooperation Dialogue held this November, seems to be supporting an open line of discussions with CARICOM on this matter. In fact, Holder spoke to members of the Judiciary Committee in December. In his testimony in that forum, he asserted that drug trading in the Caribbean “is a national security issue that we must face.”[5] The U.S. must be aware of the fact that drug trafficking and related violence is a global problem and necessitates a global solution. Therefore, Latin America should also be invited to talks, as most Caribbean drug trafficking is a result of Latin American gangs using the region as a means of convergence of narcotics and marketed into the U.S. and Europe. This seems to be the case particularly regarding Puerto Rico, as frequent daily flights and being legally part of the U.S., make it easier for drug traffickers to smuggle their illegal cargo into North America.



Presently, there is a lot of speculation about Puerto Rico becoming a narco-state with the increase in the illicit flow of drugs. Officials have noted that “75 percent of the [year’s] murders are drug-related.”[6] According to a report by CBS news, “Drug smuggling is as much a part of Puerto Rico as palm trees and sand – American sand.”[7] The main reason for this is that “For drug traffickers…once they get to Puerto Rico, no more customs checkpoints on the way to the mainland.”[8] This is also the case for other U.S. Caribbean territories such as the U.S. Virgin Islands, which needs to be examined by U.S. authorities. Greater emphasis, therefore, needs to be made in when it comes to U.S.’ tactics to combat drug trafficking in their Caribbean territories – Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands come to mind since “domestic commercial cargo shipments between these U.S. territories and the continental U.S. ordinarily are not subject to US Customs inspection”.[9] Additionally, these U.S. territories, which are often less rigorously controlled and monitored by officials, become popular ocean drop-off points for Latin American cocaine shipments that have been previously airdropped on other eastern Caribbean islands such as St Martin and St Kitts.



Haiti’s Continuous Vulnerability



With the tightening of U.S./Mexico borders, vulnerable islands within the Caribbean have become even more susceptible to the lure of drug trafficking. Haiti is of particular interest to drug traffickers, as the island’s population has become more prone to participate in this illegal narcotic trade for a number of reasons, such as: poverty and corruption, economic and political instability, as well as an unsafe environment and a profaned ceiling on the availability of jobs – all of which has been worsened by the aftermath of the devastating January 2010 earthquake.



Even before the earthquake, Haiti was the unlucky member of CARICOM, experiencing long periods of poverty and corruption. Of course Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and arguably, the most corrupt. Since the earthquake, poverty has been exacerbated, resulting in many Haitians turning towards drug dealing and trafficking in order to gain a fast injection of income. Furthermore, many Haitians have also started consuming drugs in order to ease the daily challenges of gathering adequate water, food and shelter for their survival. This has created an alarming number of addicts without access to treatment facilities, as there are presently no NGO- or government-sponsored rehabilitation programs or treatment centers available to the public within the country.[10]



The earthquake also has amplified the breadth of corruption on the island, which amply was already present even before the disaster. In 2009 and 2010, a number of Haitian National Police (HNP) officers were arrested for conspiring with drug traffickers and other criminal organizations in gang-related activities.[11] For instance, in an extensively publicized event reported in September 2010, “the Director of the Central Judicial Police, which oversees all HNP investigative units, announced the arrest of seven officers – most of them traffic police from the Brigade d’Intervention Motorisée (BIM) – accused of aiding drug traffickers and kidnappers.”[12] Haitian officers described the seizures as part of a widespread cleanup within the local police force.



Despite Herculean efforts, Haiti still struggles with drug traffickers whose presence has increased significantly after the earthquake. Since a large portion of the country’s infrastructure was damaged, the HNP has been left with additional difficulties to combat drug trafficking. Although Haiti is not a major supplier of drug and products, (only marijuana is grown in certain parts of the island) it is an ideal transit zone in which aircraft from Latin American countries perform drop-offs on a profusion of clandestine, unmonitored runways. Haiti’s topology also features long coastlines, which are woefully inadequate when it comes to the proper number of coast guard stations, and a mountainous interior that is perfect for accommodating drug trafficking routes as police officers are unable to chart the functionality of drug routes in such a geologically intricate area.



Jamaica



Jamaica has experienced similar social and economic instabilities. The largest English-speaking island in the Caribbean, Jamaica is both the largest supplier and most prominent consumer of marijuana in the Caribbean. This is due in part to its thriving Rastafarian culture, in which its followers historically have “viewed marijuana as a medicine, intoxicant, and a religious sacrament.”[13] Many drug traffickers and farmers continue to cultivate the plant in the northeastern part of the island, known as the Blue Mountains. This affords an ideal location for the drug’s cultivation, as the layout of the mountainside, valleys and natural ridges make the production of marijuana difficult to monitor. Traditionally, farmers have been able to conceal their production of marijuana plants amidst banana and coconut trees.



In addition, many drug traffickers have become both respected as well as feared figures within Jamaican society, such as the infamous drug lord Christopher “Dudus” Coke, one of the most dangerous criminals in the Caribbean and the United States. Drug lords such as Dudus have been able to win the loyalty of the local community by providing “employment, education, medical and food supplies” for their neighbors, when the government was unable to do so.[14] Island governments in the Caribbean, therefore, need to focus on the felt needs of the population in order to allocate adequate funds to social and economic development efforts so that locals do not turn to drug traffickers for such support. But, this is far more easily said than done.



Reduction Challenges



Drug trafficking seems to be on the rise within the Caribbean, particularly in Haiti, Jamaica and Puerto Rico. Persistent issues such as poverty, corruption, and political and economic instability recurrent plague these small island-nations. The limited development funding available within these chronically under-financed islands remains an important challenge. Many of them, such as Barbados, rely on tourism for their survival, and with the current relatively unfavorable status of the current world economy, tourists are less likely to be engaging in discretionary traveling around the globe. This has had a spiraling effect on the economic and social stability of islands, where, for instance, many agriculturalists who own small parcels of land or local businesses in St Vincent and the Grenadines now are found turning to growing marijuana for much-needed supplemental income.



Furthermore, numerous Caribbean governments also lack the necessary funds needed to properly address security issues involved in combating drug trafficking, as some islands are still without a designated police force or coastguard service to properly monitor and ward off the danger posed by it. Moreover, these governments usually do not have adequate funds for the creation or maintenance of rehabilitation clinics. This is particularly alarming for women and children who are battling drug addictions as their needs are often far different from those presented by males, and frequently involve sexual trauma on top of their other addictions.[15] Female drug users are dramatically increasing in Central America and in the Caribbean, where the International Narcotics Control Board’s (INCR) annual report has advised CARICOM governments “to ensure that, in efforts to combat drug abuse, adequate programmes are in place to ensure that special attention is given to female drug abusers”.[16] On the bright side, however, islands such as Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago are engaged in preventative programs that target youth, who are particularly vulnerable to the shallow temptations of the drug world, through school lectures and training programs at all levels of education.



In conclusion, the Caribbean drug dilemma exposes the severity of the danger that illicit drug trafficking presents to these small islands, as well as to the rest of the Western Hemisphere. This will continue to be a problem for local CARICOM governments unless they team up with much wealthier, as well as much more developed countries such as the U.S., which can help provide the much needed funds and other resources, such as training of local police officers and coast guard official, in order to professionally rebut this phenomenon.



References for this article can be found here.



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 or email coha@coha.org


January 3, 2012


caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

Politics in the Caribbean - 2011: ...Never before in the history of the region have there been general elections in two Caribbean countries on the same date; coupled with a State of Emergency in another; allegations of assassinations against two prime ministers; the surprise resignation of a prime minister, not to mention the democratic change of government in Haiti, all within a 12-month period

Politics dominated 2011 in the Caribbean

By Peter Richards



BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) — For political historians, 2011 has provided lots of fresh fodder.

Never before in the history of the region have there been general elections in two Caribbean countries on the same date; coupled with a State of Emergency in another; allegations of assassinations against two prime ministers; the surprise resignation of a prime minister, not to mention the democratic change of government in Haiti, all within a 12-month period.

In addition, Barbados’ Prime Minister Freundel Stuart warned leading members of his administration that any attempt to derail his government would have certain consequences.

“If I understand history at all, if a coup is attempted and it succeeds, the person against whom the coup was aimed usually pays for it with his neck. If the coup fails, the plotters and those who were trying to execute it pay for it with their necks,” he said.

His finance minister, Chris Sinckler, acknowledged that he and 10 of his colleagues were seeking an “urgent audience” with Stuart because some members felt that the Democratic Labour Party’s level of public engagement on issues affecting the country was found wanting.

“I am hoping that by putting this on the record that those who feel that I am after some office and I spend all of my waking hours thinking about how to unseat this person or the other, or cause confusion that would lead to that, I really hope that they would stand down,” he added.

At the start of the year, St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves stunned parliament with his disclosure of an alleged assassination plot against him.

“Cocaine traffickers and money launderers are conspiring actively with others to kill the prime minister and on the public airwaves people are being exhorted by some to use any means necessary to remove a democratically elected government,” he added. This statement followed public pronouncements by Opposition Leader Arnhim Eustace that the government would fall by the end of 2011.

Nine months later, Gonsalves’ counterpart in Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, caused an even bigger stir when she announced that the police had uncovered a plot to kill her and senior government ministers.

“I am advised by the law enforcement authorities that they have, through their intelligence resources uncovered an assassination plot against members of my government and myself,” she told the nation, adding that the assassination threats were as a direct result of the “successful” 105-day State of Emergency that had severely disrupted the activities of the criminals.

But in the end, despite the detention of 17 people, police were unable to lay any charge and the opposition termed the “assassination plot” as nothing more than “an exaggerated political stunt” by the government.

Whether he was forced out of office or not, Bruce Golding surprised Jamaicans with his announcement that he was stepping down as head of the government in October less than five years after taking the oath of office as prime minister.

“The challenges of the last four years have taken their toll and it was appropriate now to make way for new leadership to continue the programmes of economic recovery and transformation while mobilising the party for victory in the next general elections,” Golding said in a farewell statement.

His successor, Andrew Holness, 39, became the youngest ever prime minister since political Independence in 1962, but also now has the unenvious record of being booted out of office just after two months.

Holness gambled and called a general election on December 29 but the voters decided that Portia Simpson Miller, the first ever woman prime minister they sent packing in 2007, was a better choice to lead the country. They gave her People’s National Party an overwhelming 42-21 margin of victory.

Simpson Miller, affectionally referred to as ‘Sista P’, faces deep problems as she takes over the government, with debt running at approximately 130 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product and unemployment at more than 12 per cent.

The new government has already said it will be seeking to renegotiate the multi-billiondollar Standby Agreement from the International Monetary Fund.

“We have plenty of work ahead of us... you will hear from us soon as we move to put our team in place,” she told supporters, urging all Jamaicans “to work with us as we move this country forward together.

“We will tell you as it is, we will hide nothing from you, when it is tough and rough we will let you know, when it is easy we will let you know,” Simpson Miller said, informing all investors and businesses “that you have a government you can trust”.

The Jamaican election apart, voters in Guyana and St Lucia created history by going to the polls on the same day to elect their respective governments.

For Dr Kenny Anthony, November 28 allowed him another bite at governing St Lucia, following his 11-6 defeat in the 2006 poll. The incumbent United Workers Party (UWP) had been predicting a landslide, but the voters instead sent Stephenson King and his UWP team packing.

“I ask God to give me the strength and courage and most of all the wisdom to manage the affairs of the country in the next few years or until such time it is necessary for me to say goodbye to political life,” an emotional 60-year-old Anthony said.

Donald Ramotar, meanwhile, ensured that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic would remain at the helm of government in Guyana, even though it failed to obtain a majority in the 65-member National Assembly.

Ramotar faced a formidable challenge from the Alliance for Change (AFC) and the opposition grouping, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) that between them controlled 33 of the seats in Parliament.

The 61-year-old economist said the “elections have reaffirmed our maturity as a democratic nation, something of which we should all be proud.

“I wish to therefore congratulate my Guyanese brothers and sisters from all walks of life, who participated in this latest renewal of our democracy, for playing their part in this vital national process! Regardless of the results we are all winners — Guyana and all the people of Guyana,” he added.

In March, Haitians also celebrated the continued renewal of their democracy by electing musician Michael “Sweet Micky” Martelly as their new head of state, replacing Rene Preval, who like Bharrat Jagdeo in Guyana had been barred by their country’s constitution from seeking a third consecutive term in office.

Martelly had received nearly 68 per cent of the votes cast in the March 20 second-round run-off and easily defeated former first lady and law professor Mirlande Manigat.

“We’ll work for all Haitians. Together we can do it,” he promised voters soon after his victory, but Martelly found it was easier said than done, having to nominate three persons before legislators agreed to his nominee for prime minister and the Frenchspeaking Caricom country still coming to grips with the January 2010 earthquake and a cholera outbreak.

Grenada’s Prime Minister Tillman Thomas, the then Caricom chairman, said the successful completion of the presidential election signalled a “renewal of spirit and the rise of a new political generation” in Haiti despite the return to the country of former dictator Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier and former president Jean Bertrand Aristide.

The High Court is likely to determine the future political careers of Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit and his education minister Petter St Jean after the main opposition United Workers Party (UWP) argued that the two ministers were illegally nominated to contest the December 2009 general election because they held dual citizenship at the time. A ruling is expected in early 2012.

In Nevis, the opposition Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM) has maintained that the July poll won by the ruling Nevis Reformation Party (NRP) was rigged and it, too, has gone to the courts seeking redress.

Despite early pronouncements, the British government failed to name a date for general elections in the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) and citizens took to the streets to demand an end to being ruled by London.

But the TCI was not the only overseas territory having problems with Britain. Anguilla’s Chief Minister Hubert Hughes has called on citizens to seriously consider seeking political independence after the governor of the 35 square mile island Alistair Harrison refused to sign off on the 2011 budget.

“We have come far enough and fought hard enough to have an Anguillian governor or governor general, an Anguillian flag and being identified to the world as Anguillians and not ‘Belongers’,” Hughes said.

While the feud between Hughes and Harrison continued at year end, Reuben Meade in Montserrat upgraded his chief minister status to that of premier even while acknowledging that the new Constitution that went into effect from September was not a perfect document.

“We must continue the work of improving the document over time. We must, however, not lose sight of the focus on development issues while at the same time honouring the provisions of the constitution,” Meade said.

In the British Virgin Islands, 67-year-old physician Orlando Smith was voted as premier replacing Ralph T O’Neal in the general election.

The political upheavals in the region were taking place amid the problems associated with the ongoing global economic and financial crisis that continue to thwart socioeconomic development to the point that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that Caribbean countries will continue to struggle and governments will have to tighten on their economic spending.

“The Caribbean region continues to struggle to recover from a long and protracted recession. Drags from fiscal consolidation and higher energy prices continue to constrain private demand, while the recovery in tourism flows remains tepid amid high unemployment in advanced economies,” said the IMF’s deputy director for the Western Hemisphere, David Vegara.

For its part, China continued its largesse in the region pumping millions of dollars in assistance to Caricom as part of its diplomatic initiative to improve relations with this region a point that was underscored by Vice Premier Wang Qishan as he addressed the China Caribbean Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum held in Trinidad.

The economic situation has been blamed by the Trinidad and Tobago Government for its reluctance to provide more than a five per cent wage increase for public workers, resulting in trade unions mounting street demonstrations and warning that a nationwide shutdown of the country is on the cards.

The introduction of the lowcost carrier REDjet is seen by its owners as an attempt to deal with the high cost of travel, but while the Barbados-based carrier appeared to be soaring, its Antigua-based competitor LIAT, was continuing to face financial as well as industrial problems.

Meanwhile, Caricom has also sought to put its own house in order. In August, the regional grouping named Dominican Irwin La Rocque as the seventh Caricom secretary-general, following the resignation of Trinidadian Edwin Carrington after 18 years in the post.

“I am humbled and privileged for this opportunity to continue my service to the Governments and people of the Caribbean Community,” La Rocque said, adding “as we strive towards the goal of a community for all, the confidence of the heads of government, the support of the people of the Community and the committed staff of the Caricom Secretariat are vital in achieving that objective”.

His statement may have had the effect of easing the fears of the population in the region, particularly after Caribbean governments indicated that the process towards a single economy within the 15-member grouping that would have gone into effect by 2015, will now “take longer than anticipated’.

But for the smaller subregional Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, progress was made on August 1, with the free movement of nationals.

But as the historians mull over the political developments of 2011, they will also have to deal with the ongoing crime situation that continues unabated in several Caribbean countries despite efforts by regional governments to push other options rather than resorting to murder in dealing with domestic and personal squabbles.

The Guyana-based Caricom Secretariat has been spearheading national consultations on gangs and gang violence under a project funded by the United Nations Development Programme.

A move by the Trinidad and Tobago Government to implement the death penalty in response to the rising murder rate was defeated in Parliament after the Opposition failed to provide the required special majority needed.

Death, meanwhile, continued to stalk the region in 2011 bringing with it a tragic accident in St Lucia which claimed the lives of 16 people when a mini-bus plunged down a cliff into the sea at Mount Sion in Choiseul in November in what authorities said was “probably the single most vehicular accident or tragedy ever suffered by St Lucia”.

Politicians like former Belize prime minister George Price; St Lucia’s second prime minister Sir Allan Fitzgerald Louisy; Jamaica’s former deputy prime minister and attorney general David Coore; former national security minister, Colonel Trevor McMillan; long standing member of the Opposition People's National Party (PNP), Donald Buchanan and Trinidad and Tobago’s first Governor General Sir Ellis Clarke and former trade and industry minister, Kenneth Valley, died during 2011.

Death also claimed the former governor general of St Lucia, Sir Stanislaus James, Dame Bernice Lake, one of the Caribbean’s foremost jurists, the Jamaican academic Professor Aggrey Brown, journalists and broadcasters Desmond Bourne, Allyson Hennessy, Dame Olga Lopes-Seale; Sharief khan; Keith Smith and Louis Daniel.

The region also mourned the passing of Jeff Joseph, the lead singer of the Dominican group, Grammacks New Generation, the acclaimed folk violinist Joseph Ives Simeon, Veteran mas designer and multiple Band of the Year winner, Wayne Berkeley; Valentina Medina, who served as the Queen of the indigenous Carib population in Trinidad and Tobago.

January 03, 2012

jamaicaobserver

Bahamas Blog International