50th Anniversary of the Bay of Pigs: The CIA Nostra (10)

• On October 26, 51 years ago, Fidel announced the creation of the Revolutionary National Militia • Granma International will be publishing a series of articles on the events leading up to the April, 1961 battle of the Bay of Pigs • As we approach the 50th Anniversary of this heroic feat, we will attempt to recreate chronologically the developments which occurred during this period and ultimately led to the invasion • The series will be a kind of comparative history, relating what was taking place more or less simultaneously in revolutionary Cuba, in the United States, in Latin America, within the socialist camp and in other places in some way connected to the history of these first years of the Cuban Revolution

By Gabriel Molina

• THE Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) allied itself with two of the 10 most dangerous criminals in the United States in an attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro in 1960.

This shocking news was made public in an official U.S. Senate report, but only in recent years has it been possible to reach an understanding of that aberrant fact, with the declassification of secret documents.

The report from the then U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy quoted by name Sam Giancana and Santos Trafficante, who were invited to take part in the CIA operation approved by Dwight Eisenhower, U.S. President at the time and CIA director Allen Dulles. The information was confirmed thanks to a report from the Special Committee chaired by Senator Frank Church, which states textually: "In August 1960 the CIA took steps to enlist members of the criminal underworld with gambling syndicate contacts to aid in assassinating Castro." (1)

On the summer morning of August 18, 1960, Richard Bissell, CIA Deputy Director of Plans, and very close to Allen Dulles, summoned Colonel Sheffield Edwards, director of the Agency’s Security Office, responsible for handling everything and from which nothing leaked, and told him that he had Dulles’ express instructions to do away with Fidel Castro. The decision had been approved by President Eisenhower after a meeting at the White House with Dulles and Bissell himself.

The committee headed by Democratic Senator Frank Church affirms that a number of CIA agents were in contact with the Cosa Nostra.

Robert Maheu, an agent specializing in shady dealings, was incorporated and asked by the CIA central command to contact John Roselli "to determine if he would participate in a plan to ‘dispose’ of Castro." (2)

Those assigned to the operation had to find somebody who could execute it in Cuba and who would appear to have no involvement with the Agency, the reason for the instructions that it should be somebody from outside. Given his contacts in Cuba, Colonel Edwards proposed the utilization of the Cosa Nostra. The essential details of the CIA-Cosa Nostra are included in the special Senate Committee report of 1975.

The first association between the U.S. government and the Italian-American mafia was with Lucky Luciano, head of the committee directing the various family gangs throughout the country, who was serving a sentence of 30-50 years, handed down on June 18, 1936, in the Dannemora high security prison. Mayor Lansky, Jewish, an astute man and a friend of Luciano and in fact his consigliere, negotiated with Commander Charles R. Haffenden, a superior officer in the Third Naval District Intelligence Office, an alliance to utilize the mafia in counterintelligence work in the New York docks, a target of Nazi agents; and intelligence on the landing and taking of Sicily by U.S. troops. In that way, Luciano was released, deported to Italy and all the associates came out winning.

The Special Military Plan for Psychological Warfare in Sicily reached the hands of Army Chief of Staff George Marshall and, with his recommendation, was approved in Washington on April 15, 1943. It was sent to Algiers and handed to Eisenhower, general in charge of the theater of operations in North Africa. The message was very clear; the Allies were going to utilize the mafia to win Sicily. (3)

Given that close connection, in a matter of hours Maheu had arranged a meeting with Roselli in the Brown Derby restaurant in Beverley Hills, base of the gangster, one of the most important mafia capos in California and Las Vegas, with wide-ranging relations with artists such as Frank Sinatra, Debbie Reynolds and Dean Martin.

Maheu flew to California in September 1960 and met with Roselli in the Brown Derby on the 14th of that month. Roselli was receptive when Maheu informed him that senior government officials were interested in eliminating Fidel Castro, that the assassination could be based on Castro’s Cuban enemies, and offered him $150,000 for the contract. Roselli realized that, in addition to the money, the relationship would help him elude the threat of deportation hanging over him.

In Havana, that same September 14, it was announced that Fidel Castro, Prime Minister of the Revolutionary Government, would head the Cuban delegation to the UN General Assembly, and so Maheu and Roselli went to New York to contact a high-ranking CIA official in the Plaza Hotel. There, Roselli proposed including in the conspiracy his friend Sam Giancana, Al Capone’s successor, on account of his proven organizational skills in this type of operation and, to set up the necessary contacts, Santos Trafficante, who had many interests in Cuba expropriated by the Revolution and strong links with the island. Giancana then traveled to Miami to meet with them.

Giancana agreed, while discounting the possibility of a mafia-style hit. Nobody could be recruited to undertake it, there being such a slim chance of surviving it. He said that the only way to successful and protect lives would be to use a lethal poison that could be placed in a drink of Fidel Castro.

Sam "Momo" Giancana inherited Al Capone’s Chicago empire and held it from 1957 through 1966. The press described him as a small, bald man who loved silk suits, head-turning convertibles and even more head-turning women. His associations were equally notable, like the one he had with Frank Sinatra, or with the singer Phyllis McGuire from the Mcguire Trio, who was the first source leaking the assassination plot, when Giancana got the CIA to bug the singer’s bedroom to see if she was being unfaithful to him. The microphones were discovered by the FBI and the operation was about to become a scandal, only halted by an Agency cover up. Giancana’s relationship with Phyllis McGuire was very typical of him. He had her portrait painted. She "lost more than $100,000 at a gaming table in Las Vegas. Momo distracted her with his conversation so that she wouldn’t go on losing. He went to see the casino manager, the famous Moe Dalitz and told him that he would take care of the debt. He simply absorbed it." (4)

Santos Trafficante had been a friend of Giancana for many years. They were together in 1957, when a high-level meeting of the Appalachian mafiosi was uncovered by the police. He also had links with the capos Carlo Marcello, Joseph Bonnano, Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano. The youthful Trafficante began by running Havana’s Sans Souci cabaret. In combination with Lansky, he made other investments in the casinos of the new Havana Riviera and Capri hotels, and thus was surrounded by Cuban gangsters. Lending his services to the U.S. government would always fetch positive dividends.

Michael J. Murphy, chief inspector of the New York police, frustrated the initial attempt of that CIA Nostra. Murphy was responsible for Fidel’s security in the city during the UN General Assembly, and Murphy knew through a member of the CIA that Walter Martino, a member of the local mafia, had been instructed to place an explosive device close to the stage in Central Park, where Fidel was to speak.

The police chief was informed of this by a CIA official in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, where the New York police agents in charge of security for the heads of state attending the meeting had their operational base. Martino was arrested and the plan thwarted.

Walter’s brother, John Martino, one of the members of the Italian-American mafia at Havana’s Hotel Nacional, had been arrested aboard a ferry on October 5, 1959, attempting to smuggle out a suitcase filled with mafia dollars. He later fled and was recruited by Sam Giancana to organize the attempt on the life of the Comandante en Jefe, a contract he gave to his brother Walter.



(1) Church Report: Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders.


(2) Ibid.


(3) Tim Newark. Aliados de la Mafia (Mafia Allies. Alianza Editorial. Madrid, 2007.


(4) William Brashner. The Don Ballantine Books. New York, 1978.


(5) Fabián Escalante. Acción Ejecutiva. Objetivo Fidel Castro Executive Action. Target Fidel Castro). Ocean Press Melbourne, 2006.

Havana. January 21, 2011

granma.cu

Bahamas Blog International

Crime Pays in The Bahamas...

When Home-Making Fails
The Bahama Journal Editorial



We sometimes have cause to marvel at the fact that there was once a time in the Bahamas when hard-working men earned enough money and when the social circumstances then prevalent called on women to be home-makers for a brood of children.

Coming with that regime were also circumstances where communities of people took care of their old; formed their mutual aid societies and for sure, also made penny upon penny provision for the burial of their dead.

We also know that, the world whereof some now wax nostalgic was not fated to last; it was washed away in that flood that brought with it year-round, mass tourism; the so-called ‘liberation’ of women – and a culture of materialism, itself grounded in a system where people were taught and evidently did think that they could buy now and pay later.

And since we live in a world where one thing invariably leads to another, we now live in a world where that day of reckoning has come.

And now that it is here, we have a situation on our hands where materialism and consumerism are rampant; where crimes against persons and property are high and rising – and in a time and space where children are viewed as god-awful hindrances to parents, their neighbors, other family – and so-called friends.

In turn, we now have a situation where some of these urchins grow up with the certain knowledge that life is hard; that they can make it to the top if they sell themselves; if they learn how to lie, cheat, steal and otherwise perfectly emulate behavior they see at home, on the street – and sadly, in some of their parents’ church-homes.

Compounding the matter are all those jungle-like forces coming in from abroad [and here particularly with popular culture as produced and packaged in the United States of America] some of which popularize the savage notion that, you could or should get rich quick or die trying.

And so, today we have a situation where state authorities in today’s Bahamas are seemingly at a loss as to how they could or should [legally speaking] deal with the consequences attendant upon this loss of that old spirit that once pervaded society in The Bahamas.

That spirit once found residence in some of the most humble abodes scattered throughout these islands, rocks and cays.

Alas! Those days are apparently gone with the wind.

As most Bahamians would and could now attest, few among them [namely today’s busy, hard-working men and women] have practically no time left for those activities were once subsumed under the rubric of home-making.

This sad state of affairs brings with it a host of deleterious consequences for not only these men and women, but also for their children.

As it currently seems to us – one of the cruelest consequences brought forward with the break-down of home-making has to do with child neglect and on occasion, down-right abuse.

In time, these children grow up. And for sure, as they come to maturity, they emulate behaviors learned at home, on the street, in their schools, churches and elsewhere – thus reproducing the warped worlds from which they have been thrown; thus today’s mixed up, sad Bahamas.

And for sure, as we have previously commented crime pays in the Bahamas.

Indeed, such is the extent to which mistrust is rampant in today’s Bahamas that College of The Bahamas students routinely complain how they must jealously guard their books, computers and the like – this because some of their school-mates are cold enough and calculating enough to rip them off.

The same kind of thievery takes place at the secondary level.

And for sure, it also takes place at the level of the work-place.

Simply put, lots and lots of our people are not trust-worthy.

Add to this incompetence on the part of the police – and what you then get is a situation where crime pays; and where in the past year, the police only solved half of the four robbery cases reported for islands outside New Providence and Grand Bahama.

But when we get to New Providence, we find a perfectly disturbing picture where the police detection rates in the categories of attempted robbery, robbery, armed robbery and unlawful sexual intercourse were six, eight, 10 and 29 percent respectively.

Evidently, crime pays in New Providence, home to the vast majority of the Bahamian people – and a gateway to the world.

Criminals and their feral cohorts continue to rape, rob and pillage – seemingly at will.

A part of the explanation for this sorry state of affairs can be attributed to the fact that crime does pay in a Bahamas where the detection rate for crimes committed is so alarmingly low – and when and where home-making now fails.

January 21, 2011

The Bahama Journal Editorial

Bahamas Blog International

Homegrown terrorism - A rising threat in the Caribbean

By Rebecca Theodore


If religion, politics and economics are the explanations for terrorism and if arguments persist that home grown terrorism is labeled as one of the most important layers of al Qaeda’s threat to the developing world, then why are Caribbean gang members in the US who were convicted of violent crimes and deported to their countries of origin now directly involved in the fanatic ideology of carrying out autonomous jihad via acts of terrorism against the United States?

It must therefore be seen that homegrown terrorism is not only carried out by people who were born, raised and radicalized within a western milieu, or who speak good English, have proper travel documents and knowledge of how not to raise the suspicions of US intelligence and law enforcement agencies but also from the surge of deported gang members from the US, Britain and Canada to their Caribbean homelands.

In prompting an analysis of the psychology of the terrorist, US terror experts believe that Muslims, the realities of a globalized society, and the internet are the chief perpetrators of terrorism, while the violent Caribbean deportee is often overlooked. It is also worth noting that, while the internet makes the emergence of new human relationships possible, groups don’t only radicalize themselves over the internet. While the medium is still the message, it is now an outdated tool for terrorist, as the medium no longer shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and actions.

The alarming numbers of Caribbean deportees enlisting in terrorist cells in the Caribbean far exceeds the McLuhan dogma that universal participation generated by electronic media will put an end to parochialism because deported Caribbean gang members are not using the internet to be radicalized. In the conflicting age that now defines the 21st century, deported gang members are seeking union with those to whom they relate by way of elemental instinct.

New evidence suggest that Al Qaeda is now setting up cells and operating covertly on many Caribbean islands, recruiting and financing deported gang members from the US, Britain and Canada. Recent law enforcement investigations have unearthed a sophisticated network of nascent terrorist entrepreneurs lurking in a host of Caribbean countries, most notably Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Curacao, Guyana and Suriname.

The so-called “Caribbean terrorist” phenomenon now gains wide appeal because not only are the motivations for such individuals driven by a combination of personal circumstances and external factors but proves that self radicalization also stems from social marginalization and that the Caribbean is not immune from terrorism.

While many believe that gang violence in the Caribbean region threatens social stability, restrains economic and social development, discourages foreign investment, accelerates illegal immigration, drug smuggling and trafficking in arms and persons, it is also important to note that there are no differences between US homegrown terrorism and the Caribbean deportee, as they are both citizens or long-term residents who clandestinely plot to attack the United States and unleash untold miseries on law abiding citizens using the same types of military and propaganda tactics.

It must also be seen that while the Caribbean deportee favours a social marginalization stigma rather than a national or international one, it is ideology that motivates both groups. Ideology is the substratum and vehicle for radicalization. It is ideology that identifies the variance, classifies the issues, and impels recruitment.

Not only are deported gangs deemed enemies of the US by al Qaeda and other Jihad organizations but upon returning to their various Caribbean nations, deported criminals are re-forming gangs, recruiting locals to expand their numbers and returning to the US, particularly the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, by means of clandestine sea operations or on forged documents to carry out their missions against the United States and innocent citizens.

The seriousness of the situation now calls for the creation of a deported gang intelligence centre in the Caribbean to build stronger partnerships with Caribbean states threatened by extremist violence and to uncover future terrorist plots, as it is not only a threat for all Caribbean citizens but to democracies all over the world.

Deported gang members are now one of the Caribbean’s top national security priorities and special efforts should also be made to enhance the intelligence capabilities of local police, who should not only be trained in fighting crimes but should also be trained in learning the way that al Qaeda works, how their goals are evolving and how their modus operandi changes.

It is clear that the threat of Caribbean deportees from the US, Britain and Canada is now the troubling picture that confronts us all. Terrorist concern in the Caribbean is no longer hypothetical. It has now become a reality.

January 19, 2011

caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

Bahamas: Bahamians want, need and crave to live in a land where they are more than spectators looking in on the doings of those who are really large and in charge...

Dreamers, Visionaries and Workers
The Bahama Journal Editorial


The Bahamian people are not really asking for that much.

In the ultimate analysis, then, our people want systems that work; they want institutions that are up to the challenge of delivering the goods – and clearly they want to live in safe and secure communities.

In truth, the Bahamian people are not asking for too much.

But just as surely, little of this can or will be achieved if Bahamians continue to repose so little confidence in themselves and people who look like them.

This mindset must be purged sooner rather than later; this because there is no one better situated than the Bahamian for understanding his own hurts, his own delinquencies and thereafter his own set of responsibilities to the self and others.

Here we are ever optimistic that, a time will come when Bahamians in greater numbers will realize that, while some of them are called to lead in the political realm; some others in the Church and some others in business and the unions, are also so called.

In addition, there are some others – the dreamers, visionaries and workers – who also have their full parts to play in the unfolding drama that is nation-building in today’s nascent Bahamas.

That Bahamas - like a host of other small island developing states – is a work in progress.

Clearly, then, no one should pretend surprise when some things go awry; when mistakes are made and when those who lead stray far from some of their own windy rhetoric.

But for sure, The Bahamas does have a lot that it could be justly proud of; here whether the reference is made to some of the changes that have taken place in the political realm or for that matter in the world of business.

On occasion, we have sought to make and underscore our fervent belief that, Bahamians should be given a chance to come on over and build up their nation and its institutions; inclusive of those that have to do with the provision of vitally needed public goods such as health, safety and education.

And yet again, we have also sought to make the point that there is an urgent need for those who make the law and those who would carry out the law to recognize that Bahamians want, need and crave to live in a land where they are more than spectators looking in on the doings of those who are really large and in charge.

But for sure, even as we hold to these views, we are today absolutely convinced that there remains a large role for so-called foreigners to make in the orderly growth and development of these islands, rocks and cays.

Evidently, therefore, there is a large role that could and should be played by people like Sarkis Izmirlian who resides in Lyford Cay and who on more occasions that one suggested that, these islands have become home to him.

In support of this, Izmirlian not only continues to dream big dreams about the future viability of this nation’s economy, but has sought -with the Bahama Mar venture- to see to it that our beloved country and its people remains on the cutting edge of tourism in this region.

As we have already noted, this is one of the reasons for choosing him to be our Person of the Year.

This man has lived in the Bahamas for 20 years and considers the archipelago his home.

We also so believe.

When asked elsewhere in media for some explanation behind his vision for Cable Beach, Izmirlian is said to have noted that, that even after protracted delays, giving up on the Baha Mar project was never an option.

As he is to be quoted: "It's very simple, my dedication comes from my belief in the project. And so as the world moves forward with trepidation, we in The Bahamas move forward with confidence to create a project that will change the lives of Bahamians forever. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to move our tourism sector forward."

If things go according to plan, the Bahamian people writ large will be able to serve, earn and thereby find the resources necessary to help them fortify family life; nurture their communities; therefore helping to shore up and build the
Bahamian Nation.

Here –and for sure - many hands will make a burden light.

As we know so very well, people succeed when they work to see to it that other people succeed in realizing their visions or dreams.

And so, it is with our people as they struggle with the vicissitudes that come whenever seven years of drought set in.

Happily, while some despair, some others dare dream of the coming of a better day – and thereafter work to make it happen.

January 19, 2011

The Bahama Journal Editorial

Bahamas Blog International

Respect or the lack thereof, the missing ingredient to propel the Haitian recovery

By Jean H Charles

I have been reflecting and pondering on why Haiti is not developing harmoniously while it has an optimum population -- 10 million people -- resilient, industrious, willing to work for almost nothing (a base revenue or a salary of $500 per month for each working Haitian would create a brand new middle class and provide an extraordinary boom to the Haitian economy!) I have found respect or the lack thereof is the missing ingredient that could propel the Haitian recovery.

This lack of respect is almost universal. The Haitian government, the international community, the NOGs implanted in the country and by ricochet the Haitian people toward each other are all culprits in this chain of disrespect that infect the seedling of a relationship that would produce a tree filled with welfare, generosity and good hospitality for all.

As the Haitian people and the rest of the world were commemorating last week the January 12 earthquake that devastated the capital and the surrounding cities, it is proper to recall how the Haitian government under the baton of the man who is now proposed to become the next chief of state of the country has collected the bodies and proceeded with their inhumation.

Pay attention to this wrenching story as recalled by my parish priest of St Louis King of France in Port au Prince. Armed with a leadership style that is not obvious in Haiti, the priest went to scout out the place where thousands of victims of the earthquake were placed in order to bring the whole congregation to a pilgrimage to pay respect to the dead ones.

His description brought tears in the eyes of the parishioners. He could not find the place except the frame of a small hill where the goats and the pigs were roaming freely. An eyewitness told him that 60 large trucks were in line to dump the bodies to a former site -- Ti tayen -- where the dictatorial regime of the Duvaliers used to kill its opponents.

There was a small riot by the surrounding populace at the infamous site, forcing the macabre convoy to be diverted further to St Christopher, where they unceremoniously dumped the bodies. Dirt was put on the dead by tractors, making a small hill. The site has been abandoned since, with no memory and memorial, visited only by the goats and the pigs.

In life as in death, the Haitian government treats its people in oblivion. The living do not fare better. The capital city is filled with garbage not collected for weeks or months sometimes. The public market is in condition so filthy that it should shock the conscience of any civilized person.

Cape Haitian the second city of the Republic, a museum style treasure that should be cherished not only by the citizens of Haiti but by the rest of the world as a world heritage site because each house is a museum relic of the colonial era. It reflects the decomposition of the profound disrespect of the Haitian government towards its own people.

Sewers have not been cleaned for decades. For a population of half a million people there is no public water distribution. The lack of leadership in service delivery is only equal to the limitless resilience of the Haitian people in accepting and living with the squalor imposed upon them by their own government.

The rest of the country is completely abandoned with no dedicated funding going directly to any of the cities or the rural villages. The First Lady in a recent interview to the Associated Press was offended at the national and international press for treating her husband president as derelict in leadership style. Using the lowest denominator on the evaluation scale, one cannot find a better characterization. As a scholar educated abroad, I know the First Lady know better!

The international community, in spite of the outpouring of generosity following the earthquake, has treated Haiti and the Haitian people with contempt. The Organization of American States (OAS), the main actor in framing the political transition, has not made any excuses, pardon or retribution to Haiti for contributing to the destruction of its economy through the enforced embargo against the country in October 1992 for reasons that had nothing to do with reason, logic, and good politics.

The president (Jean Bertrand Aristide), who was expelled from the country, was so divisive in tearing apart the very fabric of society that it has not being able to be woven again. Imposing an OAS-led embargo for his return was the high point of insanity, nay, stupidity!

Accurate reports by international organizations have found one thousand children dead of malnutrition every month during the two years embargo. The destruction of the environment was accelerated and maintained since the embargo. The Haitian economy has taken since a deep decline it has never recovered from.

The disrespect of the OAS/CARICOM organizations towards Haiti is so deep that you will not find one single Haitian professional in the policy making decision of either organization, in spite of the fact the population of Haiti and the immigration issues confronting the region and its relations in the context of public private international law necessitates a Haitian voice and insight in the policy deliberations.

The OAS resident in Haiti, Mr Ricardo Seitenfus, a scholar on Haiti in his own right, in a departing shot, has expressed with a phenomenal clarity the true picture of Haiti vis a vis the international community. “The international reconstruction commission to this day is searching for its real functions. (As such) 11 billion collected for Haiti never got to the country. Haiti needs a peace mission not a war mission. MINUSTHA has been an albatross out of place devoid of a true mission thrown into Haiti as a cottage industry for its own needs not to bring relief to the people; in the case of Haiti we need not a security council but a council for social and economic development. If people imagine that Haiti future can be made through MINUSTHA or through the NGOS we are deceiving the public opinion and we are deceiving the Haitian people.”

For these accurate comments Mr Seitenfus was fired by the OAS Secretary General at a critical time when his judgment is necessary to facilitate the smooth transition of the Haitian democratic process.

In the next weeks the lack of respect of the OAS/CARICOM team will be more evident. A scheme concocted last June between the Haitian government represented by one of its ministers, at the headquarters of the OAS in Washington DC, with Mr Colin Granderson and Mr Albert Ramdin to facilitate the Preval regime to maintain its power through a flawed and corrupt election will be either confirmed or tossed out of the basket by the vigilance of the Haitian people and/or the leadership of some friends of Haiti, including the Obama government.

The NGOs have descended en masse into Haiti after the earthquake. The emergency support was unprecedented, yet the haphazard mode of reconstruction is offensive to the nation. A giant ghetto -- Corail -- is being planned and executed with the funds donated by the people of the world while the rest of the country needs decent housing, convenient school and hospitals and incubation for business promotion. Massive amounts of money are channeled to truck water distribution when the purification could be done easily at the source.

Their intrusion into the country would be beneficial if they would agree amongst themselves to coordinate their work and pay a decent salary to their workers – a minimum of $500 per month to the unskilled. The NGOS represent also a safe harbor for the thousands of Americans, Europeans, Canadians and South Asians who cannot find a job at home. One of them told me the truth: “But for Haiti, I would still be unemployed with a 14% rate of unemployment in Florida.”

Finally but not least, the lack of respect of the Haitian people amongst themselves is contagious. The public officials in their tainted cars with all the privileges showered upon them by the government exhibit an arrogance that echoes the master-servant relationship. Haiti, the land where democracy and human rights took birth in the western hemisphere, is today a de facto apartheid state. The vicious circle of disrespect by and amongst the ordinary citizen is pervasive. It can be seen in the public transportation, in the delivery of the health system, in schools and the organization of the public markets.

The rebuilding of the country must start with the most elementary ingredient: respect for each citizen and respect for each other. The spirit of the hundreds of thousands who lost their lives in the January 12, earthquake demand no less! One year after the earthquake, faced with a complete disorganization of the international institutions, as well as the low level of the trickling down of the recovery resource, it has become clearer for each Haitian that salvation can only come from within, starting with respect for and to each other.

Note:
January 12 of each and every year should be dedicated as a Day of International Solidarity with the people and the Republic of Haiti to honor the 300,000 dead from the earthquake, spirit the 1.5 million internal refugees out of the fetid camps into self dependence and last but not least usher into economic self sustenance eight million (out of ten million) Haitian people who live now in abject and extreme poverty!

January 17, 2011

caribbeannewsnow

Another Day at The College of The Bahamas (COB)

C.O. B. - Another ‘New’ Day!
The Bahama Journal Editorial


For quite some time now, The College of The Bahamas has been able to make the news for all the wrong reasons.

The College has made the news when a president was found to be a plagiarist; on another, it made the news when it was discovered that some other senior people were egregiously incompetent.

The College has also made the news when some of its faculty decided that they could or would bring the institution’s work to a screeching halt.

Had we so wished, we could today write reams and volumes about some other nightmare stories now going the rounds in that hapless place. One such involves the alleged theft of a brand-new $7,000.00 aluminum gate; with this rip-off allegedly taking place sometime between mid-night and eight in the morning of January 4, 2011.

To date, no one from the College of The Bahamas has seen fit to raise a public alarm about this alleged theft of public property.

And perhaps, today we might have raised such an alarm.

To date, we have not done so; and this, because we have concluded that such an alarm should have already been raised by the most appropriate College of The Bahamas personnel – perhaps, its new president!

Even now, we await some response or some sounded alarm from the College of The Bahamas.

If – in the most unlikely of cases – it is discovered that we are mistaken, we gladly admit error.

But “believe you me” we are convinced that our informant was telling the truth when she alleged that an aluminum gate was stolen from the College sometime on January 4, 2011 in those hours when most Bahamians were fast asleep.

Regrettably, the gate thieves were doing what they do best, ripping off gates.
Notwithstanding the bad news, there was some news that could be put in the good news bracket.

In the first instance, we can report that, a new four-year industrial agreement between The College of The Bahamas and the Union of Tertiary Educators of The Bahamas has been sealed.

This was done during a so-called “private” ceremony which was said to have been held in the board room of the College.

It is also being reported that, UTEB President Jennifer Isaacs-Dotson is of the view that, [this signing] came as a relief to many of the men and women who teach and lecture in the College of The Bahamas.

The signing bonus of $500.00 might have something or the other to do with their new-found sense of both release and relief, however small each might turn out to be as far as such matters are concerned.

The agreement will expire in 2012.

Signing on behalf of the college were Board Chairman T. Baswell Donaldson, President Dr. Betsy Vogel-Boze, and Council Secretary Wendy Poitier-Albury.

Signing on behalf of the union were Isaacs-Dotson, UTEB's Vice-president External Vicente Roberts and Trustee Janet Donnelley.

But even here, these folk have to wait for another barrier to be hurdled; this involving minutiae regarding registration of the document signed on their behalf.

They who have waited patiently, now wait some more.

For them, this passes for what some of them might call good news.

In the second instance of some of what might also be called good news, we have information to the effect that, The College now has another brand new president; and that her name is Dr. Betsy Vogel-Boze.

We are also told that, this fine lady took up the reins of power in The College with effect from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2014.

The same public relations script noted that, the appointment of Dr. Earla Carey-Baines as President would have come to an end on December 31, 2010; and that, the College was greatly indebted to Dr. Carey-Baines, has resumed responsibilities as Dean, with effect from January 1, 2011...”

We are told that, “Dr. Vogel-Boze comes to The College with a wealth of experience in building and transforming tertiary academic institutions; and that her experience in academic administration spans 20 years in multi-campus university structures.

We note also that, “Kent Stark is a public liberal arts university offering baccalaureate and masters degrees. It has a student population of 5,400 enrolled in academic programmes and about 5,000 that enroll annually in executive education programmes...”

Note also that, “Dr. Vogel-Boze holds a PhD in Business Administration from the University of Arkansas, a Masters in Business Administration and a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology, both from Southern Methodist University. She currently holds the post of Senior Fellow at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), a leadership organization for 430 public colleges and universities...”

We wish this fine lady well.

And for sure, we also hope that she will do her utmost to help the police find the gate.

January 17, 2011

The Bahama Journal Editorial

Bahamas Blog International

Caribbean integration is a mockery - CSME at a standstill

by Oscar Ramjeet


It seems as if Caribbean leaders are not serious about regional integration. The talk about freedom of movement is only lip service and there is no genuine effort for this to become a reality.

It is since 1989, more than 21 years since the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) agreement was signed and, although there has been a series of meetings throughout the region, very limited progress has been achieved to date, especially in the area of free movement of capital, skilled labour and the freedom to establish business enterprises anywhere in the Community.

It is rather surprising that former Barbados Prime Minister Owen Arthur, who had been travelling from island to island "preaching" regional unity and for governments to adhere to CSME, has criticised St Lucian-born Mara Thompson, for contesting the vacant seat in St John created after the death of the late prime minister.

The action by Arthur is very surprising and, in my view, very ridiculous because it defeats CSME and the regional integration process, but two friends of mine who are very familiar with regional affairs reminded me that Thompson, when he was prime minister, completely disregarded CSME when he took stringent, harsh and unconscionable action against non-Barbadians, especially Guyanese. He chased them out of the country and many of them did not get the opportunity to take their assets with them.

My friends said that you reap what you sow and said that the sins pass on to the third and fourth generation.

However, two wrongs cannot make a right and Arthur, who served three terms as prime minister, should know better because Mara is a citizen of Barbados and under the Constitution she can hold office as a lawmaker. The Constitution does not state that you have to be a Barbadian by birth. It states a citizen of Barbados and she has been a citizen for the past 21 years by marriage and residency.

Barbados Prime Minister Freundel Stuart has expressed surprise at Arthur's comments.

It seems to me that there is a dim future for the regional integration movement and recently distinguished commentators have been questioning if the CSME has a future. One is David Jessop, Director of the Caribbean Council. He spoke of the criticism meted out against CARICOM Governments and institutions for not ensuring the capacity and economic strength to create a sound regional economic base for investment and trade.

He also touched on the failure to implement regional and external agreements which, he suggests, indicates at best the absence of any coherent long term strategy and, at worse, irreconcilable divisions.

Sir Ronald Sanders, former Caribbean diplomat and well known commentator, suggested that the time had come to stop playing with the aspirations of the Caribbean people and argued that CARICOM needed to devise urgently a comprehensive regional plan utilising the best Caribbean brains that can be assembled from inside and outside the region.

Jessop agrees with Sir Ron's comments and said there is desperate need for a commission with popular support to be empowered to make recommendations on how to move forwards and modernise CARICOM.

The delay by most of the regional governments to abolish appeals to the Privy Council and accept the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) is another glaring example of the lapse by the various administrations. So far only three jurisdictions, Guyana, Barbados and Belize have accepted the CCJ as the final appellate court.

January 15, 2011

caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International