The crime against the Democratic Congresswoman

Reflections of Fidel

(Taken from CubaDebate)

AS is known, the state of Arizona, a territory that was snatched from Mexico by the United States together with many other expanses of land, has been the scene of painful events for the hundreds of Latin Americans who die trying to immigrate to the United States in search of work or to join parents, spouses or other close family members who are there.

In that country, it is they who do the hardest jobs and live under the constant fear of arrest and forced deportation. Despite drastic measures, the number of people dying in the attempt is growing every year and those expelled to their countries of origin annually are in the hundreds of thousands.

The number of U.S. citizens opposed to that abuse is also growing, like those who supported and, for the third time, elected the young Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

The state of Arizona is currently one of the richest in the United States on account of the minerals extracted there, especially copper and molybdenum; large-scale cotton and meat production, which utilizes huge expanses of its land; the beauty of its landscapes, including the Colorado River Grand Canyon, considered one of the loveliest on the planet, and one of the three major indigenous communities. The state is annually visited by 30 million national and foreign tourists. Approximately 30% of its population is of Hispanic-American origin.

On the other side, the Tea Party, constituted by the most reactionary and politically backward elements of society, is trying to drag the Republican Party into extremist and warmongering positions which, in the midst of the crisis and disappointment over the promises that Obama has not wanted or has been unable to fulfill, would take the country into the abyss. The relevant conclusions can de drawn from the debate that will obligatorily have to take place.

As for the state of the Congresswoman's health, the Spanish press website El Mundo, published:

"The bullet entered the back part of the Democratic congresswoman’s head, […] crossed the left hemisphere of the brain and exited the front. After a two-hour operation, in which they extracted the remains of the bullet, part of the dead cerebral tissue and approximately half of her cranium – which they have kept to re-implant later – surgeons at the Medical Center attached to the University of Arizona, Tucson […] are expressing ‘cautious optimism.’

"It would seem that the surgery went well, according to Dr. Peter Rhee, head of Traumatology at the hospital, who explained that, despite the patient being sedated and on a respirator, which means that she cannot talk, she has been able to communicate with gestures and respond to simple commands, ‘like squeeze a hand or raise two fingers,’ something which indicates the existence of ‘cerebral function.’"

"Dr. Francisco Villarajo, head of Neurosurgery at the Niño Jesús Hospital and La Luz Clinic and with experience in this kind of surgery, explained to El Mundo: ‘What is most dangerous for the congresswoman at this point is brain swelling, given that, in its passing, the bullet has taken with it portions of bone, which could result in inflammation. A risk that is further increased after surgery, as the area is highly sensitive.’"

I hope that world public opinion will learn clearly and precisely the real condition of the congresswoman as soon as possible. It is a matter of interest to everyone.



Fidel Castro Ruz

January 10, 2011

7:11 p.m.

Translated by Granma International

granma.cu

Bahamas Blog International

One year since the earthquake in Haiti

Bill Van Auken


Today marks the first anniversary of the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that devastated the impoverished Caribbean nation of Haiti, leaving a quarter of a million of its people dead, more than 300,000 injured, and approximately a million and a half homeless.

One year after this natural disaster, the horrors facing Haiti’s population have only deepened, with a cholera epidemic claiming thousands of lives and a million left stranded in squalid tent camps.

This festering crisis underscores the social and political sources of the suffering inflicted upon Haiti’s working class and oppressed masses.  That such conditions prevail virtually on the doorstep of the United States, which concentrates the greatest share of the world’s wealth, constitutes a crime of world historic proportions and an indictment of the profit system.

Those familiar with the conditions on the ground in Haiti provide an appalling account of the indifference and neglect of American and world imperialism toward the country’s people.

“The mountains of rubble still exist; the plight of the victims without any sign of acceptable temporary shelter is worsening the conditions for the spread of cholera, and the threat of new epidemics becomes more frightening with each passing day,” said former Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, the Caribbean community’s special representative to Haiti.  “In short, there has been no abatement of the trauma and misery which the Haitian populace has suffered.”

Roland Van Hauwermeiren, country director for the NGO Oxfam in Haiti, described 2010 as “a year of indecision” that had “put Haiti’s recovery on hold.”  He added, “Nearly one million people are still living in tents or under tarpaulins and hundreds of thousands of others who are living in the city’s ruins still do not know when they will be able to return home.”

Of the approximately one million people living in makeshift tents or under tarps in the crowded camps of Port-au-Prince, more than half are children.

The Haitian capital remains buried in rubble.  It is estimated that less than 5 percent of the debris has been cleared by Haitian workers attacking the mountains of fallen concrete and twisted metal with shovels and their bare hands.   Heavy equipment has not been present in any significant amount since the withdrawal of the US military more than six months ago.

At its height, the US deployed some 22,000 soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen in Haiti, seizing unilateral control of the country’s main airport, port facilities and other strategic facilities.  The US military’s priority was to secure the country against the threat of popular upheaval and to deploy a Coast Guard and naval force to prevent Haitian refugees from making their way to the US.

To those ends, in the critical first weeks after the earthquake when aid was most needed to prevent loss of life and limb for the hundreds of thousands of injured, the Pentagon repeatedly turned away planes carrying medial aid and personnel in order to keep runways free for US military assets.

Within just 11 days of the earthquake, the US-backed Haitian government of President Rene Preval declared the search and rescue operation over—with only 132 people having been pulled alive from the rubble.  Had an adequate response been organized, many more could have been saved.  Decisions were taken in Washington based not on humanitarian considerations, but rather on the cold calculus of national interests and profits.   Undoubtedly, this included the calculation that rescuing injured Haitians would only create a further drain on resources.

In contrast, the spontaneous response of the people of the United States and the entire world was one of solidarity with the suffering Haitian masses.  An unprecedented outpouring of support yielded $1.3 billion in contributions from the US alone, the vast majority of it coming from ordinary working people.

One year later, however, just 38 percent of those funds have actually been spent to aid in the recovery and rebuilding of Haiti, according to a survey by the Chronicle of Philanthropy.  In Haiti, there are widespread suspicions that vast amounts of money have been diverted into the coffers of NGOs and aid organizations.

Even worse is the response of governments. At a donors’ conference convened in March of last year, more than $5.3 billion was pledged.  Of that, only $824 million has been delivered. Worst of all is the response of Washington, which pledged $1.15 billion for 2010, only to subsequently announce that it was postponing payment of virtually the entire pledge until 2011.

Last July, former US President Bill Clinton, who serves as the Obama administration’s envoy to Haiti, the UN’s special envoy to the country and the co-chair together with Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC), expressed frustration over the slow pace of the payments and promised to pressure donors to make good on their promises.  Apparently he has had little success in this effort, including with his own wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.  He has repeatedly made it clear that the only acceptable path to Haiti’s reconstruction lies through private investment and the assurance of profitable conditions—based largely on starvation wages--for US-based banks and transnationals.

On top of the earthquake’s devastation has come an epidemic of cholera, which has already claimed 3,600 lives and is expected to infect at least 400,000 people.  Public health experts acknowledge that the spread of the disease has still not peaked, yet the terrible toll of this disease merits barely a mention in the US media.

The Obama administration’s indifference to Haitian life has been underscored by the decision to resume deportations to the country, with 350 Haitians slated to be sent back this month. With many of these people destined for incarceration in Haitian jails, which are rampant with cholera, the action amounts to a death sentence.

The epidemic is not a product of the earthquake, but rather, like the extraordinarily high death toll from the quake itself, the outcome of grinding poverty and backwardness resulting from the domination of Haiti by imperialism and, in particular, the role played by the US government and American banks and corporations over the past century.

Haiti is by far the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.  Even before the earthquake, less than half of the urban population and less than a fifth of those in rural areas had access to sanitation, leaving the country vulnerable to cholera.   Prior to the quake, nearly three quarters of the Haitian populace was living on less than $2 a day, while barely 20 percent had jobs in the formal economy and 86 percent of urban dwellers were housed in slums.

These conditions are inextricably bound up with an oppressive political and social order that was forged through the US military occupation from 1915 to 1934, the savage 30-year dictatorship of the US-backed Duvalier dynasty, and the subsequent enforcement of so-called "liberal free market" policies by Washington and the International Monetary Fund.

The growing frustration and anger of the Haitian people over the criminal policies of Washington and the country’s narrow and corrupt financial elite have erupted repeatedly in mass resistance in recent months, first against the United Nations troops over the spread of cholera and then in response to the fraudulent November 28 election.

This popular resistance deserves the full support of working people in the US and internationally.  The demand must be raised for immediate and massive aid to Haiti.

But aiding the people of Haiti and rebuilding the country on the basis of human needs rather than the interests of the native elite and the foreign banks and corporations can be achieved only by uniting the working class in Haiti, the US and throughout the hemisphere in a common fight for the socialist transformation of society.

12 January 2011

wsws

Honouring our commitment to Haiti

By Senator Kirsten Gillibrand


Families across New York will be reflecting this week on the first anniversary of the devastating earthquake that ravaged Haiti.   The tragic loss of life and hardship from this disaster has anguished the people of Haiti and their families here at home.

While we mourn the more than 300,000 people who died during this tragedy, we must also not forget the over one million displaced Haitians who are still living in crowded camps and many others still without basic services.

Now that the cameras have gone, we cannot leave Haiti behind.

In the aftermath of the earthquake there was an outpouring of support from governments, ordinary Americans and people across the globe.  And while we have made some progress, a number of events from deadly storms, to a cholera outbreak, and contested local elections have further complicated long term reconstruction efforts.

We must not let up on our pledge to help rebuild Haiti.

The way forward requires commitment and vision.  I saw the challenges firsthand when I spent time in Port au Prince last year, and I believe there are opportunities to tackle the country’s serious needs.

First, the Haitian people deserve free, fair and inclusive elections and a stable, working government that responds to their needs.  Election fraud must be addressed and corrected.  Only then can the Haitian people have confidence that their government will effectively use international and Haitian resources to help move the displaced out of camps and into permanent homes, strengthen schools, and create new economic opportunities.  I am closely following the Organization of American States (OAS) review of the election results and will work to ensure a fair election process.

Second, we must do a better job of partnering and working with the Haitian people and the Diaspora community.  I have consistently raised this issue with the Administration and will continue to urge the USAID Director to ensure that we stay true to our government’s commitment to engaging with all the stakeholders in supporting a Haitian-led recovery.

Third, I will continue to call on the United States to make a high quality, public school system a top priority in our relief efforts.  It was inspiring to see eager schoolchildren in backpacks on their first day of school during my visit.   If Haiti is ever going to rebuild, and if these children are ever going to succeed, Haiti needs a strong publicly funded school system serving as community cornerstones, offering health clinics, immunizations, literacy education, job training and nutrition for children and families.

While we seek to rebuild Haiti, we must protect Haitian nationals residing in our borders.  In the hours after the earthquake, I called on President Obama to grant temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitians living in America.  I am grateful the Administration took swift action, allowing Haitians in the US to continue to live here without fear of returning to a country ravaged by devastation.

With TPS set to expire in July of this year, I am urging the president to once again extend temporary protected status for an additional year through 2012.

I am also renewing my push to help 35,000 Haitians who have US government-approved family immigrant petitions reunite with their families in the US.

Due to visa backlogs, some Haitian spouses and minor children of US permanent residents or adult children of US citizens could wait for years to come to America.   This month I will re-introduce legislation in the Senate to allow such individuals to leave Haiti and work in the US.

Haiti faces a series of enormous challenges and there is more work to do.  We must do more to ensure that the problems of Haiti do not become a forgotten cause.  The survivors of the tragedy remind us of the strength, resilience, and hope that emerged from the rubble.  We must stand in unity with the Haitian people and remain steadfast in our mission to see Haiti overcome, recover, and succeed.

January 10, 2011

caribbeannewsnow

Gun Violence Running Amok

The Bahama Journal Editorial
Nassau, The Bahamas


In yet another instance of America’s morbid fascination with the gun and with the violence implicit in this ruthlessly efficient weapon, people around the world now look in on some of what can and does happen when an armed man in Tucson, Arizona enters a scene where he has the part of maiming and killing a number of innocent men, women and a girl-child.

We deplore this violence and today we pray not only for those who have been wounded; but also for the sweet repose of the dead.

We also pray that those who mourn might yet find comfort as they remember their dead neighbor, family member or friend.

While this is clearly all we can do in the circumstances, we also note the extent to which gun-violence now pervades the consciousness of so very many of our people.

We deplore this debauch of so very many of our criminalized men, women and increasingly our youth.

And so, even as we look inwards, we look north and see how hard men with guns can and do manage to twist human history in their own twisted direction.

And so we note how [this time around]; the man with the Glock in Tucson, Arizona is 22 year-old 22 year old Jared Loughner.

This man is thought to be the gun-man responsible for the carnage that has left behind a trail of blood, horror and the nauseatingly nasty stench of violence perpetrated upon the innocent.

His victims include men, women and a nine-year old child.

In this grisly list we find included, U.S. Congress Representative, Gabrielle Giffords [wounded]; U.S. District Court Judge John Roll and five others, including a 9 year old girl, Christina Taylor Green, murdered and 12 others injured in the mayhem.

For better or worse – and most often for worse – anger and violence finds themselves woven into the very fabric of life in the United States of America.

On occasion, this brew is expressed rhetorically; but on other fateful moments, the violence expressed is to the point as gun-shot finds its mark and people are left either maimed or dead.

Today we note that bloody instance that occurred this Saturday past in Tucson, Arizona when a U.S. State Representative was shot at point-blank range and where and when some others also bit the dust.

As Carl Hulse and Kate Zernike note, “... The shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and others at a neighborhood meeting in Arizona on Saturday set off what is likely to be a wrenching debate over anger and violence in American politics.”

They also argue that, “… Not since the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 has an event generated as much attention as to whether extremism, antigovernment sentiment and even simple political passion at both ends of the ideological spectrum have created a climate promoting violence…”

Indubitably, today this is precisely the case.

For our part, we are absolutely convinced that it is America’s morbid fascination with violence and the gun that today under girds that great nation’s epidemic of gun violence.

So, the prognosis is bleak for America and for the recurrence of nightmares such as this one that involves Gifford and her fellow victims.

This is why today we commiserate with those who mourn the death of loved ones brought down by murderous gun fire, whether they reside here in the Bahamas, our region or whether they live in places like Tucson, Arizona, or Fort Hood, Texas where thirteen people – most of them soldiers- were laid low by bloody gunfire.

In this regard, it is today as clear as a blue-sunny day that gun violence in our country is but yet again a contorted expression of the extent to which some Bahamians ape, mimic and model behavior imported from the United States of America.

These idiots do what they have to do with weapons smuggled into the Bahamas from the United States and other countries.

This is all so very sad.

Indeed, it is also so very tragic.

Put simply – and to the point- the great United States is being ravaged and devastated by gun-violence run amok.

Some of these are of course used for hunting.

But true too is the fact that, most of the guns that are purchased will be used to intimidate, maim or kill human beings.

But truth is that most other guns that Americans say that they have a right to bear are obviously intended for their very best uses, namely to maim and kill any and all, inclusive of man, woman or child.

Indeed, when all is said and all is done – the question remains as to how much longer it will take the American people to come to their senses and realize that it is their own morbid fascination with Death that now fuels the kind of rage, violence and mayhem that found expression this Saturday past in Tucson, Arizona.

The Bahama Journal Editorial

The cholera epidemic in Haiti

By Jean Herve Charles



I was travelling at the beginning of the month of October, from Port au Prince to Cape Haitian by public transportation when one of the travelers exchanged a phone call giving the information in the bus that eleven persons had died from food poisoning from a restaurant in Mirebalais, a bustling town not too far from the Dominican border. I would learn later it was not a case of food poisoning but the beginning of a cholera epidemic with the epicenter located near the Nepalese UN contingent stationed in that city.

Mirebalais is close to the Artibonite River, the largest and the longest Haitian river. Investigative research initiated by the French Health Ministry and conducted by a French specialist, Professor Renaux Piarroux, along with the Dean of the School of Public Health at Harvard University, has concluded that massive dumping of human waste from the UN base had compromised the quality of the water for regular use.

Notable institutions, including the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, have hidden the origin of the disease with the lingo that ‘the source of the virus could not be determined with certainty”. The Swedish Ambassador Claes Hammar broke ranks with the wall of silence against Haiti that its own government has contributed to erect.

I have the information from reliable sources from the United States that the strain of cholera in Haiti is from the Nepal UN contingent in Haiti. It is up to the United Nations to reveal the whole truth about the genesis of the cholera.

The cholera germ could not find a hotter bed than Haiti to germinate with celerity and intensity. Public health as an institution and in practice does not exist in the entire country.

To facilitate the vein of corruption, the government has emasculated the power and the means of each local entity to clean its streets and the management of its waste, by creating an institution, the CNE, which is outside the purview of the legislative branch and of public scrutiny.

The CNE with massive equipment bought with the Caribe fund is using this material and its human resource with the prism of political priority not with the goal of providing the citizens of Haiti with a clean environment.

To add insult to injury the man in charge of that institution, Jude Celestin, is the dauphin groomed by the president of Haiti to become the next head of state of the Republic.

According to John Snow (1813- 1858), the father of the etymology of the disease, the cholera epidemic is, above all, a disease of contaminated water. You will find no city in Haiti, including the capital, equipped with a system for distributing potable drinking water. (The town of Petit Goave has just received a grant from Red Cross France to provide the city with drinking water.)

Close associates of the government are in the business of selling drinking water; as such the government should stay out of that business. DINEPA the new institution funded by the Spanish government to manage the water system in the country, does not have a policy of universal distribution of potable clean water.

The cholera disease has already caused the death of some 3,481 people with 80,000 in hospitalization. It is expected, according to the Pan American Health Organization to reach an effective 1 million people. The Cuban doctors, as well as Doctors Without Borders, have been in the frontline of the epidemic containment.

The term cholera, derived from the Greek word khole, is caused by a bacillus named vibrio cholera. It has its origin in the Indian continent near the squalor of the Ganges Delta. It spread from there through the silk trade to Russia in 1817, killing one million people. It went next to Germany, 1831, London and Paris in 1849 and returned to Russia in 1852. It is a dangerous infection that starts with a profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting of “a rice water with a fishy odor”. It can kill a person within hours, with circulatory collapse leading to a renal failure and certain death.

While the cholera disease is extremely dangerous, it can be treated easily with vaccine (85% effective), oral serum and, in the larger context, universal water purification, clean sewage and proper waste management system.

Haiti is postponing this radical operation to engage in the propaganda of cleaning hands and bottled water, while refuse and uncollected garbage is all over.

The earthquake of January 12, 2010, was an occasion for Haiti to rebuild itself. The cholera epidemic is another opportunity for Haiti to correct its deficient public health system. I have seen no clear signals that the Haitian government, along with the international community, is seizing the opportunity to create a new nation where cholera or any other disease or epidemic will have no quarter.

The Dominican Republic has registered already 139 cases of cholera. The epidemic respects no borders. A functioning and responsible leadership in Haiti is the best handicap against this modern scourge that enjoys squalor to spread its wings!

January 8, 2011

caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

The National Congress of Trade Unions to commemorate the historic 1958 general strike which brought Nassau to its knees...

Trade Unions Congress to mark 1958 general strike

tribune242

Nassau, The Bahamas

AT A TIME of high tension between the government and labour unions over the sale of BTC, the National Congress of Trade Unions has decided to commemorate the historic general strike which brought Nassau to its knees for several weeks in 1958.

NCTU general secretary Robert Farquharson announced that a rally and voter registration march will be held on Monday beginning at 7pm at RM Bailey Park.

The march will begin at the BCPOU headquarters on Farrington Road at noon.

Mr Farquharson asked all members and affiliates to take their lunch hour at that time, make the five-minute walk to the Parliamentary Registration Department and register to vote.

He noted that persons will need to have their passport and national insurance card with them in order to register.

The general strike of 1958, in which thousands of workers took part, resulted in the Trade Union and Industrial Conciliation Act and the creation of the Labour Department.

It is also credited with influencing Allan Lennox Boyd, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, to order the first constitutional steps toward Majority Rule for the Bahamas.

While the NCTU's statement made no mention of the government's current plan to sell BTC to Cable and Wireless, several union leaders have threatened to protest the deal by orchestrating a strike rivaling the 1958 upheaval.

This week, State Finance Minister Zhivargo Laing hit back at these union bosses, saying their threats display their "arrogance."

Mr Laing said: "They hold fast to this position to the extent of a threat of national strike, to the extent of going down to Bay Street. They say, 'I know better than the whole country, I know better than the prime minister and the government, we know what is good and right'."

He also noted that the unions are decrying the deal but declined to meet with David Shaw, CEO of the purchaser Cable and Wireless, for discussions late last year.

As for BTC's privatisation, Mr Laing reasoned that the sale is crucial in order for BTC to compete in a completely open telecommunications sector.

"In terms of BTC, privatisation of telecommunications is fundamental to pushing us toward, realising our potential. This is what we have to get, the big gain to the Bahamian people is in a liberal telecommunications sector. Liberal meaning no law of the Bahamas bars a Bahamian from providing a telecommunications service to the Bahamian population," said Mr Laing.

"When we liberalise it, you and others get to compete to serve the Bahamian public. That competition makes you better off, that liberalising also provides the economy with more products and services at levels that allows the enterprises in it to compete better and make the economy of the Bahamas more competitive."

BTC's markets will become fully liberalised after the expiration of its cellular monopoly three years from the date of privatisation.

According to Mr Laing, if the industry were to be completely liberalised today, BTC's assets would plummet.

"We have an asset called BTC, if I liberalise the sector today that asset will be decimated in BTC's current situation. There is no question about that, even BTC's own internal research tells them - forget privatisation, in a liberalised environment you will have to instantly reduce your staffing by the order of 25 to 30 per cent in order to be able to compete. So that is why privatisation has to be pursued before (liberalisation)," he said.

January 08, 2011

tribune242

Caricom or Cari-gone?

By Sir Ronald Sanders


The New Year started with a great deal of frustration being publicly expressed over the Caribbean regional integration project which, this year, will have been in construction for forty-three years.  Other integration efforts, such as the European Union (EU), which began after the Caribbean Community and Common market (CARICOM), have moved ahead much faster and much more effectively for the benefit of the people of their member countries.

It is understandable, therefore, that, in an editorial, one of the Caribbean oldest newspapers observed that a majority of people believe that “any official attempt to unite the region as envisaged in the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) is nothing but reverie and doomed to failure”.   To be fair the editorial did not trumpet this observation with glee or satisfaction.  It said that “as we enter the second decade of this century, we hold fast, nevertheless, to the idea of one region”.

So, on the one hand, this editorial, reflecting the views of many, still believes in the notion of a deeply integrated Caribbean – “one region”, but it expresses no faith that, after forty-three years, we will see a CSME anytime soon.   The editorial identified four contemporary reasons for its lack of faith in any “official” attempt to unite the region.

These reasons were: an unfortunate statement last year by the Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister that her government would no longer be “an ATM” machine for other countries of CARICOM; an injudicious remark by the same Prime Minister that, in the provision by her government of assistance to the islands of St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines she would expect some benefit for the construction industry of Trinidad and Tobago; the more recent suggestion by Prime Minister Bruce Golding of Jamaica that his government favoured setting up its own national final Court of Appeal rather than acceding to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ); and that CARICOM heads of government are yet to establish “any executive machinery to enforce” their own policy decisions.

All of these points are valid.  There are many more besides.  Among them are that instead of getting on with fashioning CARICOM into an effective vehicle to help with the improvement of their people’s lives and progressing development in their countries, some governments are busily trying to cultivate relations with other larger countries far beyond the region to try to get what they can while they can.   The latter strategy is, of course, unsustainable.   And, as has happened in the past, the governments now flirting, on their own, with bigger countries not on their doorstep will return to the regional fold which is not only their natural home, but also their best hope.

Fortunately, the statements by the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, while indicative of an attitude to CARICOM held by many in that country, were made in the early flush of government.   In the past, other heads of government have made equally hurtful (and not fully informed) comments in other contexts.   The truth is that Trinidad and Tobago is the principal beneficiary of trade in goods and services to CARICOM – benefits are not a one-way street. This is the message that the government in Port-of-Spain should be delivering to its people.   Also, to those who say that Trinidad and Tobago does not need the CARICOM market, they should be challenged to identify the alternative markets, how quickly could they be developed if they could be developed at all, and at what cost.

With regard to the statement that Mr Golding has made about establishing Jamaica’s own national, final court of appeal instead of joining the CCJ for this purpose, it really is time that someone bells the cat on this as well.   As I pointed out in my last commentary (“Time to make up your mind”), by April this year Jamaicans will head five extremely important CARICOM-wide institutions.   These are positions for which the Jamaica government fought and other CARICOM countries agreed.   What is the message that is being sent to the people of CARICOM by Jamaica?   Is it that all is well when Jamaica holds the reins, but it isn’t well when other CARICOM nationals are involved?   This cannot be so, and Mr Golding is far too intelligent a man and too well informed to hold such a position.   The time has come for Jamaica’s leadership to cease pandering to the false notion of some special Jamaican capacity, and, instead, spread the true message that this region is one – and one to which Jamaica’s contribution has been highly regarded by its Caribbean brothers and sisters.

The quicker that the CARICOM Secretariat, as part of an overall reform of all its activities, is given the resources and empowered to mount a sustained, multi-media campaign throughout the region on how membership of the Caribbean Community has benefitted, and can continue to benefit, the people of each CARICOM country the better.   And, every government should regard it as its responsibility and obligation to carry out its own domestic programme of education and information.

Of the four points made in the Editorial to which this commentary refers, the most crucial is its observation that “the decade closed without the establishment of any executive machinery to enforce the implementation of policy decisions by heads of government”.   This is – and has been for decades – the fundamental problem with the lack of progress of CARICOM in establishing the CSME and even in carrying out a range of activities that are routine in organisations similar to CARICOM.

In his New Year’s address as Chairman of CARICOM until July 2011, the Prime Minister of Grenada, Tillman Thomas, said that “the cry for the ‘quickening of the pace’ was heard” and “active consideration of new governance structures” was given by CARICOM leaders.   He offered that “one of the main ideas in taking the necessary steps will be tested in this coming year with the establishment of the Permanent Committee of CARICOM Ambassadors” which, he said, “heralds a new dawn for our Community”.

Mr Thomas is right to hold out hope, but it is difficult to see how another layer of national representatives will implement policy decisions of Heads, when ministers and the Secretariat were not able to do so.

The CARICOM vehicle needs an urgent overhaul, or it really will be a case of ‘CARICOM and gone’.

January 7, 2011

caribbeannewsnow