Goodbye OAS, hello CLACS?

Published on: 2/26/2010.


by RICKEY SINGH

THERE NEEDS TO BE A DEFINITIVE STATEMENT - the sooner the better - offering the rationale for and benefits of the Caribbean Community's (CARICOM) teaming up with our Latin neighbours to form a new hemispheric organisation - the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CLACS).

Impressed as it is with its Latin neighbours, CARICOM has an obligation to ensure that its best interests are not submerged in the "action agendas" of these allies.

The announcement of this "community" in the making originated out of Cancun, Mexico, last Tuesday at the close of a two-day Summit Of Latin American And Caribbean Heads Of Government And Foreign Ministers.

Among the absent CARICOM leaders were the president of Guyana and the prime ministers of Barbados, Jamaica and St Vincent and the Grenadines. And CARICOM's current chairman Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit of Dominica, felt the need to go quickly on the defensive in explaining to the media that the intention was not to "ignore" or "mash up" the 34-member Organisation of American States (OAS).

Read full article here.

OUR CARIBBEAN: Ignoring Cuba's medical aid to crumbled Haiti

Published on: 2/19/2010.


by RICKEY SINGH

THE CARIBBEAN nation that has done and continues to do the most for Haitians in the vital area of medical assistance - before and since the devastation of the January 12 earthquake - is undoubtedly Cuba. But it is difficult to know about this if you depend on news coverage from the leading media networks of the USA in particular.

The Cuban government, as a matter of policy, is not in the habit of competing with others in trumpeting its assistance - in health, education, engineering and agriculture - to countries of the Caribbean and Latin America.

However, as the economy in this hemisphere most brutally affected by the embargo imposed by America for some 48 years, Cuba has distinguished itself by its significant aid contributions to Caribbean Community states, including Haiti.

Read full article here.

Fake Bajan Held

Published on: 2/18/2010.


by TIM SLINGER

IDENTIFICATION and National Insurance cards should not be issued before a thorough background check of the applicant was carried out.

Head of the Police Force's Fraud Unit, Assistant Superintendent John Maxwell, made this suggestion yesterday, following the arrest of a Guyanese national who was able to fraudulently obtain a Barbadian National Insurance card and a national identification card.

Tyrone Anthony Nelson, 23, whose address was given as Passage Road, St Michael, last Monday, pleaded guilty before a Bridgetown Magistrates' Court to illegally obtaining both documents.

Read full article here.

Illegal immigrants granted six-month amnesty in Antigua

(Antigua Sun) – Illegal immigrants in Antigua and Barbuda will be allowed to leave the country voluntarily during a six-month period.

This was revealed by Minster of National Security and Labour Dr Errol Cort at a press conference on Thursday where contents of a report pertaining to immigration matters were made public.

Public consultations were held on the hot button issue which engaged considerable discussions.

The three-member committee chaired by Dr Cort to look into the matter has recommended that those people residing in the country illegally be given the opportunity to leave on their own.

“It is the recommendation of the committee that they be given six months to leave and that, if they have not left the jurisdiction within that period of time then the appropriate action should be taken,” the report recommended.

The six-month period was chosen because it is considered that the programme for street naming and building numbering can be completed within that period.

The street naming and building numbering project would enhance the capacity of the police and immigration officers to find persons who are in Antigua illegally.

“However, the committee recognises that, when faced with this requirement, individuals may present compelling circumstances (eg extensive length of stay in the country, age, family ties, etc.) which would suggest that they be given an opportunity to regularise their status rather than be required to leave.

“In order to implement this, the process would have to be articulated in legislative framework to ensure transparency.”

While some people felt that amnesty should be granted to the illegal immigrants the committee decided against this approach, citing that there is no compelling argument for implementing “a programme for the widespread grant of amnesty.

“The prevailing view was that if we are to pursue immigration reform in Antigua and Barbuda, it is of importance that the message of zero-tolerance of non-compliance with the law must be conveyed.

“Flowing from this was the view that amnesty was not an acceptable way forward and should not be entertained as an option.

Indeed, some persons were of the view that persons who were in Antigua and Barbuda illegally should be deported,” the report said.

Over 300 from CARICOM participated in Haiti quake response so far

Health officials and other emergency teams are still providing help for devastated Haitians and since the horrific earthquake hit Port-au-Prince on January 12, more than 300 persons from eleven CARICOM (Caribbean Community) countries and associate members have so far been involved in the response.


Jamaican soldiers (right) on guard at the entrance to the CARICOM medical facility in Haiti. (CARICOM photo)

This was announced by CARICOM in a press statement yesterday.

As CARICOM continues its outreach, emphasis has been placed on ensuring the human rights of the people affected by the disaster are respected. It has since given priority to an appeal by the Haitian Prime Minister, to lobby the international community for Haiti’s long term recovery and reconstruction.

A Coordination Committee was created to organise an International Conference aimed at devising a Strategic Plan for the reconstruction of Haiti. The Committee held its first meeting on January 25 in Montreal, Canada. CARICOM Assistant Secretary-General Foreign and Com-munity Relations, Ambassa-dor Colin Granderson, Executive Director of the Caribbean Disaster Emer-gency Management Agency (CDEMA), Jeremy Collymore, former senior United Nations official with experience in disaster management Hugh Cholmondeley and former Jamaica Prime Minister P.J. Patterson attended the meeting. Patterson led the delegation.

Read full article here.

On the Map at Close Encounters exhibit in Florida

On the Map will be screened at the Art Gallery at Florida Gulf Coast University in "Close Encounters: Contemporary Art by Caribbean Women", which has been curated by Patricia Fay.

In the 21st century, women artists from the Caribbean region are producing intensely personal interpretations of their heritage in a range of media including photography, video, performance, painting, ceramics, mixed media, sculpture and installation art. These works highlight an acute awareness of the social and psychological complexities of the post-colonial landscape, and offer an intimate examination of the rich and subtle culture of an often misunderstood geography. Through the eyes and minds of contemporary women artists we can experience the Caribbean as a personal, lived reality, as a close encounter between self and place.

Gallery Hours
Monday – Friday 10am to 4pm
Saturday 11am to 2pm
Or by appointment

For more information, contact 239.590.7199 or visit our website:
artgallery.fgcu.edu

CARICOM helps Jamaica to maintain the JDF in Haiti

IT IS GOOD that Jamaica and the rest of its Caribbean Community partners have worked out their problems relating to cost-sharing for the Bruce Golding government in Kingston to maintain the Jamaica Defence Force relief operational base in earthquake-devastated Haiti until March 5.

Severely cash-strapped long before the earthquake nightmare descended upon poverty-stricken Hait on the night of January 12, Jamaica had, nevertheless, committed itself to playing a key role as the identified central focal point by CARICOM for its coordinated regional response in the provision of emergency relief aid and rescue operations.

Read full article here.

Jamaican writer, Honor Ford-Smith, remembers Caribbean icon - Rex Nettleford

By Honor Ford-Smith

The first time I met Rex Nettleford was when he came to our Kingston High school in 1968 around the time of the Rodney uprising to speak to our 6th form about Black Power. I don’t remember what he said because his vocabulary consisted mainly of words I had never heard before and his utterances bounced off my 16 year old brain before I could catch hold of them and translate them into plain English. But I remember vividly how his presence filled our Presbyterian classroom and how his pink shirt glowed against his obsidian skin. I remember the elegance of his postures and the hand that moved back and forth with his words.

Read full article here.

David Rudder reflects on Haiti and the Caribbean

Published on: 2/8/2010.


by MICHELLE SPRINGER

HE PENNED IT 24 YEARS AGO after a striking experience in New York City.

Today, David Michael Rudder's Haiti I'm Sorry has become the global anthem - in his words, "the road march around the world" - as people everywhere mourn in unison for the earthquake-stricken republic.

But the song, Rudder assured Monday's Man, is more than a requiem for the beloved land its people call Ayiti Chérie.

"Initially I realised that most of us in the English-speaking Caribbean don't know what's happening in the French or Spanish Caribbean, and likewise people in the French Caribbean don't know what's happening in the English Caribbean.

"One day I was in Brooklyn with a friend of mine and we took a cab with a Haitian driver, who charged us a little more than we're accustomed to paying," he said in a recent interview.

Read full article here.

On the Map to be screened at exhibition of Caribbean Women artists in Florida

"Close Encounters; Contemporary Art by Caribbean Women" has been guest curated by Patricia Fay, Associate Professor of Art at Florida Gulf Coast University. The show includes Ana Mendieta, Yasmin Spiro, Elsa Mara, Babette Wainwright, Yunia Pavon and Traditional Caribbean Women Potters and runs from February 18- March 19 2010. The Gallery will host a Talk on Thursday February 18th from 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm, followed by the Opening Reception from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm.


"…Caribbean artists are using the gallery space not so much as hallowed ground for the awed contemplation of power objects and other sacred paraphernalia on which artness has been conferred but as an arena for deploying images that raise questions or attempt to stimulate a debate about our mutual experiences as citizens of a postcolonial Caribbean."
Annie Paul, in Small Axe, Number 6, 1999

For more information, read here.

Special OAS Committee Analyzes Return of Migrants in America February 4, 2010

The Special Committee on Migration Issues of the Organization of American States (OAS) today conducted a workshop titled, “The Return of Migrants: Challenges and Opportunities.” The meeting, which took place at OAS headquarters in Washington, D.C., was presided by the Permanent Representative of Haiti to the Organization, Ambassador Duly Brutus, and featured experts on migration from various American countries.

During the event the Secretary General of the OAS, José Miguel Insulza, said that the phenomenon of migration is one of the organization’s priorities because it affects, almost without exception, all of the hemisphere’s countries. He recalled that people in the Americas migrate much more within the region than outside and added that “the problems caused by migration can only be solved through dialogue, never through confrontation.” He also said that “this dialogue is essential in developing an effectively fruitful cooperation to solve any negative situations that current migratory trends may be generating.”

The meeting sought to share and promote regional initiatives and programs to help migrants that come back to their countries of origin to easily reintegrate the labor market and their communities, with special attention to programs that focus on involuntary deportation and those that include a gender perspective.

Among the speakers were Keisha Livermore, Head of the Representative Office of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Jamaica; Hernán Holguín, Under Secretary of Citizenship and Solidarity of the National Secretariat for Migrants (SENAMI) within the Presidency of the Republic of Ecuador; Pedro Valenzuela, Chief of the Office of Return and Welcome of the Ministry of External Relations of Uruguay; Margarita de Lourdes Guerra Guerrero, Assistant Director General of Social Programs of the Unit on Migration of the Social Development Secretariat of the Government of Mexico; Sonia Lokki of La Cimade, France; and Richard Scott, Regional Representative of IOM for North America and the Caribbean.

At the workshop’s conclusion, Ambassador Brutus said: “The reason for our presence here at this Special Committee on Migration is to share our experiences on subjects as important as that of migration and make mutual decisions on best practices and to agree on how to make progress on common initiatives, all of this with a spirit of solidarity and unity, always with respect to human rights. Today’s debate is located in that context and I hope it will continue in this way in the future.”

The workshops was carried out from 10:00 to 17:30 EST (15:00 to 22:30 GMT), in the Simón Bolívar Hall at OAS headquarters in Washington, D.C., and was transmitted live on the OAS website.

For more information visit http://www.oas.org/en/media_center/videos.asp

Haiti - CARICOM missing in Action- by Andy Johnson

THE Caricom Secretariat, reeling under the impact of the poverty of concrete action from its representative member governments on the question of assistance to Haiti, issued a statement six days ago, announcing a decision to establish a small Haiti unit.

It is to be headed by Colin Granderson, the Trinidad and Tobago diplomat who is the most experienced hand on Haiti now at the Secretariat, but who is substantively the Assistant Secretary General, with responsibility for international relations.

Establishment of the unit was decided upon on January 29, by members of the Caricom Bureau, meeting in the Surinamese capital Paramaribo, on the margins of a Caricom Youth Forum.

From what the statement said, the decision was taken on the basis of reports presented to those Bureau members, from Granderson and Jeremy Collymore, the executive director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA). Both men visited Haiti two weeks ago, and then attended the one-day meeting on Haiti in Montreal, Canada, on January 25. At that meeting, the Caricom statement said, ’groundwork’ was laid for the convening of a full fledged ’international conference on the reconstruction of Haiti’.

Read full article here.

The Caribbean mourns the death of an unapologetic regionalist

Jamaica lost one of its most revered cultural figures last night when Professor Rex Nettleford, vice-chancellor emeritus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) and founder of the National Dance Theatre Company (NDTC), died, just hours before he would have celebrated his 77th birthday.

Nettleford passed away at George Washington Hospital in Washington, DC, one week after suffering a heart attack at a hotel in the United States capital.

Last night, Prime Minister Bruce Golding said he was deeply saddened at the news of Nettleford's death.

"Jamaica and the entire world have lost an intellectual and creative genius, a man whose contribution to shaping and projecting the cultural landscape of the entire Caribbean region is unquestionable," Golding said.

"Rex Nettleford was an international icon, a quintessential Caribbean man, the professor, writer, dancer, manager, orator, critic and mentor. He has left a void in our world that will be a challenge to fill."

Read full article here.

Marketing migration to St. Vincent...

In defence of Vincentian citizenship


Published on: 2/2/2010 in the Barbados Nation newspaper


THE FIRM declaration this past weekend by Vincentian Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves against bartering his country's passport under a so-called "economic citizenship" scheme to attract foreign investment, deserves commendation.

As he told the St Vincent and Grenadines parliament last Friday, his administration had set its face against continuation of any such scheme and urged the opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) to also make abundantly clear its stand against the sale of Vincentian passports as a form of economic citizenship.

At this period of quite challenging financial and economic problems for countries of our Caribbean Community (CARICOM), it is very important that strenuous efforts be made to guard against any kind of bartering with external forces and elements that could prove injurious to national sovereignty and dignity.

Starting in the decade of the 1980s a number of CARICOM countries located within the subregion of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) had become susceptible to an externally-influenced programme of awarding citizenship and passports to foreigners in exchange for economic investment.

As it was, at the outset, so was it to largely prove - a project of doubtful value as a means of attracting serious investment for meaningful economic development in ANY country of this region.

That so-called "economic citizenship" programme had coincided, in some Eastern Caribbean islands, with increasing activities by Taiwan - the breakaway island of the People's Republic of China - to win "recognition" support among political parties that, in turn, became beneficiaries of funding from Taipei, particularly at times of national elections.

However, with passing years the bartering of "citizenship" for "investment" were to significantly diminish and, separately, Taiwan kept losing to China as a preferred partner by countries in this region, with St Lucia to prove a strange case of ditching Beijing for a return to Taipei, and currently the focus of national controversy over recurring instances of chronicled distasteful diplomatic behaviour by its resident representative.

In St Vincent and the Grenadines both Gonsalves' governing Unity Labour Party (ULP) and Arnhim Eustace's NDP (which he inherited from Sir James Mitchell), are known to have close ties with Taiwan.

But though not linked, the economic citizenship programme was suspended by Gonsalves as relations with Taipei continued. He has now disclosed to his parliament receipt of a letter from an unnamed company, dated December 14, 2009, involved in marketing a migration programme representing some 3 500 persons and involving an investment of US$313.8 million (BDS$626.6 million)

Prime Minister Gonsalves has revealed that his written response to the company's offer was that "the highest office in our land is that of citizen and it is NOT for SALE . . .".

A commendable stand, indeed, in defence of the meaning citizenship and sovereignty - a definition that should be applicable not ONLY for Vincentians.

CARICOM Youth Ambassador appeals for help to rebuild the education system in Haiti

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, February 1, 2010 – Haiti’s CARICOM Youth Ambassador Leticia Cadet has made an impassioned plea to the Caribbean Community to help re-build, as a matter of priority, the education system in Haiti. In particular, she wants the regional grouping to provide scholarships for Haitians to attend the University of the West Indies (UWI).

At a special meeting of the Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD) in Paramaribo, Suriname, she recalled the devastation caused by the earthquake, which crippled Port-au-Prince on January 12th, leaving in its wake a climbing death toll of more than 200, 000.

Cadet said Haiti needed the support of its partners, including members of the CARICOM Community, to continue providing education to its current students “to avoid creating a potentially detrimental gap in qualified human resources.”

Read full article here.

CARICOM: Haiti looks to CARICOM to rebuild shattered education system

PARAMARIBO, Suriname, CMC – Haiti has used the inaugural Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Summit on Youth Development to make an impassioned plea for assistance in rebuilding its shattered education system following the destruction caused by the powerful earthquake on January 12.

Haiti’s CARICOM Youth Ambassador (CYA), Leticia Cadet, said rebuilding the education system is a matter of priority for her country still reeling from the effects of the earthquake that left an estimated 200, 000 people dead and more than one million homeless.

She presented a petition to a special meeting of the Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD), one of several conferences leading to the two-day summit that ends here on Saturday.

In the petition, Haiti is calling for a “recovery relief effort to support youth development through tertiary education and business development in Haiti …in partnership with CARICOM”.

Read full article here.