Haiti and the issue of education

By Jean H Charles



The month of October used to be the cruelest month of the year in Haiti. It is the month when parents must find the full tuition payment for their children’s education. The previous Haitian governments have been so delinquent in their mission of educating the children that 80 percent of the education system is the hands of the private sector.

Joseph Michel Martelly, the president of Haiti, akin to Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, has made education and the acquisition thereof, the cornerstone of his administration. He was not afraid of the ire of some members of the Diaspora in resting on their back the bulk of the education funds by taxing $1.50 for each transfer to and from Haiti and by exacting 5 cents on each call to and from Haiti. He plans to raise as such $300 million per year to send all the children in age of education to school, free of charge to their parents.

The business of providing an excellent education to the children of a nation is not the business of the parents. It is the business of the state. The business of the parents is to provide the enrichment and the nurturing to support the education received in school.

According to Emil Vlajki often cited in this column, the wealth of a nation depends not on its natural resources but on the degree of education and the extent of creativity and resilience of its people.

Singapore in Asia, with limited natural resources but with a highly educated population, is a world giant in economic development, while Niger or the Sudan, with ample natural resources but with a poorly educated population, is a basket case in Africa.

As such it is in the interest of the state to take the necessary measures to establish a critical mass of citizens, well educated, creative and resilient, to build the sustaining wealth of the country.

President Joseph Michel Martelly is breaking the circle of treating the children of the Haitian masses as second class citizens in pushing forward a policy of universal free education. The program started this year with some 772,000 students, those who have never been to or left school because their parents were too poor to help them to remain in a program of study.

The education funds that started in May 2011 have already collected $28 million. PAM and UNICEF are putting their resources into the fray in adding a hot meal a day and a school kit with bags and books and notebooks for the children. In addition, President Martelly has also taken the initiative to insure that the children have free transportation to and from school, with a police officer in each bus to provide security.

Haiti has come a long way in pushing forward education as a priority in its public policy expenditure. In the Caribbean area, Haiti occupies the last place in education indices. This practice is as old as the history of the Republic. At the eve of the revolution leading to independence, the topic amongst those freed from servitude was: what measure should be adopted to create a distinction between those who were free before independence and those who became free after.

The choice was that education should be as restricted as possible for the former slaves; as such the privilege of an upper class would be preserved for ever.

If Haiti’s founding father Jean Jacques Dessalines wanted to create a Haiti hospitable for all in the new Republic, at its birth in 1804, it was not the vision of his comrades in arms. In fact, he was assassinated two years after independence on October 17, 1806. Henry Christophe, who became king of the north of Haiti after being denied the presidency of the whole Republic, introduced the British system of education, as well as civic formation for all. (Who said the men of the north of Haiti are better!). It lasted only twenty years.

Alexander Petion, who controlled the rest of the Republic, stamped the nation with the culture of discrimination against the majority of the population. (It is true the Alexander Petion Lyceum was his creation!) That culture, extended by his successor, Jean Pierre Boyer, became the law of the land until today when Joseph Michel Martelly took the decision to put education at the center of his social revolution.

His ambitious program may have a few holes at the beginning; they will be corrected as the program goes along. The extreme joy was in the face of Senatus Antoine, a father of two, whom I met on the public bus recently. The fee that he was struggling to find “has been paid by the government” he was told by the principal.

Speaking of principal, I met with the principal of Marie Jeanne Lyceum, a no-nonsense woman, who led her school with an iron hand. Parents travel from close and a far to enroll their children in this public school for girls. The public school system in Haiti needs many more principals as the one at the Marie Jeanne Lyceum; the competition will drive more children to the public school system, leaving the meager income of the parents for other options such as food and shelter.

In the end, education as a priority is essential but as New York City indicates, Mayor Bloomberg, after more than eight years in command of the city, needs much more than education as a priority to keep New York City afloat.

Michel Joseph Martelly will have to prepare and implement a complete vision for Haiti that includes complete security in the territory, decent infrastructure and sane institutions to root the population in their localities with economic incubation to put value in each citizen; as such the nation of Haiti will be rebuilt after it has been ravaged by 60 years of national governments that were at best predatory and at worst criminal.

God’s hand was also in the fray, the Republic of Port au Prince that gobbles 80 percent of the national economy was almost destroyed by an earthquake that occurred on January 12, 2010!

Haiti will have to use, as said Michaelle Jean (the former Governor General of Canada), a new paradigm to (re)build a nation filled with promises but that went astray because education for all was not at the center and at the end of all the transactions conceived and elaborated by the government.

October 15, 2011

caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

The Bahamas cannot continue to follow in Jamaica's criminal shadow...

Criminals — Jamaica and Bahamas’ problems

tribune242 editorial

Nassau, The Bahamas



JAMAICA, which has been working hard to get its crime under control, seems to have taken a long slide backwards in recent months.

Even more worrying is the corruption that Justice Minister Delroy Chuck -- in an address on Saturday to graduates of the Norman Manley Law School-- says has reached a formidable level in Jamaica's legal system.

He told graduates, entering a system threatened by corruption, that one of his ministry's priorities under the Justice Reform Programme was "to build trust and confidence in the justice system".

"There is corruption within the court and the justice system, where the police have been paid to say they cannot find a witness, or persons have been paid to have documents destroyed - amongst many other things," he told the graduates.

"Cases languish on the books for years with very little progress, clients become frustrated and cannot move on with their lives, sometimes they appease their grievances by taking justice into their own hands," Monday's Daily Gleaner quoted Justice Minister Chuck as saying.

Reported the Gleaner: "He noted that developments in the system leave lawyers with a bad reputation as being of no help while the justice system gets a bad reputation of being of no use.

"Our judges are known for their integrity and fair play but so much more is required of them," Justice Chuck told the graduates, who he urged not to contribute to the problems when they go into practice.

"They (the judges) must assist in removing any taint of corruption, vulgarity or malpractice that may exist and they must help us to strengthen public trust and confidence in the justice system."

He said hundreds of thousands of cases had been in the court system for eight months -- some even for years.

Last year, said the justice minister, there were almost 460,000 cases before the courts -- with more than half being a backlog.

He said that stemming the backlog was everybody's business as it posed a real threat to the nation's economy.

Many years ago, Sir Etienne Dupuch sounded like a broken record as he constantly urged, through this same column, that Bahamians get a handle on crime - which at that time was nothing to what it is today.

He warned that the Bahamas was following down the same dead-end path as Jamaica.

According to the US International Safety and Travel alert "violence and shootings occur regularly in certain areas of Kingston and Montego Bay".

As for the Bahamas: "The Bahamas has a high crime rate. New Providence Island in particular has experienced a spike in crime that has adversely affected the travelling public... The Bahamas has the highest incidence of rape in the Caribbean according to a 2007 United Nations report on crime, violence, and development trends."

In Jamaica recently, gangs not only kill, but behead their adversaries. They then hide the head, obviously to make identification more difficult.

The Daily Gleaner reported a Jamaican police officer moaning: "This haffi stop, it has to. But the justice system not working for us (police). You hold a man for murder, him go jail, and him get bail and is back on the road again. It can't work!"

Sound familiar? No, it can't work and it won't work.

This is the very matter that will be discussed in the House of Assembly in this session as government prepares to crack down on criminals by amending the Criminal Procedure Code.

The Bahamas cannot continue to follow in Jamaica's criminal shadow.

October 11, 2011

tribune242 editorial

Bahamas Blog International

Cuba: A Black Spring and White Ladies!

By Rebecca Theodore


Lo! The paradox unfolds. The gleam of the golden morn of freedom pierces through the night of gloom and oppression. The old paradigms and systems are decaying, ready to be replaced with new, more evolved ideas and energies. There is a voracious indignation. At last! The Twitter Revolution comes to Cuba.

‘And the vultures circle overhead waiting for the old man to die.’

Cubans yearn for Wal-Mart and McDonald’s. They covet ATT, Coke, Nike, and Levi’s. The young stare in passion at iPhones and Apple computers. Pornography is the entertainment of choice. Evangelists lie in wait with a message of redemption hungry for the harvesting of souls. Old exiled Cubans chat in busy coffee shops on Miami’s boulevards. They long to touch the green, green grass of home and light cigars under the starry nights and reminisce of memories lost, long before a 1959 revolution usurped their world of contentment.

“Enough is enough they say”

The voices of Ladies in White -- "Las Damas de Blanco” -- wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, widows and fatherless brides waiting for their bridegrooms, lament in pain as political prisoners continue to die dehydrating deaths in dark dungeons of shame. Yet, they continue to rebel against a demagogue government. For them Cuba is not a Caribbean paradise, it is the gates of hell. They live in humble homes and buy food with ration books. They lay claim to the “freedom” that exists in Cuba.

Abuse of human rights dissipates the void. Freedom of assembly and expression sparkle the emptiness of reality and cease to derail on the frontline of time. Youthful endeavours are lost in dreams unknown. Beyond the smoking curtains, they no longer want to be like ‘Che Guevara’, for they seek deliverance from the oven of wrath.

It is true that Cuba has a better literacy rate than the United States, better maternity leave for mothers, better equality for women in the workplace and more doctors per capita than the US. These are economic factors that should make Cuba the envy of many countries, but Castro’s method of freedom and human rights inspire another revolution.

Moreover, in a new and technological zeitgeist, where communism is just an antiquated political philosophy, a footnote in history, and an unsuccessful ideological experiment, a technological revolution looms supreme.

In a country where Castro is the currency of real politics, Cubans are no longer afraid. Power is slowly being taken over by social media. Repression and internet censorship are gently peeping through their veils of suffocation. Gross darkness dispels into the light of liberty.

It is clear that ideology has failed.

Hark! The courier -- The Cuban Revolution is now an emblem on a T-shirt. Fidel Castro a man against capitalism and commodities is now a commodity sold for capital on the streets of America. St Castro is now the new patron saint of capitalism. Cuba is now gripped in the claw of ‘Manifest Destiny.’

Hereafter, there will be blood. There will be freedom. There will be a Cuban Spring.

October 12, 2011

caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

The Bahamas government should let straw vendors know that this is the last straw market the people of The Islands will build for them... Going forward, straw vendors and their association need to start thinking of ways to be autonomous

The last market for straw vendors

thenassauguardian editorial

Nassau, The Bahamas

The House of Assembly is debating rules to govern the new straw market at Bay Street.  The market is a gift of sorts to vendors from the government of The Bahamas.  A visitor to The Bahamas might wonder why a government would build a multi-million dollar commercial space for independent business people in a commercial district.

Well, our political parties regard vendors collectively as a ‘special case’.

The parties think they must ensure that regular black merchants have a space on the main part of Bay Street, a district historically controlled by white merchants.

There is consensus on this point by the governing Free National Movement (FNM) and the opposition Progressive Liberal Party (PLP).

The PLP planned, as it is good at doing, a market between 2002 and 2007.  It built no market, however.  The FNM, which has been in office from 2007, has built a market.  It will open soon.  The old market was destroyed by fire in 2001 and vendors have been in ‘temporary’ accommodations since.

At this stage, we are past the relevant point of debating whether the government should have spent more than 10 million dollars on this market.  What we must consider is if such a practice should continue in the future and if vendors should graduate from state grace and welfare and become independent.

When governments offer subsidies to local industries, the objective should be to help Bahamian businesses start and build capital bases from which they can operate independently.  The subsidies should not last forever.  The subsidies cannot last forever because the state has many responsibilities, some of which become urgent abruptly.

For example, there are currently intertwined crises affecting The Bahamas – crime and education.

The government of The Bahamas needs to place as much of its focus as possible on these issues. Coddling long-pampered merchants should become less of a priority during these times.  Business people take risks.

The state can help and set policies assisting entrepreneurs.  The state, however, should not take care of business people forever.

The Bahamas has changed since the government became the patron of straw vendors decades ago.  Majority rule and independence have come about and opportunity in The Bahamas is more equally distributed now than it was in the earlier parts of the 20th century.  There is now no bogeyman keeping anyone down.

The government should let vendors know that this is the last market the people of The Bahamas will build for them.  Going forward, vendors and their association need to start thinking of ways to be autonomous.

If they want to operate as a collective, more of the revenue taken in by these merchants would need to be set aside to create an empowered association.

Such a body, run by vendors, would then have the resources to purchase the market and administer the affairs of vendors.  The government could then get back to its role as regulator.

Our major political parties should push to graduate vendors from state welfare.

In doing so, they will become better business people and the Public Treasury will be less burdened.

Oct 11, 2011

thenassauguardian editorial

Bahamas Blog International

The Bahamas Christian Council supports the creation of a national sex offenders register in The Islands

By CELESTE NIXON
Tribune Staff Reporter
cnixon@tribunemedia.net

Nassau, The Bahamas



THE CHRISTIAN council has thrown its support behind the creation of a national sex offenders register.

Council president Rev Ranford Patterson said his members support many of the government's ideas for tackling crime - particularly its willingness to discuss tracking persons convicted of sexual crimes.

"We support all efforts to protect our children from sick sexual predators, be they heterosexuals or homosexuals," said Rev Patterson. "We call on family and friends to blow the whistle on known predators who need counselling and must be kept away from civil society."

According to Bishop Simeon Hall, the public tends to be more concerned about the rights of murderers and child molesters than the victims of crime.

He said: "When we talk about publishing a national sex offenders list, people seem to sympathise with the perpetrator instead of the little boy."

Rev Patterson said he believes it is important for the public to know the location of convicted sex offenders and others who might pose a danger to society, so parents can better protect their children.

Prime Minister Ingraham addressed the public on Monday evening on his government's strategic plan to combat what he described as the country's growing criminal element.

Along with amendments to the Bail Act, the laws governing the death penalty, and the Firearms and Dangerous Drugs Act, Mr Ingraham said the government would be willing to debate a sex offenders registry.

He also said the government intends to introduce new legislation for the control and regulation of pawnbrokers and second-hand dealers, such as "cash for gold and scrap-metal operators" to block the onward sale of stolen property.

In addition, Mr Ingraham said, efforts will be made to crack down on illegal firearms and weapons smuggling, and harsher penalties will be meted out to persons found in possession of illegal weapons.

Mr Ingraham also emphasised the need for greater community involvement in what he hopes will be a "new era of national volunteerism."

The council said it is extremely pleased with the crack-down on illegal firearms and the National Programme of Volunteerism, which will encourage Bahamians everywhere to "get involved."

Rev Patterson said the prime minister's speech was a sign that the government is serious about crime, and should be taken as a strong message to would-be criminals that no one is above the law.

"We are anxious to see the implementation of all those things raised, and we shall monitor them to ensure they are implemented," said Rev Patterson.

The council warned all persons "prone to angry confrontation, robbery, jealous rage and gun toting," that all criminal offences will be punished, and called on them to reconsider their behaviour.

October 10, 2011

tribune242

Bahamas Blog International

Time to reboot the Commonwealth

By Senator Hugh Segal


These days, when alliances are under stress, monetary unions confront their own dysfunction, and financial indicators are angst-ridden, the Commonwealth retains its potential as an organization for global good, but only just.

Voluntary, historic, multifaith, multiracial and multicultural, this association, which spans every part of the world, this network of networks, has worked in a multitude of ways to make life better for its 2.1 billion citizens in 53 member states. The world's largest democracy, India, population 1.2 billion, co-exists with the small Pacific island state of Tuvalu, population 10,000. Scholarships, distance learning, parliamentary co-operation and education, agricultural support, development, trade advocacy, anti-poverty programs, and health and democracy promotion have characterized this network of principled co-operation. However, in recent time, it began to lose its credibility and relevance in a world that desperately needs the healing touch it had brought to conflict and disparity in the past.

When Commonwealth leaders met in Port of Spain, Trinidad, in 2009, they publicly acknowledged that any organization, decades old, needs such reform from time to time. They agreed on two measures. The first was the establishment of an "Eminent Persons Group" (EPG) to look at how the Commonwealth might be updated and made more relevant, impactful and influential in the 21st century. Second, they mandated the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, established by Commonwealth heads of government in 1995 to deal with serious or persistent violations of Commonwealth fundamental values, to consider how its actions might be made more effective when core principles of democracy, human rights and rule of law are violated by member states.

Commonwealth heads of government are meeting in Perth, Australia, in three weeks time to consider these reports that were submitted to them four weeks ago after 13 months of work, in the case of the EPG.

Inexplicably, current chair-in-office, the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, decided that the reports should be kept secret. The host of the meeting, Australia's prime minister, has indicated that while her national position is that the reports should be made public before the summit meeting, she is constrained to join the Trinidadian prime minister to keep the reports from being made public in the interest of "consensus." As a result, helpful suggestions around more work on HIV/AIDS, a stronger and supportive presence on human rights, democracy and rule of law, a Commonwealth Youth Corps, focused disaster-relief preparations, economic and trade support for smaller states, achieving development goals, work on climate change, addressing the needs of women, and modernizing the secretariat's communications strategies to the benefit of all member states are left in the dark.

Instead, some recommendations have been subject to distortion and misinterpretation by representatives of a few governments that mistakenly believe there is some marginal benefit to them in stifling progress on these issues.

From the outset, EPG members committed to openness and transparency in the process that would lead to their conclusions and recommendations. To this end, regular updates and news releases were issued after each of the five meetings -- more than 300 civil society groups and many governments and individuals made submissions -- and feedback was always solicited. EPG members organized input sessions and made themselves available for consultation in their own countries and, when invited, travelled widely to brief, but more importantly to listen to opinions on the reforms that the Commonwealth needs if it is to continue to be relevant to its people and its times. Keeping the report secret is harmful to informed, open and transparent debate about the organization's future.

At the end of the fourth meeting in London this past March, having read hundreds of submissions and listened to people throughout the Commonwealth, the group concluded: "The Commonwealth is in danger of becoming irrelevant and unconvincing as a values-based association" and "to safeguard against this danger, we will recommend to leaders the adoption of proposals that will strengthen the Commonwealth, both as an association of governments and of peoples."

The last Eminent Persons Group was established by the then Secretary-General, Shridath Ramphal with the strong support of prime ministers Rajiv Ghandi, Brian Mulroney and Bob Hawke of India, Canada and Australia respectively, and its 1986 report dealt with the issue of apartheid. The report was made public -- four months before the historic London Commonwealth summit. That report, the publicity it received, the support it garnered, and the pressure placed on South Africa in the years following, is credited with being a catalyst to the end of legal racism and segregation in that country. The report of the current EPG, "A Commonwealth of the People: Time for Urgent Reform," may not result in such a historic, life-altering transformation, but it does offer essential and practical ways to make better the lives of one-third of the world's population.

Leadership is about the courage to engage freely on ideas that serve the public interest. Advocates of keeping the reports secret are really advocates of weakening the Commonwealth -- one of the great and historic associations that still has the potential to embody and reflect the best of the human spirit.

October 10, 2011

caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

Election politics in Jamaica and Guyana

By Rickey Singh





TODAY, while Jamaicans contemplate a forthcoming battle between incumbent leader of the Opposition People's National Party (PNP) Portia Simpson Miller, and the rising star of the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Andrew Holness, to lead this nation following the next general election, Guyanese would be anxiously awaiting the official announcement of the date for new presidential and parliamentary elections.

The Guyana election date will come from its outgoing president, Bharrat Jagdeo, who became the youngest head of state in the Western Hemisphere at 35 and who will leave office at the comparatively young age of 47 after being executive president for a dozen years.

Constitutionally debarred from more than two successive five-year terms, Jagdeo is expected to announce Monday, November 28 as the date when the ruling People's Progressive Party (PPP) will seek an unprecedented consecutive fifth term in government, this time under the leadership of its current 60-year-old general secretary, Donald Ramotar, an economist.

Ramotar's primary opponent will be the 65-year-old ex-Brigadier of the Guyana Defence Force David Granger. He is the presidential candidate of a newly established opposition front, Partnership for National Unity which is dominated by the People's National Congress (PNC) that has been defeated by the PPP at all national elections since October 1992.

Here in Jamaica, now that Education Minister Holness has already obtained significant support from his JLP parliamentary colleagues, and appears to be popular within the party's traditional base, it is most likely that the endorsement for him to succeed Golding would be deferred for the party's November 19-20 annual convention.

By then, Guyana will be in the final week of election campaigning to choose a new 65-member Parliament and executive president. If in the case of Guyanese politics the incumbent PPP's central message will be, as already signalled, "continuity" for social and economic advancement, in Jamaica it would be quite different to market the new JLP leader with a similar message.

For, objectively, the social and political problems that finally forced Golding to quit as both party leader and prime minister (read the Christopher 'Dudus' Coke controversy as a major factor), would be very much part of the election campaign of the PNP's Simpson Miller. She can be expected to link Holness to the JLP's political culture — as difficult as such a strategy could prove.

The age factor has, surprisingly, been thrown into Jamaica's political mix of reasons for the sudden resignation announcement by Golding, who has chosen to emphasise a preference for a new generation of young leaders to be in control — in the best interest of the JLP and Jamaica.

Golding's plus & minus

The reality is that Golding, who will be 64 years old this coming December and is in good health, knows that age is not the substantive factor for his decision to walk away from the highest political office. He was certainly not going to face a leadership challenge at next month's convention, nor is he being magnanimous in suddenly making way for a suitable "young" successor.

Rather, having seriously compromised his political integrity in his controversial handling of the sensational issues that surrounded last year's extradition to the USA of the accused trafficker in drugs and guns, Christopher 'Dudus' Coke -- an influential JLP supporter -- Golding came to realise the serious damage he had wrought on confidence in his leadership judgement.

Further, and quite related, his decision was informed by how the Opposition PNP has been strategically manoeuvring to exploit the current national mood ahead of a new general election.
The suggestion that it's time to make room for a new generation of youthful leaders could also be self-serving as a parting shot by Golding against those elements within the JLP's decision-making councils and some senior Cabinet ministers who may have disappointed him at critical periods of his four years as leader of party and Government.

However, it is relevant to note here that even the more strident critics or opponents of Bruce Golding would have difficulty in ignoring an evident factor in his favour as a politician. He has, over the years, demonstrated a firm commitment to democratic governance (in party and government) — even when it came to opposing the leadership-style politics of his former mentor, Edward Seaga.

Some feel that Golding's plus factor would also point to the cultivation of a reputation for opposing corruption; And now, by his decision to quit as prime minister and JLP leader, he hopes to be remembered as a politician who did not wish to perpetuate himself in the structure of party leadership.

Holness vs Simpson Miller

Golding is departing as the first prime minister of Jamaica to voluntarily leave office without completing a first term. He is also the second to give up the prime ministership while still in good health, the first being P J Patterson.

So far as the PNP is concerned, having put to rest — expediently or not — some of the very bruising areas of internal division and discontent, it now appears as a party under Simpson Miller's continuing leadership, to be in readiness to resume control of the reins of state power when the election bell rings, either early or late next year -- depending on how the political wind is blowing with Holness as prime minister.

What both Holness and Simpson Miller would have in common is a desire to be prime minister for at least a full five-year term. The PNP leader had originally served in that office for less than a year when she succeeded Patterson before calling the September 3, 2007 general election that was lost to the JLP in a very tough battle and close outcome in terms of popular votes cast.

The PNP cannot, however, be unaware that the timing and manner of Golding's decision to quit as prime minister and leave the political landscape well ahead of a new general election would necessitate a critical reassessment of the party's electoral strategy for 2012.

Having already invested so much political capital in hammering away at the leadership blunders of Golding over the "Dudus fiasco" and more, the PNP would understand the need for its own post-Golding adjustments, which could also be a serious challenge for the JLP under the leadership of Holness.

October 09, 2011

jamaicaobserver

Bahamas Blog International