Earlier this year one of David Jessop's weekly contributions was entitled "Does the CSME have a future". My contention is that whereas "CSM" is alive and well with potential for significant refinement and growth to benefit of the people, the "E" did not have a chance of emerging any greater than that of a snow ball surviving in hell.
My reasoning is that for the "E" to survive each member state of the Caribbean Community would have to give up a measure of "policy" space to a supranational regional entity in order for this entity to have any meaningful clout as a true representative of all of the member states of the Caribbean Community. I further conclude that this is unlikely to happen in my lifetime or in my children's lifetime.
CARICOM States have demonstrated time and time again throughout the history of the Caribbean Community that they are quite capable of agreeing on several regional issues. Yet, when they return to the reality of their domestic environment they do what is politically expedient in the domestic setting in the interest of their political survival. This may be seen as the cause of "Implementation Deficit Disorder" from a regional perspective, even though it can undoubtedly be justified from a domestic viewpoint.
Read full article here.
January 24, 2011
CARIGONE AND CARICOM
January 21, 2011
Anti-Immigrant Hate Crimes Rise with Hateful Political Speech
by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
The federal trial of three Pennsylvania police officers accused of covering up the murder of an undocumented Mexican immigrant opened last week—reigniting critical discussion about the recent rise of anti-immigrant hate crimes. The officers—former Shenandoah Police Chief Matthew Nestor, Lt. William Moyer and Patrolman Jason Hayes—allegedly attempted to conceal the racially motivated nature of the 2008 murder of 25-year-old Luis Ramirez, who was brutally beaten to death in a park by a group of teenagers spouting racial slurs. At the time, Ramirez’s murder underscored a growing trend of anti-Hispanic violence in the U.S., which some attribute to increasingly anti-immigrant political rhetoric.
In recent years, hate crimes against Latinos have increased by 52 percent, a steep rise that Alternet’s Arun Gupta attributes to incessant "right-wing vituperation" and "caustic rhetoric." In Arizona, where anti-immigrant sentiment has fomented into a bevy of retrogressive and prejudicial state policies, the number of reported hate crimes rose from 161 in 2007 to 219 in 2009. Tellingly, the recent rise in anti-Latino hate crimes runs counter to an overall decrease in reported hate crimes nationwide.
Read full article here.
January 18, 2011
Owen Scolded
PRIME MINISTERS Stephenson King of St Lucia and Ralph Gonsalves of St Vincent and the Grenadines have chided Opposition Leader Owen Arthur for attacks on Mara Thompson’s candidature in the January 20 St John by-election.
Thompson, a St Lucian-born Barbadian citizen, and widow of late Prime Minister David Thompson, has come under fire on the Barbados Labour Party’s (BLP) political platform, with her participation in next Thursday’s poll being questioned.
Last Sunday at College Bottom, St John, Arthur said there was no Barbadian woman who could be the wife of a St Lucian politician and run in St Lucia on the grounds that she was running to be the “queen”.
Read full article here
January 13, 2011
Owen chided for nationalist sentiments
Owen Arthur's commitment to Caribbean integration came under scrutiny last night as the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) defended its decision to nominate St Lucian born Mara Thompson as the candidate for the Jan 20 by-election in St John.
Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, Finance Minister Chris Sinckler and the candidate herself, all questioned the commitment of the former prime minister to the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) as the DLP pitched tent in Coach Hill, St John.
Read full article here.
Nationality, a platform issue
The issue of nationality has now developed as one of the hot topics in next Thursday’s by-election in St John.
Former Prime Minister and leader of the Opposition Owen Arthur, as well as some members of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) have raised the issue of Mara Thompson, the Democratic Labour Party candidate being St Lucian and contesting the St John seat.
Read full article here.
Stories, in Between -an exhibition at the International Contemporary Art Foundation, Norway
Stories, in Between features artists whose practices trace and unpack complex cultural identities impacted by diasporas. Based primarily in the Western hemisphere, these artists problematize and negotiate cultural and geographic associations of their personal identities as well as that of their work. The exhibition includes recent and new works by Loulou Cherinet, Patricia Esquivias, Brendan Fernandes, Tamar Guimarães, Will Kwan, Runo Lagomarsino, and Maya Økland. The artists share a desire to address the multifaceted implications of migration and globalization in relation to their various practices and positions.
For more information on this exhibition visit http://www.stiftelsen314.com/Stiftelsen314/Exhibition.htm
January 11, 2011
Is there a link between immigration tensions and the Arizona shooting?
International Action Center statement on the Arizona shootings and the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords
Joint statement from Tucson and New York City offices of the IAC
January 9, 2011
The Jan. 8 shooting of Arizona Congressperson Gabrielle Giffords should rightfully be termed a political assassination attempt. The planned murder attempt, which took the lives of six people, including a 9-year-old child, takes place in a political climate of extreme racism, anti-immigrant terror, and fear-mongering that the right-wing, their politicians and pundits have been stoking for more than a decade.
It is part of the calculation of the ruling elite in this country to fan the flames of division, racism, and reactionary thinking in order to divert people’s attention from the economic crisis. The attempt on the life of a member of Congress is a direct by-product of the economic crisis.
The infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio, anti-immigrant law SB1070, the outlawing of Ethnic Studies programs in public schools, the escalating militarization of the border -- this is what laid the basis for the events of Jan. 8. “Hate radio” talk-show hosts, like Tucson’s Jon Justice, along with nationally known bigots like Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and Glenn Beck, in their on-air rants continually use language encouraging violent acts.
The assassination attempt is also directly related to the policy of border militarization. “These senseless deaths are the result of a border policy that has been building since 1994,” stated Isabel Garcia, an immigrant rights activist and community leader with Coalicion de Derechos Humanos in Tucson. “This has propelled the growth of fear, hate and violence. Over 5,000 migrant deaths, shootings and continuing violence are a direct result of this policy.”
Read full article here.
January 10, 2011
CARICOM or Cari-gone?
Caricom or Cari-gone?
By Ronald Sanders
Story Created: Jan 9, 2011 at 10:48 PM ECT
Story Updated: Jan 9, 2011 at 10:48 PM ECT
THE new year started with a great deal of frustration being publicly expressed over the Caribbean regional integration project which, this year, will have been in construction for 43 years. Other integration efforts, such as the European Union (EU), which began after the Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom), have moved ahead much faster and much more effectively for the benefit of the people of their member countries.
It is therefore understandable that, in an editorial, one of the Caribbean's oldest newspapers observed that a majority of people believe that "any official attempt to unite the region as envisaged in the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME) is nothing but reverie and doomed to failure''.
To be fair, the editorial did not trumpet this observation with glee or satisfaction. It said that "as we enter the second decade of this century, we hold fast, nevertheless, to the idea of one region''.
So, on the one hand, this editorial, reflecting the views of many, still believes in the notion of a deeply integrated Caribbean — "one region'', but it expresses no faith that we will see a CSME anytime soon. The editorial identified four contemporary reasons for its lack of faith in any "official'' attempt to unite the region.
Read full article here.
Sex Tourism and Trafficking: Not one and the same
Megan Rivers-Moore did her doctoral work on sex tourism in Costa Rica. She is currently a research fellow at the Institute for Women and Gender Studies, University of Toronto
(This is one of a series of weekly columns from Guyanese in the diaspora and others with an interest in issues related to Guyana and the Caribbean)
By Megan Rivers-Moore
Latin America and the Caribbean are characterised by a long history of migration into, out of, and within the region. The Caribbean diaspora is surely one of the most significant in the world, marked by complex ties across nations and within families.
This is the case of those who would be included under the ‘free movement of skilled nationals’ provisions, as well as the working class and poor men, women, and children who move in search of survival and improved life chances. It is within this context of migration and diaspora that we must place discussions of trafficking, a much talked about but often poorly understood topic that is at the forefront of concerns about migration, labour, and sexuality.
A key problem in so many discussions of trafficking was reproduced in an October 15th article in the Stabroek News, titled ‘Sex tourism growing in favoured destinations in Caribbean’, namely, that sex tourism and trafficking are conflated, as if they were one and the same.
The Organisation of American States (OAS) co-ordinator of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Unit in the Department of Public Security, Fernando Garcia-Robles, reportedly noted that several tourist destination countries in the Caribbean have a growing sex tourism industry, and acknowledged “concerns that the Free Movement of Skilled Nationals in Caricom could result in increased human trafficking.”
Read full article here.
January 9, 2011
Federal Judge, John Roll, killed in Arizona
It was an event that represented American democracy at its finest – a Congresswoman making herself available on a street corner to anyone who wanted to raise concerns about local issues with her. But it left six dead and 12 wounded, among them several who had given their lives to public service.
The dead included John Roll, 63, the top federal judge for the state of Arizona, who had received many death threats since he was appointed by George Bush senior in 1991.
Two years ago he was given a 24-hour police guard amid a furore prompted by his decision to allow a group of illegal Mexican immigrants to bring a lawsuit against a rancher who had arrested them at gunpoint walking across his land.
Read full article here.
David Burgess, one of the most brilliant immigration lawyers of his generation, died in London, in October 2010
On an autumn evening last October, a slight, pretty woman with a mass of curly hair fell underneath a tube train during rush hour at King's Cross underground station. The driver of the eastbound Piccadilly Line train applied the brakes as soon as he saw the woman lose her balance, but a whole carriage passed along the platform before the vehicle shuddered to a halt. It was shortly after 6.30pm on 25 October when the British Transport Police started trying to recover the body, a gruesome task that lasted late into the night.
The line was closed, the platform cleared. London's Underground network was severely disrupted as commuters struggled to make their way home. And yet, in the sprawling urban mass of the capital, many of those passengers – crushed against each other in scarves and coats, clutching their copies of the Evening Standard and adjusting their iPods – probably reflected that, depressing though it might be, a person throwing themselves in front of a tube train was not particularly out of the ordinary.
But all was not as it seemed. The ensuing media coverage revealed that the police suspected that the woman had not fallen but had been pushed by her 34-year-old female companion, who was later charged with murder. It then turned out that the woman who died, 63-year-old Sonia Burgess, was living a double life. Once the police had established her identity (from her railcard), it was discovered that Sonia was biologically a man – a man named David Burgess, one of the finest immigration lawyers of his generation, a man responsible for a succession of trailblazing judgments in the House of Lords and the European Court of Human Rights.
Read full article here.
January 4, 2011
African migrants drown in heavy seas off Yemen coast
At least 43 African migrants trying to reach Yemen by boat have drowned in heavy seas off the coast, and a second boat with up to 40 Ethiopians aboard is missing, Yemen's interior ministry said today.
The ministry said three Somalis were rescued after a vessel carrying 46 people, mostly from Ethiopia, capsized.
"It's not known in which direction the wind took them, and their fate is unknown," the ministry's website quoted the Yemeni coastguard as saying of the missing vessel, which it said carried 35-40 Ethiopians including women and children.
Mass drownings have been frequent as many African migrants in unseaworthy boats try to reach Yemen, which they see as a gateway to wealthier parts of the Middle East and the west.
"The Gulf of Aden is still used by many migrants and asylum seekers trying to get to Yemen and then further on to Saudi Arabia," Jean-Philippe Chauzy, spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration, said.
www.guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/03/african-migrants-drown-yemen
Greece plans Turkey border fence to tackle migration
Greece has announced plans to build a 12km (eight-mile) fence along part of its border with Turkey to prevent illegal immigrants from crossing.
Public Order Minister Christos Papoutsis said more than 100,000 people had entered Greece illegally last year and Athens had a duty to act.
Greece has long complained to Turkey about border security.
But the European Commission said such fences were "short-term measures" which did not tackle the root of the problem.
The proposed fence would cover a short section of the Greece-Turkey border in the Orestiada area of north-eastern Greece.
The area has become the main route into Greece for migrants from Africa and Asia with an average of 245 people crossing illegally every day in October 2010, according to Frontex, the EU's border agency.
Read full article here.
