Nassau - NP - The Bahamas: The City of New Providence

The City of New Providence
by Simon

Nassau is often used as a shortcut or synecdoche for New Providence. There is a logic and history behind this: For most of its history the majority of its residents lived in the City of Nassau and its immediate environs. Understandably, they more easily identified with the town in which they lived rather than the expanse beyond the actual and imagined town-limits.

We call residents of Nassau, Nassuvians. Yet, unlike Abaconians, Cat Islanders and Inaguans, what is the demonym for those of us who live at New Providence?

During the 20th century the population of Nassau climbed significantly through a combination of high birth rates among Bahamians and an influx of immigrants from Haiti who also tended to have high birth rates. The influx of Family Islanders also boosted the capital island’s numbers.

Beginning around the middle of the last century, the mutual forces of majority rule and black economic empowerment ignited an urban expansion. With considerable rapidity, the majority of the island’s population shifted beyond Nassau.

Urbanization has engendered many benefits as well as significant challenges for New Providence. These varied challenges include ongoing infrastructural needs in the areas of housing, ground transportation networks, public services and facilities, and reliable utilities, among others.

There are also a complex of sociological challenges including increased crime and violence, social alienation by some and the changing nature of social networks such as neighbourhoods. The environmental and health challenges related to urbanization are also significant.

What we are continuing to get our hands and collective imagination around are a broad variety of interrelated challenges cum master questions. The questions have been provoked by the transition from the City of Nassau to the City of New Providence, a geographical reality and an idea that is coming of age. To face the challenges of urban development, design and renewal, we have to think and plan in terms of an extended city.

URBAN ADVENTURE

A fitting metaphor for this transition is those motorists on New Providence’s roads who drive at a pace more appropriate to some of our more leisurely Family Islands. We can extend the metaphor to those who recklessly go way beyond the speed limit.

Our task is to get the speed and tempo of New Providence right, maintaining much of an island flavour and the capital island’s historic identity while embracing necessary change. In this urban adventure we might borrow a question from I.M. Pei, one of the masters of modern architecture: “Can we make the past serve the present?”

The journey from Carmichael to Saunder’s Beach may now take as little as 15 minutes courtesy of the new road corridor connecting north to south. Many residents from the eastern end of the island commute daily to jobs on the western end and vice versa.

This road network is one of many networks, which, over several decades resulted in New Providence developing into a highly integrated city. This integration will continue to intensify. It will do so in ways not immediately expected.

Even as more of their grandparents and parents retire to the Family Islands, a younger generation of Bahamians, excited about city living, will imagine, design and build the City of New Providence.

Their enthusiasm will extend to Nassau, Over-the-Hill and areas such as Chippingham and the Fort Hill. They will be joined by Bahamians returning home, who, after living abroad, often in cities, may find city living in Nassau more to their taste.

All of these city enthusiasts will not only play and recreate in downtown Nassau’s hotspots, restaurants and other entertainment venues. They will also begin to live in apartments, condos and cooperatives in historic Nassau and its environs.

Imagine, a group of young Bahamian professionals investing in a cooperative housing development somewhere in historic Nassau and its environs. Of course, this gentrification will be driven by more than a passion for city living. It will also be driven by economics, by supply and demand.

As prices continue to climb for suburban property and the amount of that land decreases, younger Bahamians will look to available land in unexpected areas. This will carry over to long-term investments, with younger Bahamians buying real estate in currently lower income areas of New Providence. Over time a number of these areas will be redeveloped.


COMMUNITY GARDENS

As we only have so much land at New Providence, we will have to think creatively about how it is developed over time. Critical to that development is the use of urban design to respond to two long-term challenges: crime and urban poverty.

Of course, these challenges will require a myriad of responses from economic empowerment to education. But, the way we refashion and redesign New Providence will make an enormous difference.

Take for example the idea of community gardens. Not only do they provide open green spaces, they also have the potential to renew community life while providing young people opportunities for positive alternative activities.

What if, for example, the government made available to a community association part of the large track of land east of Market Street where City Market once had a store?

The idea would be to use the allocated space as a community garden, where residents from Grant’s Town and Bain Town might grow vegetables and other produce for their own consumption and possibly for sale. Students form C.R. Walker may also be granted some space for that school’s agricultural programme.

Similarly, space for community gardens throughout New Providence may have various beneficial effects. So might land set aside for the development of community centres. These centres would host a variety of functions, including space for the development of local government councils and community development associations.

OPEN SPACES

The centres may also host a broad variety of activities related to the arts, youth development, health and well-being, after-school homework and mentoring programmes and parenting classes, among others.

Of course, all of the aforementioned would have to be properly conceptualized and managed. But if we are interested in genuine urban development and community renewal the way we build will help to determine what we build in terms of community life and a shared future.

Our multifaceted approach to crime and violence will have to include preventing such crime, including through various social programmes and alternative sentencing avenues. These programmes need space in our urban landscape, both imaginative and physical.

Despite the number of gated communities we have built, crime has not abated, and we all remain at risk even in some of the supposedly securer areas of New Providence. In that light, in addition to our protective fortresses, we may consider also using open spaces and community gathering places as crime prevention measures.

The contours of the new City of New Providence are emerging. It will include a blend of historic Nassau and the concept of town centres built during a previous administration of Prime Minister Ingraham. It will also include the unprecedented infrastructural investment undertaken by the current Ingraham administration.

As importantly, it will include the reimagining of New Providence by its residents inclusive of various community-based groups, artists and businesses, all working to fashion at New Providence a city with an outstanding quality of life. If we work hard at it, that quality of life will make New Providence one of the more liveable, coolest, funkiest, and safest cities in the Caribbean.

bahamapundit

OAS/Caricom Challenges in Haiti

Facing up to broken aid promises and interferences in Nov 28 poll
By RICKEY SINGH



LAST Wednesday's (October 20) annual Eric Williams Memorial Lecture, delivered in Miami, Florida, by Jamaica's former Prime Minister PJ Patterson, would have served to further underscore the urgent need for the international community to cut the talk and walk the walk in delivering pledged reconstruction aid for earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

Questions raised among the hundreds in attendance for the lecture pointed to the horrors of life for the people of Haiti, the "mother of freedom in this hemisphere".

Hopefully, the concerns expressed at the event would also serve as a reminder why both the Caribbean Community and the Organisation of American States should speak boldly to the reconstruction aid problem, among other things.

There is also the dangerous politicking that has already led to the unilateral exclusion of some 14 parties from contesting the upcoming November 28 presidential and parliamentary elections.

Before returning to the aid and political problems affecting Haiti, readers should know that the topic for this year's lecture was "The Renaissance of Haiti: A Template for Caribbean Integration".

It was organised by The Eric Williams Memorial Lecture Collection (EWMC), headed by Erica Williams-Connell, daughter of the late historian prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago who led the country into independence and headed governments over a quarter century until his death in office in 1981.

Patterson's assessment


Patterson, known for his deep commitment to regional integration, was chosen as the Caribbean Community's special envoy for Haiti in the wake of last January's unprecedented earthquake disaster.

He knows only too well about the prevailing "words game" over the distressing gap between aid pledges by donors and lack of deliveries in the face of immense suffering of Haitian earthquake victims, and in general the entire population of Haiti. In the circumstances, Patterson was the perfect choice for this year's Eric Williams Memorial Lecture.

He is well aware of the influence of Williams' pan-Caribbean vision that had significantly contributed to the inauguration of the Caribbean Community at Chaguaramas in 1973; and why today's 37-year-old Caricom must remain firmly committed to being a strong voice in the mobilisation of international support for the reconstruction of Haiti.

With respect to the current challenges facing the Haitian people and what functions as their "government" amid the ruins and squalor in Port-au-Prince, it may be useful for the region's public to learn of Patterson's latest assessment as Caricom's special envoy on Haiti.

Two critical issues


It is certainly time that the secretariats of Caricom and the OAS communicate with the region's public, either separately, or through a joint statement, their own concerns over the two very critical, agonising problems affecting the Haitian people -- one economic, the other political.

Desperately struggling to survive amid choking poverty long before their country was devastated by an unprecedented earthquake disaster, Haitians are today anxious to know why it is taking so long -- nine months after their worst natural disaster - for just US $732 million of the promised US$5.03 billion in "reconstruction aid and debt relief" to trickle down to them.

Of particular concern is, why has the administration of President Barack Obama, which had committed itself to an initial US$1.15 billion of the original US$5.03 billion, not yet delivered even a portion of its pledge?

Both United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and former President Bill Clinton, the UN special envoy to Haiti, continue to openly lament the failures to honour aid pledges in the face of the horrible daily problems of Haitians, who languish in tents where criminality, sickness, hunger and a loss of dignity for many remain a way of life.

The second, and related question, is why are donor nations, among them the USA and Canada, yet to condemn the arbitrary exclusion by Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) of candidates from 14 political parties?

Among the parties is Haiti's largest and most popular Fanmi Lavalas, whose founder-leader, ex-President Bertrand Aristide, remains in exile. What would justify this most strange action by the Electoral Council?

With presidential and legislative elections just about six weeks away, there needs to be a proper explanation from the Council, a constitutional and supposedly independent body, which is being funded by the international community to ensure free and fair elections in the interest of democratic governance.

That's why neither the OAS nor Caricom can fail to share their positions on the sensitive issues of lack of aid delivery and the arbitrary exclusion by the CEP of more than a dozen parties from contesting the forthcoming elections.

After all, both Caricom and the OAS have teamed up to monitor the conduct of the Novermber 28 elections.

October 24, 2010

jamaicaobserver

Bahamas Blog International

Baha Mar agreement/Labor issue: China putting the squeeze on The Bahamas; Your country may be next...

China putting the squeeze on The Bahamas; Your country may be next...
By Anthony L. Hall


The Bahamas is having a precedent-setting dispute with China over a development agreement that calls for Chinese men to comprise the vast majority of workers on a $2.5 billion project (Baha Mar) that China is funding.

(FYI: Baha Mar is to comprise six hotels with approximately 3,500 rooms and condominiums, a 100,000-sq-ft casino, 200,000-sq-ft of convention space, twenty acres of beach and water parks, an 18-hole golf course, and a 60,000-sq-ft retail village. Just what the already overdeveloped island of New Providence needs...)

Specifically, China is demanding that this small Caribbean nation issue permits for 8,150 foreign workers, which would amount to 71% of the labor force needed for this project; notwithstanding that The Bahamas is teeming with unemployed men (and women) who are willing and able to do the work.

Of course, for over a decade now, China has been buying up influence throughout the Caribbean to enable it to exercise its economic, political, and, perhaps, even military power to further its national interests without question... let alone challenge. And nothing demonstrated its modus operandi in this respect quite like the way it allegedly bribed (or attempted to bribe) every nation in the region to sever ties with Taiwan: almost all of them, including The Bahamas, duly complied.

But the leaders of every one of these nations knew, or should have known, that, sooner or later, China would seek to use its influence in ways that were inimical to their national interests. And, lest anyone thinks I’m making too much of this, here’s the alarm I felt compelled to sound (again) earlier this year -- in a February 19 commentary entitled World beware: China calling in (loan-sharking) debts. In this case, China was having a dispute with the most powerful nation on earth, the United States, over its relationship, not with Taiwan or any other country, but with a powerless Buddhist monk, the Dalai Lama:

“This episode should serve as a warning to all countries around the world that are not just lapping up China’s largesse, but are heralding it as a more worthy superpower than the United States. Because if the Chinese can spit such imperious and vindictive fire at the US over a relatively insignificant matter like [President Obama] meeting the Dalai Lama, just imagine what they would do to a less powerful country in a dispute over a truly significant matter.

“I anticipated that the Chinese would be every bit as arrogant in the use of their power as the Americans. But I never thought they would use it for such a petty cause. In point of fact here, in part, is how I admonished countries in the Caribbean and Latin America in this respect almost five years ago [in a February 22, 2005 commentary entitled “China buying political dominion”]:

‘What happens if China decides that it is in its strategic national interest to convert the container ports, factories, and chemical plants it has funded throughout the Caribbean into dual military and commercial use? Would these governments comply? Would they have any real choice? And when they do comply, would the US then blockade that island -- the way it blockaded Cuba during the missile crisis? Now, consider China making such strategic moves in Latin America where its purportedly benign Yuan diplomacy dwarfs its Caribbean operations. This new Cold War could then turn very hot indeed...’

“It clearly does not bode well that China has no compunctions about drawing moral and political equivalence between its beef with the US over the Dalai Lama and the US’s beef with it over internet espionage, unfair trade practices, and support for indicted war criminals like President Bashir of Sudan. Because irrational resentment in a regional menace like North Korea is one thing; in a global power like China it’s quite another.”

This brings me back to the dilemma in which The Bahamas now finds itself. To his credit, though, Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham seems determined not to sell out his own people quite as blithely as The Bahamas sold out the Taiwanese. For here’s the defiant note he sounded only this week:

"We told the China State Construction Engineering Corporation from the first time we saw them more than a year ago that it was not possible to have that number of foreign workers on a job site with the Bahamian content being so low. Nothing has changed. We've been telling them that for more than a year. It appears that some people either don't take us seriously or they apparently think that we are so desperate that we will do whatever we are asked to do. But our strength is not weakened." (The Nassau Guardian, October 20, 2010)

As we used to say in the schoolyard, “them is fighting words”. It’s just too bad that Ingraham’s principled stand is being undermined by media speculation in The Bahamas that he’s taking it, not to further the interests of the Bahamian people, but to preserve the veritable tourism monopoly now being enjoyed by another foreign developer, Kerzner International.

Never mind that Kerzner’s Atlantis resort happens to be the country’s largest private employer; or that the Baha Mar agreement is fraught with all kinds of other provisions that make a mockery of The Bahamas’s national interests.

More to the point, whatever personal benefits Ingraham may derive from his evidently cozy relationship with Kerzner, there’s no gainsaying the principle at issue; namely, that no matter the developer or financier, the percentage of local to foreign workers on all development projects should be at least 70:30; i.e., in favor of local workers, not the other way around.

It would be one thing if this untenable percentage of foreign workers that China is attempting to impose were limited to the construction period. But we Caribbean natives are now painfully aware that developers have enjoyed such adhesive leverage in negotiations with our government officials that provisions allowing them to stack permanent staff positions with mostly foreign workers as well have become rather boiler plate.

This is why Ingraham’s challenge to China is so precedent setting. And, as the title to this commentary indicates, it behooves all leaders in our region to support, and be prepared to emulate, the stand he’s taking: for together we stand, divided we fall.

In fact, since this is now a very public dispute, I urge regional leaders to publish an open letter of support to show solidarity with Ingraham when he addresses this labor issue with Chinese officials later this month, in China no less...

Finally, to those who may have thought that China would be a more benign hegemon than the US, I offer yet another instructive cliché: better the devil you know than the devil you don’t...

October 22, 2010

caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

Bahamas 2010 Census: The Bahamas' population has increased by 16.48 percent over the past decade

POPULATION GROWS 16%
By NIKIA DEVEAUX
Guardian Staff Reporter
nikia@nasguard.com

The population of The Bahamas has increased by 16.48 percent over the past decade compared to 19 percent growth during the 1990 to 2000 period, according to preliminary results coming out of the 2010 Census.

Statistics show that the country's population went from 303,611 in 2000 to 353,658 in 2010.

Director of Statistics Kelsie Dorsett revealed yesterday that growth declines in the main population centers-New Providence and Grand Bahama-played a significant role on the slowing of the country's population growth rate.

New Providence saw an increase of roughly 28 percent during the period of 1990 to 2000, but recorded only an 18 percent increase over the last decade.

The island's population currently stands at 248,948 compared to the previous decade's population of 210,832.

Grand Bahama dropped from a 15 percent increase in the previous census period to a 10 percent increase between 2000-2010.

"Even though these two islands still account for a substantial percentage of the population, the growth on these islands has slowed significantly,"Dorsett said.

According to the statistics director, the greatest population decline was found on Cat Island, which recorded a nine percent decrease.

San Salvador saw a major change in its population, going from over a 100 percent increase in the 1990s to a four percent decline over the past ten years.

The director said she believes that significant turnaround is due to the closing of the Club Med resort on that island.

"During the decade of 1990 to 2000 Club Med was up and running, hence all the auxillary services like car rentals, restaurants, etc., and it opened opportunities for people to have businesses and attracted people there. But with the closing, that meant that many people were no longer employed and they sought work elsewhere,"Dorsett said.

Exuma's population has more than doubled in the past decade.

The island's population grew from 3,571 in 2000 to 7,314 in 2010.

Dorsett attributes this population boom to the opening of the new Emerald Bay Sandals resort, among other developments on the island.

She said the trends in Exuma and San Salvador clearly demonstrate the role that economic development plays in population growth.

Acklins and Abaco also saw noteable increases in their populations.

According to Dorsette, statisticians worked painstakingly to ensure the accuracy of the numbers; however, the numbers are still subject to change because of several factors.

The numbers were tallied by hand, and do not yet include necessary adjustments.

"We as statisticians have adjustments to make, because unfortunately there are people out there who do not cooperate, and there are people who may have been away for the entire exercise,"she explained.

"The second and hopefully final round[of counting]will be done electronically when we have actually processed all of the data."

Dorsett said statisticians are currently in the process of coding the data, and no additional details will be available until the entire process is done.

Once the extensive and arduous coding process is done, the director said, information on population by age group, occupation, industry, religion, country of birth, country of citizenship, etc., will be made available.

The director said that the department's goal is to have all the information available within a year at the earliest.

"We will be very far ahead of previous years if we can get it all done within a year. We have set high goals for ourselves and we are hoping that within a year's time we will have all this done,"said Dorsett.

10/20/2010

thenassauguardian

University of the West Indies (UWI) and PhDs

UWI and PhDs
By Oliver Mills

It was reported in the Jamaica Gleaner newspaper of October 14, 2010, that professor Paget Henry of Brown University in the United States, who is Antiguan born, stated that it is critical for the UWI to graduate more PhDs to teach students at degree granting colleges that are emerging throughout the Caribbean.

The professor stated that the areas should be Caribbean history, sociology, political science, economics, literature and the arts. He added that this self knowledge could only come from artists and scholars trained at the UWI.

But what is the professor really suggesting? Is he intimating that these emerging degree granting institutions lack sufficiently well qualified lecturers in these areas? Again, is he saying that a masters degree or a post graduate specialist diploma are insufficient to teach at the level of these degree granting institutions? Or, is he stating that the UWI needs to, and is not graduating sufficient PhD students, and therefore needs to increase the completion and graduation rates of PhD students?

On the surface, this suggestion appears quite straight forward, but on close examination it is highly complex, as well as quite revealing concerning not only what is being done, but what should be done. It also implies that the degree granting institutions have sufficient persons with masters degrees, but what is now badly needed is more people with PhD qualifications. This is far from being the case, since many degree granting institutions do not have every staff member with a masters qualification, even though many may be working towards achieving this credential.

The further factor is that many degree granting institutions in the Caribbean only offer first degrees. Very few offer masters qualifications, unless it is done in collaboration with institutions within or outside the Caribbean. So what seems to be initially required, is to improve the quality of the first degree, so that it articulates with the higher requirements of other institutions abroad, particularly for persons pursuing higher studies. This is very important, since many students from some Caribbean institutions who go to schools in the United States, often have to either repeat the first degree, do make up courses, or spend an additional year, and score a particular grade, before they are accepted into the programme of their choice, even if their first degree is in the particular area.

I know personally of a Caribbean student who went to a North American institution with an upper second class honours degree in library science, but was told that her course concentration was insufficient to gain direct entry. She had to do a number of undergraduate courses over the period of a year, before her first degree was recognized as equivalent to that offered by this institution. The issue seemed to be that since the first degree in the Caribbean took three years, the degree at the foreign institution was a four year programme. After completing the additional year, the Caribbean student was allowed to enter the masters programme in library science. It means that some Caribbean institutions have to examine their first degrees in terms of equivalency with that of other institutions. We live in a global society that is highly competitive and connected, and so we need our institutions to offer qualifications that are accepted globally, and not just in the island where they are, or in the region.

There are also cases where Caribbean students with masters degrees who have applied to certain North American institutions to doctoral work in the area of their masters, were required by the institution they had applied to, to redo their masters programme, because it was not regarded as being at the level acceptable by that institution. Even in a certain European university, students with a first degree from their home institution who applied to do a masters programme were told they had first to do a post graduate diploma in the area with a “B” average, before they could be accepted, and those with masters who wanted to do a doctorate were told they had to do either the M.Phil. first, or do one year of this programme, and present an acceptable research paper of a particular quality, before being considered for a doctoral programme.

The whole issue here, is that before we can talk of graduating more PhDs, we in the Caribbean have first to critically and systematically look at our first degree and masters programmes in terms of global equivalency, so that when our students apply abroad to other institutions, they would not have to spend additional time and money repeating what they thought they already had in the bag. Degree granting colleges in the Caribbean therefore need to buck up, and look not only at the commercial aspect of their programmes, but their international currency. An important feature of their programmes should be what the student, after pursuing a course of studies is capable of doing. Does the programme fit appropriately with the job market and requirement of the wider society? And, does the programme ensure that the student would have acquired entrepreneurial knowledge and skills to not only qualify for a job, but to create and innovate new products and services to the benefit of the economy and society?

When the professor used the term ‘graduating more PhDs’ it gives the impression of the UWI being a factory, which churns out products, where, irrespective of quality control, still come out with certain defects, such as the student not being equipped with the right match of performance skills, along with not being educated with respect to how to transfer knowledge fit for purpose. It is not simply a matter of graduating more PhDs, but giving students a quality education reflected in a PhD. This means that supervisors of students must be highly credentialed, and must have published widely in local, regional and international journals. It also means that the work produced must be either highly original, or there is a creative reinterpretation of work already in the market, providing a new and different perspective, which not only adds further weight to the area, but gives it a new and transformative applicability. It is not a rehash, or a commentary.

Furthermore, when professor Henry says that the areas should be Caribbean history, the social sciences, literature and the arts, and adds that self-knowledge could only come from artists and scholars trained at the UWI, he misses the point and purpose of education completely. Education aims at a transfiguration of the human personality through the quality of the subject areas. It seeks to create thinkers, open-mindedness, and a cultured and humane people. What the professor does not say is how these areas would meet the criteria just suggested. He seems to be saying that more PhDs should be awarded in these areas. But why these, as opposed to others? Is this a reflection of his bias for these areas? Of the PhDs awarded in these areas, how have they helped the Caribbean economy and society? Have they given the emerging degree granting institutions further status and pull, with respect to students’ interest and competence? What about management studies? How many persons who have already done a PhD in any of the areas mentioned by the professor, have opted to work at these institutions?

When the professor further mentions that self-knowledge can only come from artists and scholars trained at the UWI, he fails to realize that self-knowledge is personal, based on the interactions of the individual with society, how he or she interprets these, and the responses that are given. You do not acquire self-knowledge from others. It is an individual, psychological thing that emerges from our transactions within the environment and not from entities external to us who bestow it on us. Artists and scholars can provide insights, based on their own analysis, but they cannot infuse self-knowledge into us. Self-knowledge is authentic to us. To also say these have to be trained at the UWI, is the ultimate fallacy. Any genuine institution anywhere which exposes us to the best that has be thought and taught, qualifies to facilitate the development of our intuitions, but not award us self-knowledge as the professor seems to think.

I am sure after further reflection, the professor would enhance his perspective on the issues he has promulgated, and arrive at a conclusion that is more rational, informed, and objective.

October 21, 2010

caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) needs two justices, including a president

CCJ needs two justices, including a president

by Oscar Ramjeet

The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) has been in operation for five-and-a-half years as a final appellate court, with only three countries on board, and already it is on the hunt for a new president and another judge, and one has already retired.

Guyanese Duke Pollard reached the age of 75 and went into retirement after being given a three-year extension.

President Michael De La Bastide, who celebrated his 73rd birthday on July 18 this year, will go into retirement mid-next year and the CCJ has already placed advertisements in the region’s media inviting applicants who have served as a judge for five years or more in a court of unlimited jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters in the region, the Commonwealth or in a civil law jurisdiction.

Applicants are also being encouraged from persons who have been engaged as a practitioner or teacher of law for not less than 15 years in a member state of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) or in some part of the Commonwealth or in a civil law jurisdiction.

The CCJ notes that the tenure of the president is for a "non renewable term of seven years or until age 72, whichever is earlier.”

The lone female judge in the regional court, Desiree Bernard, will be 72, and if she does not get an extension, the CCJ will have to get a replacement and the question is if the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission will look for another female to fill the slot held by Justice Bernard who had several firsts -- the first solicitor to be appointed a judge, the first female to be appointed a judge in Guyana, first female to be an appellate court judge, also chief justice, and the first woman to be head of the judiciary in the Caribbean when she was named Chancellor of the Judiciary in Guyana more than a decade ago.

The regional court has the most modern technology in several areas -- for video conferencing, research, and even presentation in court -- and it is very unfortunate that after such a relatively long time only three countries have joined the court. It seems to me that the other countries have breached their agreement with the Caribbean Development Bank since they agreed to go on board within a reasonable time.

Although most of the countries have not abolished appeals to the Privy Council, so that the CCJ can be their final appellate court, the CCJ can still determine their issues in its original jurisdiction.

I am surprised and disappointed with Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago because these two countries were in the forefront in the late 1980s and early 1990s towards the setting up of the court. I recall the attorneys general of these two countries, Oswald Harding of Jamaica, and Selwyn Richardson (now deceased) of Trinidad and Tobago, were moving around the region lobbying governments to join the CCJ, and it is unfortunate those two countries have not yet done so.

Trinidad and Tobago’s new prime minister, Kamla Persad Bissessar, said that she will seek a referendum from the electorate before doing so. This is a bit baffling because it was the UNC administration under Basdeo Panday which was pushing for the court -- hence the reason why the court is located in Port of Spain.

Former Commonwealth Secretary General, Sir Shridath Ramphal, who has been advocating Caribbean integration for five decades, said in an interview with me that, if the CCJ collapses, the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) will fail.

Ramphal joined with four other eminent CARICOM nationals, former Jamaica prime minister, PJ Patterson; former CARICOM secretary general, Alister McIntyre; Dominica's president, Nicholas Liverpool; and University of the West Indies Vice Chancellor Sir George Alleyne, all recipients of the Order of the Caribbean Community (OCC), the highest award in the region, in calling on the other regional governments to rid themselves of the Privy Council and join the appellate jurisdiction of the CCJ.

The latest call for the other regional governments to join the CCJ came this week from another distinguished Caribbean jurist, Patrick Robertson, president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, who said that the regional governments should have abolished appeals to the Privy Council since the day they became independent states.

So far, only Guyana, Barbados, and Belize have abolished appeals to the Privy Council. Let’s hope that the others will soon come on board.

October 19, 2010

caribbeannewsnow

Chile mine rescue exposes precarious working conditions

By Rafael Azul


The collapse of the San Jose gold and copper mine that trapped 33 miners for 10 weeks 2,300 feet below ground has focused attention on the safety of operations at Chilean mines.

Over the past 30 years, the mining industry, which accounts for 40 percent of Chile’s gross domestic product, has profited from the high price of copper, gold and other commodities while keeping costs low by neglecting safety and accelerating the exploitation of its mining workforce.

Before the mine collapse, the San Jose mine was a relatively small underground operation, which extracted gold and copper. Annual revenues at the mine exceeded US$20 million. As a result of the latest collapse, the San Sebastian Group, which operates San Jose, filed for bankruptcy in September. This move places a question mark over the company’s ability to provide the compensation it has promised to the trapped miners, plus back wages owed to the other 300 workers at the mine.

In fact, the San Sebastian Group is demanding that the Chilean government first unfreeze US$10 million in assets as a condition for compensating the miners, effectively holding hostage the compensation owed the workers in its dispute with the government.

News reports indicate that the miners and their families are suing the mine owners and the Chilean government for US$27 million over conditions in the mine. Brunilda Gonzalez, mayor of the town of Caldera, located near the mine, reported that the miners and their families are “furious” that the San Jose mine was reopened in May 2008 with no improvements in safety following the death of a mine geologist in 2007.

The reopening of the mine, with no improvements to safety, was justified then as a response to increasing Chinese demand for copper and gold. Under these conditions, both the government of then president Michelle Bachelet, and the San Sebastian Group management, concluded that the lives of miners were a small price to pay relative to the expectation of high profits.

While mining in Chile is generally dangerous, this mine in particular has a history of mining accidents that have killed and injured workers. In 2004, the miners union petitioned for the closure of the mine over its dismal safety record. The petition was driven by the death of miner Pedro Gonzalez from a rock fall. The union’s demand was denied by a Chilean appeals court. In 2007, before the closure of the mine, workers at the mine once again petitioned for its closure, following the death of three miners. Once again, the petition was denied by the courts.

Earlier this year, in July, falling rocks at San Jose severely injured a miner, Gino Cortez, whose leg had to be amputated. Cortez maintained that elementary safety measures, such as installing a safety wire mesh on the roof of the mine to prevent rocks from falling, were never undertaken. While the 33 miners were waiting to be rescued at San Jose, another worker was killed by falling rocks at a separate mine.

The San Jose mine incident exemplifies what has happened to mine safety in Chile since the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Under Pinochet, in the name of regulation and free market capitalism, virtually all safety regulations were dismantled. A key player in that process was current president Sebastian Pinera’s older brother, Jose Pinera, minister of labor in 1980. Jose Pinera was tasked with creating a labor code that would not interfere with big business profits. In the name of a more flexible labor code that would stimulate economic growth, he abolished labor rights that had been won through decades of bitter struggle by the Chilean working class.

The labor code established in 1980 continues to be the law of the land in Chile today. As a result, fully 50 percent of Chile’s working class has no stable employment. At least five of the 33 miners rescued from San Jose fall under this category.

In line with this policy, which ignores mine safety and denies workers their basic rights, a succession of “Concertación” governments, in which the Socialist Party has shared power with the Christian Democracy since the end of the dictatorship, the Chilean government has yet to ratify the International Labor Organization’s 1995 agreement on mine health and safety. Convention 176 commits mining nations such as Peru, Mexico and Chile to undertake a modicum of health and safety measures and to commit themselves to the elimination of mine deaths by creating a national policy on health and safety, which includes regular inspections as well as provisions to protect miners from retaliation from exposing violations.

The latter is a real problem in Chile, where workers are routinely sacked for complaining about their working conditions. Despite the inadequacy of the ILO agreement, only 24 countries have ratified it. In additional to Chile, the ILO agreement has been ignored by other major mining nations such as Australia, Canada and Russia.

Since the turn of the century, some 350 miners have died from mine accidents in Chile, a number that may well be an underestimation. According to Dick Blin, a spokesman for the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM), worldwide some 12,000 miners die every year, well above official figures. The under-reporting of mine fatalities is most glaring at small mines, such as the one at San Jose.

In a radio interview, Marco Canales, president of the Chilean Labor Federation (CUT), pointed out that the labor rules that were implemented in 1980 by Jose Pinero are still in effect. Canales said that the country lacks minimal mining regulations. He pointed out that health and safety violations are also rampant in agriculture, where workers are subjected to dangerous chemicals.

Even in cases where regulations exist, they are poorly enforced and when a violation is discovered, mine management often finds it cheaper to pay fines than to fix the problem. This applies as well to mine violations that result in injuries or deaths. Canales also pointed out that there is insufficient training for miners. Two of the 33 miners rescued at San Jose had been recently hired with no mining experience.

At the same time that the CUT denounces conditions in mining and other industries, it is silent about its own role. Over the last 20 years the CUT has been fully integrated into the structure of the Chilean state and as such has been largely incapable of bringing about the repeal of Pinochet’s labor laws.

In 2008, as the effects of the global financial crisis were affecting the price of copper and bringing about increasing unemployment, the CUT channeled working class anger into the blind alley of one-day protests, making it possible for the Chilean government to attack education and pension rights and to block increases in the minimum wage. Unemployment in Chile exceeds 8.5 percent, with a 20 percent jobless rate for young workers.

Such conditions make many Chilean workers highly skeptical of assurances by the Chilean government that changes will be implemented.

18 October 2010

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