Can I adopt a Haitian child?

By Amelia Duarte de la Rosa - Special correspondent - Granma.cu

ONE can see this question repeated throughout the web. A rapid Internet search on the situation of children in Haiti throws up disturbing results. Millions of websites, blogs and pages note how to adopt these minors, as if the solution to the problem were to uproot them from their land.

The question increased after the earthquake when international humanitarian aid descended on the Caribbean nation. In the midst of the chaos, many provided selfless assistance, but others took advantage of this cover to enrich themselves.

Prior to the quake, there were an estimated 380,000 orphans in the country. According to UNICEF figures, 3.8 million infants were in a situation of extreme vulnerability in 2009 and, after January of 2010, one million children swelled the ranks of those without family care. 

The disaster exacerbated their lack of protection and opened the gates to illegal adoption and human trafficking.

Even though international legislation prevents adoption proceedings in the case of military conflict or natural disaster, and adoptions in Haiti were suspended in 2007 due to the lack of legal guarantees, many governments gave the green light and facilitated those in progress.

The United States, France, Holland and Luxembourg headed the list of countries receiving dozens of young children. The Barack Obama administration, for example, allowed emergency travel visas for Haitian children being processed for adoption, even when they lacked documents, and they were able to immigrate on humanitarian grounds. The first group of Haitian orphans arrived in the United States just 10 days after the earthquake.

The speeding up of adoptions in the midst of disaster and without meeting international requisites endangered children’s rights, in addition to facilitating illegal acts. There were incidents of the theft and kidnapping of minors, as well as abandonment once they had been transferred to other countries. Trafficking networks existed previously in Haiti and increased with the situation.

By the end of January 2010, UNICEF had already denounced the theft of 15 children from Port-au-Prince hospitals. None of them were orphans. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and non-governmental organizations like Save the Children expressed concern over the thousands of children separated from their families.

This organization demanded effective measures to protect children from all forms of violence and exploitation, including sexual violence and kidnapping under the cover of adoption; at the same time it froze international adoption and instigated alarm mechanisms.

Priority was given to tracing families and the reintegration of children with their parents, extended families, or family friends prepared to look after them. On the other hand, international adoption or children being taken in by foreigners requires an international agreement between the participating governments.

In relation to the current fate of infants, Haitian President Michel Martelly is promoting education at all levels. Last October, four million began the school year – according to authorities – including 712,000 children beginning to benefit from free education. The government also launched a program against extreme poverty, which seeks to guarantee the education of children with very few resources and to alleviate the burden of families living in vulnerable areas.

Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe and First Lady Sofía Martelly set in motion the Ti manman cheri program, the principal objectives of which are to improve school attendance and performance and promote women’s autonomy. The program, benefiting children in 200 elementary schools, is financed by the Venezuelan government’s Petrocaribe regional solidarity project.

The question forming the title of this article has a response which does not appear on any website: the support needed by Haiti is not the adoption of its minors. Poor children are not a merchandise needing adoption. It is the task of the state and their families to shelter and protect them so that they can develop normally in their own environment. The country needs aid which respects its autonomy.

THE STORY OF A SMILE

It all began with a smile. I was sitting on a stair landing and without me initially noticing her, a little girl was standing in front of me, staring fixedly. I gave her a timid smile and that was enough for her to come closer. . "Bèl cheve," she said and immediately began to play with my hair. She wasn’t even four years of age but looked like a simplified version of a young woman with bare feet.

I deduced that she didn’t live very far away and effectively, almost immediately three more children arrived in search of their playmate. Within seconds, I was surrounded by young girls who smiled, sang, and played with my hair. They decorated it with colored ribbons, showed me their dolls, assaulted me with questions and, from the little I could understand, I tried to answer them. I resigned myself to showing them the camera and taking photos of them.

Not more than five minutes had passed when the reclaiming cry of a mother broke the spell. The girls ran off happily toward her open arms. They looked back once and said goodbye with a smile.

I couldn’t begin to imagine those small children with a mother in another country and speaking another language. The future is uncertain for everyone, but there is nothing like returning to one’s mother, I thought.

July 12, 2012

Granma.cu

Bahamas Blog International

Reparations from Britain for colonialism? ...nothing, not even a good education and a competent civil service, can possibly justify the dominion British colonialists exercised over native people from India to the Caribbean ...Especially since British mercantilism meant raping and pillaging local resources for the benefit of Mother England

Reparations from Britain for colonialism?



By Anthony L Hall



To listen to some critics of British colonialism you’d think it was utterly devoid of any redeeming value. But we in the Caribbean can readily attest that this is not so.

What’s more, all one has to do is juxtapose the way education and civil service have floundered in post-colonial countries in Africa with the way they thrived in those countries during colonialism to counter unqualified criticism in this respect.

Having said that, let me hasten to assert that nothing, not even a good education and a competent civil service, can possibly justify the dominion British colonialists exercised over native people from India to the Caribbean. Especially since British mercantilism meant raping and pillaging local resources for the benefit of Mother England.

Not to mention the practice of racial segregation (i.e. de facto apartheid), which reinforced the dehumanizing nature of colonialism.

More to the point, as British journalist and historian Richard Gott notes in Britain’s Empire: Resistance, Repression and Revolt (2011), no less a person than British PM David Lloyd George telegraphed how colonial officers intended to deal with natives who resisted this dominion when he proudly recalled how, at the 1932 World Disarmament Conference, he:

[D]emanded the right to bomb for police purposes in outlying places [and] insisted on the right to bomb niggers.

Which brings me to the cruel and unusual punishment colonial officers meted out to natives whose natural pride and human dignity compelled them to resist. Nowhere was this demonstrated in more poignant and persistent fashion than in Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

For according to the Kenya Human Rights Commission 90,000 Kenyans were executed, tortured, or maimed. In addition, 160,000 were detained in conditions that rivaled those their forefathers were subjected to as captured slaves during the “Middle Passage.”

But where seeking reparations for slavery that ended 150 years ago has always been fraught with obvious (legal) problems, seeking reparations for colonialism that ended just 50 years ago is much less so.

This is why the British government finds itself in the untenable position of having to defend against claims by Kenyans who say they themselves suffered all manner of human rights abuses while being held in detention camps by the British colonial administration during the Mau Mau rebellion.

Lawyers for several victims filed what they clearly hope will be a class-action suit on behalf of all victims demanding an official apology and compensation for pain and suffering.

The claimants’ lawyers allege that Mr Nzili was castrated, Mr Nyingi severely beaten and Mrs Mara subjected to appalling sexual abuse in detention camps during the rebellion…

In his statement Mr Nyingi, 84, a father of 16 who still works as a casual labourer, said he was arrested on Christmas Eve 1952 and held for some nine years. During his detention, in 1959, he says he was beaten unconscious during an incident at Hola camp in which 11 other prisoners were clubbed to death. He says he has scars from leg manacles, whipping and caning. (BBC, July 17, 2012)

It is noteworthy that the British government admitted this week -- for the first time and in a court of law no less -- that Kenyans were tortured and ill-treated as alleged. Never mind that it was obliged to do so because the High Court ordered the release of 300 boxes of secret documents recently that not only chronicle the systematic torture and ill-treatment colonial officers meted out, but also expose a conspiracy among British officials to cover up these human rights abuses.

Yet, despite all this, the government is attempting to avoid compensating the direct victims of the Mau Mau rebellion by using the same argument governments have used to avoid compensating the descendants of the victims of slavery; namely, that:

…too much time has passed for a fair trial to be conducted. (BBC, July 17, 2012)

To be sure, lawyers can raise all kinds of issues as to why, ironically enough, the British government cannot get a fair trial: not least among them is the likelihood of assigning collective guilt to all colonial officers because victims, many of whom are now in their 70s and 80s, would be hard-pressed to identify the offending one(s) in each case; they may even question whether detention during the Mau Mau rebellion was in fact the proximate cause of their injuries.

All the same, if the British government has any regard for what little redeeming value its legacy of colonialism retains, it would consider it a moral imperative to move post-haste to negotiate a victims’ fund with the Kenyan government from which all victims can seek relatively fair compensation … in Kenya.

Incidentally, this would (and should) not absolve the government of the categorical imperative to pursue and prosecute every British official implicated in these human rights abuses: from the Secretary of State in London to the camp guard in Kenya, and not just those who executed them but those who participated in the conspiracy to cover-up these abuses for so many years as well. Indeed, these British officials should be pursued and prosecuted with the same dogged zeal with which officials who collaborated with the Nazis in the torture and ill-treatment of the Jews are still being pursed and prosecuted to this day.

Of course, colonial rebellions were not nearly as persistent and were not put down with nearly as much brutality in other colonies as was the case in Kenya (the American rebellion excepted). But if the High Court were to establish the precedent that victims of colonial-era abuses could seek damages in British courts, I have no doubt that thousands of claimants would show up in London to seek redress from every place on earth that was subjected to British dominion.

In which case the British government would be well-advised to initiate government-to-government settlements of all such cases instead of allowing any of them to proceed to trial -- especially with all of the opening of old wounds (on both sides) that would entail.

Mind you, even if the High Court were to rule that victims of colonial abuse have no recourse in British courts, the reputational damage to Britain of such a ruling would far outweigh any amount the Kenyan and other post-colonial governments could reasonably demand be placed in compensation funds for colonial abuses.

Accordingly, I fully expect Britain, at long last, to do the right thing: apologize and pay, pursue and prosecute!
July 20, 2012

Caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

Venezuela: A Threat to Washington?

By Eva Golinger - Postcards from the Revolution:


From the first time Hugo Chavez was elected President of Venezuela in 1998, Washington and its allies have been trying to undermine his government. When Chavez was just a presidential candidate, the US State Department denied his visa to participate in television interviews in Miami. Later, when he won the presidential elections, Ambassador John Maisto called him personally to congratulate him and offer him a visa. The following months were filled with attempts to “buy” the newly elected President of Venezuela. Businessmen, politicians and heads of state from Washington and Spain pressured him to submit to their agendas. “Come with us”, urged Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, trying to seduce him with offers of wealth and luxury in turn for obeying orders.

When Chavez refused to be bought, he was ousted in a coup d’etat April 11, 2002, funded and planned by Washington. When the coup failed and Chavez’s supporters rescued their democracy and president in less than 48 hours, attempts to destabilize his government continued. “We must make it difficult for him to govern”, said former US State Department chief Lawrence Eagleberger.

Soon, Venezuela was overrun with economic sabotage, oil industry strikes, chaos in the streets and a brutal media war that distorted the reality of the country on a national and international level. A plan to assassinate Chavez with Colombian paramilitaries in May 2004 was impeded by state security forces. Months later, the US-backed opposition tried to revoke his mandate in a recall referendum, but again, the people saved him in a 60-40 landslide victory.

The more popular Chavez became, the more millions of dollars flowed from US agencies to anti-Chavez groups to destabilize, descredit, delegitimize, overthrow, assassinate or remove him from power by any means possible. In December 2006, Chavez was reelected president with 64% of the vote. His approval rating grew in Venezuela and throughout Latin America. New governments in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Uruguay and several Caribbean nations joined regional initiatives of integration, cooperation, sovereignty and unity, encouraged by Caracas. Washington began to lose its influence and control over its former “backyard”.

The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA), the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), PetroCaribe, PetroSur, TeleSUR, Bank of ALBA, Bank of the South and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) were created. Washington isn’t included in any of these organizations, nor is the elite that previously dominated the region.

In January 2005, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Chavez was a “negative force” in the region. In March, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) placed Venezuela on their list of “Top 5 Hot Spots”. A few months later, Reverend Pat Robertson publicly called for the assassination of Chavez, claiming it would cost less than “a $2 billion war”. That same year, when Venezuela suspended cooperation with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) because it was found committing acts of espionage and sabotage, Washington classified Venezuela as a nation “not cooperating with counter-narcotics” efforts. No evidence was presented to show alleged Venezuelan government ties to drug trafficking.

In February 2006, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte referred to Venezuela as a “dangerous threat” to the US. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfled compared Chavez to Hitler. That same year, Washington created a special intelligence mission dedicated to Venezuela and Cuba, increasing resources for operations against them. In June 2006, the White House placed Venezuela on a list of countries “not cooperating sufficiently with the war on terror”. The classification included a sanction prohibiting the sale of military and defense equipment from the US and US companies or those using US technology to Venezuela. No evidence was ever shown to back such serious claims.

In 2008, the Pentagon reactivated its Fourth Fleet, the regional command in charge of Latin America and the Caribbean. It had been deactivated in 1950 and hadn’t functioned since then, until Washington decided it was necessary to increase its presence and “force” in the region. In 2010, the US established an agreement with Colombia to set up 7 military bases in its territory. An official US Air Force document justified the budget increase for these bases in order to counter the “threat from anti-American governments in the region”.

International media call Chavez a dictator, tyrant, authoritarian, narco, anti-American, terrorist, but they never present proof for such dangerous titles. They have converted the image of Venezuela into violence, insecurity, crime, corruption and chaos, failing to mention the incredible achievements and social advances during the last decade, or the causes of the social inequalities left behind from previous governments.

For years, a group of US congress members - democrats and republicans - have tried to place Venezuela on their list of “state sponors of terrorism”. They claim the relationships between Venezuela and Iran, Venezuela and Cuba, and even Venezuela and China evidence the “grave threat” represented by the South American nation to Washington.

They say again and again that Venezuela and Chavez are threats to the US. “He must be stopped”, they say, before he “launches Iranian bombs against us”.

In an interview a few days ago, President Barack Obama said Chavez was not a threat to US security. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he was. The ire of the Miami Cuban-Venezuelan community came down upon Obama. But they shouldn’t worry, because Obama increased funding to anti-Chavez groups this year. More than $20 million in US taxpayer dollars have been channelled from US agencies to help fund the opposition’s campaign in Venezuela.

Is Venezuela a threat to Washington? In Venezuela, the only “terrorists” are the groups trying to destabilize the country, the majority with political and financial support from the US. The drug traffickers are in Colombia, where the production and transit of drugs has increased during the US invasion disguised as Plan Colombia. Relations with Iran, Cuba, China, Russia and the rest of the world are normal bilateral – and multilateral – ties between countries. There are no bombs, no attack plans, no sinister secrets.

No, Venezuela is not that kind of threat to Washington.

Poverty has been reduced by more than 50% since Chavez came to power in 1998. The inclusionary policies of his government have created a society with mass participation in economic, political and social decisions. His social programs – called missions – have guaranteed free medical care and education, from basic to advanced levels, and provided basic food items at affordable costs, along with tools to create and maintain cooperatives, small and medium businesses, community organizations and communes. Venezuelan culture has been rescued and treasured, recovering national pride and identity, and creating a sentiment of dignity instead of inferiority. Communication media have proliferated during the last decade, assuring spaces for the expression of all.

The oil industry, nationalized in 1976 but operating as a private company, has been recuperated for the benefit of the country, and not for multinationals and the elite. Over 60% of the annual budget is dedicated to social programs in the country, with the principal focus on eradicating poverty.

Caracas, the capital, has been beautified. Parks and plazas have turned into spaces for gatherings, enjoyment and safety for visitors. There’s music in the streets, art on the walls and a rich debate of ideas amongst inhabitants. The new communal police works with neighborhoods to battle crime and violence, addressing problems from the root cause.

The awakening in Venezuela has expanded throughout the continent and northward into the Caribbean. The sensation of sovereignty, independence and union in the region has buried the shadow of subdevelopment and subordination imposed by colonial powers during centuries past.

No, Venezuela is not a threat to US security. Venezuela is an example of how a rising people, facing the most difficult obstacles and the brutal force of empire, can build a model where social justice reigns, and human prosperity is cherished above economic wealth. Venezuela is a country where millions once invisible are today, visible. Today they have a voice and the power to decide the future of their country, without being strangled by foreign hands. Today, thanks to the revolution led by President Chavez, Venezuela is one of the happiest countries in the world.

That is the threat Chavez and Venezuela represent to Washington: The threat of a good example.

 

Source: Postcards from the Revolution

 

July 21, 2012

 

Venezuelanalysis 

 

Bahamas Blog International

...We are looking to amend laws to make harbouring illegal migrants a serious offence with serious penalties... says Bahamas Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration Fred Mitchell

Laws May Be Brought In To Stop Harbouring Of Immigrants

By DANA SMITH
Tribune Staff Reporter
dsmith@tribunemedia.net

Nassau, The Bahamas



IN AN effort to curb illegal migration, members of Parliament will be looking at amending laws concerning the harbouring of illegal immigrants, possibly as early as next week, according to Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration Fred Mitchell.

Mr Mitchell said he met with Haitian officials to discuss how to stem illegal migration, and that they also discussed trade potential between the two countries.

He said: “We are looking to amend laws to make harbouring illegal migrants a serious offence with serious penalties. That should be coming perhaps as early as next week when the House resumes. Debate will take place on the floor because we want some public discussion about the matter.”

The Bahamas is also hoping to engage the Haitian government in discussions on allowing “intelligence officers” to operate in Haiti in an effort to combat human trafficking, he said.

“They’ve expressed an interest in pursuing it,” Mr Mitchell said. “We would like to do so because we believe that if we are allowed to have intelligence officers in Haiti, we can probably stop the smuggling or put a big dent in it from the north.”

However, the minister said Haitian officials are more interested in talking about trade between the two countries.

Mr Mitchell said Haiti wants current protocols which prevent agricultural goods from being imported from Haiti to the Bahamas, to be changed.

They argued it would help spur their economy and thus potentially reduce illegal migration.

Mr Mitchell said the two governments have been trying resolved the protocol issue “for a long time”.

“In fact, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the two countries I believe back in 2007,” he said.

“The last minister of agriculture had announced that he was dedicated to removing it. There was even an announcement that customs officers would be stationed in Haiti to help with the inspection of the goods.

“Because Haiti now exports mangos to the United States, we can only get them by getting them through the States and it’s believed that if we get them directly, it’ll be cheaper.

“Their argument is that would help them in trying to improve the economy of the north of Haiti and that’s the area from which migrants come to this country illegally. We repatriated 200 of them this week – 100 went out this morning (and) 100 went out the day before yesterday. So this is a really serious problem for us. We are committed to seeing how we can get that resolved.”

July 19, 2012

Tribune242 

Bahamas Blog International

Venezuela is not Syria, Venezuela is not Libya

By James Petras

Axis of logic note: The following excerpt from a discussion about the 2012 elections in Venezuela was taken from an interview of James Petras at CX36 Radio Centenario based in Montevideo, Uruguay. Translated from Spanish by Axis of Logic.

"The Syrian people perhaps have [legitimate] criticisms of Assad and perhaps want changes, but not from imperialist intervention. They want to decide for themselves their democratic, peaceful and independent future. They do not want to pass from the government of Assad to one controlled by foreign imperialists. That much is very clear and we should respect it and put a lot of distance between ourselves and the trotskyist bands that have supported this imperialist intervention, calling it a democratic revolution. Again we have an example of this failure of the Trotskyists who confuse their illusions with the realities in the world"

ChI: Continuing in the region, how do you see the Venezuelan electoral campaign?

James Petras: The U.S. politics in this are very clear: when the candidates of their choosing win elections, the elections are free and honest. If United States or their candidates lose the elections, then those elections are corrupt, illegitimate. They do not want to accept a rout. This is the case in Venezuela and also in other cases where there are popular candidates and nationalists with socialist tendencies. In the case of Venezuela we have received information that United States continues channeling money toward NGO's –non-governmental organizations - that are always a facade for the opposition that exists in Venezuela. They are full agents, organized, directed by the United States toward several tactics. And it is the political arm of the opposition that is directed to campaign where the right does not have force, that is to say in the popular neighborhoods, the lower middle class and other sectors where their may be some dissidence.

Now, their practice is not to present an alternative because they do not have alternatives with popular resonance. Their tactic is to take advantage of some negative conditions that exist, for example, in some places the trash is not collected, or a mayor does not fulfill a promise or the problem of the delinquency; that is to say that they enter and exploit that situation, any theme of a popular complaint, without offering any solution, beyond the same old clichés of the right. Now, this work from below is complemented by some mass communication media campaigns, where the right continues controlling the main electronic media and particularly the television. In addition, there are groups that are more secret, the aggressive groups, those who are going to promote some disorder if they lose the elections which is more probable than ever. So there are functions of U.S. politics on three levels: One is that of the NGO's; the second is the mass communication media and third are the hard line aggressive groups, which I have already mentioned in other contexts.

Currently and up to the final weeks prior to the elections, we are going to see groups one and two operating, the media and the politics of agitation to promote conflicts. But those in the third group exist and are expanding their networks, maintaining their threat to the democracy, even beyond the elections - seeking to introduce a similar situation to that which they created in Syria and in Libya. The key problem [in Venezuela] is that they do not have a critical mass that could rise up. In this sense the democracy under the government of Hugo Chávez and the massive influence that it has in all sectors of the country and above all in the popular sectors, makes it very difficult to repeat in Venezuela what they mounted in Syria and other places, i.e. one based on giving armed support to dissident groups to cause violent conflicts. In that sense, I believe that Mrs. Hillary Clinton, Mr. Barak Obama and their minister of Defense, Leon Panetta, have calculated badly: Venezuela is not Syria, Venezuela is not Libya; Venezuela is a democratic country with an extensive popular base organized freely and they are willing to face any violent challenge from below.

Therefore, Venezuela has a democratic vaccine that neutralizes those efforts. But that does not mean that there may be not adventurers in that violent sector of the opposition. They can think – and this must be noted - that they can cause a detonation with a small specific and violent group; a conflict, a confrontation, in which there are injured or dead, using that small motor to start a greater motor. A type of 'foquistas' of the right. But they are wrong because that type of pyrotechnics will fail like a dud.

 

Source: Axis of Logic

 

July 15, 2012

 

Venezuelanalysis

 

Bahamas Blog International

 

More brilliant moves for the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB)

By Dr Isaac Newton

Since its inception in July 5, 1983, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) has used its resources impressively. It has met its obligation in monitoring monetary policy and assisted governments in managing risks.

Without exhausting its possibilities, the ECCB displayed acumen in raising consciousness about fiscal efficiency. By providing qualitative and qualitative tools to facilitate economic forecasting, the Bank’s yearly review of the economic performance of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) has nudged citizens to think about various approaches to socio-economic development of the sub-region.

Today, the Bank continues to help finance ministers manage debt. It still provides tools for governments to navigate capital markets. And it pilots helpful public education and awareness programs.

In fact, the effectiveness of its community outreach initiatives is credible. Above all, the Bank has protected the international value and kept confidence in the EC Dollar pegged to the US dollar at a parity of EC 2.70.

Despite the ECCB’s direct and indirect investments in the social success of the sub-region, some view it as a refuge that conceals political underdevelopment. Whereas the Bank has advocated for productive investments behind closed doors, one has not yet heard its voice condemning unproductive investments by regional governments with short-term bread and butter needs.

Perhaps it is because the OECS has a high tolerance for quick solutions. What’s even more worrisome is that we haven’t moved beyond our addiction to a culture of dependency, which constitutes the very foundation of our inability to advance ourselves.

At the 72nd meeting of Monetary Council held in February, leaders committed to fresh insights and new pragmatics. These are likely to unlock the financial bowels of our people to produce balanced growth.

As the Bank seeks to help the leaders overcome the shattering changes confronting the union, here are five critical things it can do in these recession times:

• Provide immediate short-term financialhelp to various priority sectors—agriculture, export, and small business to help them circumvent the crisis. The Bank presence should be flexible to the economic growth and political stability of the union.

• Reach out to the talent pool of the diasporas via long-distance or in person consultancies, and invite our brightest and best minds to become more engaged in regional advancement through sweat equity and exchange of intellectual capital.

• Devise a comprehensive model for finding synergy with transnational corporations. Assist governments to see beyond jobs creation to value proposal. Help public official and entrepreneurs exploit sustained industries that can be linked to tourism, research, green energy, and financial services in order to harness national resources, and increase revenue generation along the way.

• Inspire thought leaders and grassroots intelligentsias to delve into the potency of our resources (brilliant people, food feeding land, unexplored medically induced plant life, sun, sea, and natural beauty) to make long-term investments that can create capital.

• Design internships for finance ministers to tease out the best macroeconomic approach to sustainable development of the union, and provide operational frameworks of accountability, transparency and inclusiveness to identify the best talent required to achieve fiscal flexibility and economic goals.

The only way to create new momentum is for the ECCB to take governments and people on a development action plan. This requires a specific process that will induce political will and collective energies, and it will take personal meditation and institutional boldness to lead us to brighter days.

Perhaps the answer to the logic of politics is in harnessing the logic of economics. According to Winston Dookeran, former finance minister of Trinidad and Tobago, power, politics and performance in the Caribbean is about leaders finding durable solutions.

Dookeran argues that Small Island States can take advantage of a knowledge based world, by drawing on effective regionalism, financial structures and inspirational leadership.

I could see the ECCB focusing more on optimal development, on building safer regional alignment, and on executing follow-though success in the twenty-first century. Perhaps this undertaking will instill in each one of us a mind-set to achieve greater things.

July 12, 2012

Caribbeannewsnow

Maurice Smith, the fringe political party - Democratic National Alliance (DNA) spokesman for the Ministry of Financial Services says: ...he agrees with The Bahamas government’s stance to explore the implementation of value added taxes as an alternative means of revenue

DNA: Gov’t Should Implement VATs

By Kendea Smith
The Bahama Journal

Nassau, The Bahamas

Democratic National Alliance (DNA) spokesman for the Ministry of Financial Services Maurice Smith said he agrees with the government’s stance to explore the implementation of value added taxes as an alternative means of revenue.

Recently, Prime Minister Perry Christie said he was preparing to share several recommendations with cabinet on how valued added taxes should be implemented.

Mr. Smith, who spoke to the Journal recently, said this is something that should have been done years ago.

“I think this country needs to go in a different direction in terms of taxes and the value added tax has been tossed about for quite a bit and one of the things I think needs to be done first is [people need to be educated],” he said.

“I think that it would be a good thing for The Bahamas and it has to be regulated properly and it is has to be implemented with the intention that everyone knows what it means and how it is going to affect The Bahamas. I think that is one of the goals of the financial services providers in this country.”

Mr. Smith said he will also look into helping the government disseminate information on value added taxes.

“To the average Bahamian, they know nothing of it and that is why it is up to us to make sure that they do. Too often we have been introducing these aspects to the Bahamian people but not making information easily accessible,” he said.

Prime Minister Christie also recently told reporters that The Bahamas is one of the very few countries that don’t have some form of value added taxes.

“When we look at the revenue of our country, we realise that we are running out of sources for additional revenue and so we are at the maximum of what I think we can get from the Customs duties,” Prime Minister Christie said.

“What we have not been able to do is have an effective collection of real property tax and so we have had some consultants help us determine a pathway to be more effective with collecting real property taxes.”
      
Mr. Christie recently explained that the government would have more revenue to assist the poor if the country implemented value added taxes.

“I indicated that we will have a white paper in short order. I have the basis of the white paper in my hands now. I will present it to my government in short order to look at and then it will be published publically for public comment and for the public to weigh in on the way forward. It is a major shift and if it were to happen, I would want it to happen quickly,” he said.

“A lot of training will be needed in order to implement any kind of change of that kind.”

July 12, 2012

Jones Bahamas