...education in Latin America and the Caribbean

UNICEF and UNESCO present a new report on education in Latin America and the Caribbean

22.1 million boys, girls and adolescents in the region are not in school or are at serious risk of dropping out.

• Late entry to schooling and grade repetition are the main determinants of exclusion.
• Complete, timely, sustained and full schooling is the duty of all.



PANAMA/MONTREAL/SANTIAGO, 31 August 2012 – In Latin America and the Caribbean there are approximately 117 million boys, girls and adolescents in the preschool, primary and basic secondary education age groups. However, 6.5 million of them do not attend school and 15.6 million attend school carrying the burden of failure and inequality expressed in either a two- or more-year lag behind the normal age for their school grade or a record of grade repetition.

This is the main information provided in a report entitled “Finishing School. A Right for Children´s Development: A Joint Effort” presented today by UNICEF and the United Nations Organisation for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO) through the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS).

In recent decades, the educational systems of Latin America and the Caribbean have extended to cover the vast majority of boys, girls and adolescents. Regional initiatives have occurred, such as the “Education Goals for 2021: the Education we Want for the Bicentennial Generation” launched in 2010, ultimately aiming to improve quality and equity in education to counter poverty and inequality and favour social inclusion.

However, there are still many pockets of actual or potential exclusion: boys and girls who enter the educational system late, who repeatedly fail, who do not come across learning experiences that allow them to develop their capacities and who encounter discrimination. The message transmitted in the title of the report, “Finishing School. A Right for Children´s Development: A Joint Effort”, again brings to the fore the target to fulfill the educational rights of children and, in turn, to insist on the need for cooperative and effective ways to achieve this.

This report, starts by recognizing the profiles of the groups most affected by exclusion and then identifies the barriers that hamper a sustained, timely and full education for these boys, girls and adolescents. Finally, it outlines appropriate strategies for an approach to the issues. The methodological perspective adopted presents an innovatory approach for the region, as it identifies the profiles of excluded groups before moving on to pinpoint the barriers. This approach rules out the notion that the profiles themselves are the cause of exclusion, concentrating instead on the barriers to education supply, unlike other analyses and interpretations of the past decade that have concentrated mostly on demand-side problems.

Five dimensions of exclusion

Five dimensions of exclusion are identified within the framework of the report as the five factors that might evict a child from school and the school system from one day to the next:

Dimension 1: boys and girls of infant and primary school age not in infant or primary school.

Dimension 2: boys and girls of primary age not in primary or secondary school, distinguishing between those who have never attended primary school, those who have started school late, or those who have participated for a restricted amount of time and who drop out without completing the whole level.

Dimension 3: boys, girls and adolescents of basic secondary school age not in primary or secondary school.

Dimension 4: boys and girls in primary school but at serious risk of dropping out.

Dimension 5: boys, girls and adolescents in basic secondary school, but in serious risk of dropping out.

This report stresses that boys, girls and adolescents from indigenous, Afro-descendant or disabled groups, or those living in rural areas, are at greater risk of exclusion or grade repetition. The data analyzed showed that in some countries less than 50% of the secondary school-age population in rural areas is attending school. There is also a clear link between the element of child labour and school attendance - students aged between 12 and 14 years who are at work, many of whom are receiving schooling, showed lower rates of attendance than those who do not work. Furthermore, in some countries, Afro-descendant boys and girls find themselves facing late entry or educational failure more frequently.

Delayed schooling

Delayed schooling can be viewed as an indicator or warning factor for exclusion as the situation is generated and then accumulates to the point where students in some schools are studying with 1, 2, 3 and more years of grade repetition or lag between their school grade and the normal age of study.

For some boys and girls, this education lag starts in preschool education, and just such a complex situation affects 11.6% of this age group who start primary education in initial education when their age-group should be entering first grade.

This is doubly damaging as these boys and girls will inevitably start primary school late and in the meantime they also ‘fill’ spaces that should be available to other younger children in their community.

The levels of lag detected in primary education indicate that many pupils are still attending primary education when they have reached secondary school age. The latest available information indicates that close to 22% of students in this age bracket do not complete primary schooling on time. As they work their way through primary education and on into basic secondary, education lag increases the probability of students dropping out of school.

A Joint Effort

The report reveals that most of those who have dropped out of school early in the region have experienced several years of schooling in which they have accumulated various forms of educational failure and it indicates that coverage targets cannot be achieved if this problem is not approached, as this situation culminates in the early expulsion from school of the most vulnerable groups. Therefore, when the time for analysis and action is ripe, the issues of coverage and quality must be approached together, in combination for positive outcomes on inclusion to be achieved.

The concept of the ‘Joint Effort’ is a call to end blame attribution between sectors and instead to assume the collective and cooperative efforts needed in order to guarantee the right to education. National and sub-national government bodies, funding and co-operation entities, teaching unions, the media, families, communities, universities and research centres must come in from the fringes and assume their responsibilities in order for the school system to fulfill its mission in the best possible way.

“Education is the key to confronting the deep inequities in our region, and therefore we must work from all sectors so that all girls, boys and adolescents can complete their schooling” said UNICEF Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Bernt Aasen. “Efforts made in the education sector must be coordinated with those in the social protection, health and nutrition sectors, as well as with families and communities. UNICEF actively works to make this form of coordination reality.”

Jorge Sequeira, UNESCO Regional Director of Education agreed with this diagnosis, adding that “the priority for improving educational quality for boys, girls and adolescents, equipping them with pertinent and relevant knowledge, giving them the possibility to develop with dignity and with a sense of belonging to their societies is an essential requirement of our educational system if we aspire to make completion of these levels of education a universal occurrence.”     

A global initiative

“Finishing School. A Right for Children´s Development: A Joint Effort” is part of the Global Initiative on Out-of School Children promoted by UNICEF and the UNESCO Institute of Statistics. Since its launch in early 2010, it has targeted efforts in 26 countries, performing national studies, a panorama of each of the regions, a global study and a world conference to mobilize resources for equity. In Latin America and the Caribbean, this process translated into the production of country level studies on exclusion from education in Colombia, Brazil and Bolivia, and into the construction of this regional report using aggregated data for the other countries.

UNICEF

Bahamas Blog International

Ending criminal defamation in the Caribbean

By Alison Bethel McKenzie

Executive Director
International Press Institute



Early this year, Dominican journalist Johnny Alberto Salazar was sentenced to six months in jail for slander and libel. The charges stemmed from Salazar's on-air comments accusing Pedro Baldera, a local Human Rights Committee official, of "protecting delinquents and people linked to organised crime." Salazar, an elected council member and well-known local gadfly, said prior to his arrest that he had been receiving threats from the government for his criticism of officials.

In June, the decision was thrown out by an appeals court. But the effect of the prosecution remains. Though the Dominican Republic retains a fairly clean press record, with Salazar potentially becoming the first ever journalist jailed for professional activities, the existence of criminal defamation laws leaves the threat of retribution forever looming.

As recently as June, Dominican politicians, and diplomats across the Caribbean, expressed their belief that defamation is best dealt with in a civil courtroom. The International Press Institute (IPI) calls on these countries to take the next step and remove these latent laws from their books.

Criminal libel law was born in an Elizabethan England courtroom as a means for silencing critique of the privileged class. A law of such antiquated ethos has little place in modern society where the press plays a pivotal role in shaping public discourse.

IPI is actively campaigning for the governments of the Caribbean to redress their current criminal libel laws. At present, the law is vague and open to indiscriminate and inconsistent implementation, largely wielded to quell dissent and stifle government criticism.

In the past two years, Caribbean criminal defamation cases have included a government official charging a previous campaign opponent with the crime and another where accusations made in a town hall meeting resulted in a lawsuit. These cases exemplify the elasticity of a law largely wielded by those in positions of power.

While infrequently used in the Caribbean, criminal libel statutes remain an unnecessary resource at the disposal of any offended official. The mere threat of prosecution chills investigation and free speech, sustains corruption, unnecessarily protects public officials, and denies one of the most basic of human rights, freedom of expression.

Criminal libel is one of the most pernicious media constraints in contemporary society. Implemented at the will of any insulted public official, it frequently leaves no recourse for the defendant. In most countries, truth is not a valid defence, leaving defence a vexing proposition.

Many countries have no clear demarcation or standard for determining the line between fair criticism and criminal offence. That most existing criminal libel laws also lack a requirement for actual malice, a higher criterion for the libel of public figures -- to allow for debate and discourse of government and other instruments of power -- only further underscores the capricious nature and implementation at the disposal of government figures.

IPI condemns modern use of criminal libel and advocates banishing the law, and utilising civil remedies as alternatives. Often governments argue the need for strong punitive measures as a defence against scurrilous journalism, but freedom of expression and the press requires a more nuanced regulation in order to allow for public dialogue. Certainly, punishment for careless or slanderous speech is necessary, but this should take place in a civil courtroom.

IPI stands beside numerous international accords, court opinions, and governments in these beliefs. As early as 1948, the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights declared the significance of freedom of expression, with special note to press rights, by naming it one of the basic truths of humanity. More recently, an international coalition comprised of members from the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Organization of American States (OAS), and the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (AFCHP) named the criminalisation of defamation as one of the ten biggest threats to the freedom of expression.

IPI has conducted press freedom missions in a number of Caribbean nations. An IPI delegation visited Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Barbados Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, and government ministers and officials in both Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. In each instance, IPI received support for its position on criminal libel, with each government reaffirming its commitment to an independent press.

In June 2012, the IPI General Assembly meeting in Port of Spain endorsed the Declaration of Port of Spain, calling for the abolition of "insult laws" and criminal defamation legislation in the Caribbean. Stating that "the Caribbean urgently needs a strong, free and independent media to act as a watchdog over public institutions," the Declaration of Port of Spain identifies "the continued implementation of ‘insult laws’ – which outlaw criticism of politicians and those in authority and have as their motive the 'locking up of information' – and criminal defamation legislation as a prime threat to media freedom in the Caribbean."

IPI has received further endorsement for the Declaration of Port of Spain from numerous organisations throughout the Caribbean, including the Association of Caribbean Media Workers, and media and press associations in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Grenada, Guyana, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Lucia, Suriname, and St Kitts and Nevis.

A free society is founded on an open exchange of opinions, popular or not. Criminal libel does little more than stifle this public discourse. We’ve evolved a great deal since the 16th century origin of criminal libel. To continue to rely on an antiquated law that acts as little more than a tool of repression would signal a society uncertain of its democratic principles. Many Caribbean countries have publicly repudiated criminal libel. IPI calls on these governments to join in the progress of freedom of expression and recognise their existing criminal libel laws as archaic and detrimental, and to remove the law from their books.

Considerable work lies ahead in achieving this goal, but IPI is encouraged by the progress thus far. With diligence and continued collaboration, IPI is confident the nations of the Caribbean will proceed in striking this relic of a bygone era from their records and take their rightful places as homes of truly free and independent press.

September 05, 2012

Caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

Travel to Cuba: ...U.S. authorities have implemented a series of bureaucratic measures restricting ‘People to People’ travel to Cuba

U.S. Treasury Department continues to obstruct travel to Cuba





WASHINGTON, August 27.— U.S. authorities have implemented a series of bureaucratic measures restricting ‘People to People’ travel to Cuba. This particular program was reinitiated by the Obama administration in 2011, although it did not entail any substantive change in U.S. policy toward Cuba and left the blockade intact.

The new measures have complicated trips between the United States and Cuba. Now, according to Department of Treasury regulations, paperwork required to request a license to organize trips to Cuba has been expanded from six to hundreds of pages.

Prensa Latina reports that in order to renew such licenses, tour operators must document every minute of activities organized during previous trips to Cuba, to prove that visits did not include anything which could be described as standard tourism.

A recent article in the Detroit Free Press revealed that practically none of the organizations with licenses from the Office of Foreign Assets Control allowing them to organize trips to Cuba in the ‘People to People’ category have received renewals.

Jim Friedlander, president of the Academic Arrangements Abroad travel agency in New York, commented that his company works with close to 30 non-profit organizations which have activities planned in Cuba over the next 12 months and that none of them have received a renewal.

Groups which have not been able to renew their licenses for travel to Cuba include Harvard Alumni, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic Society, Cuba Insight and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Early in the George W. Bush administration, restrictions on travel to Cuba were tightened and ‘People to People’ contact, established by Clinton, was eliminated as an option. This program allows academic, student and religious exchanges to be organized under a Department of Treasury ‘general’ license.


In any event, travel to Cuba by U.S, citizens remains prohibited despite these exceptions. 

(SE)

August 29, 2012

Granma.cu

Bahamas Blog International 

Georgetown not looking good: Partisan strife in Guyana

By Elizabeth Briggs
Research Associate at Council on Hemispheric Affairs



Guyana’s historical ethnic tension between the Indo-Guyanese and the Afro-Guyanese communities is routinely manifested in the political life of the small South American country. In Guyana, the larger Indo-Guyanese segment of the population favors the ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP/C), while Afro-Guyanese largely support the coalition A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), which was formed in 2011 primarily by the People’s National Congress, as well as the Alliance for Change. In the November 2011 elections, the PPP/C-backed candidate Donald Ramotar was declared the presidential victor, but his party lost its parliamentary majority by one seat for the first time since 1992, giving the opposition alliance of the APNU and the AFC a virtual veto power over the national agenda.

The current tensions between Guyana’s major two parties boiled over during July in the country’s second largest city, Linden, a traditional stronghold of Afro-Guyanese electoral strength and political muscle. On July 18, three Lindeners partaking in an allegedly APNU-supported demonstration were killed and dozens more were injured while protesting the government’s increase of electricity rates in the region. Resulting protests and acts of arson inflicted significant infrastructural damages on the city, including the burning of the One Mile Primary School.

The PPP/C pointed to the protestors, who they believe were incited by APNU agent provocateurs, for the damage. In turn, the APNU has accused the police force, acting under PPP/C influence, of being racially motivated. PPP/C defector Khemraj Ramjattan, now the leader of the opposition Alliance for Change, went as far as stating, “It is my firm view, I can’t prove it, but my firm opinion that there are state agents involved (in Linden) operating under the arrangements of some of the people in senior government offices that are creating these burnings. I cannot believe that Lindeners are going to burn a school that 800 students go to. It has to be state agents doing that. The PPP thrives on these situations and the situation has the capacity to bring back their supporters into their wagon and they want that to happen.”[i]

The state-run Guyana Chronicle fought back against these accusations with an editorial titled “Ramjattan has gone into pure, unadulterated evil,” which accused Mr Ramjattan of treason and adamantly denied any governmental involvement.[ii] Eusi Kwayana, himself a former member of the PPP/C in the 1960s, came out strongly against PPP/C actions in Linden, denouncing their one-party administration and accused the government of a “barefaced and cowardly attack” on critical journalist Freddie Kissoon.[iii]

On August 21 President Ramotar signed a pact with Linden leaders, finally bringing to an end the four weeks of chaos and negating the provocative rise in electricity costs for Lindeners. In response to a request from the Guyanese government that was also approved of by the APNU, a CARICOM committee consisting of Justice Lensley Wolfe, KD Knight of Jamaica, and Ms Dana Seetahal of Trinidad and Tobago will investigate the situation and is expected to announce its findings by the end of September.[iv] It is certain that the late President Cheddi Jagan would have just cause to weep for the rack and ruin of contemporary Guyanese politics gutting the nation’s political life.

Citations:
[i]“Ramjattan has gone into pure, unadulterated evil.”Guyana Chronicle, August 14, 2012. (accessed August 24, 2012).
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Kwayana, Eusi. “Letter to the Editor.” Kaieteur News, August 18, 2012. (accessed August 24, 2012).
[iv] CARICOM, “Statement by the Caribbean Community Secretariat on the Recommendation of Commissioners RE: Linden Inquiry.” Last modified August 20, 2012. Accessed August 24, 2012. .

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, founded in 1975, is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt research and information organization. It has been described on the Senate floor as being "one of the nation's most respected bodies of scholars and policy makers." For more information, visit www.coha.org or email coha@coha.org

August 30, 2012

Caribbeannewsnow.com

Bahamas Blog International

...the United States is accused of exacerbating The Bahamas' crime problem ...by dumping criminals in The Islands who are not Bahamians ...and should be sent elsewhere

FOREIGN CRIMINALS DUMPED HERE

By Korvell Pyfrom
The Bahama Journal
Nassau, The Bahamas



A former high ranking police officer has accused the United States of exacerbating this country’s crime problem by dumping criminals in The Bahamas who are not Bahamian and should be sent elsewhere.

In an exclusive interview with the Bahama Journal yesterday, former Deputy Commissioner of Police Paul Thompson raised concerns about an increasingly large percentage of the criminal population in The Bahamas that is not Bahamian.

Mr. Thompson, a 30-year Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF) veteran, said that the situation is further complicated by the fact that the United States is deporting criminals to The Bahamas whom he says should be sent elsewhere.

Mr. Thompson said the Bahamian government should demand that the US stop sending criminals to The Bahamas who are not Bahamians.

“It appears that anyone picked up in the United States who came from The Bahamas – the person might have stowed away or something else, but as long as the Americans establish that the person came from here, they will send them here,” he said. “They could be Haitian, Jamaican or anything else. Their citizenship has not been established. If they came from here, they are sending them back here and this is something we need to ask the US to stop.”

“The [Bahamian] government should say to the US – stop sending these people to us who are not Bahamian; send them to their country.”

The former deputy commissioner of police reminded that this situation should highlight the importance of creating a proper immigration regime.

He also warned of the precarious position the country places itself in by not reforming its policies regarding processing illegal nationals.

“During the earthquake in Haiti 350 dangerous prisoners escaped – gunmen, rapists and political prisoners escaped. We do not have a fingerprint, a photograph or a name of any of them and we do not know who of them are here and these are things we have to fight,” he said.

Mr. Thompson also called on the government to hold off on its decision to repatriate those Haitian nationals apprehended at sea in waters off Mangrove Cay, Andros last week until first determining whether they were involved in human smuggling.

“At least with the foreigners we have that law deportation. We ask people to leave and put on stop list. This boat with these people in Andros, well that’s a big boat. The owners of the boat, the captain and crew we should seek them out and put them in jail. Those people should go to jail and the remainder of the boat should be seized.”

The vessel carrying nearly 200 Haitians ran aground Saturday from the effects of Tropical Storm Isaac.
Foreign Affairs and Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell has confirmed to the Journal that while investigations in to the incident involving the Haitian nationals is underway, the government was moving forward with its decision to repatriate the 197 nationals to Haiti today.

29 August, 2012

The Bahama Journal

Bahamas Blog International

Haiti, its history, its culture and its people

By Jean H Charles



Its history

Haiti, previously called Ayiti by the Tainos who inhabited the island, was the most populous and the most organized of the chain of the territories of the Caribbean. Their days were changed on December 5, 1492, when Christopher Columbus arrived in a northern bay renamed Bay of St Nicholas because of the feast of St Nicholas on that day. The Tainos received the Spanish explorers with genuine hospitality, offering gold chains to the men. Columbus returned to Spain to inform Queen Isabella of his discovery, leaving behind a crew of sailors.

Within a generation, the population of some one million Tainos was reduced to hundreds. Those who were not decimated through new disease brought by the Spanish men, such as tuberculosis, gonorrhea and syphilis, were destroyed through hard labour, alcohol and plain mutilation.

Yet, the gold exploration had to continue, and a priest by the name of Las Casas, under the pretext of protecting the Taino population from oblivion, obtained from the Queen of Spain, the authorization to grant the right for merchants to seek and bring Africans into the Western hemisphere to labour in the mines.

From 1503 to 1793, almost three hundred years, the black slaves toiled the land, producing sugar, cotton and cocoa that enriched principally the French colonists, who ruled the island with an iron fist.

It was as such until a Jamaican slave by the name of Bookman organized a voodoo ceremony in the northern part of St Domingue on August 14, 1791, to energize the slaves in revolting with the slogan: Better death than return to slavery!

The destruction of the plantations followed, but Bookman was seized and killed. Toussaint Breda, who became later Toussaint Louverture, continued the movement. A well educated and profoundly religious man, Toussaint was aware of the wind of human rights brought upon St Domingue first by the American Revolution in 1776 and later by the French Revolution in 1789.

Through several battles, he defeated first the British, later the Spanish and proposed a French Commonwealth to Napoleon Bonaparte, leading the destiny of the island with prosperity and hospitality for all. His reputation as a nation builder was sterling. Indeed the second president of the United States, John Adams, already trading with the governor of the country, was contemplating advising him to become king of the island.

Bonaparte responded with an armada supported by the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. Through a ruse, where family affection was at the root, two sons of Toussaint were on the boat coming from France, and he was lured into the hands of Rochambeau, Bonaparte’s brother in law, who was the commandant of the naval regiment.

Toussaint was captured, imprisoned and sent to die in a prison in France. He had predicted that the roots of freedom were strong and deep and they would not wither.

Jean Jacques Dessalines took up the revolutionary movement and, within three years, he had succeeded, with the support of other generals such as Henry Christophe and Alexander Petion, to root out all the French soldiers from the island. In a memorable battle on November 18, 1803, the ragtag army of slaves succeeded where Spartacus with his 6,000 men could not accomplish with the Roman Empire some 2,000 years earlier in 70BC.

They rang the song of freedom for all slaves on the island and foreshadowed the beginning of the end of slavery in the world.

This saga was a short glorious moment for Haiti. Two years after Independence Day, on January 1, 1804, Jean Jacques Dessalines was assassinated on October 17, 1806, by his comrades in arms. His ideas of nation building, making Haiti hospitable to all were not the vision of the majority of the other generals. They envisioned the spoils of the colony for themselves only, and their families.

Haiti has never recovered. Through internal revolts fomented by foreign powers such as France, Germany and the United States, with the assistance of, first, mulatto rulers and later poorly educated black generals, Haiti and its people descended into a spiral of ignorance, misery and environmental calamity until today.

The latest one, the earthquake of January 12, 2010, destroyed its capital Port au Prince, as well as sending to death some 300,000 people. This disaster was preceded by 150 years of neglected mulatto governments and recently 50 years of black dictatorial regimes, followed by illiberal democracy that is closer to criminality than good governance.

Its culture

The slaves that climbed the mountains of Haiti after the Independence Day became the Haitian peasants. No one has ever bothered to ask them whether they should have good institutions such as schools and hospitals or decent infrastructure such as roads, electricity and communications. They have preserved intact the African culture mixed with the century’s old acculturation taken from the remaining Tainos and French masters during slavery times. Haiti is at the same time a mosaic of purely African, Santa Fe, USA, and Provence, France, culture.

The aftershock of the Haitian revolution was varied and unnerving as a cause. The Latin American revolution with Bolivar, through the help of Alexander Petion, took place. Abraham Lincoln and Frederic Douglass, inspired by Haiti, brought about the black emancipation. As such, the nation was ostracized by the then world order of slavery.

Only the Vatican, through a Concordat in 1860, accepted to send teachers to Haiti to educate the population. The priests and the nuns did what they could, they provided the bread of good formation to the tiny elite that peopled the cities, leaving behind the masses in the rural areas uneducated and ill advised.

Haiti is today a land of two cultures, the land of Catholic, refined, French-speaking and sophisticated city dwellers, as well as the land of voodoo practitioners, dispossessed former peasants living in squalid condition in shantytowns on the outskirts of prime land near the sea or peasants still forgotten in the mountains surrounding the cities.

Desperate, some have taken the ultimate chance of seeking a more hospitable sky through leaky boats to Florida, The Bahamas and all over the Caribbean islands, in particular, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, going as far as Suriname on firm land in Latin America.

Handy in arts and in art-craft, their production under different labels can be seen in the best hotels and shops on the tourist trail of the Caribbean, except that the label made in Haiti is removed. Good agricultural workers, from a native land that has been eroded by poor soil treatment and tree cutting for charcoal, they are replenishing the landscape of the Dominican Republic, Dominica and The Bahamas with fruit trees and hard wood that could have enriched their own country.

Its people

With a population of 10 million people, Haiti is in the enviable position of Sweden, Finland, Norway or Denmark; except it is not as cold. While the Haitian population is highly creative, it is not as educated and sophisticated as those Nordic countries, as such it miss the key ingredient that could propel the country into full employment and the bliss of growth and development.

It is a young population, eager to learn and pierce the world of modernity. Its adult population is resilient and willing to work hard for its daily bread. But its lack of education will continue to hamper the optimum utilization of its natural talents and the zeal to achieve.

In spite of this deficiency, Haiti, a small island with the proportions of the State of Maryland, has a brand name that goes beyond the Western Hemisphere. It has greatly contributed to the nation building process of several countries, through the utilization of its professional citizens, including the Congo, Brazzaville and Quebec, Canada. The famous Haitians, or celebrities with Haitian origins, include a roster that spans the arts, politics, sports and music. The list includes but is not limited to: E-W Dubois, James Audubon, Pierre Toussaint, Wyclef Jean, Edwige Danticat, Michaelle Jean, Andre Michael (boxer) Jean Michel Basquiat, Garcelle Beauvais, Jimmy Jean Louis, 50 Cent, Pierre Garcon, Jonathan Vilma, Maxwell Garcon.

Haiti experienced an avalanche of help from the nonprofit organizations and from the UN after the earthquake of 2010, but donor fatigue is languishing around because of a lack of good coordination and sound vision from the government. Will this new regime of Martelly/Lamothe deliver the goods to a nation and a people, so eager for so long to enjoy the bliss of hospitality?

It is too early to label the new regime as a Teflon government or a true agent of change that will transform the nation into the Tahiti brand of the western hemisphere, because of its natural and spectacular scenery, or the Bali brand of the Caribbean, because of its many cultural and religious festivals that are the staple of everyday life.

Anyway, Haiti has been too good for the region for humanity not to come to its help with enduring and sustainable tools that will change the lives of so many enduring and eager citizens ready to enjoy the bounties of God on this land that was once called the Pearl of the Islands.

August 25, 2012

Caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

Gangs and Violence in Her Majesty’s Prison (HMP) - Fox Hill - Nassau, The Bahamas

As Gangs Infest Prison

By Jones Bahamas

Something is going on in Her Majesty’s Prison in Fox Hill. And ‘that something’ does not have a good smell.

Whatever it is – it comes with stench attached.

We have heard enough and been told enough to believe that the public should have a full, frank and totally truthful accounting of what is going down in that complex.

Prison Superintendent Dr. Elliston Rahming continues to deny a senior prison officer’s claims that a “new breed of criminals” is infiltrating Her Majesty’s Prisons (HMP), but also is quick to add that gang activity is increasing at the state-run facility.

Perhaps this might be the key: Rahming concedes: – One of the new developments is that we now have discernible gang related groupings in the prison. That is a fairly new phenomenon…”

Ah, hah! Echo cries: – we now have discernible gang related groupings in the prison!

Could this not be evidence of some facts that should matter to the neighbors, family and friends of both the men and women in prison and those who work there?

As we have learned, Dr. Rahming said prison officials are making some headway in figuring out just why gang activity is increasing.

We want to know what this means; how are they measuring headway.

We also want to know the facts behind Prisoner Officer Sergeant Gregory Archer’s statement to the effect that a new breed of more violent hardened criminals are infiltrating HMP, making prison officers’ jobs more dangerous.

The tit-for-tat between Rahming and Archer is itself revelatory of a system that is in need of urgent attention from the Minister of National Security and his colleagues around the Table.

This is most urgent.

Notwithstanding Rahming’s sophistry concerning human nature and all that blather of his about how Cain killed Abel where he so brilliantly opined: “I wouldn’t say that there is a new breed of inmates coming into the prison, but certainly the numbers are greater. But human nature has been the same ever since Cain killed Abel; human nature has not changed.

“We have certainly more persons to deal with, but the nature of mankind has not changed.”
The fact of the matter is this: the prison officer is the man in the middle of the mix.

If this man or woman ever becomes convinced that they should concede the fight, the prison would then and thereafter be in and under the command of the men and women in the gangs.

We must have none of this.

We need – as a matter of the most urgent priority – to know whether there is any truth to the word we are getting that speaks to prison realities where cell-phones are bought, sold and used by inmates; where recalcitrant men and women on remand are routinely being subjected to sexual abuse and where – for better or worse – money talks.

Then, there is all that talk about the extent to which the prison complex is pervaded and saturated with violence.

As Archer testifies: “…Despite prison already being a dangerous place to live and work, over the years the jail atmosphere has gotten even worse, mimicking scenes out of movies and the hit American television show Lock Up with the fights getting even more dangerous…”

And yet, Dr. Rahming maintains that Her Majesty’s Prison is safe.

Rahming’s parsing of prison reality would have us all believe that Archer is not lying; that Her Majesty’s Prisons is under control; that officers come to work with the fair expectation that they will return home to their families; inmates can go to bed at night with the fair expectations that, unless the Lord takes them home, they will wake up in the morning and those are signs of a well-run prison.

And then there is more of same: “A prison is not an easy place to run… But, that is not to say that danger is not ever present because it is ever present.”

Then he concludes danger is ever present as underscored by Rahming himself: “I think it’s fair to say that officers, although they work amongst the worst of the worst, they are in a safe environment insofar as one can call a prison safe.”

Quite frankly, we are not impressed.

We need hear no more to conclude that an end should come to this so-called ‘debate’ between Archer who seems to know what he is talking about and the Prison Superintendent Elliston Rahming who seems to have the public believe him when he says what he says.

We need to hear from the Minister of National Security; and we need to know what – if anything – he proposes to do about this mess.

23 August, 2012

The Bahama Journal

Bahamas Blog International