CARIBBEAN NEWS
Vol. 3; #4
August, 2005
Pato's Note: At ArawakRoots News, we normally attempt to avoid the political squabbles that seem to plague every nation on our little blue pearl. However, recent events in the Caribbean region that are not being reported in the "mainstream" media, has forced us to bring these stories to your attention. The articles below all come from reputable news agencies. We just report it as it is. We at ArawakRoots, remain neutral on these issues and leave future debate on these issues to you- our loyal readers. The issue that brought all of the recent turmoil to our undivided attention is an item that came across the BBC/Caribbean Newswire on July 11. So we begin this issue with that story out of the island of Trinidad.
PORT OF SPAIN, TRINIDAD (BBC/CARIBBEAN- 7/11/05)- A bomb exploded on Frederick Street in the heart of the commercial district here. Initial reports indicate the explosion took place in a garbage can in front of Maraj Jewelers.
"We're trying to determine what caused the explosion- if it was a homemade device or a grenade or something of that nature", said Police Commissioner Trevor Paul. The Associated Press has said that the 14 injured in the blast include a 26-year-old street vendor and a female passerby who are in critical condition.
Prime Minister Patrick Manning called the incident a "dastardly act" and directed the national security minister and police to use all resources at their disposal to catch those responsible. The Prime Minister's office stated: "The Prime Minister wishes for a speedy recovery to those injured and traumatized and assures the nation that all emergency plans are in place to ensure normalcy is returned in the shortest possible time".
PORT OF SPAIN, TRINIDAD (TRINIDAD EXPRESS- 7/31/05)- A clarion call has been made for civic-minded citizens to step forward to help draft a new constitution to save this country from self-destruction. Making that call is St. Augustine’s Campus Principal of the University of the West Indies Bhoendratt Tewarie, a founding member of the Principles of Fairness Committee. He urged his audience not to sit by silently or flee the country in this time of crisis. The committee's initiative seeks to bring about racial harmony, equity, fairness and justice for all Trinidadians.
The conference was hosted by UWI and attracted a wide ranging audience which included President George Maxwell Richards, a handful of Opposition leaders, lawyers and members of the various religious bodies.
President Richards, in his contribution admitted that there was “a widespread sense of unease about the direction in which we, as a society, are heading”.
He stated: “If we are to establish a society to which the individual citizen is fully committed, every citizen who wants a decent and humane civilisation for themselves, as well as future generations, must make their voices heard and take a stand for what they believe in. It is therefore incumbent upon us to address critically, vigorously and objectively the issues raised in the Principles of Fairness”.
In his address, Tewarie noted that institutions such as the police and judiciary were collapsing and “we are witnessing a paralysis in governance”. He noted that “our shores are unmonitored, our city under siege, and the landscape littered with criminals. People are leaving this country in droves.” He remarked that the irony of the situation is that Trinidad is reaping substantial wealth from its natural resources, yet nearly 300,000 people still live below the poverty line.
Turning to the issue of developing a new Constitution, Tewarie noted the main issues that need to be addressed:
1. Guard against ethnic domination through possession of political power by a single group.
2. Ensure that cliquism does not conspire to create political domination by a minority of citizens against the majority.
3. Ensure access to opportunity for all.
4. Commit to a society based on cultural freedom, self-expression and diversity of interests, talents and pursuits.
5. Lay a foundation for a shareholder economic democracy and participation system of stakeholder political democracy.
Tewarie said, “Many a time, the issue of Constitution reform is presented from the point of view of power, the political parties and elections. I think that we must view the Constitution from the point of the society in which we wish to create….The politicians have caused enough destruction.”
PORT OF SPAIN, TRINIDAD (EXPRESS- 7/24/05)- The person behind the bomb explosion here is still at large, and the investigation into the blast remain inconclusive.
At a press conference, Police Commissioner Trevor Paul said the device was a low-power explosive, was not clock-activated and may have been homemade.
The forensic evidence has not yielded any breakthroughs, such as fingerprints or DNA.
PANAMA CITY, PANAMA (AP- 7/30/05)- The ideological clash that has swept much of South America reached north into the Caribbean, as the regions leaders pushed widely differing visions of development at the opening of the Summit of Caribbean States.
One day after the U.S. sought to make Central America part of a regional free trade block with the approval of CAFTA, Venezuela vowed to press ahead with its preferential oil deals in the region, outlining offers to sell oil on easy terms, or even barter.
Pulling things in the opposite direction was Mexican President Vicente Fox, who called for a “strategic alliance” based on free trade. Taking a middle line was populist Panamanian President Martin Torrijos, who called for “democracy with social sensitivity.”
Torrijos warned the Caribbean- a region with one of the world’s most unequal distribution of wealth- that “unless there is a more equal distribution of income, it will generate a series of resentments and nobody knows when they could explode.”
Venezuelan Foreign Secretary Ali Rodriguez said his country was acting out of “a sense of solidarity.”
“We have a Constitutional mandate to develop an economy based on solidarity, not mercantilism”, Rodriguez said in defense of President Hugo Chavez’s ‘PetroCaribe’ plan. “In fact, we oppose the slimy, mercantilist view of things.”
LONDON, GREAT BRITAIN (EXPRESS- 5/6/05)- There is, as the saying goes, one law for the rich and another for the poor. By no stretch of the imagination can the Caribbean- with the exception of Haiti- be said to be poor. Despite this, there are- in many rural and urban areas across the Caribbean- significant pockets of poverty and deprivation.
Over the past decade a few regional nations have managed their way forward to create economies that are based largely on the service industry but in many, commodity agriculture remains significant, employing up to 36% of the population.
It does not require much imagination to see that too rapid a reduction in commodity prices will create economic and social regression, a rural to urban drift, crime and even the possibility of political upheaval. Add to this an almost endemic ineptitude in multilateral institutions (i.e., the WTO) in delivering development programmes and the possibility of economic decline and new levels of rural poverty become very real.
No one would argue with the need to eradicate poverty globally, the need for special treatment for the least developed nations or the necessity of ending market distortions in agriculture. But there are important development issues in the Caribbean that a one-size-fits-all approach to trade reform would have hidden dangers.
At the recent WTO meeting in Paris, officials from a core group of nations known as the ‘five interested parties’ have been meeting without exchanging papers or consulting with other WTO members on an agreement on cutting tariffs on products entering all markets- including the Caribbean- no matter what their origin. This core group includes the U.S, the EU, Brazil, India and Australia. Their agreements on this issue is a step towards enabling huge agricultural producers in nations such as Brazil and India to dominate markets in which the Caribbean presently enjoy a small measure of preference and protection.
Unsurprisingly, the EU and Brazil have both pronounced themselves pleased with the outcome of the discussions. Other trade decisions in which the Caribbean will find itself caught between being neither too rich or too poor are also in the offing. All of which suggests that the Caribbean now occupies a strange place, unless the arrangements for economic transition fail.
AN UPDATE from the BBC/CARIBBEAN: A European Union official has said that the Community planned to maintain preferential access to banana imports from African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. The spokeswoman for Trade Issues Claude Veron-Reville said policy toward former colonies had not changed despite a WTO ruling against planned new tariffs on bananas.
Ms. VeronRevilles said, “The ACP can count on the European Union to maintain its engagement with them and to maintain a form of preference.” Countries in the ACP currently benefit from tariff-free access for their bananas to European markets.
“It is also a question of every party’s goodwill and we count on that because it is in the interest of all”…,she said.
HAVANA, CUBA (EXPRESS- 7/30/05)- Members of an American humanitarian group delivering aid to Cuba said they expect confrontation with U.S. officials after defying rules restricting travel to the Communist island.
Volunteers from Pastors for Peace already clashed with customs officials on their way to Cuba when dozens of boxes of computer equipment were confiscated. The computers were donated in Canada, and had no problem crossing the border into the U.S., but were confiscated at the Mexican border. Some U.S. lawmakers have written letters urging the government to let the donations go through.
“We are trying to conform with our moral mandate to help those in need”, said Reverend Thomas Smith, the president of the group’s board of directors. “So we will gladly bear any penalty.” Those violating U.S. travel restrictions can face thousands of dollars in fines and possible jail time.
On its 16th mission to Cuba, Pastors For Peace has donated a total of 2,500 tons of goods to Cuba. This year the group was able to bring in 140 tons of aid, including wheelchairs, crutches and other bulky medical equipment. This is the first time the government has intervened in the delivery of aid.
ENVIRONMENT:
ST. THOMAS, US VIRGIN ISLANDS (VI DAILY NEWS- 7/29/05)- A farmer in Mali watches his herd of goats from the tailgate of his weathered pickup truck. The animals move slowly over the dry ground, their sharp hooves crunching through the sun-baked crust as they amble on.
Half a world away in the Caribbean, asthma attacks is on the rise and coral is on the decline, even on isolated reefs far from the impact of humans.
The farmer in Mali has never left his West African country. Without knowing it, as his pickup rumbles across the desert, he may be partly responsible.
A link in one of the largest environmental transport systems in the world, the farmer and his herd break up the brittle crust, pulverizing it and exposing it to the desert winds. As tropical waves move across and out into the ocean, that dust as well as millions of tons of naturally occurring dust, is drawn high into the atmosphere, where it begins a 3500-mile journey over the Atlantic Ocean.
This week a dust cloud the size of the continental U.S. is drifting slowly over the territory. The haze will pass in a few days, but researchers say that the results may linger far longer.
Ginger Garrison of the U.S. Geologic Survey is collecting air samples from sites on St. John, St. Croix, Trinidad and even Mali. Her research suggests that much more than benign soil is being carried across the ocean- that fungi, metals, chemicals and even pesticides are making the long trek to the Caribbean- and that more dust than ever has hopped on the express in recent years. Ms. Garrison says there are 3 factors to the dust increase: climate, regional meteorology and land use.
Dust clouds are nothing new in the global climate system. But, scientists say, an increase in the dust and a change in its composition could be partly responsible for health problems for both Caribbean people and the coral reefs that surround them.
STENNIS SPACE CENTER, MISSISSIPPI, USA (BBC/CARIBBEAN- 8/4/05)- Last year’s Hurricane Ivan whipped up waves 90 feet high which could snap a ship in two or dwarf a 10-story building, said scientists here. The waves generated by Ivan, which left a trail of devastation through the Caribbean, are thought to be the tallest and most intense ever measured.
Scientists calculated their heights using information from sensors housed in moorings on the sea floor.. The giant waves were recorded about 75 miles south of Gulfport, Miss., and 50 miles east of the coast of Louisiana. They disintegrated into the stormy Gulf of Mexico before reaching land.
Dr. William Teague said, “Our results suggest these are not rogue waves but actually are fairly common during hurricanes.
ENTERTAINMENT:
LEISTER, GREAT BRITAIN (BBC/CARIBBEAN- 7/20/05)- Singer Laurel Aitken, known as the “Godfather of Ska”, has died of a heart attack at the age of 78.
Aitkin, who was raised in Jamaica before emigrating to the UK, was at the forefront of the Ska movement. He had the first recording to be released on the Island Records label. His first recording was the 1957 single, “Roll Jordan Roll”.
Laurel was a great man- the Godfather- and someone who was deeply loved”, said Mark Wyeth, the promoter for Club Ska here.
