jamaica-gleaner editorial
Most Jamaicans will have mixed emotions over Christopher Coke's guilty plea in America on racketeering and conspiracy charges. Primarily, though, they will feel a measure of relief.
There will be a sense of vindication, for they were certain all along that Coke had done the things of which he was accused. Yet, many of us can't help but be disappointed, hurt, angry even. We were taken through all of that only for this.
All of that, of course, is the trauma Jamaica was caused to suffer, including to its international reputation, over the affair involving this international gangster, whose base was Tivoli Gardens, the 'garrison' in west Kingston where voters are fiercely loyal to the governing Jamaica Labour Party, and which is part of the parliamentary riding of Prime Minister Bruce Golding.
When the Americans sought to extradite Coke on charges that he exported narcotics to their country and imported guns into Jamaica, the Golding administration stalled for nine months. Jamaica argued that the Americans had breached the extradition treaty between the two countries and had abused Coke's constitutional rights in the way it got hold of wiretap evidence used in the indictment against the drug boss.
The ruling party then hired American lobbyists to intervene in the dispute between the two countries to try to soften Washington's stance on the Coke extradition. In what supposedly was a private party endeavour mingled with official diplomacy, government spokespersons - not excluding Prime Minister Golding - often sounded more like Coke's legal strategists than state officials.
When the Government finally bowed to public pressure to execute the extradition request and to allow the courts to decide if it was in concert with the law, Coke gathered his private militia into his Tivoli Gardens redoubt. Coke's supporters elsewhere attacked police stations and generally caused mayhem.
The larger context
The effort by the security forces to pacify Tivoli Gardens left more than 70 people dead and the Jamaican state badly rattled, its fragility patent. That, we feel, provides the larger context within which to consider the Coke matter.
Christopher Coke personifies the kind of threat to the security and democracy of small and vulnerable countries like Jamaica. Control of large amounts of resources, illicitly derived notwithstanding, endow gangsters with the capacity to corrupt the political process and to control many levers of the State by proxy. Indeed, Coke's activities - and the criminal machinations of others - were an open secret in Jamaica.
However, given Coke's political and community connections, underpinned by his ability to distribute largesse and corral votes, it is likely that he would not have been arrested and prosecuted in Jamaica. Such an eventuality would have been made more difficult by the political fault lines in Jamaica.
In that respect, and as grudgingly as we concede it, Jamaica ought to be thankful for America's move against Coke, particularly as murders and other serious crimes have plummeted since his ouster by the military. Hopefully, Coke's arrest and guilty plea mark the crossing of a Rubicon - and the end of impunity by such hard men of violence and crime.
September 2, 2011
jamaica-gleaner editorial
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Showing posts with label Jamaicans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jamaicans. Show all posts
Friday, September 2, 2011
Friday, February 4, 2011
Why Jamaica should take note of Egypt
jamaica-gleaner editorial
IT WOULD be easy for our Government, and Jamaicans generally, to assume that there are no parallels between the violent uprising in Egypt against the long-serving President Hosni Mubarak, or the revolt in Tunisia that chucked out the dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali.
Nor might we see a congruence between anything in Jamaica and the events in Yemen, where President Ali Abdullah Saleh is under pressure from demonstrators; nor Algeria, where Abdelaziz Bouteflika has announced that a 20-year-old state of emergency is to be lifted.
Nor would Jamaica expect to be classified with Jordan, with its limited constitutional rule and where real power rests with King Abdullah III.
After all, Jamaica, its social malaise notwithstanding, is a functional democracy with high levels of individual freedom and the right of people to elect their government at intervals, although the process sometimes gets rather messy.
This newspaper, however, believes that as Jamaica watches the deepening unrest in North Africa and the Arab world, it is serious cause for concern. For while the proximate cause of the uprisings - Ben Ali, Mubarak and Co - may be to throw off repression in favour of democracy, the underlying issues are much deeper.
disenchanted young people
They are as much social and economic as political, and have been driven, primarily, by disenchanted young people. And therein lies our parallel.
Ben Ali, for instance, found it relatively easy to maintain social stability when his country's economy was in reasonably decent health. Things, however, have gone sour, and domestic economic problems have been aggravated by the global crisis. Political discontent has been exacerbated by high levels of joblessness and underemployment, particularly among young people.
In essence, the crises faced by youth in the North African and Arab states are not dissimilar to those highlighted by social anthropologist Professor Don Robotham in last Sunday's edition of this newspaper, and upon which we commented in the same issue.
urgent and robust attention
There are some harrowing facts worth recalling: nearly 400,000 people in the 15-29 age group - 59 per cent of the cohort - are either unemployed or out of the labour force. Of this group, 83 per cent have stopped looking for work, most likely because they believe that there are no jobs to be found.
Fixing problems such as these is never easy, but they always demand urgent and robust attention, which Prime Minister Bruce Golding and his Jamaica Labour Party promised would be the case when they came to office more than three years ago.
We have, however, neither felt nor seen the urgency of an administration that is driving hard for economic growth and giving substance to its promise of job creation. It has mostly pursued a predictable economic orthodoxy of the recent past, with little embrace of a real partnership with the private sector to jump-start and rev the economy.
Early in its tenure, this newspaper suggested to the administration the need for something akin to a job council, similar to the one US President Barack Obama appointed recently with General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt at the helm. We recommitted to the idea at the time of Mr Immelt's appointment and do so again.
We don't assume that Mr Obama has greater insight than our prime minister, unless the US president has a better grasp of Middle East matters.
The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.
February 4, 2011
jamaica-gleaner editorial
IT WOULD be easy for our Government, and Jamaicans generally, to assume that there are no parallels between the violent uprising in Egypt against the long-serving President Hosni Mubarak, or the revolt in Tunisia that chucked out the dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali.
Nor might we see a congruence between anything in Jamaica and the events in Yemen, where President Ali Abdullah Saleh is under pressure from demonstrators; nor Algeria, where Abdelaziz Bouteflika has announced that a 20-year-old state of emergency is to be lifted.
Nor would Jamaica expect to be classified with Jordan, with its limited constitutional rule and where real power rests with King Abdullah III.
After all, Jamaica, its social malaise notwithstanding, is a functional democracy with high levels of individual freedom and the right of people to elect their government at intervals, although the process sometimes gets rather messy.
This newspaper, however, believes that as Jamaica watches the deepening unrest in North Africa and the Arab world, it is serious cause for concern. For while the proximate cause of the uprisings - Ben Ali, Mubarak and Co - may be to throw off repression in favour of democracy, the underlying issues are much deeper.
disenchanted young people
They are as much social and economic as political, and have been driven, primarily, by disenchanted young people. And therein lies our parallel.
Ben Ali, for instance, found it relatively easy to maintain social stability when his country's economy was in reasonably decent health. Things, however, have gone sour, and domestic economic problems have been aggravated by the global crisis. Political discontent has been exacerbated by high levels of joblessness and underemployment, particularly among young people.
In essence, the crises faced by youth in the North African and Arab states are not dissimilar to those highlighted by social anthropologist Professor Don Robotham in last Sunday's edition of this newspaper, and upon which we commented in the same issue.
urgent and robust attention
There are some harrowing facts worth recalling: nearly 400,000 people in the 15-29 age group - 59 per cent of the cohort - are either unemployed or out of the labour force. Of this group, 83 per cent have stopped looking for work, most likely because they believe that there are no jobs to be found.
Fixing problems such as these is never easy, but they always demand urgent and robust attention, which Prime Minister Bruce Golding and his Jamaica Labour Party promised would be the case when they came to office more than three years ago.
We have, however, neither felt nor seen the urgency of an administration that is driving hard for economic growth and giving substance to its promise of job creation. It has mostly pursued a predictable economic orthodoxy of the recent past, with little embrace of a real partnership with the private sector to jump-start and rev the economy.
Early in its tenure, this newspaper suggested to the administration the need for something akin to a job council, similar to the one US President Barack Obama appointed recently with General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt at the helm. We recommitted to the idea at the time of Mr Immelt's appointment and do so again.
We don't assume that Mr Obama has greater insight than our prime minister, unless the US president has a better grasp of Middle East matters.
The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.
February 4, 2011
jamaica-gleaner editorial
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Kamla and the Caricom serpent, Brady fights back, OCG, red mud
BY FRANKLIN JOHNSTON
Caricom does not want Jamaicans to move freely in the islands.They don't want our homophobia, idle, lewd and violent conduct. We do not like it, why should they? The EU Directive on free movement to the UK landed in 2004 and by 2006 EU citizens were flocking to London. Trinis, Lucians, Bajans, etc, will move freely in Caricom - not us. As a group we are feared! Even the big US and UK can't cope with our offal, and to our chagrin they deport us daily! Caricom works well as friend, coordinator - CCJ, negotiations and "fluffy" things - not growth.
Caricom is becoming a beggar brand - lots of chat, jobs for old boys, no help for our economy or poverty. The core market is small, distant, and as we have half its people and debt we can sink it! Do the maths. We are a big market for them, they are a small market for us. Will the advocates say how CSME will help us? Can we entrust CSME with our economic future? No! We know little of CSME. Will chairman Bruce publish the accounts now? Caricom is not transparent - there's no freedom of information and CSME is flawed. What works in Europe may not work here. Caricom needs a "root and branch" review of all operations, structures, governance and the 1962 and 1973 premises which underpin it. We need to see figures before we cough up more money. We invested 38 years and billions. Where has the money gone?
What's with Minister Tufton and the JMA? Why lobby PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar to make Trinis pay 10 times what they now pay for energy so JMA can export there? What if Kamla asked Bruce to put up the water bill so she can sell us some? The iniquitous light bills we hate, we want Kamla to lay on Trinis! This would raise energy and all other prices for Trinis! A wicked, grudgeful, badminded and stupid act; she must raise prices for her people so we can make a profit! The real politics of poverty - we won't rise to the challenge, so we try to bring Trinis down to suffer with us - voila, we are equal! Is this unity? Friendship? No! We must stop whingeing. Get productivity up, costs down, or lobby Bruce to forgo the same revenue that Kamla forgoes to give her people a break. They see our true colours! Screw Trinis so we can get ahead - I weep for CSME! Scotland gets benefits from its North Sea gas. No UK or EU member protests. It's their gas. Scottish patriots even want to cut ties so they can get the full benefit for their people. Will T&T leave CSME? With friends like us they need no enemies! Tufton and the JMA must lobby the US and UK to raise energy prices for their citizens; tell China to pay workers a living wage so we can compete with them? "Duppy know who to frighten!" Kamla, as a UWI graduate, educator and lawyer, please "run dem bwoy" and let them know "Jancro chrisen 'im pickney firs'!" Selah!
The Maastricht treaty in 1992 took the EU to its present state. CSME will introduce EU-type controls by stealth, but it does not have the frisson of contiguous states, unity in war or wealth to make it work. EU law is superior to its members' laws via the issue of Regulations - binding and applicable with no variation; Directives - the local law must be changed in a given time and its Court of Justice - rulings are binding on individuals and countries. We had the CCJ, now the Council of Ambassadors; we are getting there.
Last week saw Directives to the UK that all EU citizens must have equal rights to housing, health care, employment and benefits in the UK as UK citizens. This will cost UK taxpayers a bomb and new Directives arrive every day. France is told not to deport Roma (gypsies) despite their disruptive behaviour! Can you imagine CSME ordering us not to deport Haitians or to give them free housing and other benefits? Or direct T&T to raise fuel prices to its citizens so Jamaicans can profit? Riot and revolution! CSME is taking supra national control by stealth and we must stop them. CSME is good politics but bad economics. The EU Directive on caged birds in the UK means farmers must buy new "enriched cages" by 2012 to give hens more space - a multi-million pound sterling investment. English eggs will cost more and they can do nothing. CSME must not be allowed to restrict, impair, pre-empt, limit, dictate or control any aspect of our economy. It is a power trip and a trough of foreign loans and grants. What is our share of Caricom debt? Will Governor Wynter tell us? More anon. My Caricom whistleblower is fearful. CSME's agenda is control, not growth. Does it have top business brains as Gordon Shirley's? No! We must vet the new secretary general; if a businessman, we have hope; an international or local civil servant and its politics! Our economic future still lies with our Greater Antilles neighbours whose markets are close and 10 times larger than Caricom's.
OCG: The "politics plot" to erode the OCG's credibility is being played out slowly but relentlessly. I admire the DPP, yet she gave comfort to the plotters by being triumphalist rather than demure and professional. Tufton and his PS know better. The wrongheaded media think it's a contest. Their duties are different. OCG proposes and the DPP decides if the three "horse-taring man dem" with big lawyers should be jailed! Can you tell your bank you made a "genuine mistake" when you get papers, discuss them and sign them under oath with a JP? Wow! Boys, put on your "dunce cap" and sit in the corner!
BRADY: The Brady letter says who met Bruce, when, where, the brief, the money part and who told whom to hide the role of government. Brady is a heavyweight and can win but he will settle and save their skins! At least we know the truth.
RED MUD. I hope ODPEM is in Hungary to help and learn from the spill of bauxite offal. This toxic soup destroyed villages, killed people, spread its poison and they are now detoxing all tributaries into the Danube. The CEO of Mal Zrt, the bauxite firm, was also arrested. What a "prekeh"! Are there lessons for us? Stay conscious!
Dr Franklin Johnston is an international project manager with Teape-Johnston Consultants currently on assignment in the UK. franklinjohnston@hotmail.com
October 15, 2010
jamaicaobserver
Caricom does not want Jamaicans to move freely in the islands.They don't want our homophobia, idle, lewd and violent conduct. We do not like it, why should they? The EU Directive on free movement to the UK landed in 2004 and by 2006 EU citizens were flocking to London. Trinis, Lucians, Bajans, etc, will move freely in Caricom - not us. As a group we are feared! Even the big US and UK can't cope with our offal, and to our chagrin they deport us daily! Caricom works well as friend, coordinator - CCJ, negotiations and "fluffy" things - not growth.
Caricom is becoming a beggar brand - lots of chat, jobs for old boys, no help for our economy or poverty. The core market is small, distant, and as we have half its people and debt we can sink it! Do the maths. We are a big market for them, they are a small market for us. Will the advocates say how CSME will help us? Can we entrust CSME with our economic future? No! We know little of CSME. Will chairman Bruce publish the accounts now? Caricom is not transparent - there's no freedom of information and CSME is flawed. What works in Europe may not work here. Caricom needs a "root and branch" review of all operations, structures, governance and the 1962 and 1973 premises which underpin it. We need to see figures before we cough up more money. We invested 38 years and billions. Where has the money gone?
What's with Minister Tufton and the JMA? Why lobby PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar to make Trinis pay 10 times what they now pay for energy so JMA can export there? What if Kamla asked Bruce to put up the water bill so she can sell us some? The iniquitous light bills we hate, we want Kamla to lay on Trinis! This would raise energy and all other prices for Trinis! A wicked, grudgeful, badminded and stupid act; she must raise prices for her people so we can make a profit! The real politics of poverty - we won't rise to the challenge, so we try to bring Trinis down to suffer with us - voila, we are equal! Is this unity? Friendship? No! We must stop whingeing. Get productivity up, costs down, or lobby Bruce to forgo the same revenue that Kamla forgoes to give her people a break. They see our true colours! Screw Trinis so we can get ahead - I weep for CSME! Scotland gets benefits from its North Sea gas. No UK or EU member protests. It's their gas. Scottish patriots even want to cut ties so they can get the full benefit for their people. Will T&T leave CSME? With friends like us they need no enemies! Tufton and the JMA must lobby the US and UK to raise energy prices for their citizens; tell China to pay workers a living wage so we can compete with them? "Duppy know who to frighten!" Kamla, as a UWI graduate, educator and lawyer, please "run dem bwoy" and let them know "Jancro chrisen 'im pickney firs'!" Selah!
The Maastricht treaty in 1992 took the EU to its present state. CSME will introduce EU-type controls by stealth, but it does not have the frisson of contiguous states, unity in war or wealth to make it work. EU law is superior to its members' laws via the issue of Regulations - binding and applicable with no variation; Directives - the local law must be changed in a given time and its Court of Justice - rulings are binding on individuals and countries. We had the CCJ, now the Council of Ambassadors; we are getting there.
Last week saw Directives to the UK that all EU citizens must have equal rights to housing, health care, employment and benefits in the UK as UK citizens. This will cost UK taxpayers a bomb and new Directives arrive every day. France is told not to deport Roma (gypsies) despite their disruptive behaviour! Can you imagine CSME ordering us not to deport Haitians or to give them free housing and other benefits? Or direct T&T to raise fuel prices to its citizens so Jamaicans can profit? Riot and revolution! CSME is taking supra national control by stealth and we must stop them. CSME is good politics but bad economics. The EU Directive on caged birds in the UK means farmers must buy new "enriched cages" by 2012 to give hens more space - a multi-million pound sterling investment. English eggs will cost more and they can do nothing. CSME must not be allowed to restrict, impair, pre-empt, limit, dictate or control any aspect of our economy. It is a power trip and a trough of foreign loans and grants. What is our share of Caricom debt? Will Governor Wynter tell us? More anon. My Caricom whistleblower is fearful. CSME's agenda is control, not growth. Does it have top business brains as Gordon Shirley's? No! We must vet the new secretary general; if a businessman, we have hope; an international or local civil servant and its politics! Our economic future still lies with our Greater Antilles neighbours whose markets are close and 10 times larger than Caricom's.
OCG: The "politics plot" to erode the OCG's credibility is being played out slowly but relentlessly. I admire the DPP, yet she gave comfort to the plotters by being triumphalist rather than demure and professional. Tufton and his PS know better. The wrongheaded media think it's a contest. Their duties are different. OCG proposes and the DPP decides if the three "horse-taring man dem" with big lawyers should be jailed! Can you tell your bank you made a "genuine mistake" when you get papers, discuss them and sign them under oath with a JP? Wow! Boys, put on your "dunce cap" and sit in the corner!
BRADY: The Brady letter says who met Bruce, when, where, the brief, the money part and who told whom to hide the role of government. Brady is a heavyweight and can win but he will settle and save their skins! At least we know the truth.
RED MUD. I hope ODPEM is in Hungary to help and learn from the spill of bauxite offal. This toxic soup destroyed villages, killed people, spread its poison and they are now detoxing all tributaries into the Danube. The CEO of Mal Zrt, the bauxite firm, was also arrested. What a "prekeh"! Are there lessons for us? Stay conscious!
Dr Franklin Johnston is an international project manager with Teape-Johnston Consultants currently on assignment in the UK. franklinjohnston@hotmail.com
October 15, 2010
jamaicaobserver
Friday, May 28, 2010
Jamaica's business is the Caribbean's business
By Sir Ronald Sanders:
The widely publicised bloody clashes over the last few days between law enforcement agencies and armed gangs in Jamaica are as bad for the economic and social well-being of the people of Caribbean countries as they are for Jamaicans.
While the members of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) see themselves as a “Community of Independent Sovereign States”, most of the rest of the world regard them as one area. Only the most knowledgeable make a distinction between them. So, events in Jamaica impact all other CARICOM countries whether they like it or not.
In meaningful terms, therefore, Jamaica’s business is CARICOM’s business. Neither CARICOM governments nor the people of CARICOM can sit back and pretend that events in Jamaica in which criminals defy the authority of the State are not relevant to them. CARICOM countries are tied together and none can deny cross-border relationships in trade, investment and people.
Jamaica is the biggest of the CARICOM countries in population terms and it impresses and influences the world far more than other CARICOM countries. Of course, the impression and influence have been both beneficial and inimical to Jamaica and the wider region.
On the positive side, the vibrant music of Jamaica and its musicians, led by the iconic Bob Marley, have clearly given Jamaica global recognition. So too have its holiday resorts which are playgrounds for tourists from all over Europe and North America. Jamaican agricultural products, such as its Blue Mountain Coffee, and many of its manufactured goods have been able to penetrate foreign markets more deeply than those from other regional countries.
And, CARICOM’s negotiations with large countries and groups of countries would be much weaker and far less effective without the participation of Jamaica. Its relatively large population of close to three million people makes Jamaica a more attractive market than the majority of CARICOM countries which, with the exception of Trinidad and Tobago, each number less than a million people. Because of the size of its population, even with the limitations of educational opportunities, Jamaica also has more qualified technical people for bargaining internationally than its partner countries in CARICOM. Therefore, the participation of Jamaican negotiators in CARICOM teams is extremely valuable.
Jamaicans also constitute the largest number of the West Indian Diaspora in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. To the extent that the West Indian Diaspora is a group whose votes are wooed by political parties in these countries, much is owed to Jamaicans for the attention paid to Caribbean concerns.
On the negative side, Jamaica’s internal crime, and organised crime that its gangs have exported to Britain, Canada and the United States have created an unwholesome image for the country and severely damaged it economically. In the process, CARICOM has been weakened economically as well, for an economically weak Jamaica is unable to serve as a dynamo for economic activity and growth throughout the area.
Jamaica’s high crime level has been bad for business and bad for its economy. A 2003 study found that the total costs of crime came to J$12.4 billion which was 3.7% of GDP, and a 2007 UN report projected that if Jamaica could reduce violent crime to Costa Rica’s low level, the economy would grow by 5.4%. In a World Bank survey, 39% of Jamaica’s business managers said they were less likely to expand their businesses because of crime, and 37% reported that crime discourages investment that would have encouraged greater productivity.
Apart from scaring away investment, high crime in Jamaica has also caused many of its professionals and middle-class families to flee the country seeking safer environments abroad. More than 80 per cent of Jamaica’s tertiary educated people have migrated to the world’s industrialized nations.
It doesn’t take much imagination to work out how much more socially and economically developed Jamaica would have been today had it not been plagued by over 30 years of escalating crime and its debilitating consequences.
From time to time, outbursts of violent crime have affected the country’s tourism which contributes about 10 per cent of the country’s GDP. It is only because of expensive and extensive advertising and public relations campaigns in the main tourist markets that Jamaica has managed to keep its tourism arrivals by air fairly stable.
This latest, globally-publicized, bloody confrontation between security forces and criminal gangs protecting a Drugs Don, Christopher “Dudus” Coke, from being served with an order for extradition to the United States and arrested, will damage the tourism industry harshly, and, again, once it is over, Jamaica will be forced to spend large sums repairing its image and assuring tourists of its safety.
Other CARICOM countries will not be immune from the Jamaica disturbances. On the basis that tourists see the Caribbean as one place, other Caribbean destinations will also have to spend more on promoting themselves.
The fact that “Dudus” could be protected by well-armed, criminal gangs who have neither respect for, nor fear of, Jamaica’s security forces or the authority of the State, is a direct consequence of governance gone badly wrong. From the mid-1970s the two main political parties in Jamaica, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the Peoples National Party (PNP) have formed alliances with gangs that have been well-armed and in many cases are involved in the drugs trade. Having taken that step that renders politicians beholden to criminals, the political hierarchy began an inexorable downward spiral to disaster.
In effect, part of the State has been captured by leaders of criminal gangs to whom political parties are obligated. Nothing else but this sense of obligation to “Dudus” Coke can explain why Jamaica’s Prime Minister Bruce Golding, as Leader of the JLP, would have intervened at party level to influence a law enforcement matter between his government and the government of the US.
The Jamaican government now has to assert the authority of the State over “Dudus” and his gang, and it must be done if Jamaica is to be freed from the captivity of criminal gangs.
And, when this particular confrontation is over, Jamaica must start the gruelling process of openly and transparently dismantling all party political connections with gangs, reasserting the supremacy of the State, and weeding out gangs that are the scourge of the society. Any alternative scenario is too terrifying to contemplate but it does include Jamaica being plunged into the status of a failed State.
This is why it behoves the current party political leaders to set to the task of recovering the State from the influence of criminals and establishing broad based institutions empowered by law to oversee public services and political practices. Jamaica will be economically stronger, socially better and politically more stable than it has been for decades and, as a consequence, CARICOM will benefit.
May 28, 2010
caribbeannetnews
The widely publicised bloody clashes over the last few days between law enforcement agencies and armed gangs in Jamaica are as bad for the economic and social well-being of the people of Caribbean countries as they are for Jamaicans.
While the members of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) see themselves as a “Community of Independent Sovereign States”, most of the rest of the world regard them as one area. Only the most knowledgeable make a distinction between them. So, events in Jamaica impact all other CARICOM countries whether they like it or not.
In meaningful terms, therefore, Jamaica’s business is CARICOM’s business. Neither CARICOM governments nor the people of CARICOM can sit back and pretend that events in Jamaica in which criminals defy the authority of the State are not relevant to them. CARICOM countries are tied together and none can deny cross-border relationships in trade, investment and people. Jamaica is the biggest of the CARICOM countries in population terms and it impresses and influences the world far more than other CARICOM countries. Of course, the impression and influence have been both beneficial and inimical to Jamaica and the wider region.
On the positive side, the vibrant music of Jamaica and its musicians, led by the iconic Bob Marley, have clearly given Jamaica global recognition. So too have its holiday resorts which are playgrounds for tourists from all over Europe and North America. Jamaican agricultural products, such as its Blue Mountain Coffee, and many of its manufactured goods have been able to penetrate foreign markets more deeply than those from other regional countries.
And, CARICOM’s negotiations with large countries and groups of countries would be much weaker and far less effective without the participation of Jamaica. Its relatively large population of close to three million people makes Jamaica a more attractive market than the majority of CARICOM countries which, with the exception of Trinidad and Tobago, each number less than a million people. Because of the size of its population, even with the limitations of educational opportunities, Jamaica also has more qualified technical people for bargaining internationally than its partner countries in CARICOM. Therefore, the participation of Jamaican negotiators in CARICOM teams is extremely valuable.
Jamaicans also constitute the largest number of the West Indian Diaspora in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. To the extent that the West Indian Diaspora is a group whose votes are wooed by political parties in these countries, much is owed to Jamaicans for the attention paid to Caribbean concerns.
On the negative side, Jamaica’s internal crime, and organised crime that its gangs have exported to Britain, Canada and the United States have created an unwholesome image for the country and severely damaged it economically. In the process, CARICOM has been weakened economically as well, for an economically weak Jamaica is unable to serve as a dynamo for economic activity and growth throughout the area.
Jamaica’s high crime level has been bad for business and bad for its economy. A 2003 study found that the total costs of crime came to J$12.4 billion which was 3.7% of GDP, and a 2007 UN report projected that if Jamaica could reduce violent crime to Costa Rica’s low level, the economy would grow by 5.4%. In a World Bank survey, 39% of Jamaica’s business managers said they were less likely to expand their businesses because of crime, and 37% reported that crime discourages investment that would have encouraged greater productivity.
Apart from scaring away investment, high crime in Jamaica has also caused many of its professionals and middle-class families to flee the country seeking safer environments abroad. More than 80 per cent of Jamaica’s tertiary educated people have migrated to the world’s industrialized nations.
It doesn’t take much imagination to work out how much more socially and economically developed Jamaica would have been today had it not been plagued by over 30 years of escalating crime and its debilitating consequences.
From time to time, outbursts of violent crime have affected the country’s tourism which contributes about 10 per cent of the country’s GDP. It is only because of expensive and extensive advertising and public relations campaigns in the main tourist markets that Jamaica has managed to keep its tourism arrivals by air fairly stable.
This latest, globally-publicized, bloody confrontation between security forces and criminal gangs protecting a Drugs Don, Christopher “Dudus” Coke, from being served with an order for extradition to the United States and arrested, will damage the tourism industry harshly, and, again, once it is over, Jamaica will be forced to spend large sums repairing its image and assuring tourists of its safety.
Other CARICOM countries will not be immune from the Jamaica disturbances. On the basis that tourists see the Caribbean as one place, other Caribbean destinations will also have to spend more on promoting themselves.
The fact that “Dudus” could be protected by well-armed, criminal gangs who have neither respect for, nor fear of, Jamaica’s security forces or the authority of the State, is a direct consequence of governance gone badly wrong. From the mid-1970s the two main political parties in Jamaica, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the Peoples National Party (PNP) have formed alliances with gangs that have been well-armed and in many cases are involved in the drugs trade. Having taken that step that renders politicians beholden to criminals, the political hierarchy began an inexorable downward spiral to disaster.
In effect, part of the State has been captured by leaders of criminal gangs to whom political parties are obligated. Nothing else but this sense of obligation to “Dudus” Coke can explain why Jamaica’s Prime Minister Bruce Golding, as Leader of the JLP, would have intervened at party level to influence a law enforcement matter between his government and the government of the US.
The Jamaican government now has to assert the authority of the State over “Dudus” and his gang, and it must be done if Jamaica is to be freed from the captivity of criminal gangs.
And, when this particular confrontation is over, Jamaica must start the gruelling process of openly and transparently dismantling all party political connections with gangs, reasserting the supremacy of the State, and weeding out gangs that are the scourge of the society. Any alternative scenario is too terrifying to contemplate but it does include Jamaica being plunged into the status of a failed State.
This is why it behoves the current party political leaders to set to the task of recovering the State from the influence of criminals and establishing broad based institutions empowered by law to oversee public services and political practices. Jamaica will be economically stronger, socially better and politically more stable than it has been for decades and, as a consequence, CARICOM will benefit.
May 28, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Requiem to a Jamaican genius: Walk good, Rex Nettleford
YESTERDAY morning, a nation struggling to come to terms with simultaneous emotions of grief and gratitude, said farewell to Professor Ralston Milton 'Rex' Nettleford.
The dilemma is by no means unique to Jamaica. For there have been many occasions in the past when nations have had the uncomfortable experience of paying tribute to great men and women who have made such an indelible mark on humanity that we are unable to accept their early departure.
But departure is inevitable, for as the Scripture tells us, man's days are as grass, or yet again "It is appointed unto man once to die..." Life, therefore, is temporary. And it is what we do with that time on earth -- whether brief or extended -- that defines us.
No one can challenge the fact that Professor Nettleford packed many lifetimes into his short 76 years with us. His achievements are numerous and would fill these columns and many more were we to start listing them.
We believe, though, that Professor Nettleford would have been embarrassed by a listing of his accomplishments and the accolades bestowed upon him. His focus would be on our commitment to continuing the work to which he dedicated his life -- work on the acceptance of every facet of our vibrant culture by all Jamaicans; work on the strengthening of our democracy and the institutions that govern us; work on our role in creating a united Caribbean with a strong voice in the international community; work on our realisation that we can accomplish greatness regardless of our station in life.
For Professor Nettleford's life itself was a product of that work -- started by our ancestors -- and bore testament to the fact that, because he was not afraid to die, he lived.
He would have been pleased with yesterday's funeral service -- simple, yet elegant and conducted with the grace he and his beloved National Dance Theatre Company (NDTC) so often displayed on stage here and abroad. He would also have been delighted with the fact that the atmosphere inside the University Chapel was one of celebration. For his life is indeed one to celebrate -- a life dedicated to professionalism, selflessness, education, social and political emancipation, and patriotism.
Thankfully, Professor Nettleford had the foresight to document his thoughts and experiences on a range of issues, leaving us with the benefit of his voice and expertise from which we can improve our lives.
Two weeks ago in this space, we humbly suggested that the Government assembles a broad committee representing the major interests served by Professor Nettleford to consider the most fitting tribute that can be paid to this extraordinary man who gave service beyond self to his country.
We trust that our suggestion was accepted.
And now, as we salute this great son of the soil, we appeal to Jamaicans to ensure that his legacy is preserved. For in the Hon Professor Ralston Milton 'Rex' Nettleford, OM rests the hope of every Jamaican of humble beginnings that they, too, can fulfil their ambitions.
Walk good, 'Prof'. May your soul rest in peace.
February 17, 2010
jamaicaobserver
The dilemma is by no means unique to Jamaica. For there have been many occasions in the past when nations have had the uncomfortable experience of paying tribute to great men and women who have made such an indelible mark on humanity that we are unable to accept their early departure.
But departure is inevitable, for as the Scripture tells us, man's days are as grass, or yet again "It is appointed unto man once to die..." Life, therefore, is temporary. And it is what we do with that time on earth -- whether brief or extended -- that defines us.
No one can challenge the fact that Professor Nettleford packed many lifetimes into his short 76 years with us. His achievements are numerous and would fill these columns and many more were we to start listing them.
We believe, though, that Professor Nettleford would have been embarrassed by a listing of his accomplishments and the accolades bestowed upon him. His focus would be on our commitment to continuing the work to which he dedicated his life -- work on the acceptance of every facet of our vibrant culture by all Jamaicans; work on the strengthening of our democracy and the institutions that govern us; work on our role in creating a united Caribbean with a strong voice in the international community; work on our realisation that we can accomplish greatness regardless of our station in life.
For Professor Nettleford's life itself was a product of that work -- started by our ancestors -- and bore testament to the fact that, because he was not afraid to die, he lived.
He would have been pleased with yesterday's funeral service -- simple, yet elegant and conducted with the grace he and his beloved National Dance Theatre Company (NDTC) so often displayed on stage here and abroad. He would also have been delighted with the fact that the atmosphere inside the University Chapel was one of celebration. For his life is indeed one to celebrate -- a life dedicated to professionalism, selflessness, education, social and political emancipation, and patriotism.
Thankfully, Professor Nettleford had the foresight to document his thoughts and experiences on a range of issues, leaving us with the benefit of his voice and expertise from which we can improve our lives.
Two weeks ago in this space, we humbly suggested that the Government assembles a broad committee representing the major interests served by Professor Nettleford to consider the most fitting tribute that can be paid to this extraordinary man who gave service beyond self to his country.
We trust that our suggestion was accepted.
And now, as we salute this great son of the soil, we appeal to Jamaicans to ensure that his legacy is preserved. For in the Hon Professor Ralston Milton 'Rex' Nettleford, OM rests the hope of every Jamaican of humble beginnings that they, too, can fulfil their ambitions.
Walk good, 'Prof'. May your soul rest in peace.
February 17, 2010
jamaicaobserver
Monday, December 28, 2009
Facing a new wave of social and economic bedlam under the IMF - Jamaica's dilemma
By Fritz-Earle McLymont:
My heart goes out to the families of the 117,000 civil servants who are planned casualties of the Jamaica government’s transformation program. I pity the official upon whom the responsibility for implementing this disaster has been thrust.
Following the resignation of the head of the Central Bank and the Commissioner of Police, I saw the red flag of the IMF. I just concluded reading Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine that chronicles the effects of economic “shock therapy” and the consequences to the local economies. From Bolivia, to Chile to Argentina to Russia, the stories are the same: the citizens suffer. Klein attributes much of the disaster to the attempt to carry out Friedmanite economic policies, with the support or complicity of the IMF. But the results have been the same: disaster and terror for large segments of the population whose leaders seek sustenance at the IMF trough.
The IMF issued its first full-fledged “structural adjustment” program in 1983. For the next two decades, every country that came to the fund for a major loan was informed that it needed to revamp its economy from top to bottom. According to Shock Doctrine, David Budhoo, an IMF senior economist who designed structural adjustment programs in Latin America and Africa throughout the eighties, admitted later that “everything we did from 1983 onward was based on our new sense of mission to have the south privatized or die; towards this end we ignominiously created economic bedlam in Latin America and Africa in 1983-88.” I have yet to see real long-term social and economic progress in any of these IMF-adjusted countries.
Somewhere between 1979 and 1981, I was spared personal disaster while managing a government enterprise in Jamaica. I persuaded the workers and union to accept minimum increases in wages for two years to enable the company to increase its assets and consequently its income. The plan worked and when the time came to give the big wage increase from earnings that did accumulate, I was told that IMF guidelines prohibited me from giving the promised increase. Given the social and political tensions in Jamaica at the time, I had no intention of facing more than 150 Jamaican workers to tell them that the deal was off. No one from the IMF was willing to do so either. Fortunately, I learned that the IMF instruction was not a law of the Jamaican government, but a directive from Washington. I found a creative way to get around the IMF policy and my workers got their increase, leaving me safe to walk the streets of Montego Bay.
A few countries, such as Malaysia, have rejected IMF medicine and survived. In the 1990s, when the IMF offered to help the “Asian tigers” withstand a financial assault on their fast-growing economies, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad declined the offer, saying that, with relatively small debt, he did not have to “destroy the economy in order that it should become better.” The IMF official in charge of the talks at the time said, “You can’t force a country to ask you for help. It has to ask. But when it is out of money, it hasn’t got many places to turn.” Malaysia proved him wrong. A predominantly Muslim country whose people had been instructed to save for the pilgrimage to Mecca, it turned to local banks that were flush with pilgrimage cash.
Can we instill in Jamaicans a similar behavioral change of sacrificing a little today for a long-term benefit? In the 1990s I witnessed the fever pitch in long, patient lines as Jamaicans sought quick money from the Partner scams. This same patience, faith and commitment must now shift Jamaica into productive energy if our country is to survive. For the global challenge in this century will be productivity not money.
Jamaicans often compare Jamaica with economically successful Singapore, both former colonies. Jamaica is a victim of its own choices. At about the same time that Singapore’s leaders chose to invest heavily in the development of their productive capacity, Jamaica rejected the direction of industrial development, advocated by Jamaican industrialists such as Robert Lightbourne, and opted for quick money, either borrowed or donated. Tourism, bauxite and agriculture were expected to be significant contributors to growth, but they have performed feebly in spite of considerable investment of the borrowed or donated funds. Today’s generation is paying for those choices in the form of debt burden. From 1980 to 1986, Jamaica's total debt doubled, making the island one of the most indebted countries in the world on a per capita basis. Jamaica's debt peaked in the mid-1980s at US$3.5 billion. With IMF and World Bank conditionalities in force, Jamaica experienced a 30 percent leap in unemployment, a 30 percent fall in public investment and a fall of 48 percent in real incomes between 1983 and 1985. By 1984 the World Bank proclaimed Jamaica one of its success stories because its trade balance had shifted into surplus. But it was a 'success' in which 29 percent of children under three years old were malnourished, 43 percent of mothers were anemic, and polio deaths had appeared for the first time in 30 years. Between 1996 and 2003, Jamaica’s public debt rose by 71 percentage points of GDP – a growth considered a reflection of changing circumstances at home and conditions abroad.
Today, with a public debt in the range of US$15 billion, Jamaica’s Ministry of Finance is preparing the country for another IMF hit. Moody’s, the rating service, has downgraded Jamaica’s rating for internal and external bonds. Alessandra Alecci, its vice president/senior analyst, explained why: “The negative outlook reflects uncertainty associated with the potential consequences of protracted delays in reaching a final agreement with the IMF. Such a situation would lead to a loss of confidence that could negatively affect the exchange rate and exert upward pressures on domestic interest rates. If these conditions were to materialize, they could create a situation in which the government's liquidity would be stretched and investors would face higher losses as the decision to restructure debt would be made under duress.”
I do not expect the financial news out of Jamaica to improve any time soon. However, if change is actually taking place globally, paying serious attention to infrastructure improvement and production by Jamaicans may be the good news for the future. The words of a Morgan Stanley executive on the Asian crisis of the 1990s are worth heeding: “What we need now in Asia is more bad news. Bad news is needed to keep stimulating the adjustment process.”
Let’s respectfully accept the words of such foreign experts as opinions not prescriptions.
There is some consolation in the fact that most of Jamaica’s debt is held by local institutions, which should be more open than foreign lenders to seeking long-term solutions that ease the pain. The short-term situation is bad. Estimates are that over 55 percent of the central government’s revenue goes to service debts that stand at 16 percent of GDP for the current fiscal year. Over the past ten years Jamaica’s public debt to GDP ratio remained above 100 percent. Jamaicans must accept the challenge to produce for its domestic needs. Growth and productivity must come from within, as proven by Singapore’s success.
In a recent interview, Prime Minister Golding acknowledged the positive impact of Rastafari on the Jamaican society over the past 50 years. Much can be learned from the Rastafari experience, a uniquely Jamaican development -- from recycling rubber tyres for shoes and building shelter from scrap to providing a multibillion-dollar cultural product (Reggae) to the global music and entertainment industry. The Ital lifestyle (Google Ital) pioneered in Jamaica is now part of a global alternative lifestyle representing a multibillion-dollar industry. These are testimonies to Jamaica’s ability to produce from within.
While some have been seeking external solutions to our financial and economic problems, our homegrown professionals have been producing world class athletes and performing artists with a fraction of the investment that other countries incur. The health, wellness and sports industries are multibillion-dollar sectors not yet fully exploited.
I hope the next group of esteemed Jamaicans pondering solutions to the island’s productivity challenge will look to Usain Bolt and Mutabaruka, two of the island’s most recognized talents now lecturing to a global audience, as further examples of homegrown successes in their respective industries in and outside the island. They follow such international Jamaican icons as Bob Marley and Marcus Garvey. How far removed these performers seem from the “crisis,” where “a situation in which the government's liquidity would be stretched and investors would face higher losses as the decision to restructure debt would be made under duress.”
I have been known to offer advice when not asked and I shall do it again. Jamaica’s Prime Minister should take the Jamaican creditors for a few days’ retreat in the Cockpit country of Trelawny, a major producer of yam. Start the day with an early morning jog with Bolt, one hour per day with a producing yam farmer, and evenings in a reasoning session on “success” with Mutabaruka.
Somewhere I learned that success is not where you are but the obstacles you had to overcome to get where you are. I remain optimistic about Jamaica’s future success. We have a long history of overcoming obstacles. Our political leaders must look at this history for answers.
Fritz-Earle S. McLymont, a Jamaican, is Managing Partner of McLymont, Kunda & Co. an international trade and development strategist firm, and Managing Director of NMBC Global, a not for profit organization involved in international development. He can be contacted at Fmclymont1@nmbc.org
December 28, 2009
caribdaily
My heart goes out to the families of the 117,000 civil servants who are planned casualties of the Jamaica government’s transformation program. I pity the official upon whom the responsibility for implementing this disaster has been thrust.
Following the resignation of the head of the Central Bank and the Commissioner of Police, I saw the red flag of the IMF. I just concluded reading Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine that chronicles the effects of economic “shock therapy” and the consequences to the local economies. From Bolivia, to Chile to Argentina to Russia, the stories are the same: the citizens suffer. Klein attributes much of the disaster to the attempt to carry out Friedmanite economic policies, with the support or complicity of the IMF. But the results have been the same: disaster and terror for large segments of the population whose leaders seek sustenance at the IMF trough.
The IMF issued its first full-fledged “structural adjustment” program in 1983. For the next two decades, every country that came to the fund for a major loan was informed that it needed to revamp its economy from top to bottom. According to Shock Doctrine, David Budhoo, an IMF senior economist who designed structural adjustment programs in Latin America and Africa throughout the eighties, admitted later that “everything we did from 1983 onward was based on our new sense of mission to have the south privatized or die; towards this end we ignominiously created economic bedlam in Latin America and Africa in 1983-88.” I have yet to see real long-term social and economic progress in any of these IMF-adjusted countries.
Somewhere between 1979 and 1981, I was spared personal disaster while managing a government enterprise in Jamaica. I persuaded the workers and union to accept minimum increases in wages for two years to enable the company to increase its assets and consequently its income. The plan worked and when the time came to give the big wage increase from earnings that did accumulate, I was told that IMF guidelines prohibited me from giving the promised increase. Given the social and political tensions in Jamaica at the time, I had no intention of facing more than 150 Jamaican workers to tell them that the deal was off. No one from the IMF was willing to do so either. Fortunately, I learned that the IMF instruction was not a law of the Jamaican government, but a directive from Washington. I found a creative way to get around the IMF policy and my workers got their increase, leaving me safe to walk the streets of Montego Bay.
A few countries, such as Malaysia, have rejected IMF medicine and survived. In the 1990s, when the IMF offered to help the “Asian tigers” withstand a financial assault on their fast-growing economies, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad declined the offer, saying that, with relatively small debt, he did not have to “destroy the economy in order that it should become better.” The IMF official in charge of the talks at the time said, “You can’t force a country to ask you for help. It has to ask. But when it is out of money, it hasn’t got many places to turn.” Malaysia proved him wrong. A predominantly Muslim country whose people had been instructed to save for the pilgrimage to Mecca, it turned to local banks that were flush with pilgrimage cash.
Can we instill in Jamaicans a similar behavioral change of sacrificing a little today for a long-term benefit? In the 1990s I witnessed the fever pitch in long, patient lines as Jamaicans sought quick money from the Partner scams. This same patience, faith and commitment must now shift Jamaica into productive energy if our country is to survive. For the global challenge in this century will be productivity not money.
Jamaicans often compare Jamaica with economically successful Singapore, both former colonies. Jamaica is a victim of its own choices. At about the same time that Singapore’s leaders chose to invest heavily in the development of their productive capacity, Jamaica rejected the direction of industrial development, advocated by Jamaican industrialists such as Robert Lightbourne, and opted for quick money, either borrowed or donated. Tourism, bauxite and agriculture were expected to be significant contributors to growth, but they have performed feebly in spite of considerable investment of the borrowed or donated funds. Today’s generation is paying for those choices in the form of debt burden. From 1980 to 1986, Jamaica's total debt doubled, making the island one of the most indebted countries in the world on a per capita basis. Jamaica's debt peaked in the mid-1980s at US$3.5 billion. With IMF and World Bank conditionalities in force, Jamaica experienced a 30 percent leap in unemployment, a 30 percent fall in public investment and a fall of 48 percent in real incomes between 1983 and 1985. By 1984 the World Bank proclaimed Jamaica one of its success stories because its trade balance had shifted into surplus. But it was a 'success' in which 29 percent of children under three years old were malnourished, 43 percent of mothers were anemic, and polio deaths had appeared for the first time in 30 years. Between 1996 and 2003, Jamaica’s public debt rose by 71 percentage points of GDP – a growth considered a reflection of changing circumstances at home and conditions abroad.
Today, with a public debt in the range of US$15 billion, Jamaica’s Ministry of Finance is preparing the country for another IMF hit. Moody’s, the rating service, has downgraded Jamaica’s rating for internal and external bonds. Alessandra Alecci, its vice president/senior analyst, explained why: “The negative outlook reflects uncertainty associated with the potential consequences of protracted delays in reaching a final agreement with the IMF. Such a situation would lead to a loss of confidence that could negatively affect the exchange rate and exert upward pressures on domestic interest rates. If these conditions were to materialize, they could create a situation in which the government's liquidity would be stretched and investors would face higher losses as the decision to restructure debt would be made under duress.”
I do not expect the financial news out of Jamaica to improve any time soon. However, if change is actually taking place globally, paying serious attention to infrastructure improvement and production by Jamaicans may be the good news for the future. The words of a Morgan Stanley executive on the Asian crisis of the 1990s are worth heeding: “What we need now in Asia is more bad news. Bad news is needed to keep stimulating the adjustment process.”
Let’s respectfully accept the words of such foreign experts as opinions not prescriptions.
There is some consolation in the fact that most of Jamaica’s debt is held by local institutions, which should be more open than foreign lenders to seeking long-term solutions that ease the pain. The short-term situation is bad. Estimates are that over 55 percent of the central government’s revenue goes to service debts that stand at 16 percent of GDP for the current fiscal year. Over the past ten years Jamaica’s public debt to GDP ratio remained above 100 percent. Jamaicans must accept the challenge to produce for its domestic needs. Growth and productivity must come from within, as proven by Singapore’s success.
In a recent interview, Prime Minister Golding acknowledged the positive impact of Rastafari on the Jamaican society over the past 50 years. Much can be learned from the Rastafari experience, a uniquely Jamaican development -- from recycling rubber tyres for shoes and building shelter from scrap to providing a multibillion-dollar cultural product (Reggae) to the global music and entertainment industry. The Ital lifestyle (Google Ital) pioneered in Jamaica is now part of a global alternative lifestyle representing a multibillion-dollar industry. These are testimonies to Jamaica’s ability to produce from within.
While some have been seeking external solutions to our financial and economic problems, our homegrown professionals have been producing world class athletes and performing artists with a fraction of the investment that other countries incur. The health, wellness and sports industries are multibillion-dollar sectors not yet fully exploited.
I hope the next group of esteemed Jamaicans pondering solutions to the island’s productivity challenge will look to Usain Bolt and Mutabaruka, two of the island’s most recognized talents now lecturing to a global audience, as further examples of homegrown successes in their respective industries in and outside the island. They follow such international Jamaican icons as Bob Marley and Marcus Garvey. How far removed these performers seem from the “crisis,” where “a situation in which the government's liquidity would be stretched and investors would face higher losses as the decision to restructure debt would be made under duress.”
I have been known to offer advice when not asked and I shall do it again. Jamaica’s Prime Minister should take the Jamaican creditors for a few days’ retreat in the Cockpit country of Trelawny, a major producer of yam. Start the day with an early morning jog with Bolt, one hour per day with a producing yam farmer, and evenings in a reasoning session on “success” with Mutabaruka.
Somewhere I learned that success is not where you are but the obstacles you had to overcome to get where you are. I remain optimistic about Jamaica’s future success. We have a long history of overcoming obstacles. Our political leaders must look at this history for answers.
Fritz-Earle S. McLymont, a Jamaican, is Managing Partner of McLymont, Kunda & Co. an international trade and development strategist firm, and Managing Director of NMBC Global, a not for profit organization involved in international development. He can be contacted at Fmclymont1@nmbc.org
December 28, 2009
caribdaily
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