Turks and Caicos constitution tailor-made for British

By Ben Roberts



And why should we expect otherwise?

It was proposed by them when they yanked the previous document, deciding that a new one was in order.

It was designed by them when they hired a private consultant to put it together.

It was shaped by them when this consultant went throughout Turks and Caicos in town hall meetings, supposedly to elicit input from residents who, when they saw the finished product, were quite stunned and upset that it had very little of what they had laboriously submitted for inclusion.

Its introduction was heralded by a three person British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) team that held meetings around the Islands that can only be described as raucous, and filled with displeasure and dissent. In those meetings the FCO team stated over and over that they were ’listening,’ and ‘heard loud and clear what Turks and Caicos citizens had to say.’

In one of those meetings senior team member, Mr Ian Hendry, almost caused a fire-storm in the house-of-prayer venue when he basically defended the document’s contents by stating that ’Britain calls the shots here.’

Incidentally, it was incomprehensible to me why there was so much upset with Mr Hendry’s comment. He was absolutely right. Britain does ‘call the shots,’ and has been doing so for 212 years since they claimed Turks and Caicos as their colonial prize in the days of sailing ships, and we nor they have done anything to change this state of affairs.

The justification for Mr Hendry’s ’Britain calls the shots’ comment came scant weeks later when the FCO asked a team of seven Turks and Caicos citizens to come to the UK to ’negotiate’ the final touches for this document that would guide the lives of the Territory’s citizens for decades to come.

It gets better. THEY picked the group that they wanted to come to ‘negotiate,‘ which included individuals chosen and serving in the British-created Turks and Caicos Interim Government. These individuals complied with break-neck speed, proving without a doubt who ‘calls the shots,’ and proving Mr Hendry right as rain.

To cap all this off, Honourable Minister Bellingham paid a visit to Turks and Caicos playing the part of the town-crier and announcing the introduction of this diktat, at a timing to be decided by the Governor. Case closed! And this is democracy? And this is how a people’s rights are decided in the year 2011 A.D.

It is difficult to decide whether to laugh or to cry at this process in this day and age. On the one hand it resembles a circus show that makes one want to laugh, but on the other it so seriously affects the destiny of a people, our Turks & Caicos people, that it leaves one feeling close to tears.

Find and read Section #132 of the new Constitution. It is British preferential treatment pure and simple. Who asked that this be put in this document? Was it the Islanders during their input to the constitutional consultant on her visit through the Islands? Was it the consultant and her bosses, the FCO, who alone decided that this was a must? Was it the Turks and Caicos ’negotiating team,’ and especially the Interim Government representatives who thought this preferential inclusion to be necessary? Was it a particular segment of the expatriate community, feeling themselves now to be in a most privileged position by having an Interim Government that sees things from their perspective, and in ways that they relate to, who impressed upon the powers that be the need to include this preferential treatment? This latter possibility is quite intriguing. But think back and ask the following:

-- How is it that expatriates dominate the Turks and Caicos corporate law arena, the river through which the lion’s share of the country’s finances flowed, including that part tainted by corruption, yet no one from that community had to answer to the Commission of Inquiry? Is this not incredible?

-- How is it that in meetings such as the town hall events of the FCO team, almost no expatriates are seen (this observation made at the Provo church-hall venue)? There it is overwhelmingly native Turks and Caicos citizens strongly and passionately voicing their opinions of what is amiss and what they would like their future to be. But then in the final outcome we see Section #132 mysteriously show up in the Constitution. Does this segment of the population quietly, around the tea table, have the ear of these visiting power brokers and are able to get their agenda and interests acted upon in a way that the native population are hopelessly unable to do, no matter how much beating-the-gums and passion they display?

-- Farfetched you say? Think of this. Some believe that the about-to-be-exiled high-flying FCO official from Turks and Caicos to the same venue as Napoleon, was because he royally offended those in the expatriate community that hailed from his part of the world. It is a known fact that many of them despised him, and expressed as much vocally and in colourful language publicly. Oh, make no mistake, he offended native citizens on an ongoing basis, and they made their complaints known across the Atlantic. But to no avail. However, once he incurred the wrath of this expatriate community, it is thought that they used their influence to make him a modern-day Napoleon-in-exile.

We sit around in Turks and Caicos, and elsewhere, contemplating that the British seem to be making moves to take Turks and Caicos from the hands of its natural born citizens. But in truth they might be putting in the final touches to pulling it off.

It’s called deception and suppression of information, ideas, and talent even as they fly the false flag of ’Partnership and Progress,’ and ’we are listening’ and ‘we hear you loud and clear.’ It’s called complicity as our people, quick to stampede over each other, run at their beckoning to help them put their agenda in place.

It is quite disconcerting to see London and other UK cities on fire and being looted in a spree of lawlessness. So not British. An exasperated PM David Cameron described it as ’thievery,’ and ’criminal.’ Not so simple, Mr Prime Minister. A social scientist I am not, but I daresay it is much more than that.

As your people see their fortunes decline as their elected officials give them a deaf ear and get away with most outrageous behaviour, they feel disempowered and frustrated (like Tony Blair‘s deception to get the UK into the war in Iraq, British soldiers dying in Afghanistan, British citizens’ financial fortunes declining due to poor financial management, and the recent phone hacking scandal that makes one question diligent search for justice).

This all points to a crisis of confidence, causing well-meaning and law-abiding citizens to behave in this uncharacteristic manner. Now, if British citizens feel this way about those they chose to govern them, how much more should citizens of a Territory like Turks and Caicos, who lack representation at home or in the UK, feel about the path of their lives and their future? Remember the American abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison who said: ’If it’s not just, it’s not law.’ We should all pay heed to the words of this unapologetic and straight-forward man.

Ben Roberts is a Turks and Caicos Islander. He is a newsletter editor, freelance writer, published author, and member of TC FORUM. 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, is available at Amazon.com, and at major Internet book outlet sites.

August 20, 2011

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