Belize needs to legislate a clear path to obtain amnesties, permanent residencies and citizenships after a criminal background and national security check on potential candidates have been completed... ...This is the only way that Belizeans and foreigners alike would know what our government’s requirements are to obtain the change for foreigners’ immigrant status in Belize

Time for immigration reform in Belize

By Wellington C. Ramos

Prior to the independence of Belize on September 21, 1981, it was difficult for the country to grant amnesty, permanent residencies and citizenships to foreigners because Belize was a colony of Great Britain and Belizeans were still technically considered as British subjects.

At that time, the police department was responsible for immigration matters and people who entered the country illegally were arrested, brought to the magistrate courts and sent back to their respective countries.   There were times when the police would escort these aliens all the way to the Guatemalan and Mexican borders but, by the time they got back to their police stations, those same aliens would return back to their districts and it was frustrating.

During those years, the minister that was responsible for the police department under the People’s United Party (PUP) was Carl Lindbergh Rogers, better known as Lindy Rogers.   He abused his power when it came to prostitution, illegal immigrants and the apprehension of some of the members of the People’s United Party when they committed crimes in Belize.

There were also other ministers in the PUP government who had immigration stamps in their possessions and they were granting aliens permission to stay in Belize as if they were immigration officers.   When police officers would arrest the prostitutes, illegal aliens and the PUP members who committed crimes, orders would be sent from Belmopan from the commissioner of police to release the people from police custody.   All the police officers did was complain and if they spoke about it they were transferred from their stations, refused promotions, victimized or expelled from the police force for trivial reasons. Anyone who was a member of the Belize Police Force during my time can support me with what I am saying because this was the way the Belize Police Force was functioning during those days.

When I was a Corporal of Police in Orange Walk District in the late 1970s, I went on a drug operation in Indian Church village, which is far from Orange Walk Town.   We discovered that some Guatemalans were living in the country illegally and they were cultivating marijuana in the village.   We found the marijuana plants and arrested the ten Guatemalan nationals.   I then ordered the other police officers to have the prisoners pack up their belongings and we confiscated the bags of marijuana and took them to Orange Walk Town for processing.   I told one of the prisoners that I was going to charge him for “illegal entry into the country of Belize”.   He said to me that I cannot charge him for “illegal entry” because he works for Minister Florencio Marin from Corozal.   I was shocked and amazed by this so I asked him to show me his Guatemalan passport.   When he gave me his passport I looked inside of it and it had a stamp with the signature of Minister Florencio Marin.

Upon examining the other prisoner’s passports, they all contained the same stamp.   I was so angry, I brought this matter to the attention of the inspector and he told me that he was going to discuss it with the Commissioner of Police in Belmopan.   I then left the police station to have supper, with the intention of continuing the processing when I returned. When I got back to the station, I was told by the police officer who was the station diarist that all the prisoners had been released from custody.   I went into the inspector’s office and demanded an explanation and he said that he received orders from Belmopan to release the prisoners.   The operation started at 4:00 a.m. that morning and ended at 6:00 p.m. that evening, a total of about seventy miles of journey all in vain.

I can point to several other incidents where the ministers of government obstructed the duties of the Belize Police Force when enforcing the laws of Belize and I eventually decided to leave the country afterwards.   Police officers cannot exercise their duties properly anywhere if ministers of government continue to interfere with the internal affairs of the police force.

After the independence of Belize, the People’s United Party, under the leadership of George Cadle Price, granted amnesty to hundreds of Guatemalan and Salvadoran nationals and created a village for them called The Valley of Peace.   Not only were they given citizenships but also land, housing and other privileges that most natural born Belizean citizens were being denied even up to this day.   This amnesty made me angry because it was the Guatemalan and Salvadoran armies that were assembled by the Belizean border to take Belize by force in 1976 under the presidency of Kjell Laugerud Garicia, a military general.

Shortly after the amnesty, Belize came up with the economic citizenship program where Belizean citizenships were sold for thousands of dollars to Chinese nationals and the funds were unaccounted for.   This program was done without the approval and knowledge of the Belizean people and continued under the UDP administration until a commission on inquiry was held to decide whether to continue or discontinue it.   Sometimes you can see on the internet that Belizean citizenships can still be obtained under this program but I do not have enough information about it like most other Belizean citizens to confirm.

The constitution of Belize prohibits citizenship to be granted to Guatemalan citizens because their country does not recognize the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Belize.   Once Guatemala changes its position with Belize, this restriction will be removed.   However, a minister of the Belize government can grant a waiver to the Guatemalan national to get his or her Belizean citizenship.

Belize needs to legislate a clear path to obtain amnesties, permanent residencies and citizenships after a criminal background and national security check on these potential candidates have been completed.   This is the only way that Belizeans and foreigners alike will know what our government’s requirements are to obtain the change for foreigners’ immigrant status in Belize.   I think that there should also be an “oath of allegiance” that people swear not to bear arms against our country but to defend Belize against any other country if it is attacked.

January 25, 2012

caribbeannewsnow

Jamaica: Not much to show after 50 years of independence

Not much to show after 50 years of independence

By Keeble McFarlane




As Jamaicans everywhere pause to acknowledge 48 years of independence, we should reflect that we joined a bandwagon which had been gathering momentum since the end of one of history's most tumultuous events, the Second World War. With the exception of a strip along the Mediterranean Sea, Africa - the second-largest land mass on earth - remained largely unknown to outsiders until the voyages by European explorers between the 15th and 17th centuries. Egypt, of course, was one of the earliest centres of civilisation and the other countries running west towards the Atlantic had been under European influence since classical times. Two countries escaped the European scramble for Africa in the late 19th century - Ethiopia, which had always been independent, except for a few years of occupation by Italy starting in the 1930s, and Liberia, established by freed slaves from the United States in 1847.

The Europeans came mainly in search of the continent's vast mineral treasures. To this day, about one-third of the world's minerals, including more than half of its diamonds and almost half its gold, are mined in Africa. Other minerals, now highly sought after by the insatiable maw of the electronic factories which churn out cellphones, flat-screen TVs and the like, are now ruthlessly exploited from the continent. At the same time, the birthplace of mankind is ravaged by diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS, while poverty and underdevelopment have kept its teeming millions shackled in a never-ending struggle for mere survival.

Fifty years ago, 17 nations in sub-Saharan Africa gained independence from their European colonists. Fourteen of them were former French colonies and the largest African nation, Nigeria, severed itself from British rule. I recall the excitement some of us felt when as teenagers attending high school we learned about Ghana, the first British colony in Africa to break away from Whitehall's clutches. We looked up to Kwame Nkrumah, who led a non-violent struggle for the independence of the Gold Coast, as the colony was known, achieving that aim in 1957. He was prime minister for the first three years and then declared Ghana a republic in 1960, just as that other large bunch of countries gained their sovereignty.

The new crop of leaders included some worthy contenders - Patrice Lumumba in what was known as the French Congo, Félix Houphouët-Boigny in Ivory Coast, Léopold Senghor in Sénégal and Nnamdi Azikiwe in Nigeria. The new leaders and those who were to come later - like Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya, Julius Nyerere in Tankanyika (which became Tanzania after merging with the nearby island of Zanzibar), Milton Obote of Uganda and Hastings Kamuzu Banda of Nyasaland, which became Malawi - were all fired up about building a new future for their countries now that they had severed themselves from the suffocating strictures of colonialism.

Resentment of colonialism and resistance against it had begun early in the century in several parts of the world. But the colonial powers held all the cards, controlling the world's industry, banking, methods and means of trade right down to the ships in which the raw materials and manufactured goods moved around. The big powers also spent a lot of time and effort squabbling with one another, and the cataclysm we know as World War II soaked up all the available manpower, raw materials and attention of country after country, including the colonies, which now had to feed bodies into the giant meat-grinding machine that war constitutes.

The war left the colonial powers exhausted, both in spirit and in treasure, and they consequently lost the stomach to fight to continue control of the colonies. One of the weakest of the colonial powers, The Netherlands, never regained its prize colony, the Dutch Indies, which became Indonesia, while the much smaller and far less important holdings in the Caribbean lingered on until relatively recently when they detached themselves while retaining a fairly strong connection to the old colonial centre.

Britain was forced to give up its prized holding, India, which had proved most difficult to handle. But the Africans, who had their own complicated social, linguistic, religious and tribal make-up, were a bit easier to hold on to by the classic methods of divide and conquer. Even here, though, the inexorable forces of enlightenment brought about a trickle of changes after the war. Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia and Morocco led the pack in the 1950s before Ghana in 1957 and Guinea, under Ahmed Sékou Touré, in 1958.

Curiously the earliest global empire was the longest lived - at almost six centuries - and the last to quit Africa. Portuguese seafarers were in the front line of European explorers, poking around the coasts of Africa from the early 1400s. After World War II, Portugal's Fascist strongman, António Salazar, conducted a long and bloody armed effort to hold on to the remnants of his empire. The rebels who overthrew him in 1974 immediately recognised the independence of all Portuguese colonies except Macau, a small enclave on the south coast of China. It eventually went in 1999, by agreement with the government in Beijing.

The African dominoes began falling at an unfortunate time - this was the Cold War, when the United States, together with its supporters and clients were locked in a deadly earnest conflict with the Soviet Union and its satellites and clients. Both big countries were not only arming themselves with the latest diabolical weaponry their scientists could devise, but threw vast amounts of money, arms and threats (veiled and otherwise), at the new countries which emerged from under the cruel yoke of colonialism.

So Africa became a battleground for the two camps, and its newly emergent states paid dearly in lives, stillborn development possibilities and distorted governance. Promising leaders like Lumumba in the Democratic Republic of Congo were eliminated and replaced by corrupt figures such as Joseph Mobutu, who morphed himself into Mobutu Sese Seko, renamed his country Zaïre, siphoned vast sums of money meant to help develop his country, and presided over decades of disaster.

Promising leaders like Nkrumah, Kenyatta, Houphouët-Boigny and Robert Mugabe in Southern Rhodesia, which became Zimbabwe after a long and nasty struggle, turned into self-aggrandising tyrants interested only in holding on to power. Instead of building and nurturing vigorous and vibrant democratic political structures, they instead surrounded themselves with sycophants and toadies and eliminated opponents either by intimidation or brutality.

The Cold War eventually ended and outsiders lost interest, except as a place ripe for exploitation. Some countries are engaged in the arduous and painful task of building something in keeping with the aspirations of the early independence figures. A few have managed to remain stable and relatively prosperous. Now there is a new external contender - China - but it is motivated primarily by economic rather than political concerns.

At this half-century mark, there is little to celebrate. Much of the continent's difficulties can be attributed to its colonial heritage. But by the same token, many of Africa's problems are self-inflicted. So instead of celebrating, Africa's extraordinarily complex, complicated and differentiated societies need to examine where they went wrong and generate new ideas on how to tackle the enormous problems they face. They need only take a look across the Atlantic at South America, whose long-battered nations are dynamically devising new political and economic solutions to the demands of the 21st century.

keeble.mack@sympatico.ca

August 07, 2010

jamaicaobserver

Bahamas Blog International

The Politics of Leadership: Guyana and its Presidency (Part 3)

Sir Ronald Sanders


Guyana's system of government and its electoral system are very different from the systems in place in the other 14 Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom) countries. For a start, it has an Executive President whose powers under the Constitution are considerable. Understanding the system is important to appreciating the politics of winning the Government and the Presidency.

In 11 of the Caricom countries which, like Guyana, are former British colonies and Montserrat, which is a still a British colony, the electoral system divides the country into many constituencies. Each party wishing to contest a constituency puts forward one candidate to stand. Each voter in the constituency then casts one vote for the candidate of their choice. The candidate with the largest number of votes is elected as the Member of Parliament for that constituency, and the party whose elected members represent an overall majority then forms the Government.

The exception is where no party's elected members constitute an overall majority. In such a case, political parties then bargain with each other to form a coalition Government as happened recently in Britain where neither of the two largest political parties -- Labour and Conservative -- secured an overall majority of elected members. The Conservative Party and the smaller Liberal Democratic Party then struck a deal to form a coalition Government.

Among the Caricom countries that have a system similar to Britain's is Trinidad and Tobago where, at recent general elections, a number of political parties agreed to form an alliance to contest constituencies against the incumbent governing party but not against each other. At the end of the elections, having together secured an overall majority, they formed a coalition Government.

Guyana's system is different. Its system of elections is based on proportional representation. Each elector has one vote which is cast for a political party. The elector's vote is applied to the election of 65 members of parliament by proportional representation in two ways. First, the country is divided into 10 administrative regions (geographical constituencies) which elect 25 seats. Some of these regions are allocated more seats than others dependent on the size of their population. Second, the remaining 40 seats, called "top up" seats, are then apportioned to parties based on the proportion they received of the total valid votes cast nationally. A vote for a party in the geographical constituency is simultaneously a vote for that party's national "top up" seats.

Importantly, however, while the same single vote of an elector goes toward electing the President, the Constitution of Guyana states that a Presidential candidate shall be deemed to be elected President "if more votes are cast in favour of the list in which he is designated as Presidential candidate than in favour of any other list". In other words, the successful Presidential candidate requires only a plurality of the votes, not an overall majority.

So, given this electoral system, it is possible for a political party that secures the most votes (a plurality) to gain the Presidency outright.

What is not possible is for a coalition of parties after the election to gain the Presidency. Any coalition that wishes both to form the Government and get the Presidency must contest the election as a single entity with a single Presidential candidate whose name has to appear on its list as the Presidential candidate.

It is an interesting debate for lawyers versed in the intricacies of the Guyana Constitution as to whether a President, elected by a plurality of the vote, is obliged to call on a coalition of parties (that may together outnumber the votes cast for his party) to form a Government or could he simply call on his own minority party to form the Government.

The Guyana Constitution states that it is the President who "shall appoint an elected member of the National Assembly to be Prime Minister of Guyana", and the President who shall appoint "Vice Presidents and other Ministers from among persons who are elected members of the National Assembly". There is no stipulation that such appointments should or must be made from elected members of a party or coalition parties that have an overall majority in Parliament.

Therefore, it appears that a President who is elected by a plurality of votes can choose Vice Presidents, the Prime Minister and Ministers from his own party whether it has an overall majority or not.

While it is possible for the majority of elected members in Parliament to vote against legislation and budgets, creating havoc for a minority Government, it would not necessarily stop the Government from functioning. The classic case in point is Canada where the Conservative Party of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been operating a minority Government since 2008.

This all serves to underscore two things if Guyana is to remain politically stable, build on its recent economic successes and take advantage of the enormous economic possibilities of successful oil exploration and minerals development.

First, it would be best if next year's general election is decisive in terms of a clear winner of both the Presidency and the overall majority in Parliament for one party. To this end, the ruling People's Progressive Party should ensure that both its Presidential candidate and its policies are broad enough to appeal to a wider cross section of the electorate than its core supporters. Similarly, the now disparate opposition parties (disunited internally and fragmented) should try to forge an alliance that also has a Presidential candidate and policies that are attractive across a wide swath of the Guyanese population.

Second, whoever wins the election, the problems of race, equal opportunity, bridging the increasing gap between rich and poor, and crime require tackling in an open, transparent and institutionalised way, or Guyana will always be a divided and weak society failing to be the cohesive and strong nation that it could be in its own interest, and the interest of its Caricom neighbours.

-- Sir Ronald Sanders is a consultant and former Caribbean diplomat
Responses and previous commentaries at: www.sirronaldsanders.com

June 27, 2010

Politics of Leadership - Guyana and its presidency (Part-1)

The Politics of Leadership: Part 2 of Guyana and its Presidency

jamaicaobserver

Bahamas Blog International

British government gets more than it bargained for in Turks & Caicos

By Ben Roberts:

Methinks the British, and by the British I really mean the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO), and to a lesser extent other leading authorities, are quite stunned about the lowly Turks & Caicos and its current trials and tribulations, and how this issue has grabbed their body politic by the throat and not let go.

They probably thought this would be the usual dog and pony show as in other corruption probes in the Territories, where they would come in, conduct a half-hearted Inquiry, declare the natives in power to be suspect and marinated in corruption, rap a few fingers for bad behaviour, deny a few privileges for the political elite such as disbarment from running for political office, return across the Atlantic to have scribes write a voluminous dust-collecting report on the matter, and pin the expense of the whole exercise on the natives. Case closed.

Not so. This matter of the lowly and, in some cases, hardly known T&C, is sending seismic shock waves through the Mother of all Parliaments, as the British system of government is at times referred to. In other words, they are experiencing their own earthquake that is shaking up and unearthing a system not usually known for drastic changes of direction. This is especially evident for the FCO and its antiquated way of doing business. But even the British Parliament is being affected by these developments in T&C. And why should T&C not have such effect, as far as Overseas Territories go? They always did. Here’s some past history:

Archival material on T&C revealed that, during the American War of Independence, these Islands were involved in something that had huge consequences for the world as we know it today. It was a crucial point in the war. America was experiencing one of its worst winters. Its Continental Army was hungry, demoralized, and in tatters. Without food the troops were dying in significant numbers.

They had no food because they had no salt to cure their meat to ensure their soldiers’ bellies were full, affording them the strength to fight (Remember, a famous military quote that ‘an army travels on its stomach.’ Also remember that in this time there was no refrigeration, so curing meats with salt was the way to preserve food).

This is where T&C comes in. During that time, this British colony was a major salt producer. Through some subterfuge and strange shenanigans, General George Washington, the commander of American troops, was able to request and secure salt from T&C. This changed the dynamics immensely. The British Redcoats, well-fed and licking their chops, were thinking it was only a matter of time once the elements let up for them to launch their offensive, before the enemy would fall to them, thereby quashing the Revolution.

To their surprise the Americans were able to beat them back, and inevitably go on to defeat them and gain independence. Chalk up one huge loss for the British. And it was none but the lowly and seeming insignificant Turks & Caicos that had a part to play in this reversal of fortune, and earth-shattering change and advance for the world.

In a newspaper article from some time ago, a British writer described Turks & Caicos as ‘insignificant ink-dots in the ocean.’ Really! T&C has been, throughout its history, a valuable asset to the British. Just look at their geography. The most north-easterly of Caribbean Islands and the jump-off point with the closest distance to Europe. Having this small territory as a possession translated into a strategic gold-mine for any colonial power.

From here there was the quickest access to Europe and the halfway point going to and from the valuable colony of America. It also guarded the important approaches to and from the Caribbean and South America. It was key for Britain and its wealth because from here they would routinely lie in wait for the gold-laden Spanish galleons coming from South America and making their pit-stop into the ports of Santo Domingo and Puerta Plata in what is now the Dominican Republic. T&C is just ninety miles away from this island.

Also in their quest to wrest Haiti, the prize of the Caribbean, away from France, the British without question maximized the use of this asset just ninety miles away. What stories Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Henry Morgan, Black Bart, and General Maitland would have about T&C, were we able to call them back to our time.

So you see, despite its small size and seeming insignificance, Turks & Caicos has always had a telling impact on Britain. Today is no different. Its current state of affairs is shaking the British system in more ways than one. We have British lords and moneyed interests that have clearly contributed to this Territory’s current crisis. We have political high and mighties suffering setbacks in being relegated to the back bench and handed assignments that amount to exile in remote missions.

We have seen a significant arm of the British Government, the FCO pilloried and on the defensive from its own government and T&C citizens for its negligence and archaic behaviour in addressing the current situation. We even have important Committees in the British Parliament engaged in substantial debate on Turks & Caicos. In that debate, we even have politicians on watch during the demise of T&C conveniently running for cover trying to distance themselves from the scene.

Yes. It was stunning to hear former Permanent Undersecretary Meg Munn, the one responsible for matters relating to T&C during the time of the debacle, say in the debate: “As the minister rightly says, I was the minister responsible for Overseas Territories for a while, including when the Inquiry was set in place, although I, too, have never visited the Turks & Caicos.”

Can this be true? How can it be when various T&C citizens, including a prominent media representative, confirm that Meg Munn was in T&C at the eleventh hour, attempting damage control and trying to give a positive spin on the dismal state of affairs.

Hence despite its size, which one might easily and foolishly equate with insignificance, Turks & Caicos, more than most colonies in the faded British realm, has throughout history had a profound effect on the politics, financial fortunes, and global reach of the British. Today is no different. The current intervention and players of an Interim Government, the FCO which administers this entity, and the British Parliament and its Foreign Affairs Committee which oversees the FCO, should do well to remember this.

Ben Roberts is a Turks & Caicos Islander. He is a newsletter editor, freelance writer, and published author. He is the author of numerous articles that have been carried by a variety of Internet websites and read worldwide. He is often published in Turks & Caicos news media, and in the local newspapers where he resides. His action adventure novel, Jackals of Samarra, can be found at Amazon.com, and most of the major Internet book outlet sites.

April 12, 2010

caribbeannetnews