TWO TRAVELLERS who returned to Barbados last Wednesday said they were told they had no choice but to be fingerprinted or else be put back on the plane.
The two, who live in Barbados and were returning from business in Trinidad, said they believed their human rights were violated when they were forced to be fingerprinted on arrival at the Grantley Adams International Airport.
Analysis by RICKEY SINGH
AS WE FOLLOW United States President Barack Obama's inspiring, relentless efforts to win decisive congressional support for his imaginative plan for health care reform, I wonder if, with humility, Caribbean Community leaders could also summon some of that "Obama-like spirit" in the interest of advancing the major goals of CARICOM.
If they could summon at least half of Obama's passion - if not eloquence - to inspire public confidence, then we would probably witness pessimism giving way to a new hope for the transformation of CARICOM into a seamless regional economy, despite today's worsening economic gloom.
The Treaty of Chaguaramas established the Caribbean Community and Market, later known as CARICOM, and was signed by Barbados, Jamaica, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago in 1973.
In 2001, a revised Treaty of Chaguaramas establishing the Caribbean Community including the CARICOM Single Market and Economy, (CSME) was signed by six member countries and now has fifteen members. The treaty was expected to be fully implemented by 2008 with harmonization of economic policy, the free movement of all CARICOM nationals and possibly a single currency.
The Revised Treaty is yet to be fully implemented and the region is witnessing increased fragmentation. Many question if CARICOM is still relevant.
President Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday said the issue involving 50 Mormons here without permits could have been “better handled” as there was no need for the missionaries to be rounded up and taken into custody even though the police had a right to do so. “I didn’t think, frankly speaking, that we needed to round people up. It is not the image of Guyana that we want to portray, particularly where it concerns religious people,” the President told reporters yesterday at the opening of the new East La Penitence Health Centre. “But the police have to enforce the immigration laws of our country. We are an open society, we are very welcoming but we also have laws,” he added.
By HG HELPS, Editor-at-Large helpsh@jamaicaobserver.com Monday, September 07, 2009 Retired Jamaican Prime Minister PJ Patterson is unhappy that the Caribbean Single Market (CSM) is not yet a reality. More than three years after Caribbean heads of government held a ceremonial inauguration of the CSM and formal signing of the document for its implementation at the Mona Visitors' Lodge in Kingston, on January 30, 2006, the CSM remains virtually non-existent. The inauguration and signing would have made the Caribbean Community and Common Market - (Caricom) only the second group to form a single market, the other being the European Union. It is geared toward bringing the Caribbean region closer together and removing regional hurdles to trade and employment. The process would have been completed with the implementation of the extended Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME), which the heads at the time agreed to have implemented by the end of last year.
Patterson. it would appear that we have just abandoned things
by RICKEY SINGH I RETURNED to Barbados last week from a visit abroad with my wife, to further learn of concerns by professional media colleagues, family members and others, about recent comments by Prime Minister David Thompson that have been interpreted as directed at me as a "writer" who has engaged in "unfair and unwarranted maligning of Barbados and Barbadians" over its immigration policy. The Prime Minister was at the time delivering the feature address at the August 23 annual conference of his Democratic Labour Party (DLP) when he made references, without calling names, to criticisms pertaining to the Government's immigration policy and, in particular, what he chose to describe as "the definitive action we have taken on the issue of undocumented migration in Barbados . . .".
(Barbados Nation) A Bridgetown magistrate has thrown his support behind immigration officers who attend court, saying lurid stories about treatment by officers of Guyanese do not apply to them. Magistrate Christopher Birch made the comments as he dealt with an out-of-status non-national in the Bridge-town Traffic Court on Friday. “There have been many stories appearing about immigration officers in the press recently,” the magistrate said.
“But I can speak for these immigration officers in court. These immigration officers have taken people to the bank, allowed them to close out their accounts, and allowed them to pack their bags,” the magistrate said.
A Guyanese reporter, who was reportedly working illegally in St. Maarten, was among two, who were “targeted” by that country’s immigration service. The Saint Martin News Network reported that immigration officers raided the Today Newspaper on Friday after they were tipped off by a disgruntled employee that the management of Today had at least two persons working illegally for the company. SMN News reported that a well-known local reporter had been having problems with the management of Today who suspended her.
