'Dudus' may be the most powerful man in Ja, says Phillips
BY KARYL WALKER Online editor walkerk@jamaicaobserver.com:
FORMER minister of national security Dr Peter Phillips says Tivoli Gardens strongman Christopher 'Dudus' Coke is possibly more powerful than the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Government which has been attracting a lot of flax over its refusal to act on a United States extradition request for Coke.
The Americans submitted the extradition request last August, accusing Coke of drug- and gun-running. However, the Bruce Golding-led Administration has said that the evidence gathered against Coke breached Jamaica's Interception of Communications Act.
But for Phillips that argument holds little water and is an indication of the fear that Coke drives into the hearts of the ruling party. According to Phillips, Coke may be the most powerful man in the country.
"That inference can be drawn when we see all the resources they are putting in to defend him. It certainly looks like he is very powerful," Phillips told the Sunday Observer yesterday.
Phillips, whose questions in Parliament in March threw the spotlight on the JLP's dealing with the US law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, said Jamaica's reputation had been terribly sullied and the Government should move to clean up the country's image.
The JLP has since admitted that persons in the party engaged the services of the law firm to negotiate extradition issues with high-ranking members of the Obama administration.
"It is time we decide if we are going to be a narco state or we are going to abide by the rules of law and order," Phillips said.
Last week, Toronto police arrested 12 members of the Shower Posse and have charged them with drugs and weapons offences. The cops said the arrested persons had links to drug traffickers in Panama, the US and the Dominican Republic.
Coke has been named by North American authorities as the leader of the 'international cartel who had been pulling the strings in Toronto's north-west end, supplying drugs and guns to smaller gangs and fuelling violence in the area'.
Headquartered in Tivoli Gardens in Kingston, the Shower Posse reportedly has branches in over 20 US cities, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Phillips himself earned the wrath of People's National Party (PNP) supporters when, during his tenure at the security ministry, Clansman boss and known PNP supporter, Donovan 'Bulbie' Bennett, was cut down in hail of police bullets at a palatial residence in Tanarkie, Clarendon in November 2005.
In the aftermath of Bennett's death, irate PNP supporters burnt effigies of Phillips and T-shirts bearing his image in sections of St Catherine and Clarendon.
Party insiders say Bennett's demise may have cost Phillips the leadership of the PNP in the contentious presidential race which he lost to Portia Simpson Miller in September 2008.
May 09, 2010
jamaicaobserver
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.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
A tall order for the next president of Haiti
By Jean Herve Charles:
The president of Haiti, Rene Preval, according to the Haitian Constitution in its articles, 134.3 and 149, cannot seek another mandate nor can he prolong his tenure beyond February 7, 2011. He has sent legislation to the Haitian Congress seeking a prolongation of his term until May 4, 2011. Such steps in the past have caused the demise of two Haitian presidents, Dumarsais Estime in 1950 and Paul Eugene Magloire in 1956.
He will have first to delve into the state of the state of Haiti, the reasons why it is in a situation where, when you apply even the minimum standard of welfare and modernity, Haiti fell short in hospitality to its citizens before the earthquake of January 12, 2010.
The brand name Haiti is forever associated with the concept of a nation that defies the world order to dismantle the practice of slavery as it was implemented all over the Western Hemisphere. The gallant Haiti of 1804 is also the infamous Haiti of 1806 that assassinated its liberator, Jean Jacques Dessalines, and eradicated its name from the national frontispiece for the next one hundred years.
Henry Christophe, the second in command, tried but failed to inculcate the concept of nation building into the entire country. Supported by the French secret diplomacy, Alexander Petion succeeded in taking away the full command of the entire territory from Christophe. He succeeded also in imprinting the Haitian cultural ethos that we have today, Papa Petion and his subsequent successors is alright as long as he has a legacy that counts a lyceum in Port au Prince, Lycee Petion, and a city named after him, Petionville.
The citizens of Haiti have come to the reality of expecting little from their government and their government has assumed the obligation of providing not even the minimum standard of services to its citizens. Imagine, out of the 565 rural hamlets in Haiti, not five, not three, not a single one is equipped with electricity, potable water, decent roads, affordable habitat, incubation of business and entrepreneurship.
This Haiti, ruled by mulattoes and few illiterate black presidents during the first one hundred fifty years of its life as a nation, has caused an occupation by the Americans in 1915 and underdevelopment in every aspect of the national life. The indices in health, education, infrastructure and welfare were below standard in the entire republic.
Around that time, Jean Price Mars, a towering figure, a Martin Luther King, a Nelson Mandela ahead of the time, came with a message and a promise of redemption. He failed, though, to create a school and a movement that would carry the concept that we are all Haitians, as such beautiful and proud, deserving respect from each other, and services from a government for the people and by the people. By contrast, Lorimer Denis, Francois Duvalier and Dumarsais Estime, his students, succeeded in prostituting the concept of black is also beautiful into a doctrine of noirisme. It is now time for blacks only to get into the seat of power and influence.
Paul Eugene Magloire, the ideological neutral president, failed to realize the extent of the abyss of the Haitian social structure between people of the same nation, to bring about much needed correction. As such, his successors, Duvalier, Aristide and Preval, with their strict application of the noirisme doctrine have sunk Haiti into an abyss so deep that the world was taken by surprise on January 12, 2010, when the lead was raised into the open on the state of squalor so widespread in the entire country. In fact, the black presidents of the last fifty years have been as delinquent in their governance of Haiti as the mulatto presidents have been in their one hundred fifty years of government.
To solve the puzzle, the next president will have to shift into another paradigm of conceptual thinking to move Haiti into a sustained development mode. If we expect each president only to build their own trophy city: Petionville, Magloireville, Estimeville, Augusteville, Prevalville, we may wait another one hundred years before Haiti is equipped with rudimentary structure of modernity.
To apprehend and solve the problem of Haiti, he must apply the Renan Doctrine of solidarity and welfare for all. Ernest Renan, albeit his racists remarks about blacks, has laid down the best known formula to create a nation that shall become harmonious and hospitable to all. His criteria called for the full control of one’s border with one’s own army to do so. He called for the love and the admiration of the founding fathers through civic education into the mores and the ethos of the nation; last but not least, the obligation to leave no one behind, alien or not, minorities as well as the majority to create a nation harmonious for all.
The next president of Haiti will have to go beyond the politics of slogan to institute true affirmative action programs in the form of incubating small business enterprises to fill the deep divide between the different social classes in the country.
He will need to call on investors – national and international -- to form a public- private partnership to build roads, airports, ports and power plants. He will have the task of decentralizing the institutions to make them hospitable to all citizens, while rooting out the virus of corruption. He will need also to effectuate a better coordination of the mission and the tasks of the many nonprofit organizations – ONG -- established in the country.
The new government will need to go back to the drawing board to stop the implementation of the tent cities. No nation ever developed under a tent city. The internal refugees shall be encouraged to return to their ancestral homes with funding, and institutional resources to root them in the new setting. The Republic of Haiti has 140 small towns, 565 rural hamlets and 10 major cities beyond the capital that would welcome the refugees with open arms with a minimum of national funding. In fact, the amount of money wasted in temporary tent cities would have already put Haiti onto the road of reconstruction if this ill advised policy had not been implemented.
Last but not least, he will need to build artist’s villages to rekindle the creativity of the critical mass of Haitian artists. The next president shall also try to make Haitian people smile and laugh again while they tell stories and jokes with the wit that is the hallmark of the Haitian ethos.
Haiti in 2011 will have to lead an epic battle, not with bullets but with ballots to recreate or perfect 1804. In 1807, it made a left turn from the founding fathers’ doctrine and dream of creating a Haiti and a world that would be full of opportunity for all, instead of a dog eat dog principle, with the crumbs going to the perceived meek and the lowly.
The United States, with the advocacy of Dr Martin Luther King and the leadership of Lyndon Johnson, has embarked on the road of a more perfect society. It is a work in progress; it has already produced the first black family in the White House, the Obama family.
Recently, some countries in Asia, Singapore and Malaysia, in particular, have understood the strength of the Renan doctrine. Their government has sought to apply the principle in their governance practice. Malay, Indians and other ethnic groups have learned to live and coexist with each other for the glory and the wealth of the nation.
In the Caribbean, Haiti occupies the last place in development with Guyana because of their governance discriminatory practice. The Indo Guyanese have their own political party, the PPP, and the black Guyanese have also their own, the PNP. The Indo-Guyanese, in the majority, that occupy the seat of power, pay a lip service to the black Guyanese, pauperizing the country for both.
There is a movement now in Trinidad to export that movement onto the political canvas with the Unity Party organized by the Indo-Trini citizens. I am predicting it will not succeed; Patrick Manning will win the May election on the strength of the tradition of multi cultural harmony in Trinidad between most of the ethnic groups.
The new Haitian government will have to engage the Diaspora and the true of friends of Haiti all over the world to create the space of hospitality for the majority of Haitians. We have seen not only on TV but with our own eyes how there was no respect for the living nor for the dead. Pretending, as some counterparts in the international community want us to accept the status quo as the guiding light to continue a legacy and shape the future of Haiti, can only lead into a Goudou-goudou or a Poseidon much stronger and much destructive than the one on January 12, 2010.
Haitians will have to deliver, albeit with their ballots, the blow the Haitian founding fathers delivered to the troops of Napoleon in November 1803 to create a country hospitable to all.
I have laid down the hospitable doctrine in several articles (the Haitian solution part II) in www.Haitinetnews.com. One should visit the site in the commentaries section.
To conclude, Haiti and its new government should reflect and ponder on this message:
I have been without sleep, and I have fought, sometimes alone
And if I have been fortunate enough to transmit into your hands
The sacred legacy that you have trusted with me
Remember it is now into your hands to cherish and maintain that
Sacred Nation.
Jean Jacques Dessalines
Message to the Nation
On January 1, 1804
May 8, 2010
caribbeannetnews
The president of Haiti, Rene Preval, according to the Haitian Constitution in its articles, 134.3 and 149, cannot seek another mandate nor can he prolong his tenure beyond February 7, 2011. He has sent legislation to the Haitian Congress seeking a prolongation of his term until May 4, 2011. Such steps in the past have caused the demise of two Haitian presidents, Dumarsais Estime in 1950 and Paul Eugene Magloire in 1956.
The next president of Haiti will have a tall order on his or her shoulder; he will have to combine the vision of John Marshall and Winston Churchill after the Second War in shaping the reconstruction of Europe for the rebuilding of the country; the magnanimity of Abraham Lincoln in preserving the Union while going to war against the rebelling South; the gallantry of Nelson Mandela in embracing his white jailers after his decade of imprisonment and he will need also the bravura of Dr Martin Luther King Jr in redeeming the United States to make good on its promise of one nation under God.
He will have first to delve into the state of the state of Haiti, the reasons why it is in a situation where, when you apply even the minimum standard of welfare and modernity, Haiti fell short in hospitality to its citizens before the earthquake of January 12, 2010.
The brand name Haiti is forever associated with the concept of a nation that defies the world order to dismantle the practice of slavery as it was implemented all over the Western Hemisphere. The gallant Haiti of 1804 is also the infamous Haiti of 1806 that assassinated its liberator, Jean Jacques Dessalines, and eradicated its name from the national frontispiece for the next one hundred years.
Henry Christophe, the second in command, tried but failed to inculcate the concept of nation building into the entire country. Supported by the French secret diplomacy, Alexander Petion succeeded in taking away the full command of the entire territory from Christophe. He succeeded also in imprinting the Haitian cultural ethos that we have today, Papa Petion and his subsequent successors is alright as long as he has a legacy that counts a lyceum in Port au Prince, Lycee Petion, and a city named after him, Petionville.
The citizens of Haiti have come to the reality of expecting little from their government and their government has assumed the obligation of providing not even the minimum standard of services to its citizens. Imagine, out of the 565 rural hamlets in Haiti, not five, not three, not a single one is equipped with electricity, potable water, decent roads, affordable habitat, incubation of business and entrepreneurship.
This Haiti, ruled by mulattoes and few illiterate black presidents during the first one hundred fifty years of its life as a nation, has caused an occupation by the Americans in 1915 and underdevelopment in every aspect of the national life. The indices in health, education, infrastructure and welfare were below standard in the entire republic.
Around that time, Jean Price Mars, a towering figure, a Martin Luther King, a Nelson Mandela ahead of the time, came with a message and a promise of redemption. He failed, though, to create a school and a movement that would carry the concept that we are all Haitians, as such beautiful and proud, deserving respect from each other, and services from a government for the people and by the people. By contrast, Lorimer Denis, Francois Duvalier and Dumarsais Estime, his students, succeeded in prostituting the concept of black is also beautiful into a doctrine of noirisme. It is now time for blacks only to get into the seat of power and influence.
Paul Eugene Magloire, the ideological neutral president, failed to realize the extent of the abyss of the Haitian social structure between people of the same nation, to bring about much needed correction. As such, his successors, Duvalier, Aristide and Preval, with their strict application of the noirisme doctrine have sunk Haiti into an abyss so deep that the world was taken by surprise on January 12, 2010, when the lead was raised into the open on the state of squalor so widespread in the entire country. In fact, the black presidents of the last fifty years have been as delinquent in their governance of Haiti as the mulatto presidents have been in their one hundred fifty years of government.
To solve the puzzle, the next president will have to shift into another paradigm of conceptual thinking to move Haiti into a sustained development mode. If we expect each president only to build their own trophy city: Petionville, Magloireville, Estimeville, Augusteville, Prevalville, we may wait another one hundred years before Haiti is equipped with rudimentary structure of modernity.
To apprehend and solve the problem of Haiti, he must apply the Renan Doctrine of solidarity and welfare for all. Ernest Renan, albeit his racists remarks about blacks, has laid down the best known formula to create a nation that shall become harmonious and hospitable to all. His criteria called for the full control of one’s border with one’s own army to do so. He called for the love and the admiration of the founding fathers through civic education into the mores and the ethos of the nation; last but not least, the obligation to leave no one behind, alien or not, minorities as well as the majority to create a nation harmonious for all.
The next president of Haiti will have to go beyond the politics of slogan to institute true affirmative action programs in the form of incubating small business enterprises to fill the deep divide between the different social classes in the country.
He will need to call on investors – national and international -- to form a public- private partnership to build roads, airports, ports and power plants. He will have the task of decentralizing the institutions to make them hospitable to all citizens, while rooting out the virus of corruption. He will need also to effectuate a better coordination of the mission and the tasks of the many nonprofit organizations – ONG -- established in the country.
The new government will need to go back to the drawing board to stop the implementation of the tent cities. No nation ever developed under a tent city. The internal refugees shall be encouraged to return to their ancestral homes with funding, and institutional resources to root them in the new setting. The Republic of Haiti has 140 small towns, 565 rural hamlets and 10 major cities beyond the capital that would welcome the refugees with open arms with a minimum of national funding. In fact, the amount of money wasted in temporary tent cities would have already put Haiti onto the road of reconstruction if this ill advised policy had not been implemented.
Last but not least, he will need to build artist’s villages to rekindle the creativity of the critical mass of Haitian artists. The next president shall also try to make Haitian people smile and laugh again while they tell stories and jokes with the wit that is the hallmark of the Haitian ethos.
Haiti in 2011 will have to lead an epic battle, not with bullets but with ballots to recreate or perfect 1804. In 1807, it made a left turn from the founding fathers’ doctrine and dream of creating a Haiti and a world that would be full of opportunity for all, instead of a dog eat dog principle, with the crumbs going to the perceived meek and the lowly.
The United States, with the advocacy of Dr Martin Luther King and the leadership of Lyndon Johnson, has embarked on the road of a more perfect society. It is a work in progress; it has already produced the first black family in the White House, the Obama family.
Recently, some countries in Asia, Singapore and Malaysia, in particular, have understood the strength of the Renan doctrine. Their government has sought to apply the principle in their governance practice. Malay, Indians and other ethnic groups have learned to live and coexist with each other for the glory and the wealth of the nation.
In the Caribbean, Haiti occupies the last place in development with Guyana because of their governance discriminatory practice. The Indo Guyanese have their own political party, the PPP, and the black Guyanese have also their own, the PNP. The Indo-Guyanese, in the majority, that occupy the seat of power, pay a lip service to the black Guyanese, pauperizing the country for both.
There is a movement now in Trinidad to export that movement onto the political canvas with the Unity Party organized by the Indo-Trini citizens. I am predicting it will not succeed; Patrick Manning will win the May election on the strength of the tradition of multi cultural harmony in Trinidad between most of the ethnic groups.
The new Haitian government will have to engage the Diaspora and the true of friends of Haiti all over the world to create the space of hospitality for the majority of Haitians. We have seen not only on TV but with our own eyes how there was no respect for the living nor for the dead. Pretending, as some counterparts in the international community want us to accept the status quo as the guiding light to continue a legacy and shape the future of Haiti, can only lead into a Goudou-goudou or a Poseidon much stronger and much destructive than the one on January 12, 2010.
Haitians will have to deliver, albeit with their ballots, the blow the Haitian founding fathers delivered to the troops of Napoleon in November 1803 to create a country hospitable to all.
I have laid down the hospitable doctrine in several articles (the Haitian solution part II) in www.Haitinetnews.com. One should visit the site in the commentaries section.
To conclude, Haiti and its new government should reflect and ponder on this message:
I have been without sleep, and I have fought, sometimes alone
And if I have been fortunate enough to transmit into your hands
The sacred legacy that you have trusted with me
Remember it is now into your hands to cherish and maintain that
Sacred Nation.
Jean Jacques Dessalines
Message to the Nation
On January 1, 1804
May 8, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Friday, May 7, 2010
Serving CARICOM's interest; not some other country's
By Sir Ronald Sanders:
A row has broken out in St Vincent and the Grenadines over the possible candidature of that small Caribbean country for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council for the period 2011-2012 in opposition to Colombia.
The St Vincent Opposition Leader, Arnhim Eustace, is claiming that, in seeking to be elected to the Security Council as a representative of the 33-member Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) group, the Ralph Gonsalves government is carrying out the wishes of Venezuela’s populist President, Hugo Chavez, simply to deprive Colombia of the seat.
Chavez and the Colombian government have been openly hostile to each other in an increasingly worsening situation (about which more later).
This row in St Vincent could be replicated throughout the LAC group, and may spread to the general assembly of all UN member countries if the group does not decide on a single candidate for the one seat allocated to it.
Historically, the LAC group has been able to reach consensus on one candidate. There have only been five contested elections over the years, and since 1966 when CARICOM countries began the process of becoming independent states, three Caribbean countries have been selected by the LAC group for the Security Council five times. Guyana was selected for the periods 1975-76 and 1982-83; Jamaica for the periods 1979-80 and 2000-2001; and Trinidad and Tobago for the period 1985-86.
Eustace claims that the St Vincent government is contesting selection in the LAC group because the country’s Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves is tied to Chavez though membership of ALBA, a grouping of eight countries formed at Chavez’s initiative and in which, it is said, Chavez exercises influence over the others by virtue of the Venezuelan government’s financial contribution to their political survival.
It is widely felt that Chavez does not want Colombia on the Security Council because he regards that country’s government as a proxy for the United States administration. Chavez has criticised a US-Colombia military pact under which the US has access to military bases in Colombia. According to Chavez, the military bases would be used for espionage purposes and would allow US troops there to launch a military offensive against Venezuela.
For its part, the Colombia government has accused Chavez of collaboration with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a rebel military group that is seeking to topple the government.
The last time a bitter contest in the LAC group for a Security Council seat occurred was 2006 when Guatemala clashed with Venezuela and neither country could muster sufficient support to be endorsed as the undisputed candidate.
The battle then proceeded to the UN general assembly but not before Chávez had invested millions of dollars in a year-long campaign to get Venezuela elected to one of 10 non-permanent seats. After 48 ballots and two weeks of voting, neither country secured the two-thirds majority to clinch the contest and, eventually, the LAC group became actively involved in finding a compromise candidate in Panama but the process left much bad feeling all round.
In response to the Arnhim Eustace’s claims, Prime Minister Gonsalves released a document used to brief Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders during a meeting in Brazil in April regarding his government’s position on the non-permanent Security Council seat.
A Caribbean Media Corporation report says that the document “acknowledged that the island’s proposed candidacy ‘would likely necessitate a campaign against Columbia (sic)’, which is currently a declared candidate for the sole vacancy allocated to the Group of Latin American and Caribbean (GRULAC) in the October 2010 elections”.
However, the document is also reported as saying that St Vincent’s “proposed candidacy is less a challenge to Columbia (sic) than it is an advancement of a principled position on the representation of CARICOM, SIDS (Small Island Developing States) and small states at the upper echelons of multilateral diplomacy”.
No one can question the right of the St Vincent government to offer itself within the LAC group as a candidate for the Security Council seat. But the timing of the decision is curious because in 2009 the group had settled that Colombia would be the candidate for the 2011-2012 term. This tacit decision was made when Colombia wanted to be selected for the 2010-2011 term but conceded to Brazil.
It would have served both St Vincent and the LAC group better if the government had declared its decision to run for the 2011-12 term before Colombia had secured the nod of the group especially Brazil, and before relations deteriorated to its present sore point between Colombia and Venezuela.
The St Vincent document suggested that CARICOM countries should endorse the country’s candidature but that, if it did not prevail, another CARICOM country should step in as a “compromise candidate”. This suggests that the government is not confident of its capacity to knock Colombia out of the contest and that the issue would have to go to the full UN body where a two-thirds majority would be required for success.
If CARICOM member states vote as a bloc in the LAC group they would command 14 of the 33 votes, but the dispute would continue once Colombia held out. Nonetheless, CARICOM countries, acting together, could certainly block Colombia’s selection if it were their intention to ensure that one of their members should be the candidate.
There is a case for a CARICOM country to be the candidate for the 2011-2012 term. Since the Caribbean joined the LAC group, Colombia has served four terms and the larger countries – Argentina, Brazil and Mexico in particular – have dominated. But, being on the Security Council is not a cheap affair particularly if election is preceded by a contest with a richer country.
A small Caribbean country would have to invest heavily in the election campaign travelling around the world to drum up support. Then, it would have to strengthen its mission with qualified people, meeting the significantly increased costs for two-years. If it does not beef up its mission, it will do nothing more than warm the Council seat some of the time. That would do no good for the work of the Security Council and would convince the international community that small states have no place there. All of CARICOM would have to pitch in financially and with qualified people.
The situation would be worse if a non-CARICOM country paid the bill. The international community would see this as “he who pays the piper, calling the tune”, and CARICOM’s standing would be diminished to its detriment. This is not far-fetched; it happens now in the International Whaling Commission where Japan finances the participation of some small states and directs their votes.
If CARICOM countries decide to support St Vincent or another one of their small members against Colombia for as important an organ as the UN Security Council where all eyes will be focussed on them, they must be prepared to meet the costs, and they should ensure that the candidature is in their own interests and not to promote the policies of any other country.
May 7, 2010
caribbeannetnews
A row has broken out in St Vincent and the Grenadines over the possible candidature of that small Caribbean country for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council for the period 2011-2012 in opposition to Colombia.
The St Vincent Opposition Leader, Arnhim Eustace, is claiming that, in seeking to be elected to the Security Council as a representative of the 33-member Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) group, the Ralph Gonsalves government is carrying out the wishes of Venezuela’s populist President, Hugo Chavez, simply to deprive Colombia of the seat.
Chavez and the Colombian government have been openly hostile to each other in an increasingly worsening situation (about which more later). This row in St Vincent could be replicated throughout the LAC group, and may spread to the general assembly of all UN member countries if the group does not decide on a single candidate for the one seat allocated to it.
Historically, the LAC group has been able to reach consensus on one candidate. There have only been five contested elections over the years, and since 1966 when CARICOM countries began the process of becoming independent states, three Caribbean countries have been selected by the LAC group for the Security Council five times. Guyana was selected for the periods 1975-76 and 1982-83; Jamaica for the periods 1979-80 and 2000-2001; and Trinidad and Tobago for the period 1985-86.
Eustace claims that the St Vincent government is contesting selection in the LAC group because the country’s Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves is tied to Chavez though membership of ALBA, a grouping of eight countries formed at Chavez’s initiative and in which, it is said, Chavez exercises influence over the others by virtue of the Venezuelan government’s financial contribution to their political survival.
It is widely felt that Chavez does not want Colombia on the Security Council because he regards that country’s government as a proxy for the United States administration. Chavez has criticised a US-Colombia military pact under which the US has access to military bases in Colombia. According to Chavez, the military bases would be used for espionage purposes and would allow US troops there to launch a military offensive against Venezuela.
For its part, the Colombia government has accused Chavez of collaboration with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a rebel military group that is seeking to topple the government.
The last time a bitter contest in the LAC group for a Security Council seat occurred was 2006 when Guatemala clashed with Venezuela and neither country could muster sufficient support to be endorsed as the undisputed candidate.
The battle then proceeded to the UN general assembly but not before Chávez had invested millions of dollars in a year-long campaign to get Venezuela elected to one of 10 non-permanent seats. After 48 ballots and two weeks of voting, neither country secured the two-thirds majority to clinch the contest and, eventually, the LAC group became actively involved in finding a compromise candidate in Panama but the process left much bad feeling all round.
In response to the Arnhim Eustace’s claims, Prime Minister Gonsalves released a document used to brief Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders during a meeting in Brazil in April regarding his government’s position on the non-permanent Security Council seat.
A Caribbean Media Corporation report says that the document “acknowledged that the island’s proposed candidacy ‘would likely necessitate a campaign against Columbia (sic)’, which is currently a declared candidate for the sole vacancy allocated to the Group of Latin American and Caribbean (GRULAC) in the October 2010 elections”.
However, the document is also reported as saying that St Vincent’s “proposed candidacy is less a challenge to Columbia (sic) than it is an advancement of a principled position on the representation of CARICOM, SIDS (Small Island Developing States) and small states at the upper echelons of multilateral diplomacy”.
No one can question the right of the St Vincent government to offer itself within the LAC group as a candidate for the Security Council seat. But the timing of the decision is curious because in 2009 the group had settled that Colombia would be the candidate for the 2011-2012 term. This tacit decision was made when Colombia wanted to be selected for the 2010-2011 term but conceded to Brazil.
It would have served both St Vincent and the LAC group better if the government had declared its decision to run for the 2011-12 term before Colombia had secured the nod of the group especially Brazil, and before relations deteriorated to its present sore point between Colombia and Venezuela.
The St Vincent document suggested that CARICOM countries should endorse the country’s candidature but that, if it did not prevail, another CARICOM country should step in as a “compromise candidate”. This suggests that the government is not confident of its capacity to knock Colombia out of the contest and that the issue would have to go to the full UN body where a two-thirds majority would be required for success.
If CARICOM member states vote as a bloc in the LAC group they would command 14 of the 33 votes, but the dispute would continue once Colombia held out. Nonetheless, CARICOM countries, acting together, could certainly block Colombia’s selection if it were their intention to ensure that one of their members should be the candidate.
There is a case for a CARICOM country to be the candidate for the 2011-2012 term. Since the Caribbean joined the LAC group, Colombia has served four terms and the larger countries – Argentina, Brazil and Mexico in particular – have dominated. But, being on the Security Council is not a cheap affair particularly if election is preceded by a contest with a richer country.
A small Caribbean country would have to invest heavily in the election campaign travelling around the world to drum up support. Then, it would have to strengthen its mission with qualified people, meeting the significantly increased costs for two-years. If it does not beef up its mission, it will do nothing more than warm the Council seat some of the time. That would do no good for the work of the Security Council and would convince the international community that small states have no place there. All of CARICOM would have to pitch in financially and with qualified people.
The situation would be worse if a non-CARICOM country paid the bill. The international community would see this as “he who pays the piper, calling the tune”, and CARICOM’s standing would be diminished to its detriment. This is not far-fetched; it happens now in the International Whaling Commission where Japan finances the participation of some small states and directs their votes.
If CARICOM countries decide to support St Vincent or another one of their small members against Colombia for as important an organ as the UN Security Council where all eyes will be focussed on them, they must be prepared to meet the costs, and they should ensure that the candidature is in their own interests and not to promote the policies of any other country.
May 7, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Jamaican minister laments low tourism dollar retention in region
KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) -- Jamaica's Tourism Minister, Edmund Bartlett, has said Caribbean destinations must forge a collaborative unit in order to keep tourism earnings within the region.
Speaking on Tuesday at the Rotary Club's District 7020 annual conference in New Kingston, the Minister said most Caribbean nations were solely or significantly dependent on tourism for their economic survival.
He said, as a result, it was essential for those nations to work together to find ways to minimise the "leak" of the tourism dollar, and to ensure that the earnings from the market stay in their countries.
Bartlett noted that one in every four jobs in the Caribbean is generated by tourism, some 60 per cent of foreign direct investment in the region is related to tourism investment and, perhaps, 40 per cent of general foreign exchange is driven by tourism.
However, he said that, in the Caribbean, the tourism dollar does not stay in the destination, but "goes back to where it came from." He stated that many Caribbean destinations are retaining as low as seven cents of every dollar they gain from the tourist.
"Nobody in the Caribbean is saying that we are getting 60 cents or 80 cents of the dollar remaining. The failing is that we have not been able, in the region, to tap fully into the supply chain and to be able to ensure that every cent from the dollar stays in the destination," he lamented.
Caribbean destinations have not been able to accomplish this, because they have not invested in the "supply side" of the industry, he said.
"We have invested mainly in the demand side and, in order to generate that demand, we have to spend overseas because our marketing is overseas," he argued.
He said research has shown that currently only about three per cent of the produce from the agricultural sector goes into tourism, while other industries supply between 15 and 35 per cent.
"We quarrel about export issues and trade issues and competition in the global market for our commodities and agricultural produce, and we're sitting right here with an export industry that has the capability to absorb every kilo of our supplies, every unit, and we ignore it."
He said local farmers have the opportunity to tap into the tourism market, but must first work on a number of key points. He suggested that to deal with the supply side of the market, there must be volume, consistency, quality and a price point.
"Because it has to compete with the rest of the world and that is what we must be serious about," he said.
He argued that while the Jamaican farmer might not be able to do it alone, this was an ideal point in which farmers in the region can collaborate and link with others in the industry.
"If we supply those demands for the tourism industry, the Caribbean can become self-sufficient in many regards. But, it requires some innovation, some new thinking and this is where we are going," Bartlett stated.
May 6, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Speaking on Tuesday at the Rotary Club's District 7020 annual conference in New Kingston, the Minister said most Caribbean nations were solely or significantly dependent on tourism for their economic survival.
He said, as a result, it was essential for those nations to work together to find ways to minimise the "leak" of the tourism dollar, and to ensure that the earnings from the market stay in their countries. Bartlett noted that one in every four jobs in the Caribbean is generated by tourism, some 60 per cent of foreign direct investment in the region is related to tourism investment and, perhaps, 40 per cent of general foreign exchange is driven by tourism.
However, he said that, in the Caribbean, the tourism dollar does not stay in the destination, but "goes back to where it came from." He stated that many Caribbean destinations are retaining as low as seven cents of every dollar they gain from the tourist.
"Nobody in the Caribbean is saying that we are getting 60 cents or 80 cents of the dollar remaining. The failing is that we have not been able, in the region, to tap fully into the supply chain and to be able to ensure that every cent from the dollar stays in the destination," he lamented.
Caribbean destinations have not been able to accomplish this, because they have not invested in the "supply side" of the industry, he said.
"We have invested mainly in the demand side and, in order to generate that demand, we have to spend overseas because our marketing is overseas," he argued.
He said research has shown that currently only about three per cent of the produce from the agricultural sector goes into tourism, while other industries supply between 15 and 35 per cent.
"We quarrel about export issues and trade issues and competition in the global market for our commodities and agricultural produce, and we're sitting right here with an export industry that has the capability to absorb every kilo of our supplies, every unit, and we ignore it."
He said local farmers have the opportunity to tap into the tourism market, but must first work on a number of key points. He suggested that to deal with the supply side of the market, there must be volume, consistency, quality and a price point.
"Because it has to compete with the rest of the world and that is what we must be serious about," he said.
He argued that while the Jamaican farmer might not be able to do it alone, this was an ideal point in which farmers in the region can collaborate and link with others in the industry.
"If we supply those demands for the tourism industry, the Caribbean can become self-sufficient in many regards. But, it requires some innovation, some new thinking and this is where we are going," Bartlett stated.
May 6, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Careless with CARICOM - Part 2
Sir Shridath Ramphal:
At the end of Part 1, I suggested that we are losing our way abroad as we are at home. It was not always so; and progress on each journey helped us forward on the other.
Have we forgotten the days when as West Indians we were the first to daringly bring the ‘Non-Aligned Movement’ to the Western Hemisphere, when we pioneered rejection of the ‘two China’ policy and recognized the People’s Republic; when, together, we broke the western diplomatic embargo of Cuba; when we forced withdrawal of the Kissinger plan for a ‘Community of the Western Hemisphere’; when we were in the front rank (both intellectual and diplomatic) of the effort for a New International Economic Order; when from this region, bending iron wills, we gave leadership in the struggle against ‘apartheid’ in Southern Africa; when we inspired the creation of the ACP and kept ‘reciprocity’ at bay for 25 years; when we forced recognition of the vulnerability of ‘small states’?
In all this, and more, for all our size we stood tall; we commanded respect, if not always endearment.
And beyond respect from others, was self-esteem; because in all these actions, and others, we were guided by principles: principles rooted in our regional values; principles we were not afraid to articulate and by which we stood, mindful of, but not deterred by, objections to positions we once took boldly on the global stage - not recklessly, but in unity, with honor and circumspection.
For what do we stand today, united and respected?
Some of us weaken the region’s standing in the international community when we are seen as clients of Japan’s pursuit of whaling. We eviscerate any common foreign policy in CARICOM when some of us cohabit with Taiwan. Deserting our African and Pacific partners, we yield to Europe - and take pride in being first to submit.
What do these aberrations do for our honor and standing in the world? How do they square with our earlier record of small states standing for principles that commanded respect and buttressed self-esteem? The answers are all negative. And, inevitably, what they do in due measure is require us to disown each other and display our discordance to the world. This is where ‘local control’ has led us in the 21st Century. We call it now ‘sovereignty’.
It is easy, perhaps natural, for us as Caribbean people to shift blame to our Governments; and Governments, of course, are not blameless. But, in our democracies, Governments do what we allow them to do: they say: ‘we do what our people want us to do’. And who can deny that that is so, while we accept their excesses with equanimity, certainly in silence – and not infrequently renew their political mandate.
No! The fault is with us. We have each been touched with the glow of ‘local control’; each moved by the siren song of ‘sovereignty’; have each allowed the stigma of otherness, even foreignness, to degrade our Caribbean kinship. The fault lies not in our political stars but in ourselves that we are what and where we are; and what and where we will be in a global society that demands of us the very best we can be.
When are we at our best? Surely, when we are as one; with one identity; acting with the strength and courage that oneness gives us. Does anyone doubt that whatever we undertake, we do it better when we do it together?
Thirty-five years ago, in 1975, on the shores of Montego Bay as I took leave of Caribbean leaders before assuming new roles at the Commonwealth, my parting message was a plea TO CARE FOR CARICOM. Among the things I said then was this:
Each generation of West Indians has an obligation to advance the process of regional development and the evolution of an ethos of unity. Ours is endeavoring to do so; but we shall fail utterly if we ignore these fundamental attributes of our West Indian condition and, assuming without warrant the inevitability of our oneness, become casual, neglectful, indifferent or undisciplined in sustaining that process and that evolution.
The burden of my message is that we have become ‘casual, neglectful, indifferent and undisciplined’ in sustaining and advancing Caribbean integration: that we have become careless with CARICOM – and in the process are falling into to a state of disunity which by now we should have made preternatural. It will be a slow and gradual descent; but ineluctably it will be an ending.
In Derek Walcott’s recently published collection of poems, White Egrets, there are some lines which conjure up that image of slow passing:
With the leisure of a leaf falling in the forest,
Pale yellow spinning against green – my ending.
This must not be a regional epitaph.
If CARICOM is not to end like a leaf falling in the forest, prevailing apathy and unconcern must cease; reversal from unity must end. The old cult of ‘local control’ must not extinguish hope of regional rescue through collective effort; must not allow a narcissist insularity to deny us larger vision and ennobling roles. We must escape the mental prison of narrow domestic walls and build the new Caribbean with room for all to flourish. We must cherish our local identities; but they must enrich the mosaic of regionalism, not withhold from it their separate splendors.
Today that mosaic is most evident in Caribbean diasporas who have heightened their self-esteem and secured an identity for themselves by holding fast to that image of Caribbean oneness which is slipping away from us at home. No one has told them this is the reality at home; in fact, self-deception, even denial, in the Caribbean has kept them united in a quite poignant way. Could it be that we are more true to ourselves in London or New York or Toronto, than we are within the region itself? What an irony that would be?
In some ways, it must be said, that identity slippage is less evident among the smallest of us. The OECS islands are developing a model of economic unity among themselves which would be worthy of all, if it could subsist for all. But, it is early days, and it remains to be seen at the level of action whether, even for them, the ‘agony’ lingers still.
Whatever ails us now, we must recover our resolve to survive as one people, one region. Imbued by such resolve, yet only so resolved, there is a future for this region that can be better than the best we have ever been. Make no mistake, however; neither complacency nor resignation will suffice. What the Caribbean needs is rescue – by ourselves, from ourselves and for ourselves. We cannot be careless with our oneness, which is our lifeline. We must not be CARELESS with CARICOM.
(Sir Shridath has held the positions of Commonwealth Secretary-General, Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, Chairman of the West Indian Commission and Chief Negotiator in the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery)
May 5, 2010
Careless with CARICOM - Part 1
caribbeannetnews
At the end of Part 1, I suggested that we are losing our way abroad as we are at home. It was not always so; and progress on each journey helped us forward on the other.
Have we forgotten the days when as West Indians we were the first to daringly bring the ‘Non-Aligned Movement’ to the Western Hemisphere, when we pioneered rejection of the ‘two China’ policy and recognized the People’s Republic; when, together, we broke the western diplomatic embargo of Cuba; when we forced withdrawal of the Kissinger plan for a ‘Community of the Western Hemisphere’; when we were in the front rank (both intellectual and diplomatic) of the effort for a New International Economic Order; when from this region, bending iron wills, we gave leadership in the struggle against ‘apartheid’ in Southern Africa; when we inspired the creation of the ACP and kept ‘reciprocity’ at bay for 25 years; when we forced recognition of the vulnerability of ‘small states’?
In all this, and more, for all our size we stood tall; we commanded respect, if not always endearment. And beyond respect from others, was self-esteem; because in all these actions, and others, we were guided by principles: principles rooted in our regional values; principles we were not afraid to articulate and by which we stood, mindful of, but not deterred by, objections to positions we once took boldly on the global stage - not recklessly, but in unity, with honor and circumspection.
For what do we stand today, united and respected?
Some of us weaken the region’s standing in the international community when we are seen as clients of Japan’s pursuit of whaling. We eviscerate any common foreign policy in CARICOM when some of us cohabit with Taiwan. Deserting our African and Pacific partners, we yield to Europe - and take pride in being first to submit.
What do these aberrations do for our honor and standing in the world? How do they square with our earlier record of small states standing for principles that commanded respect and buttressed self-esteem? The answers are all negative. And, inevitably, what they do in due measure is require us to disown each other and display our discordance to the world. This is where ‘local control’ has led us in the 21st Century. We call it now ‘sovereignty’.
It is easy, perhaps natural, for us as Caribbean people to shift blame to our Governments; and Governments, of course, are not blameless. But, in our democracies, Governments do what we allow them to do: they say: ‘we do what our people want us to do’. And who can deny that that is so, while we accept their excesses with equanimity, certainly in silence – and not infrequently renew their political mandate.
No! The fault is with us. We have each been touched with the glow of ‘local control’; each moved by the siren song of ‘sovereignty’; have each allowed the stigma of otherness, even foreignness, to degrade our Caribbean kinship. The fault lies not in our political stars but in ourselves that we are what and where we are; and what and where we will be in a global society that demands of us the very best we can be.
When are we at our best? Surely, when we are as one; with one identity; acting with the strength and courage that oneness gives us. Does anyone doubt that whatever we undertake, we do it better when we do it together?
Thirty-five years ago, in 1975, on the shores of Montego Bay as I took leave of Caribbean leaders before assuming new roles at the Commonwealth, my parting message was a plea TO CARE FOR CARICOM. Among the things I said then was this:
Each generation of West Indians has an obligation to advance the process of regional development and the evolution of an ethos of unity. Ours is endeavoring to do so; but we shall fail utterly if we ignore these fundamental attributes of our West Indian condition and, assuming without warrant the inevitability of our oneness, become casual, neglectful, indifferent or undisciplined in sustaining that process and that evolution.
The burden of my message is that we have become ‘casual, neglectful, indifferent and undisciplined’ in sustaining and advancing Caribbean integration: that we have become careless with CARICOM – and in the process are falling into to a state of disunity which by now we should have made preternatural. It will be a slow and gradual descent; but ineluctably it will be an ending.
In Derek Walcott’s recently published collection of poems, White Egrets, there are some lines which conjure up that image of slow passing:
With the leisure of a leaf falling in the forest,
Pale yellow spinning against green – my ending.
This must not be a regional epitaph.
If CARICOM is not to end like a leaf falling in the forest, prevailing apathy and unconcern must cease; reversal from unity must end. The old cult of ‘local control’ must not extinguish hope of regional rescue through collective effort; must not allow a narcissist insularity to deny us larger vision and ennobling roles. We must escape the mental prison of narrow domestic walls and build the new Caribbean with room for all to flourish. We must cherish our local identities; but they must enrich the mosaic of regionalism, not withhold from it their separate splendors.
Today that mosaic is most evident in Caribbean diasporas who have heightened their self-esteem and secured an identity for themselves by holding fast to that image of Caribbean oneness which is slipping away from us at home. No one has told them this is the reality at home; in fact, self-deception, even denial, in the Caribbean has kept them united in a quite poignant way. Could it be that we are more true to ourselves in London or New York or Toronto, than we are within the region itself? What an irony that would be?
In some ways, it must be said, that identity slippage is less evident among the smallest of us. The OECS islands are developing a model of economic unity among themselves which would be worthy of all, if it could subsist for all. But, it is early days, and it remains to be seen at the level of action whether, even for them, the ‘agony’ lingers still.
Whatever ails us now, we must recover our resolve to survive as one people, one region. Imbued by such resolve, yet only so resolved, there is a future for this region that can be better than the best we have ever been. Make no mistake, however; neither complacency nor resignation will suffice. What the Caribbean needs is rescue – by ourselves, from ourselves and for ourselves. We cannot be careless with our oneness, which is our lifeline. We must not be CARELESS with CARICOM.
(Sir Shridath has held the positions of Commonwealth Secretary-General, Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, Chairman of the West Indian Commission and Chief Negotiator in the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery)
May 5, 2010
Careless with CARICOM - Part 1
caribbeannetnews
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Careless with CARICOM - Part 1
Sir Shridath Ramphal:
As ‘West Indians’, as ‘Caribbean people’, we face a basic contradiction of oneness and otherness, a basic paradox of kinship and alienation. Much of our history is the interplay of these contrarieties. But they are not of equal weight. The very notion of being West Indian speaks of identity, of oneness. That identity is the product of centuries of living together and is itself a triumph over the divisive geography of an archipelago which speaks to otherness. Today, CARICOM and all it connotes, is the hallmark of that triumph, and it is well to remember the processes which forged it – lest we forget, and lose it.
Throughout history our geo-political region has known that it is a kinship in and around an enclosing Sea. But, through most of that time it suited local elites – from white planters, through successor merchant groups, to establishment colonials - to keep the Sea as a convenient boundary against encroachment on their ‘local control’. Political aspirants in our region jostled for their Governor’s ear, not each other’s arm.
Times changed in the nineteen twenties and thirties – between the ‘world wars’. The external economic and political environments changed; and the internal environments changed – social, political and most of all demographic. Local control began to pass to the hands of local creoles, mainly professionals, later trade unionists, and for a while the new political class saw value in a strategy of regional unity. Maryshaw’s slogan ‘the West Indies must be West Indian’ carried at the masthead of his crusading newspaper was evocative. For two generations, West Indian ‘unity’ was a progressive political credo.
It was a strategy that was to reach its apogee in the Federation of The West Indies: due to become Independent in mid-1962. It is often forgotten that the ‘the’ in the name of the new nation was consciously spelt with a capital ‘T’ – The West Indies - an insistence on the oneness of the federated region. But, by then, that was verbal insistence against a contrary reality, already re-emerging. The new political elites for whom ‘unity’ offered a pathway to political power through ‘independence’ had found by the 1960s that that pathway was opening up regardless.
Regional unity was no longer a pre-condition to ‘local control’. Hence, the referendum in Jamaica; and Trinidad’s arithmetic that ‘1’ from ‘10’ left ‘0’; even ‘the agony of the eight’. The century old impulse for ‘local control’ had prevailed, and the separatist instincts of a dividing sea had resumed ascendancy.
But, as in the nineteen twenties and thirties, so in the sixties and seventies – the environment changed against separatism. Independence on a separate basis had secured ‘local control’; but the old nemesis of colonialism was replaced by the new suzerainty of globalization. Independence, particularly for Caribbean micro states, was not enough to deliver Elysium. ‘Unity’ no sooner discarded was back in vogue; but less a matter of the heart than of the head.
In an interdependent world which in the name of liberalization made no distinctions between rich and poor, big and small, regional unity was compulsive. Caribbean states needed each other for survival; ‘unity’ was the only protective kit they could afford. Only three years after the rending ‘referendum’ came the first tentative steps to ‘unity’ in 1965 with CARIFTA; ‘tentative’, because the old obsession with ‘local control’ continued to trump oneness – certainly in Cabinet Rooms; but in drawing rooms too; though less so at street corners.
Despite the new external compulsions the pursuit of even economic unity, which publics largely accepted, has been a passage of attrition. It has taken us from 1965 to 2010 - 45 years – to crawl through CARIFTA and CARICOM, through the fractured promises of Chaguaramas and Grand Anse, and through innumerable Declarations and Affirmations and Commitments Not surprisingly, we have reached a moment of widespread public disbelief that our professed goal of a ‘Single Market and Economy’ will ever be attained.
In the acknowledged quest for survival, the old urge for ‘local control’ has not matured to provide real space for the ‘unity’ we say we need. Like 19th century colonists we still struggle to keep our rocks in our pockets – despite the enhanced logic of pooling our resources and the enlarged danger of ‘state capture’ by unelected groups and external forces if we do not.
In the 21st century, despite all we know in our minds of the brutality of the global environment and the need for collective action to survive it, the isolationist claims of ‘local control’ still smother the demands of unity of purpose and action. It is puzzling that it should be so; for we have assuredly made large gains in what ‘unity’ most demands – ‘identity’.
There may be exceptions; but does not every citizen of every CARICOM country regard himself or herself as a Caribbean person – not first and foremost, of course, but after his or her national ’ identity - a member of the society we call ‘West Indian’. There may be grouses, even anger, at not being treated ‘properly’ – especially at immigration counters – but that is because as ‘West Indians’ we expect to be treated better. Our anger hinges not on the absence of identity but on its assumed reality; on the conviction that our common identity is not a garb we wear outside but shed when we come home.
Just recently, we lost one of the Caribbean’s most illustrious sons – an ‘incandescent eagle’ I called him. The whole Caribbean mourned him. And West Indian diasporas – not just Jamaican – mourned Rex Nettleford as a Caribbean person. We groan together when West Indian cricket grovels; and jump together when it triumphs. What is all this but identity?
It is not an identity crisis that we face. We know we are a family. But our family values are less sturdy than they should be – those values that should move regional unity from rhetoric to reality; should make integration an intuitive process and the CSME a natural bonding. Until we live by these values so that all the family prospers, we degrade that identity.
We are also failing to fulfill the promise we once held out of being a light in the darkness of the developing world. Our regionalism inspired many in the South who also aspired to strength through unity. We have all but withdrawn from these roles, and in some areas like the EPA with Europe we have forsaken our brothers in the South.
Recently, the former President of Tanzania, Ben Mkapa, who was our brother in arms in the North-South arena, was warning Africa against the same EPA of which we have made Europe such a gift. We have lost solidarity not only with ourselves, but collectively with our brothers in the developing world.
And, perhaps, therein lies the ‘rub’. Were we making a reality of our own regional unity we would not be false to ourselves and to others who look to us for a vision of the future. Instead, we are losing our way both at home and abroad.
(Part 2 to follow)
(Sir Shridath has held the positions of Commonwealth Secretary-General, Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, Chairman of the West Indian Commission and Chief Negotiator in the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery)
May 4, 2010
Careless with CARICOM - Part 2
caribbeannetnews
As ‘West Indians’, as ‘Caribbean people’, we face a basic contradiction of oneness and otherness, a basic paradox of kinship and alienation. Much of our history is the interplay of these contrarieties. But they are not of equal weight. The very notion of being West Indian speaks of identity, of oneness. That identity is the product of centuries of living together and is itself a triumph over the divisive geography of an archipelago which speaks to otherness. Today, CARICOM and all it connotes, is the hallmark of that triumph, and it is well to remember the processes which forged it – lest we forget, and lose it.
Throughout history our geo-political region has known that it is a kinship in and around an enclosing Sea. But, through most of that time it suited local elites – from white planters, through successor merchant groups, to establishment colonials - to keep the Sea as a convenient boundary against encroachment on their ‘local control’. Political aspirants in our region jostled for their Governor’s ear, not each other’s arm. Times changed in the nineteen twenties and thirties – between the ‘world wars’. The external economic and political environments changed; and the internal environments changed – social, political and most of all demographic. Local control began to pass to the hands of local creoles, mainly professionals, later trade unionists, and for a while the new political class saw value in a strategy of regional unity. Maryshaw’s slogan ‘the West Indies must be West Indian’ carried at the masthead of his crusading newspaper was evocative. For two generations, West Indian ‘unity’ was a progressive political credo.
It was a strategy that was to reach its apogee in the Federation of The West Indies: due to become Independent in mid-1962. It is often forgotten that the ‘the’ in the name of the new nation was consciously spelt with a capital ‘T’ – The West Indies - an insistence on the oneness of the federated region. But, by then, that was verbal insistence against a contrary reality, already re-emerging. The new political elites for whom ‘unity’ offered a pathway to political power through ‘independence’ had found by the 1960s that that pathway was opening up regardless.
Regional unity was no longer a pre-condition to ‘local control’. Hence, the referendum in Jamaica; and Trinidad’s arithmetic that ‘1’ from ‘10’ left ‘0’; even ‘the agony of the eight’. The century old impulse for ‘local control’ had prevailed, and the separatist instincts of a dividing sea had resumed ascendancy.
But, as in the nineteen twenties and thirties, so in the sixties and seventies – the environment changed against separatism. Independence on a separate basis had secured ‘local control’; but the old nemesis of colonialism was replaced by the new suzerainty of globalization. Independence, particularly for Caribbean micro states, was not enough to deliver Elysium. ‘Unity’ no sooner discarded was back in vogue; but less a matter of the heart than of the head.
In an interdependent world which in the name of liberalization made no distinctions between rich and poor, big and small, regional unity was compulsive. Caribbean states needed each other for survival; ‘unity’ was the only protective kit they could afford. Only three years after the rending ‘referendum’ came the first tentative steps to ‘unity’ in 1965 with CARIFTA; ‘tentative’, because the old obsession with ‘local control’ continued to trump oneness – certainly in Cabinet Rooms; but in drawing rooms too; though less so at street corners.
Despite the new external compulsions the pursuit of even economic unity, which publics largely accepted, has been a passage of attrition. It has taken us from 1965 to 2010 - 45 years – to crawl through CARIFTA and CARICOM, through the fractured promises of Chaguaramas and Grand Anse, and through innumerable Declarations and Affirmations and Commitments Not surprisingly, we have reached a moment of widespread public disbelief that our professed goal of a ‘Single Market and Economy’ will ever be attained.
In the acknowledged quest for survival, the old urge for ‘local control’ has not matured to provide real space for the ‘unity’ we say we need. Like 19th century colonists we still struggle to keep our rocks in our pockets – despite the enhanced logic of pooling our resources and the enlarged danger of ‘state capture’ by unelected groups and external forces if we do not.
In the 21st century, despite all we know in our minds of the brutality of the global environment and the need for collective action to survive it, the isolationist claims of ‘local control’ still smother the demands of unity of purpose and action. It is puzzling that it should be so; for we have assuredly made large gains in what ‘unity’ most demands – ‘identity’.
There may be exceptions; but does not every citizen of every CARICOM country regard himself or herself as a Caribbean person – not first and foremost, of course, but after his or her national ’ identity - a member of the society we call ‘West Indian’. There may be grouses, even anger, at not being treated ‘properly’ – especially at immigration counters – but that is because as ‘West Indians’ we expect to be treated better. Our anger hinges not on the absence of identity but on its assumed reality; on the conviction that our common identity is not a garb we wear outside but shed when we come home.
Just recently, we lost one of the Caribbean’s most illustrious sons – an ‘incandescent eagle’ I called him. The whole Caribbean mourned him. And West Indian diasporas – not just Jamaican – mourned Rex Nettleford as a Caribbean person. We groan together when West Indian cricket grovels; and jump together when it triumphs. What is all this but identity?
It is not an identity crisis that we face. We know we are a family. But our family values are less sturdy than they should be – those values that should move regional unity from rhetoric to reality; should make integration an intuitive process and the CSME a natural bonding. Until we live by these values so that all the family prospers, we degrade that identity.
We are also failing to fulfill the promise we once held out of being a light in the darkness of the developing world. Our regionalism inspired many in the South who also aspired to strength through unity. We have all but withdrawn from these roles, and in some areas like the EPA with Europe we have forsaken our brothers in the South.
Recently, the former President of Tanzania, Ben Mkapa, who was our brother in arms in the North-South arena, was warning Africa against the same EPA of which we have made Europe such a gift. We have lost solidarity not only with ourselves, but collectively with our brothers in the developing world.
And, perhaps, therein lies the ‘rub’. Were we making a reality of our own regional unity we would not be false to ourselves and to others who look to us for a vision of the future. Instead, we are losing our way both at home and abroad.
(Part 2 to follow)
(Sir Shridath has held the positions of Commonwealth Secretary-General, Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, Chairman of the West Indian Commission and Chief Negotiator in the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery)
May 4, 2010
Careless with CARICOM - Part 2
caribbeannetnews
Monday, May 3, 2010
Haiti island unscathed by quake, but tourists stay away
by Clement Sabourin:
ILE A VACHE, Haiti (AFP) -- There are no blue-helmeted UN troops patrolling the streets of Ile a Vache, and schools on this picturesque island did not close after the massive earthquake that devastated much of the rest of the country.
Even as the rest of Haiti struggled to clear away debris and dispose of their dead, life after the quake has gone on as much as it did before for the 15,000 inhabitants of this unspoiled paradise.
The tiny island, off the southwest peninsula of Haiti a half-hour by boat from the town of Les Cayes, boasts among its many pleasures a vista of rolling hills and crystalline waters lapping its white-sand beaches.
But despite being spared the physical ravages of the quake, the island and its growing tourist industry also have been hit hard by the disaster.
"No tourists have come since the quake," said Didier Boulard, a Frenchman who says that not one stone fell out of place as a result of the temblor that leveled entire city blocks in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.
Nevertheless the quake has brought financial disaster to Ile a Vache, he said.
"I've lost 47,000 dollars," said Boulard, who had high hopes for a 20-room hotel he opened nine years ago with a view over a small bay that served as a harbor for pirates during the 16th and 17th centuries.
With some 50 associates, Boulard invested 2.8 million dollars to open the first prime tourism establishment here -- today one of two hotels on this patch of land measuring only eight miles (13 kilometers) long and two miles (3.2 kilometers) wide -- and dared to celebrate last year when he "managed to turn a small profit".
The January 12 earthquake ended all that, killing as many as 300,000 people nationwide, leaving 1.3 million homeless and relegating Haiti to near the bottom of any vacation list.
At Haiti's big tourist destination of Jacmel, almost 500 people out of a population of 40,000 perished and a quarter of the tourist town's 700 hotel rooms were destroyed.
And though Ile a Vache emerged unscathed, even the thousands of UN and non-governmental organization expats sent in after the quake were banned, for security reasons, from taking breaks inside Haiti itself, so spent rest periods instead in the Dominican Republic right next door or on other islands like Guadeloupe or Martinique.
The fallout forced Boulard to trim his usual 40-member staff down to 25.
On a recent weekend, he had eight guests, including UN officials, humanitarian workers and journalists. Another recent visitor -- a rare bona fide "tourist" -- confessed that she came to Ile a Vache despite dire warnings from friends and relatives to stay away.
"Mine is the tourism of solidarity," said Canadian national Francine Leclerc.
"I've come here to spend my money in a country that needs it."
Over the years, however, travelers have been reluctant to flock to Haiti, with its periodic coups d'etat and natural disasters.
It is also the poorest country of the Americas -- generally not seen as a selling point for visitors who have dozens of tropical paradise destinations to choose from in the sun-drenched Caribbean.
Tourists were scared away two years ago by a succession of hurricanes that leveled a large swath of the island of Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic.
The tourism industry -- which could inject desperately needed revenue into Haiti's economy -- has also been hampered by a lack of infrastructure. For Ile a Vache, for example, the nearest air facility across the bay in Les Cayes is too small to welcome international flights.
Yet this island has a seductively languorous feel, making it unlike other Caribbean destinations. Its residents, descendents of African slaves and freed US blacks who immigrated in the 19th century after America's Civil War, still live to the rhythm of tropical sunsets, screeching cock fights and gurgling mynah birds.
This gives locals like Boulard hope that the unspoiled location might one day fulfill its destiny as tourist haven.
"The potential of tourism in Haiti is colossal." he said. "Neighboring countries welcome 10 million visitors each year," said the ever-hopeful Boulard.
May 3, 2010
caribbeannetnews
ILE A VACHE, Haiti (AFP) -- There are no blue-helmeted UN troops patrolling the streets of Ile a Vache, and schools on this picturesque island did not close after the massive earthquake that devastated much of the rest of the country.
Even as the rest of Haiti struggled to clear away debris and dispose of their dead, life after the quake has gone on as much as it did before for the 15,000 inhabitants of this unspoiled paradise.
The tiny island, off the southwest peninsula of Haiti a half-hour by boat from the town of Les Cayes, boasts among its many pleasures a vista of rolling hills and crystalline waters lapping its white-sand beaches.
But despite being spared the physical ravages of the quake, the island and its growing tourist industry also have been hit hard by the disaster.
"No tourists have come since the quake," said Didier Boulard, a Frenchman who says that not one stone fell out of place as a result of the temblor that leveled entire city blocks in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.
Nevertheless the quake has brought financial disaster to Ile a Vache, he said.
"I've lost 47,000 dollars," said Boulard, who had high hopes for a 20-room hotel he opened nine years ago with a view over a small bay that served as a harbor for pirates during the 16th and 17th centuries.
With some 50 associates, Boulard invested 2.8 million dollars to open the first prime tourism establishment here -- today one of two hotels on this patch of land measuring only eight miles (13 kilometers) long and two miles (3.2 kilometers) wide -- and dared to celebrate last year when he "managed to turn a small profit".
The January 12 earthquake ended all that, killing as many as 300,000 people nationwide, leaving 1.3 million homeless and relegating Haiti to near the bottom of any vacation list.
At Haiti's big tourist destination of Jacmel, almost 500 people out of a population of 40,000 perished and a quarter of the tourist town's 700 hotel rooms were destroyed.
And though Ile a Vache emerged unscathed, even the thousands of UN and non-governmental organization expats sent in after the quake were banned, for security reasons, from taking breaks inside Haiti itself, so spent rest periods instead in the Dominican Republic right next door or on other islands like Guadeloupe or Martinique.
The fallout forced Boulard to trim his usual 40-member staff down to 25.
On a recent weekend, he had eight guests, including UN officials, humanitarian workers and journalists. Another recent visitor -- a rare bona fide "tourist" -- confessed that she came to Ile a Vache despite dire warnings from friends and relatives to stay away.
"Mine is the tourism of solidarity," said Canadian national Francine Leclerc.
"I've come here to spend my money in a country that needs it."
Over the years, however, travelers have been reluctant to flock to Haiti, with its periodic coups d'etat and natural disasters.
It is also the poorest country of the Americas -- generally not seen as a selling point for visitors who have dozens of tropical paradise destinations to choose from in the sun-drenched Caribbean.
Tourists were scared away two years ago by a succession of hurricanes that leveled a large swath of the island of Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic.
The tourism industry -- which could inject desperately needed revenue into Haiti's economy -- has also been hampered by a lack of infrastructure. For Ile a Vache, for example, the nearest air facility across the bay in Les Cayes is too small to welcome international flights.
Yet this island has a seductively languorous feel, making it unlike other Caribbean destinations. Its residents, descendents of African slaves and freed US blacks who immigrated in the 19th century after America's Civil War, still live to the rhythm of tropical sunsets, screeching cock fights and gurgling mynah birds.
This gives locals like Boulard hope that the unspoiled location might one day fulfill its destiny as tourist haven.
"The potential of tourism in Haiti is colossal." he said. "Neighboring countries welcome 10 million visitors each year," said the ever-hopeful Boulard.
May 3, 2010
caribbeannetnews
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