Yash Tandon
2010-01-28, Issue 467
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61809
The 'failure of development' is to blame for the devastating effects of the recent earthquake in Haiti, writes Yash Tandon. Calling for democratic institutions accountable to the country's people to be put in place, Tandon argues that Haiti is ‘a microcosm of the disastrous outcome' of ‘development’ policies and the 'destructive effects of foreign interventionist policies’ in the affairs of the South.
Haiti is a tragedy for us all. It is a tragedy for you and me. It is a tragedy for Africa, for the poor countries of Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. An earthquake is a global phenomenon, it can happen anywhere. It can happen in the US, in Europe and in Japan. So why then is it so destructive in its effects in the countries of the South? It is because of the failure of development. Haiti is a microcosm of the disastrous outcome of the failed so-called ‘development’ policies of the last thirty years in the South, and the destructive effects of foreign interventionist policies in the affairs of the poor countries of the South – from Somalia to Bangladesh to Haiti.
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected president, in his passionate book, The Eyes of the Heart: Seeking a Path for the Poor in the Age of Globalization gives a graphic account of what happens when local economies and local initiatives of a poor country like Haiti are subordinated to the will of global finance and corporate power masked by the ideologies of ‘free trade’ and ‘development aid’. ‘In a world oriented only toward profit, it may be difficult for us to hear God's voice among the din and the racket of the moneychangers who have filled the world's temples’, he writes.
He describes how he had to wrestle with his heart and mind to resist the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) that was being forced on him as a condition for donor aid. When he remained faithful to his heart and mind, he was forced out of power. The government that replaced him relented to the pressure of the donors and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank (WB). In 2004 in what he described as his ‘kidnapping’ with the connivance of France and the US, he was forced into exile. He was unceremoniously transported first to Jamaica and then, eventually, to South Africa.
The so-called International Community (IC) of the North is organising a conference in Montreal, Canada, for Haiti. It will, for sure, fail to bring development to the people of Haiti for it will put Haiti back under the heel and control of the local power and economic elite which, in turn, is under the control of the very forces that have ruined Haiti’s economy; the IMF/WB imposition of SAPS and the ‘benevolent’ dictatorship of ‘donor aid’. This is behind the present tragedy of Haiti, and this is behind the tragedy of most of Africa, and the poorer nations of the South.
An ‘Alternative International Community’ (AIC) of the South – an ad hoc body that should be set up comprising of individuals and intergovernmental organisations of the South and welfare-oriented organisations of the United Nations such as the FAO and the WHO – should organise its own counter conference in a spirit of genuine solidarity for the people of Haiti. It should aim at putting power in the hands of the people themselves. The initiative can come from, for instance, the government of South Africa, the South Centre in Geneva, or a body of sympathetic non-governmental organisations from the South and the North – or by all of these working in cooperation, under an initiative taken by one of them.
The objectives of the conference should be:
- To identify from among the Haitian population those community organisations and ad hoc groups which may have emerged from the ruins and which are engaged in self-help activities of relief, care of the injured bodies and souls among the survivors, and the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the society and economy
- To help build the capacity of these groups to take charge of the relief assistance now being airlifted, shipped or sent via the Dominican Republic
- To help institutionalise these efforts into a government of the people by putting in place self-governing councils at local levels going up to the apex at the national and state level
- To expose the fake ‘solidarity’ of the Montreal initiative
- To demilitarise the occupation of Haiti that is currently under way by the US and US-led NATO forces
- To join and support Haiti peoples` demand for the return of Aristide, who still remains the beacon of hope for Haiti. He has the support of the poor. He has faith in his people's strength to oppose the domination of donors and the IMF/World Bank, and to put in place democratic institutions that are accountable to the people, and not to the false gods of ‘moneychangers who have filled the world's temples’.
This is a call to all those who are inspired by a humane spirit and who wish to assist our brothers and sisters (‘our families’) in Haiti, from a sense of genuine solidarity.
BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS
* Yash Tandon is the former executive director of the South Centre.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME
The God that I - David Comissiong - worship is ‘good’ - all the time! He is a God of perfect goodness - the God that Jesus Christ described as "our Father who art in heaven". He is the perfect Father, immeasurably surpassing in goodness to his children my own father and every other earthly father.
I therefore have never accused the God that I know and worship of committing evil! I have never believed that our heavenly Father wilfully directs earthquakes, hurricanes, armies or slave traders to inflict death, disease, pain, starvation or slavery on innocent babies, children or even adults.
However, there are some people who seem to worship a peculiar kind of god. For example, there is a man in the United States by the name of Pat Robertson who, it appears, worships a god that would inflict death and suffering on totally innocent and blameless new born Haitian children, simply because some obscure Haitian is supposed to have allegedly made a so-called pact with a being called Satan some 230 years ago. Clearly, Pat Robertson’s god and my heavenly Father cannot be one and the same God!
There is also a woman by the name of Janice D. Gibbs who had a letter published in the Nation Newspaper of Monday 25th January 2009, and it appears that she worships a god that would impose punishment and evil consequences on my totally innocent and blameless children and grand children simply because I made a statement which she and her god deemed to be inappropriate. Again, it is clear to me that my God of perfect goodness and Ms Janice Gibbs’ god cannot be one and the same!
I would also like to take this opportunity to inform Janice Gibbs, Pat Robertson and all those who think like them, that if they are looking for the purveyors of evil in Haiti, that they are much more likely to find them among the Christianity - practising mulatto and black elite of Haitian society than among the Vodun-practising segment of the masses of poor black Haitians.
The elite sector of Haitian society is comprised of Roman Catholic Christians who speak French rather than Haitian Creole, and who look to France and Europe for their models and value systems rather than to Africa. For almost 200 years now, this elite - often in complicity with Europeans and North Americans - has exploited and oppressed the Vodun and Christianity practising, Creole speaking, Africa oriented masses of Haiti.
Indeed, on more than one occasion over the past 200 years the Christianity - practising Haitian elite has used the state power at their disposal to organise military-style, violence filled campaigns designed to stamp out the practise of Vodun in Haiti. In the name of religious purity these supposed Christians inflicted murder on thousands of Vodun practitioners. And of course they claimed to be doing so in the name of ‘their’ god!
DAVID A. COMISSIONG
I therefore have never accused the God that I know and worship of committing evil! I have never believed that our heavenly Father wilfully directs earthquakes, hurricanes, armies or slave traders to inflict death, disease, pain, starvation or slavery on innocent babies, children or even adults.
However, there are some people who seem to worship a peculiar kind of god. For example, there is a man in the United States by the name of Pat Robertson who, it appears, worships a god that would inflict death and suffering on totally innocent and blameless new born Haitian children, simply because some obscure Haitian is supposed to have allegedly made a so-called pact with a being called Satan some 230 years ago. Clearly, Pat Robertson’s god and my heavenly Father cannot be one and the same God!
There is also a woman by the name of Janice D. Gibbs who had a letter published in the Nation Newspaper of Monday 25th January 2009, and it appears that she worships a god that would impose punishment and evil consequences on my totally innocent and blameless children and grand children simply because I made a statement which she and her god deemed to be inappropriate. Again, it is clear to me that my God of perfect goodness and Ms Janice Gibbs’ god cannot be one and the same!
I would also like to take this opportunity to inform Janice Gibbs, Pat Robertson and all those who think like them, that if they are looking for the purveyors of evil in Haiti, that they are much more likely to find them among the Christianity - practising mulatto and black elite of Haitian society than among the Vodun-practising segment of the masses of poor black Haitians.
The elite sector of Haitian society is comprised of Roman Catholic Christians who speak French rather than Haitian Creole, and who look to France and Europe for their models and value systems rather than to Africa. For almost 200 years now, this elite - often in complicity with Europeans and North Americans - has exploited and oppressed the Vodun and Christianity practising, Creole speaking, Africa oriented masses of Haiti.
Indeed, on more than one occasion over the past 200 years the Christianity - practising Haitian elite has used the state power at their disposal to organise military-style, violence filled campaigns designed to stamp out the practise of Vodun in Haiti. In the name of religious purity these supposed Christians inflicted murder on thousands of Vodun practitioners. And of course they claimed to be doing so in the name of ‘their’ god!
DAVID A. COMISSIONG
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Save Haiti From The Shock Doctrine
The Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP) is appealing to the governments of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the African Union (AU), and the Bolivarian Alternative For Latin America (ALBA) to bestir themselves and make a collective effort to save Haiti from the evil consequences of the ‘Shock Doctrine’ and its associated plague of ‘Disaster Capitalism’!
The term ‘Shock Doctrine’ was coined by the award-winning Canadian author, Naomi Klein, and refers to the doctrine that was developed by the ultra-right wing American economist, Milton Friedman, to the effect that traumatic man made or natural disasters are to be used by conservative capitalist ideologues to impose radical right wing economic and social policies on the disaster struck and traumatised population.
Friedman understood that the extreme right wing capitalist agenda of wholesale privatisation, government deregulation, dismantlement of social programmes, the enthronement of private capital and capitalists, and the opening up of the economy to the full blast of foreign (North American) economic dominance would be resisted by ordinary people concerned about their own welfare, and could only be fully and permanently imposed if the population was in such a traumatised state that it was unable to resist.
Friedman initially experimented with this doctrine during the 1970's, in his capacity as economic advisor to General Pinochet’s tyrranical, authoritarian government, installed in Chile after a brutal coup. In more recent years, Friedman’s acolytes in the United States have sought to apply the doctrine in the context of the 911 terrorist attack on New York City, the American "shock and awe" military attack on Iraq, the tsunami in Sri Lanka and other parts of South East Asia, and the death and devastation wrought by hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The modus operandi of the followers of the ‘Shock Doctrine’ is to wait in readines for the next disaster, and once it occurs, to act swiftly and decisively.
Well, a ‘Shock Doctrine’ type of disaster has now erupted in Haiti, and if the initial approach of the United States government to the relief effort is anything to go by, then we need to brace ourselves for an American capatalist ‘shock and awe’ approach to the reconstruction of Haiti.
Just last Tuesday night, Dr Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s medical correspondent, reported on CNN that doctors of several nationalities in Haiti were deprived of the medical supplies required to properly carry out their services and went on to explain that "the huge effort placed on security has supplanted the effort to get essential supplies to the hospitals and doctors in Haiti".
Furthermore, within hours of the earthquake in Haiti, countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and China were successfully sending food, water, medicine and civilian teams of doctors and other specialists to Haiti. On the other hand, the very first reaction of the United States government was to mobilise the US military and to send in thousands of marines and paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division.
And to the consternation of aid agencies all over the world, once the US military had taken control of Haiti’s air and sea ports, getting assistance seemingly became increasingly difficult. Indeed, such well respected aid organisations as ‘Medecins Sans Frontieres’ and the ‘International Red Cross’ were denied permission to fly their medical teams into the Port-au-Prince airport. These desperately needed medical specialists were forced to land in the Dominican Republic and waste many precious hours and lives as they made the long land journey into Haiti. In addition, even CARICOM’s Prime Ministerial mission was not permitted by the Americans to land in Haiti.
The PEP is very concerned about the ‘games’ that are being played and where they will all end up. Indeed, our concern has been intensified by the knowledge that President Obama has designated USAID as the lead agency in the response to the Hatian crisis, since USAID has a long track record of promoting American capitalist interests in Haiti at the expense of the workers and poor people of Haiti.
We are therefore calling on CARICOM, the AU and ALBA to recognise that they possess a deep kinship with and responsibility towards the people of Haiti and urge them to engage in a strong defence of the independence and sovereignty of Haiti.
The term ‘Shock Doctrine’ was coined by the award-winning Canadian author, Naomi Klein, and refers to the doctrine that was developed by the ultra-right wing American economist, Milton Friedman, to the effect that traumatic man made or natural disasters are to be used by conservative capitalist ideologues to impose radical right wing economic and social policies on the disaster struck and traumatised population.
Friedman understood that the extreme right wing capitalist agenda of wholesale privatisation, government deregulation, dismantlement of social programmes, the enthronement of private capital and capitalists, and the opening up of the economy to the full blast of foreign (North American) economic dominance would be resisted by ordinary people concerned about their own welfare, and could only be fully and permanently imposed if the population was in such a traumatised state that it was unable to resist.
Friedman initially experimented with this doctrine during the 1970's, in his capacity as economic advisor to General Pinochet’s tyrranical, authoritarian government, installed in Chile after a brutal coup. In more recent years, Friedman’s acolytes in the United States have sought to apply the doctrine in the context of the 911 terrorist attack on New York City, the American "shock and awe" military attack on Iraq, the tsunami in Sri Lanka and other parts of South East Asia, and the death and devastation wrought by hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The modus operandi of the followers of the ‘Shock Doctrine’ is to wait in readines for the next disaster, and once it occurs, to act swiftly and decisively.
Well, a ‘Shock Doctrine’ type of disaster has now erupted in Haiti, and if the initial approach of the United States government to the relief effort is anything to go by, then we need to brace ourselves for an American capatalist ‘shock and awe’ approach to the reconstruction of Haiti.
Just last Tuesday night, Dr Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s medical correspondent, reported on CNN that doctors of several nationalities in Haiti were deprived of the medical supplies required to properly carry out their services and went on to explain that "the huge effort placed on security has supplanted the effort to get essential supplies to the hospitals and doctors in Haiti".
Furthermore, within hours of the earthquake in Haiti, countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and China were successfully sending food, water, medicine and civilian teams of doctors and other specialists to Haiti. On the other hand, the very first reaction of the United States government was to mobilise the US military and to send in thousands of marines and paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division.
And to the consternation of aid agencies all over the world, once the US military had taken control of Haiti’s air and sea ports, getting assistance seemingly became increasingly difficult. Indeed, such well respected aid organisations as ‘Medecins Sans Frontieres’ and the ‘International Red Cross’ were denied permission to fly their medical teams into the Port-au-Prince airport. These desperately needed medical specialists were forced to land in the Dominican Republic and waste many precious hours and lives as they made the long land journey into Haiti. In addition, even CARICOM’s Prime Ministerial mission was not permitted by the Americans to land in Haiti.
The PEP is very concerned about the ‘games’ that are being played and where they will all end up. Indeed, our concern has been intensified by the knowledge that President Obama has designated USAID as the lead agency in the response to the Hatian crisis, since USAID has a long track record of promoting American capitalist interests in Haiti at the expense of the workers and poor people of Haiti.
We are therefore calling on CARICOM, the AU and ALBA to recognise that they possess a deep kinship with and responsibility towards the people of Haiti and urge them to engage in a strong defence of the independence and sovereignty of Haiti.
Haiti's Classquake
Haiti's Classquake
By: Jeb Sprague - HaitiAnalysis.com
Just five days prior to the 7.0 earthquake that shattered Port-au-Prince on January 12th, the Haitian government’s Council of Modernisation of Public Enterprises (CMEP) announced the planned 70% privatization of Teleco, Haiti’s public telephone company.
Today Port-au-Prince lies in ruins, with thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands dead, entire neighborhoods cut off, many buried alive. Towns across the southern peninsula, such as Léogâne, are said to be in total ruin with an untold number of victims. Haiti’s president, René Préval, and his administration remain largely inept, absent from Port-au-Prince and even the local radio.
At Pont Morin in the Bois Verna section of the capital, Teleco’s office building is badly damaged. One twitter poster in Port-au-Prince on Monday warned local residents to evacuate “After the latest evaluations of the building, they've noticed that the main poles of the structure are damaged.”
With masses of people unable to get critical emergency medical care, water and basic supplies, the lack of local state infrastructure and personnel is plainly apparent.
Instead of investing in social programs and government infrastructure that could have helped care for the people of Port-au-Prince, especially following such a natural disaster, Haiti’s government has long been pressured by the United States and International Financial Institutions to sell off its infrastructure, to shut down government sponsored soup kitchens, to lower tariffs that might benefit the rural economy.
The demographic trend in Haiti over the last few decade’s showcases the impact of capitalist globalization: the movement of rural folks to slums in Port-au-Prince, often perched in large clumps precariously on hillsides.
"Slums begin with bad geology,” writer and historian Mike Davis explains. In his book Planet of Slums, Davis describes the explosion of slum communities in today's era of global capitalism. Billions have no choice but to live in close proximity to environmental and geological disaster, Davis explains.
In mid-2007, Haitian journalist Wadner Pierre and I wrote a piece for IPS (Inter Press Service) that investigated the gutting of Haiti’s public telephone company. We interviewed public sector workers laid off in droves. The government’s plan was to reduce Teleco employees from 3,293 to less than one thousand. By 2010 Préval’s appointed heads of Teleco had terminated employment for two-thirds of the workers at the company. During his first term in office from 1996-2001, Préval had already sold off the government’s Minoterie flourmill and public cement company.
Préval now follows through with the Cadre de Coopération Intérimaire (CCI), a macro-economic adjustment program formulated by his unelected predecessor (the interim regime of Gerard Latortue), along with international donor institutions and local sub-grantee groups. Privatization has been one plank of neoliberalism in Haiti.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Haiti was pressured to lower tariffs on foreign rice, bringing down the few protections in place for its local economy. With a lack of opportunity in the countryside, migration to the nation’s capital intensified. Hundreds of thousands took up residence in poorly constructed shantytowns, many in hillside slums such as Carrefour.
Using the worn-out rhetoric of nationalism to draw attention away from the implementation of policies favorable to global capitalism, government functionaries in Haiti have worked closely with IFI, NGO and governmental advisors and experts from abroad. For those Haitian politicians unwilling to go along with these plans, the brute force of coup d’états, economic embargo and reoccurring civil society training missions from abroad have reinforced the “right way” to govern.
In the aftermath of the earthquake, the Haitian state evaporated. Police searched for their own loved-ones, as government ministries and UN bases lay in ruins, many top officials now dead under tons of fallen concrete.
Widely criticized for failing in the days following the quake to visit or speak out on the radio to the neighborhoods of the capital in turmoil, Préval and other aloof Haitian government leaders have been encamped at a police station on the cities edge meeting with foreign leaders and journalists. On Tuesday Préval went to Santo Domingo in the neighboring Dominican Republic to confer further with aid officials.
The Washington Post explained “The U.S. government views Préval, an agronomist by training, as a technocrat largely free of the sharp political ideologies that have divided Haiti for decades. But at a time when tragedy is forcing the country essentially to begin again, Préval's aversion to the public stage has left millions of Haitians wondering whether there is a government at all.”
Hundreds of journalists have streamed into Port-au-Prince, while the U.S. military has set up base-camp at the damaged national airport with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the ground. Giving priority to unloading heavy weaponry, U.S. forces have turned away a number of large planes carrying medical and rescue equipment, prompting protests from France, Venezuela and the Médecins sans frontières.
International media outlets show images of Haitians digging with pieces of concrete at collapsed buildings. But over the days the cries of loved ones buried below have slowly fallen silent.
Other media have begun to show images of poor people in the capital's downtown searching for food, calling them "looters", when in fact mass starvation is setting in. This occurs as shotgun-wielding security guards attempt to cordon off the rubble of some of the larger markets.
Given the past decades of forced austerity measures imposed upon Haiti, it has been nearly impossible for the country to build up a larger government, one with more capacity to deal with emergencies, to support social investment projects, soup kitchens, or even improved slum housing. The overthrown Aristide government, 2001-2004, though severely crippled by aid embargoes and elite-backed death squads and opposition groups, had refused privatization, instituted a national program of soup kitchens and literacy centers, and even constructed a few blocks of improved slum housing in the capital (as covered at the time in an article by the former government newspaper L’Union).
Those small but welcome measures are a thing of the past. The repression of attempts by the people to have a say through democratic means and the forced subjugation of the local economy to global capitalism parallels the assumption of power by elites disconnected from the people they govern. These are the technocratic elites that Sociologist William I. Robinson in his book A Theory of Global Capitalism refers to as “transnationalised fractions of local dominant groups in the South…sometimes termed a ‘modernizing bourgeoisie’, who have overseen sweeping processes of social and economic restructuring and integration into the global economy and society.” Out from the ashes, do not be surprised if the Haitian people refuse to accept this.
Geographer Kenneth Hewitt coined the term 'classquake' in examining the 1976 earthquake in Guatemala that cost the lives of 23,000 people, because of the accuracy with which it struck down the poor. The classquake in Haiti today is much worse, compounded by decades of capitalist globalization and U.S. intervention.
---
Jeb Sprague received a Project Censored Award in 2008 for an article he published with the Inter Press Service (IPS) from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Visit his university website: http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~jhsprague/
By: Jeb Sprague - HaitiAnalysis.com
Just five days prior to the 7.0 earthquake that shattered Port-au-Prince on January 12th, the Haitian government’s Council of Modernisation of Public Enterprises (CMEP) announced the planned 70% privatization of Teleco, Haiti’s public telephone company.
Today Port-au-Prince lies in ruins, with thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands dead, entire neighborhoods cut off, many buried alive. Towns across the southern peninsula, such as Léogâne, are said to be in total ruin with an untold number of victims. Haiti’s president, René Préval, and his administration remain largely inept, absent from Port-au-Prince and even the local radio.
At Pont Morin in the Bois Verna section of the capital, Teleco’s office building is badly damaged. One twitter poster in Port-au-Prince on Monday warned local residents to evacuate “After the latest evaluations of the building, they've noticed that the main poles of the structure are damaged.”
With masses of people unable to get critical emergency medical care, water and basic supplies, the lack of local state infrastructure and personnel is plainly apparent.
Instead of investing in social programs and government infrastructure that could have helped care for the people of Port-au-Prince, especially following such a natural disaster, Haiti’s government has long been pressured by the United States and International Financial Institutions to sell off its infrastructure, to shut down government sponsored soup kitchens, to lower tariffs that might benefit the rural economy.
The demographic trend in Haiti over the last few decade’s showcases the impact of capitalist globalization: the movement of rural folks to slums in Port-au-Prince, often perched in large clumps precariously on hillsides.
"Slums begin with bad geology,” writer and historian Mike Davis explains. In his book Planet of Slums, Davis describes the explosion of slum communities in today's era of global capitalism. Billions have no choice but to live in close proximity to environmental and geological disaster, Davis explains.
In mid-2007, Haitian journalist Wadner Pierre and I wrote a piece for IPS (Inter Press Service) that investigated the gutting of Haiti’s public telephone company. We interviewed public sector workers laid off in droves. The government’s plan was to reduce Teleco employees from 3,293 to less than one thousand. By 2010 Préval’s appointed heads of Teleco had terminated employment for two-thirds of the workers at the company. During his first term in office from 1996-2001, Préval had already sold off the government’s Minoterie flourmill and public cement company.
Préval now follows through with the Cadre de Coopération Intérimaire (CCI), a macro-economic adjustment program formulated by his unelected predecessor (the interim regime of Gerard Latortue), along with international donor institutions and local sub-grantee groups. Privatization has been one plank of neoliberalism in Haiti.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Haiti was pressured to lower tariffs on foreign rice, bringing down the few protections in place for its local economy. With a lack of opportunity in the countryside, migration to the nation’s capital intensified. Hundreds of thousands took up residence in poorly constructed shantytowns, many in hillside slums such as Carrefour.
Using the worn-out rhetoric of nationalism to draw attention away from the implementation of policies favorable to global capitalism, government functionaries in Haiti have worked closely with IFI, NGO and governmental advisors and experts from abroad. For those Haitian politicians unwilling to go along with these plans, the brute force of coup d’états, economic embargo and reoccurring civil society training missions from abroad have reinforced the “right way” to govern.
In the aftermath of the earthquake, the Haitian state evaporated. Police searched for their own loved-ones, as government ministries and UN bases lay in ruins, many top officials now dead under tons of fallen concrete.
Widely criticized for failing in the days following the quake to visit or speak out on the radio to the neighborhoods of the capital in turmoil, Préval and other aloof Haitian government leaders have been encamped at a police station on the cities edge meeting with foreign leaders and journalists. On Tuesday Préval went to Santo Domingo in the neighboring Dominican Republic to confer further with aid officials.
The Washington Post explained “The U.S. government views Préval, an agronomist by training, as a technocrat largely free of the sharp political ideologies that have divided Haiti for decades. But at a time when tragedy is forcing the country essentially to begin again, Préval's aversion to the public stage has left millions of Haitians wondering whether there is a government at all.”
Hundreds of journalists have streamed into Port-au-Prince, while the U.S. military has set up base-camp at the damaged national airport with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the ground. Giving priority to unloading heavy weaponry, U.S. forces have turned away a number of large planes carrying medical and rescue equipment, prompting protests from France, Venezuela and the Médecins sans frontières.
International media outlets show images of Haitians digging with pieces of concrete at collapsed buildings. But over the days the cries of loved ones buried below have slowly fallen silent.
Other media have begun to show images of poor people in the capital's downtown searching for food, calling them "looters", when in fact mass starvation is setting in. This occurs as shotgun-wielding security guards attempt to cordon off the rubble of some of the larger markets.
Given the past decades of forced austerity measures imposed upon Haiti, it has been nearly impossible for the country to build up a larger government, one with more capacity to deal with emergencies, to support social investment projects, soup kitchens, or even improved slum housing. The overthrown Aristide government, 2001-2004, though severely crippled by aid embargoes and elite-backed death squads and opposition groups, had refused privatization, instituted a national program of soup kitchens and literacy centers, and even constructed a few blocks of improved slum housing in the capital (as covered at the time in an article by the former government newspaper L’Union).
Those small but welcome measures are a thing of the past. The repression of attempts by the people to have a say through democratic means and the forced subjugation of the local economy to global capitalism parallels the assumption of power by elites disconnected from the people they govern. These are the technocratic elites that Sociologist William I. Robinson in his book A Theory of Global Capitalism refers to as “transnationalised fractions of local dominant groups in the South…sometimes termed a ‘modernizing bourgeoisie’, who have overseen sweeping processes of social and economic restructuring and integration into the global economy and society.” Out from the ashes, do not be surprised if the Haitian people refuse to accept this.
Geographer Kenneth Hewitt coined the term 'classquake' in examining the 1976 earthquake in Guatemala that cost the lives of 23,000 people, because of the accuracy with which it struck down the poor. The classquake in Haiti today is much worse, compounded by decades of capitalist globalization and U.S. intervention.
---
Jeb Sprague received a Project Censored Award in 2008 for an article he published with the Inter Press Service (IPS) from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Visit his university website: http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~jhsprague/
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Haiti's Relief Fund
Dear Brothers and SistersThe Clement Payne Movement has established a HAITI RELIEF FUND at the Broad Street Branch of RBTT Bank.
The account number is 1-4717070.
All funds that we collect will be used to send emergency supplies to Haiti.
At this stage, we are focusing on medicines and related medical supplies.
Since we are members of the Assembly of Caribbean Peoples and the Caribbean Pan-African Network, we have associates in Haiti and also in the Dominican Republic to whom we can funnel the supplies.
The Dominican Republic is important because it is via or through the Dominican Republic that the first sets of supplies reached Haiti.
Please give generously.
DAVID A. COMISSIONG
President
Fifth Assembly of Caribbean Peoples Agenda
Topic No. 1 - International Economic & Debt Crisis
How are the Third World debt crisis and the international financial and economic crises impacting on the Caribbean, and how should the Caribbean respond?
Topic No. 2 - Colonialism, Militarisation & the Blockade against Cuba
What are the components of a comprehensive strategy to achieve the total de-colonisation of the Caribbean and to defeat the ongoing efforts of the United States to militarise the Caribbean and to blockade Cuba?
Topic No. 3 - Agriculture, Agrarian Reform & Food Sovereignty
What does the Caribbean need to do in order to reform the rural sector, develop agriculture and achieve "food sovereignty"?
Topic No. 4 - Integration, Political Union & Governance
What would be the components of new and more appropriate people centred models of governance for Caribbean states, and how could the nations of the Caribbean utilise all of the available options and opportunities for integration and political union?
Topic No. 5 - Industrial Development, Trade & Transportation
How can the Caribbean so harness, organise, combine, process and exchange its own resources that new industries are developed and existing industries are taken to higher levels of output and productivity?
Topic No. 6 - Drugs, Crime, Cultural degeneration & Racism
What measures can the Caribbean take to address the socio-cultural defects of illegal drugs, crime, racism and moral and cultural degeneration that continue to blight so many Caribbean societies?
Topic No. 7 - The Environment
What practical programme of cooperation can Caribbean nations put in place to address such urgent environmental issues as global warming, climate change, and the destructiveness of hurricanes and volcanoes?
Topic No. 8 - Intra-Caribbean Migration
What would be the components of a new and more appropriate human rights centred model for the treatment of migrants within the Caribbean?
Topic No. 9 - Education
We must develop a comprehensive educational system which demands the use of the languages used in the Caribbean - English, Spanish, French, Dutch, Papiamento(u) and Portuguese.
Topic No. 10 – Health
Health security for all of our peoples.
How are the Third World debt crisis and the international financial and economic crises impacting on the Caribbean, and how should the Caribbean respond?
Topic No. 2 - Colonialism, Militarisation & the Blockade against Cuba
What are the components of a comprehensive strategy to achieve the total de-colonisation of the Caribbean and to defeat the ongoing efforts of the United States to militarise the Caribbean and to blockade Cuba?
Topic No. 3 - Agriculture, Agrarian Reform & Food Sovereignty
What does the Caribbean need to do in order to reform the rural sector, develop agriculture and achieve "food sovereignty"?
Topic No. 4 - Integration, Political Union & Governance
What would be the components of new and more appropriate people centred models of governance for Caribbean states, and how could the nations of the Caribbean utilise all of the available options and opportunities for integration and political union?
Topic No. 5 - Industrial Development, Trade & Transportation
How can the Caribbean so harness, organise, combine, process and exchange its own resources that new industries are developed and existing industries are taken to higher levels of output and productivity?
Topic No. 6 - Drugs, Crime, Cultural degeneration & Racism
What measures can the Caribbean take to address the socio-cultural defects of illegal drugs, crime, racism and moral and cultural degeneration that continue to blight so many Caribbean societies?
Topic No. 7 - The Environment
What practical programme of cooperation can Caribbean nations put in place to address such urgent environmental issues as global warming, climate change, and the destructiveness of hurricanes and volcanoes?
Topic No. 8 - Intra-Caribbean Migration
What would be the components of a new and more appropriate human rights centred model for the treatment of migrants within the Caribbean?
Topic No. 9 - Education
We must develop a comprehensive educational system which demands the use of the languages used in the Caribbean - English, Spanish, French, Dutch, Papiamento(u) and Portuguese.
Topic No. 10 – Health
Health security for all of our peoples.
Fifth Assembly of Caribbean Peoples
Fifth Assembly Of Caribbean Peoples
CALL TO THE ASSEMBLY
(Barbados, August 3 - 8, 2010)
"CARIBBEAN PEOPLE, SEIZE THE TIME!"
Now that the fraudulence of the international oligarchy and its inhuman system of subordinating people and nations to the narrow interests of financiers and elites has become manifestly clear, the time has come for the Caribbean people to assert themselves and to boldly step forward and take firm control of the future agenda of our Caribbean region!
We, the ‘Regional Executive Committee’ of the Fifth Assembly of Caribbean Peoples are therefore issuing a CALL to the Caribbean’s social movements of farmers, workers, women, artistes, students, intellectuals and youth, and to the people centred political parties, trade unions, non-governmental organisations, cooperatives, credit unions and community based institutions of our region to SEIZE THE MOMENT and come together in a mighty PEOPLE’S ASSEMBLY dedicated to the singular purpose of clarifying and agreeing upon an immediate, concrete and practical programme of action for solving the many critical existential and developmental problems of the Caribbean people.
Against the background of four previous Assemblies of Caribbean Peoples -Trinidad (1994; Dominican Republic (2001); Haiti (2003); Cuba (2008) - in which considerable intellectual work was done in analysing the predicament and development challenges of the Caribbean, we now take great pride and pleasure in sending out an INVITATION to all authentic Caribbean organisations and to the patriotic sons and daughters of our region to attend and participate in the historic FIFTH ASSEMBLY OF CARIBBEAN PEOPLES, which will be held in the Island of BARBADOS between the 3rd and the 8th of August 2010.
The Fifth Assembly Of Caribbean Peoples will constitute a coming together of activists and popular organisations from across the Spanish, English, French and Dutch speaking regions of the Caribbean focussed on designing Caribbean solutions to such challenges as:-
the international financial, economic and debt crisis that is threatening to devastate the Caribbean;
the prevailing balkanisation, fragmentation and colonial domination in the Caribbean;
our persistent failure to harness the resources of the Caribbean for our own collective industrialisation and development;
the many severe environmental challenges that threaten the long term survival of the Caribbean and its people;
our lack of food security and the manifestly unsustainable food import burden that the region is bearing;
the terrible scourges of crime, illegal drugs and racial disharmony that bedevil several Caribbean countries;
the many cultural and political factors that continue to retard the development of our identity as a Caribbean people belonging to a
unique Caribbean Civilization.
The historic FIFTH ASSEMBLY OF CARIBBEAN PEOPLES will consciously and deliberately endeavour to include in our convocation specialists who have carried out relevant research into the targeted subject areas, as well as regional policy-makers who, now more than ever, need to sit down and reason with popular and grass-roots activists.
There will also be caucuses of what are perhaps the three most important segments of the population of the Caribbean - our women-folk, our youth and our farmers. Indeed, we, the Regional Executive Committee, have determined that the unique ideas and perspectives of these three critical, but often marginalized, segments of our population, must be accorded a place of pre-eminence in the several deeply considered solutions that will emerge from our Fifth Assembly.
The Caribbean people should rest assured that the Fifth Assembly of Caribbean Peoples has been consciously designed to produce solutions to the problems of the Caribbean! We, the Regional Executive Committee, are not interested in staging yet another academic conference that is full of long, learned academic papers, but short on concrete solutions and mechanisms for follow-up action. We assure you - the Caribbean people - that the constant watch words of this Assembly will be - "solutions, solutions, solutions"!
We now look forward to our gathering at the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies in Barbados, from the 3rd to the 8th of August 2010, as we come together in powerful formation to SEIZE THE TIME.
For further bobbyclainformation please contact Robert ‘Bobby’ Clarke or David Comissiong at clementpaynechambers@gmail.com
CALL TO THE ASSEMBLY
(Barbados, August 3 - 8, 2010)
"CARIBBEAN PEOPLE, SEIZE THE TIME!"
Now that the fraudulence of the international oligarchy and its inhuman system of subordinating people and nations to the narrow interests of financiers and elites has become manifestly clear, the time has come for the Caribbean people to assert themselves and to boldly step forward and take firm control of the future agenda of our Caribbean region!
We, the ‘Regional Executive Committee’ of the Fifth Assembly of Caribbean Peoples are therefore issuing a CALL to the Caribbean’s social movements of farmers, workers, women, artistes, students, intellectuals and youth, and to the people centred political parties, trade unions, non-governmental organisations, cooperatives, credit unions and community based institutions of our region to SEIZE THE MOMENT and come together in a mighty PEOPLE’S ASSEMBLY dedicated to the singular purpose of clarifying and agreeing upon an immediate, concrete and practical programme of action for solving the many critical existential and developmental problems of the Caribbean people.
Against the background of four previous Assemblies of Caribbean Peoples -Trinidad (1994; Dominican Republic (2001); Haiti (2003); Cuba (2008) - in which considerable intellectual work was done in analysing the predicament and development challenges of the Caribbean, we now take great pride and pleasure in sending out an INVITATION to all authentic Caribbean organisations and to the patriotic sons and daughters of our region to attend and participate in the historic FIFTH ASSEMBLY OF CARIBBEAN PEOPLES, which will be held in the Island of BARBADOS between the 3rd and the 8th of August 2010.
The Fifth Assembly Of Caribbean Peoples will constitute a coming together of activists and popular organisations from across the Spanish, English, French and Dutch speaking regions of the Caribbean focussed on designing Caribbean solutions to such challenges as:-
the international financial, economic and debt crisis that is threatening to devastate the Caribbean;
the prevailing balkanisation, fragmentation and colonial domination in the Caribbean;
our persistent failure to harness the resources of the Caribbean for our own collective industrialisation and development;
the many severe environmental challenges that threaten the long term survival of the Caribbean and its people;
our lack of food security and the manifestly unsustainable food import burden that the region is bearing;
the terrible scourges of crime, illegal drugs and racial disharmony that bedevil several Caribbean countries;
the many cultural and political factors that continue to retard the development of our identity as a Caribbean people belonging to a
unique Caribbean Civilization.
The historic FIFTH ASSEMBLY OF CARIBBEAN PEOPLES will consciously and deliberately endeavour to include in our convocation specialists who have carried out relevant research into the targeted subject areas, as well as regional policy-makers who, now more than ever, need to sit down and reason with popular and grass-roots activists.
There will also be caucuses of what are perhaps the three most important segments of the population of the Caribbean - our women-folk, our youth and our farmers. Indeed, we, the Regional Executive Committee, have determined that the unique ideas and perspectives of these three critical, but often marginalized, segments of our population, must be accorded a place of pre-eminence in the several deeply considered solutions that will emerge from our Fifth Assembly.
The Caribbean people should rest assured that the Fifth Assembly of Caribbean Peoples has been consciously designed to produce solutions to the problems of the Caribbean! We, the Regional Executive Committee, are not interested in staging yet another academic conference that is full of long, learned academic papers, but short on concrete solutions and mechanisms for follow-up action. We assure you - the Caribbean people - that the constant watch words of this Assembly will be - "solutions, solutions, solutions"!
We now look forward to our gathering at the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies in Barbados, from the 3rd to the 8th of August 2010, as we come together in powerful formation to SEIZE THE TIME.
For further bobbyclainformation please contact Robert ‘Bobby’ Clarke or David Comissiong at clementpaynechambers@gmail.com
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
My Navel String Buried Right Here
"I am charged with landing improperly (in Barbados) and for giving a false statement relative to my place of birth........ I don’t know where the hell I was born, but I was told Barbados......."
Rt. Excellent Clement Payne (1937)
"The celebrated national poet of Guyana, Martin Carter, reminds us..... that we represent the expectations of five million human beings, and that what we achieve or betray concerns not only the living but those who are not yet born........ There is a fundamental theme on which I should like to think there can be no difference. And that is the absolute necessity to promote the solidarity and the sovereignty of this regional Caribbean family, and also the absolute obligation to discover those strategies and mechanisms which will ultimately lead to unity of action in all major areas of our economic, social and political life"
Rt. Excellent Errol Barrow (1986)
As the current Government of Barbados prepares itself to amend the Constitution in order to deny citizenship to the children of certain categories of Caribbean migrants who are born in Barbados, we have to seriously ask ourselves whether, just as the late Errol Barrow forewarned, we are not on the verge of betraying not only the existing 5 million people of our Caribbean Community, but also the countless generations that are "not yet born".
Last year, the Barbados Government issued a so-called "Green Paper" on a "Comprehensive Review of Immigration Policy and Proposals for Legislative Reform". And the most significant proposal contained in the Green Paper was the suggestion that the existing constitutional scheme of according citizenship to all children born in Barbados should be discontinued, and replaced with a system in which children born to undocumented migrants, to persons who are on work permits, or to persons who merely have permission to "reside and work" in Barbados, should not acquire Barbadian citizenship.
What makes this proposal all the more reprehensible is the widespread knowledge that it was motivated by a desire to specifically target the children of our Guyanese, Vincentian, St Lucian, Dominican and Jamaican brothers and sisters! As virtually all Barbadians know, and as has been confirmed by authoritative spokespersons of the government, the current Administration is not concerned about European, American, Chinese or Indian migration to Barbados: rather, their fundamental objective is to clamp down upon the migration to Barbados of our fellow Caribbean people.
The system of according citizenship to all babies born on Barbadian soil has been in place since the birth of our nation, and has served us well over the years. Why do we wish to change it now?
Why do we want to follow the path of some of the most racist and xenophobic countries in denying citizenship to certain categories of babies born on our soil? Why do we wish to give comfort and support to racists in the U.K and U.S.A who have urged their governments to adopt this type of policy against Barbadian and other Caribbean migrants to those countries?
Intelligent Barbadians need to ask themselves where this new policy is taking us, for the current Government seems to want to take us in the direction of a small, narrow, insular Barbadian nation, rather than towards the future of an expansive, multi-territory Caribbean economy and nation. Can we really envisage our children being satisfied to be confined indefinitely to a little 166 square mile nation and an economy of tourism and off-shore services? Is this really all that we aspire to?
And by the way, our national hero Clement Payne was born in Trinidad.
Rt. Excellent Clement Payne (1937)
"The celebrated national poet of Guyana, Martin Carter, reminds us..... that we represent the expectations of five million human beings, and that what we achieve or betray concerns not only the living but those who are not yet born........ There is a fundamental theme on which I should like to think there can be no difference. And that is the absolute necessity to promote the solidarity and the sovereignty of this regional Caribbean family, and also the absolute obligation to discover those strategies and mechanisms which will ultimately lead to unity of action in all major areas of our economic, social and political life"
Rt. Excellent Errol Barrow (1986)
As the current Government of Barbados prepares itself to amend the Constitution in order to deny citizenship to the children of certain categories of Caribbean migrants who are born in Barbados, we have to seriously ask ourselves whether, just as the late Errol Barrow forewarned, we are not on the verge of betraying not only the existing 5 million people of our Caribbean Community, but also the countless generations that are "not yet born".
Last year, the Barbados Government issued a so-called "Green Paper" on a "Comprehensive Review of Immigration Policy and Proposals for Legislative Reform". And the most significant proposal contained in the Green Paper was the suggestion that the existing constitutional scheme of according citizenship to all children born in Barbados should be discontinued, and replaced with a system in which children born to undocumented migrants, to persons who are on work permits, or to persons who merely have permission to "reside and work" in Barbados, should not acquire Barbadian citizenship.
What makes this proposal all the more reprehensible is the widespread knowledge that it was motivated by a desire to specifically target the children of our Guyanese, Vincentian, St Lucian, Dominican and Jamaican brothers and sisters! As virtually all Barbadians know, and as has been confirmed by authoritative spokespersons of the government, the current Administration is not concerned about European, American, Chinese or Indian migration to Barbados: rather, their fundamental objective is to clamp down upon the migration to Barbados of our fellow Caribbean people.
The system of according citizenship to all babies born on Barbadian soil has been in place since the birth of our nation, and has served us well over the years. Why do we wish to change it now?
Why do we want to follow the path of some of the most racist and xenophobic countries in denying citizenship to certain categories of babies born on our soil? Why do we wish to give comfort and support to racists in the U.K and U.S.A who have urged their governments to adopt this type of policy against Barbadian and other Caribbean migrants to those countries?
Intelligent Barbadians need to ask themselves where this new policy is taking us, for the current Government seems to want to take us in the direction of a small, narrow, insular Barbadian nation, rather than towards the future of an expansive, multi-territory Caribbean economy and nation. Can we really envisage our children being satisfied to be confined indefinitely to a little 166 square mile nation and an economy of tourism and off-shore services? Is this really all that we aspire to?
And by the way, our national hero Clement Payne was born in Trinidad.
Marching Into 2010 With PEP
EXACTLY ONE YEAR AGO, the People's Empowerment Party (PEP) issued a New Year's Message in which we warned Barbadian that 2009 was going to be a very difficult year and urged the powers-that-be to commence a serious campaign to diversify the Barbadian economy beyond the traditional pillars of tourism and so-called "offshore" financial and business services.
We advocated that Barbados should seriously set about to educate its citizens to the highest possible international standards; that Government should encourage and assist Barbadians to forge ahead into a multiplicity of high-skilled/high-creativity economic activities; and that our country should proactively undertake a central role in encouraging and crafting a pan-Caribbean system of production. We noted that at a time when economic structures were collapsing in North America and Europe, it behoved us in the Caribbean to look towards each other and to take control of our own destinies by producing for ourselves.
Our New Year's message also counselled the new Government not to spurn the hand of friendship that had been extended to us by our Latin American comrades, and urged that we "get on board" with Petro-Caribe and the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean (ALBA).
One of the most striking passages in last year's message exhorted as follows: "Let us take inspiration from the great athletes of Jamaica, who conquered the entire world in spectacular fashion at the Beijing Olympics. What made Jamaica's achievement at the 2008 Olympics so different from previous games is that instead of sending their athletes to the United States and Europe for training, the Jamaicans established their very own high-performance track and field academies, and used their native intelligence to produce athletes of the very highest international calibre. The lesson is therefore that we possess the ability - all we need is the self-belief and the will to forge ahead."
Well, needless to say, the powers-that-be totally ignored our New Year's advice and exhortations of one year ago. Instead of coming together in Caribbean unity to collectively face the international economic crisis, they did the opposite and instituted an immigration reform exercise that quickly took on negative and backward connotations, and resulted in the unfortunate scapegoating of Caribbean migrants living in Barbados.
The year 2009 therefore turned out to be a very disappointing one. And so, rather than being able to join with and support our Barbados Government in charting new and progressive paths, our party was forced to spend 2009 fighting rearguard battles to minimise the damage being done. However, the PEP remains undaunted and will be forging forward into 2010 with a visionary and progressive agenda.
On the domestic front, we intend to engage in a formidable battle on behalf of all the impoverished and marginalised sectors of our population. We will ensure the burdens of the recession do not fall disproportionately on the backs of the "poor and the powerless", and that principles of humanity and equity are applied to the sharing of resources.
On the regional front, we will be playing a leading role in the staging of an historic Assembly of Caribbean People in Barbados during August, and will be advocating progressive solutions to the Caribbean's problems and seeking to promote and fast-track the idea of a political union of the English-speaking Caribbean.
And on the global front, we intend to push for the establishment of a Pan-African Commonwealth of Nations, and the development of deep linkages and relationships between CARICOM on the one hand and the African Union and ALBA on the other.
Published: December 31, 2009
We advocated that Barbados should seriously set about to educate its citizens to the highest possible international standards; that Government should encourage and assist Barbadians to forge ahead into a multiplicity of high-skilled/high-creativity economic activities; and that our country should proactively undertake a central role in encouraging and crafting a pan-Caribbean system of production. We noted that at a time when economic structures were collapsing in North America and Europe, it behoved us in the Caribbean to look towards each other and to take control of our own destinies by producing for ourselves.
Our New Year's message also counselled the new Government not to spurn the hand of friendship that had been extended to us by our Latin American comrades, and urged that we "get on board" with Petro-Caribe and the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean (ALBA).
One of the most striking passages in last year's message exhorted as follows: "Let us take inspiration from the great athletes of Jamaica, who conquered the entire world in spectacular fashion at the Beijing Olympics. What made Jamaica's achievement at the 2008 Olympics so different from previous games is that instead of sending their athletes to the United States and Europe for training, the Jamaicans established their very own high-performance track and field academies, and used their native intelligence to produce athletes of the very highest international calibre. The lesson is therefore that we possess the ability - all we need is the self-belief and the will to forge ahead."
Well, needless to say, the powers-that-be totally ignored our New Year's advice and exhortations of one year ago. Instead of coming together in Caribbean unity to collectively face the international economic crisis, they did the opposite and instituted an immigration reform exercise that quickly took on negative and backward connotations, and resulted in the unfortunate scapegoating of Caribbean migrants living in Barbados.
The year 2009 therefore turned out to be a very disappointing one. And so, rather than being able to join with and support our Barbados Government in charting new and progressive paths, our party was forced to spend 2009 fighting rearguard battles to minimise the damage being done. However, the PEP remains undaunted and will be forging forward into 2010 with a visionary and progressive agenda.
On the domestic front, we intend to engage in a formidable battle on behalf of all the impoverished and marginalised sectors of our population. We will ensure the burdens of the recession do not fall disproportionately on the backs of the "poor and the powerless", and that principles of humanity and equity are applied to the sharing of resources.
On the regional front, we will be playing a leading role in the staging of an historic Assembly of Caribbean People in Barbados during August, and will be advocating progressive solutions to the Caribbean's problems and seeking to promote and fast-track the idea of a political union of the English-speaking Caribbean.
And on the global front, we intend to push for the establishment of a Pan-African Commonwealth of Nations, and the development of deep linkages and relationships between CARICOM on the one hand and the African Union and ALBA on the other.
Published: December 31, 2009
For The Children's Sake
TOMORROW we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Christ, who admonished the world to "suffer the little children to come unto Me, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of Heaven belongs". And yet, Christmas can be the cruelest time of year for many, many children!
The celebration of Christmas has come to be characterised by an excessive concentration on the commercial marketing of toys and other "goodies", and the insistence that the commemoration of the birth of Jesus is centred around the giving and receiving of presents. And as a result, many of the children of the poor are devastated at Christmas time, as they witness a seemingly never-ending parade of toys and 'goodies' on their television screens and in the windows of department stores - toys and "goodies" that are really for other children, and that they can only admire and wish for from afar.
Some of us have seen this scenario played out time and again at Christmas - the little single parent child whose home is so wracked by poverty that "mummy" simply cannot afford to buy the beautiful things in the store window.
And so, as we celebrate Christmas tomorrow, we should spare a thought for the poor children of our nation. Indeed, there is no better time to seriously reflect on the welfare and well-being of our children, since Christmas, properly understood, is really the festival of the child. This is the perfect time therefore for us to give some thought to the duty that we owe to all the children of our nation, and more especially to the children of the poor.
The People's Empowerment Party (PEP) has always had a clear understanding that a set of duties is owed by society to the children of Barbados. These duties may be conceptualised as essential "foods" for the bodies, intellects and souls of the nation's children, and include the duty of respect; the duty to give our children a sense of a community and a culture that belongs to them; the duty to bestow upon them a significant role in society and a sense of accomplishment and importance; and the duty to convey to them a sense of the location of their lives in the scheme of eternity and a positive belief in the future.
Of course, the duty of respect implies and encompasses the duty to provide for the physical and material welfare of all of the children of our nation. All Barbadian children - regardless of the material wealth or social standing of their parents - must be properly fed, clothed, housed, educated and cared for medically!
Indeed, the PEP was so clear about this duty that in our manifesto we advocated the establishment of a "liveable wage" (rather than a "minimum wage") for Barbadian workers, and suggested that the ratio between the highest and lowest paid workers in Barbados should be much less pronounced and more equitable. In other words, poor Barbadians who are struggling to provide decent living conditions for their children must be given additional resources, even if this means requesting the wealthy to make do with less or to contribute more to the tax revenues.
We also proposed a massive low-income housing programme, fundamental educational reforms aimed at ensuring that the less academically gifted children are given more attention and educational resources, and an effort to ensure that our children and youth are permitted a presence and input in our major national institutions and activities.
Let us resolve to orient our society towards the children and their future!
Published: December 23, 2009
The celebration of Christmas has come to be characterised by an excessive concentration on the commercial marketing of toys and other "goodies", and the insistence that the commemoration of the birth of Jesus is centred around the giving and receiving of presents. And as a result, many of the children of the poor are devastated at Christmas time, as they witness a seemingly never-ending parade of toys and 'goodies' on their television screens and in the windows of department stores - toys and "goodies" that are really for other children, and that they can only admire and wish for from afar.
Some of us have seen this scenario played out time and again at Christmas - the little single parent child whose home is so wracked by poverty that "mummy" simply cannot afford to buy the beautiful things in the store window.
And so, as we celebrate Christmas tomorrow, we should spare a thought for the poor children of our nation. Indeed, there is no better time to seriously reflect on the welfare and well-being of our children, since Christmas, properly understood, is really the festival of the child. This is the perfect time therefore for us to give some thought to the duty that we owe to all the children of our nation, and more especially to the children of the poor.
The People's Empowerment Party (PEP) has always had a clear understanding that a set of duties is owed by society to the children of Barbados. These duties may be conceptualised as essential "foods" for the bodies, intellects and souls of the nation's children, and include the duty of respect; the duty to give our children a sense of a community and a culture that belongs to them; the duty to bestow upon them a significant role in society and a sense of accomplishment and importance; and the duty to convey to them a sense of the location of their lives in the scheme of eternity and a positive belief in the future.
Of course, the duty of respect implies and encompasses the duty to provide for the physical and material welfare of all of the children of our nation. All Barbadian children - regardless of the material wealth or social standing of their parents - must be properly fed, clothed, housed, educated and cared for medically!
Indeed, the PEP was so clear about this duty that in our manifesto we advocated the establishment of a "liveable wage" (rather than a "minimum wage") for Barbadian workers, and suggested that the ratio between the highest and lowest paid workers in Barbados should be much less pronounced and more equitable. In other words, poor Barbadians who are struggling to provide decent living conditions for their children must be given additional resources, even if this means requesting the wealthy to make do with less or to contribute more to the tax revenues.
We also proposed a massive low-income housing programme, fundamental educational reforms aimed at ensuring that the less academically gifted children are given more attention and educational resources, and an effort to ensure that our children and youth are permitted a presence and input in our major national institutions and activities.
Let us resolve to orient our society towards the children and their future!
Published: December 23, 2009
Message To The Migrants
EARLIER THIS YEAR, undocumented CARICOM migrants residing in Barbados were sent into a state of panic when authorities started to routinely order the removal from Barbados of "illegals" who, in an effort to regularise their status, had voluntarily gone into the Immigration Department and filed applications for immigrant status.
Of course, these applicants for immigrant status were simply following a modus operandi that had developed under the previous Barbados Labour Party regime, of permitting undocumented CARICOM migrants who had resided in Barbados for five or more years to come forward and have their status regularised.
It came as a great shock therefore when, contrary to the past practice, instead of granting the applicants official permission to remain in Barbados while their applications were being processed, the authorities started to order them to leave the island.
The panic intensified in May when Prime Minister David Thompson announced that his Government would be offering an amnesty to undocumented CARICOM migrants - but only if such migrants had been residing in Barbados from before January 1, 1998.
This led to a feeling of doom and gloom in the CARICOM migrant community, for there was a perception that undocumented migrants who had come to Barbados after January 1, 1998, would be ordered to leave the island once they came to the attention of immigration authorities.
Thus, there was great apprehension and a reluctance to follow the Prime Minister's directive that all undocumented migrants should report to the Immigration Department between June 1 and December 1, 2009.
It was at this stage that leading members of the People's Empowerment Party (PEP) joined with other citizens and residents of Barbados to establish the Coalition For A Humane Amnesty.
The coalition immediately went into action and sought to catalyse a reconsideration of the policy, with a view to making modifications that would render the policy less threatening and disruptive to qulaified CARICOM migrants.
The coalition reached out to all of the relevant policymakers of Barbados, inclusive of Prime Minister Thompson, Minister Arnie Walters, the chief immigration officer, Permanent Secretary Greaves, all of the members of the House of Assembly and Senate, and the major civil society organisations of Barbados.
Out of this process, the following very important and helpful modifications emerged:
(1) Migrants who have resided in Barbados for at least five years prior to June 1, have been given a guarantee that they will not be required to leave Barbados when they lodge their applications for status at the Immigration Department.
(2) Such applicants will be permitted to remain in Barbados pending the processing of their application - and in the event their application is rejected and they exercise their right of appeal to the Immigration Review Committee, pending the determination of their appeal.
(3) Applicants who do not meet the criteria for the "amnesty" have no guarantee of being given status in Barbados, but at least they do have a guarantee that their application will be seriously considered on its individual merit.
Published: November 13, 2009
Of course, these applicants for immigrant status were simply following a modus operandi that had developed under the previous Barbados Labour Party regime, of permitting undocumented CARICOM migrants who had resided in Barbados for five or more years to come forward and have their status regularised.
It came as a great shock therefore when, contrary to the past practice, instead of granting the applicants official permission to remain in Barbados while their applications were being processed, the authorities started to order them to leave the island.
The panic intensified in May when Prime Minister David Thompson announced that his Government would be offering an amnesty to undocumented CARICOM migrants - but only if such migrants had been residing in Barbados from before January 1, 1998.
This led to a feeling of doom and gloom in the CARICOM migrant community, for there was a perception that undocumented migrants who had come to Barbados after January 1, 1998, would be ordered to leave the island once they came to the attention of immigration authorities.
Thus, there was great apprehension and a reluctance to follow the Prime Minister's directive that all undocumented migrants should report to the Immigration Department between June 1 and December 1, 2009.
It was at this stage that leading members of the People's Empowerment Party (PEP) joined with other citizens and residents of Barbados to establish the Coalition For A Humane Amnesty.
The coalition immediately went into action and sought to catalyse a reconsideration of the policy, with a view to making modifications that would render the policy less threatening and disruptive to qulaified CARICOM migrants.
The coalition reached out to all of the relevant policymakers of Barbados, inclusive of Prime Minister Thompson, Minister Arnie Walters, the chief immigration officer, Permanent Secretary Greaves, all of the members of the House of Assembly and Senate, and the major civil society organisations of Barbados.
Out of this process, the following very important and helpful modifications emerged:
(1) Migrants who have resided in Barbados for at least five years prior to June 1, have been given a guarantee that they will not be required to leave Barbados when they lodge their applications for status at the Immigration Department.
(2) Such applicants will be permitted to remain in Barbados pending the processing of their application - and in the event their application is rejected and they exercise their right of appeal to the Immigration Review Committee, pending the determination of their appeal.
(3) Applicants who do not meet the criteria for the "amnesty" have no guarantee of being given status in Barbados, but at least they do have a guarantee that their application will be seriously considered on its individual merit.
Published: November 13, 2009
Time To Go Beyond CSME
THE People's Empowerment Party (PEP) extends a warm welcome to all Heads of Government, civil society leaders and technocrats of our Caribbean Community (CARICOM) who are in Barbados attending this weekend's Convocation on the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).
These regional leaders are expected to give careful consideration to the findings of an 'audit' which was recently carried out in all CARICOM states on the workings of the CSME. It is also anticipated that they will propose strategies for advancing the process of constructing a 'single economy'.
The PEP would like to urge these leaders to approach their task with a consciousness that the CARICOM region is in the grip of a major economic crisis that threatens to plunge all of our nations into poverty and disarray. It cannot therefore be business as usual!
In January of this year, the PEP wrote to all of the heads of government and the leaders of all of the governing and opposition political parties of CARICOM proposing the holding of a bi-partisan, CARICOM-wide political convocation geared towards developing a bi-partisan, collective, emergency programme of action to respond to the crisis. Unfortunately however, the only entities that bothered to respond to our appeal were the New Democratic Party of St Vincent and Prime Minister Thompson of Barbados.
Since then, the economic crisis has intensified, as manifested in Jamaica and Antigua heading to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Trinidad government experiencing a TT $18.9 billion drop in revenues, and Barbados being buffeted by a 12 per cent decline in the vital tourism industry. We can therefore safely predict that if CARICOM does not rise up to the challenge of developing a serious collective plan of action, that all of our nations will eventually end up in the hands of the IMF.
This realisation led the PEP to send a second letter to the regional government and opposition leaders in the month of September, reiterating our call for a convocation that includes heads of government, opposition leaders, presidents of the political parties, and representatives of organised labour and the Caribbean private sector.
This is now a time for bold, visionary, patriotic and creative action! This is a time for us to put aside egos and narrow political agendas, and to come together in defence of our region and its people.
The PEP urges the leaders of CARICOM to be brutally frank in dealing with our condition in the region. We keep coming together to talk about trade - but what are we actually producing? We must forge ahead with collective investments in new industries and structures of production. And these efforts will have to be led by our governments, albeit working in partnership with the private sector.
We must also strive for the collective security of our people. Throughout the region, existing public sector jobs and government welfare programmes are under threat. Let us therefore come together and fashion a collective 'CARICOM Social Security Stabilisation Project' aimed at preserving existing public sector jobs and welfare programmes over the next 24 months. And of course, where we fall short in resources, we would then be in a position to approach the international community for assistance with credibility and dignity.
Let us also bite the bullet and set a time frame for the establishment of a 'Union of Caribbean States' equipped with: a common citizenship, passport and currency; a union executive armed with a mandate to develop the entire territory of the union; a collective industrial development programme; and a time frame for phasing in full freedom of movement.
Published: October 9, 2009
These regional leaders are expected to give careful consideration to the findings of an 'audit' which was recently carried out in all CARICOM states on the workings of the CSME. It is also anticipated that they will propose strategies for advancing the process of constructing a 'single economy'.
The PEP would like to urge these leaders to approach their task with a consciousness that the CARICOM region is in the grip of a major economic crisis that threatens to plunge all of our nations into poverty and disarray. It cannot therefore be business as usual!
In January of this year, the PEP wrote to all of the heads of government and the leaders of all of the governing and opposition political parties of CARICOM proposing the holding of a bi-partisan, CARICOM-wide political convocation geared towards developing a bi-partisan, collective, emergency programme of action to respond to the crisis. Unfortunately however, the only entities that bothered to respond to our appeal were the New Democratic Party of St Vincent and Prime Minister Thompson of Barbados.
Since then, the economic crisis has intensified, as manifested in Jamaica and Antigua heading to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Trinidad government experiencing a TT $18.9 billion drop in revenues, and Barbados being buffeted by a 12 per cent decline in the vital tourism industry. We can therefore safely predict that if CARICOM does not rise up to the challenge of developing a serious collective plan of action, that all of our nations will eventually end up in the hands of the IMF.
This realisation led the PEP to send a second letter to the regional government and opposition leaders in the month of September, reiterating our call for a convocation that includes heads of government, opposition leaders, presidents of the political parties, and representatives of organised labour and the Caribbean private sector.
This is now a time for bold, visionary, patriotic and creative action! This is a time for us to put aside egos and narrow political agendas, and to come together in defence of our region and its people.
The PEP urges the leaders of CARICOM to be brutally frank in dealing with our condition in the region. We keep coming together to talk about trade - but what are we actually producing? We must forge ahead with collective investments in new industries and structures of production. And these efforts will have to be led by our governments, albeit working in partnership with the private sector.
We must also strive for the collective security of our people. Throughout the region, existing public sector jobs and government welfare programmes are under threat. Let us therefore come together and fashion a collective 'CARICOM Social Security Stabilisation Project' aimed at preserving existing public sector jobs and welfare programmes over the next 24 months. And of course, where we fall short in resources, we would then be in a position to approach the international community for assistance with credibility and dignity.
Let us also bite the bullet and set a time frame for the establishment of a 'Union of Caribbean States' equipped with: a common citizenship, passport and currency; a union executive armed with a mandate to develop the entire territory of the union; a collective industrial development programme; and a time frame for phasing in full freedom of movement.
Published: October 9, 2009
Do More For Wynter Crawford
APPROXIMATELY one year ago this PEP column expressed the following view:
"Wynter Algernon Crawford was arguably the greatest Barbadian of the 20th century. Yet, if you ask the average Barbadian student who Wynter Crawford was, you would almost invariably elicit a blank response.
"Crawford's monumental record of social and political activism impacted more significantly on Barbados than the work of any other social or political activist. And yet, there is no public institution named after Wynter Crawford; not even a roundabout!"
When therefore, we learnt that the present Government was proposing to establish some type of memorial to Wynter Crawford at the Six Roads roundabout, two executive officers of the PEP made their way to Six Roads to scrutinise what sort of physical work was being done on the roundabout. We were certain the Government had to be erecting either a statue or a bust of Crawford on the roundabout. Imagine our shock when we discovered that there was to be no statue or bust - merely the naming of the roundabout after Crawford.
Clearly, an historical figure of Crawford's stature deserves much more than the mere naming of a roundabout after him. As far as the PEP is concerned, Wynter Crawford should be declared a "national hero" and a statue should be erected in his honour.
Wynter Crawford's contribution to the public life of Barbados began in 1934. At a time when Grantley Adams was still a supporter of the 'conservatives' and a fierce opponent of Dr Charles Duncan O'Neal, Crawford launched his radical and progressive Barbados Observer newspaper.
The Observer played a crucial role in the fledgling 'worker's movement', by raising critical issues and giving a voice to the advocates of social and political reform. Of great significance was the role played by Crawford in recording the workers' rebellion of 1937, and ensuring that the plight of the 'martyrs' remained in the public consciousness.
Wynter Crawford was also virtually the founder of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) in 1938. It was he who met with the visiting lawyer, Hope Stevens, and proposed the formation of a political organisation to unite the progressive forces of Barbados. Indeed, it was Crawford who set up the meeting in Bay Street at which the BLP was formed.
However, Crawford subsequently broke with Grantley Adams, and in 1944 established an even more radical and progressive political party - the West Indian National Congress Party. Indeed, throughout the second half of the 1940s, Crawford's Congress Party was responsible for developing the core agenda of the progressive movement - compulsory education, universal adult suffrage, free books and hot lunches for school children, a national health and unemployment scheme, disestablishment of the Anglican Church, the development of manufacturing industries, and labour migration schemes.
Although the Congress Party went into decline in the 1950s, Wynter Crawford occupied such a respected position on the political landscape that the young Errol Barrow and his infant Democratic Labour Party (DLP) naturally gravitated to Crawford for his advice and input.
Crawford ultimately assumed the position of Deputy Premier in the first DLP Government and undertook responsibility for establishing the National Insurance Scheme, and for putting in place the institutional infrastructure for the industrial development of Barbados and for developing the Farm Labour Programmes.
* The PEP Column represents the views of the People's Empowerment Party.
Published: August 28, 2009
"Wynter Algernon Crawford was arguably the greatest Barbadian of the 20th century. Yet, if you ask the average Barbadian student who Wynter Crawford was, you would almost invariably elicit a blank response.
"Crawford's monumental record of social and political activism impacted more significantly on Barbados than the work of any other social or political activist. And yet, there is no public institution named after Wynter Crawford; not even a roundabout!"
When therefore, we learnt that the present Government was proposing to establish some type of memorial to Wynter Crawford at the Six Roads roundabout, two executive officers of the PEP made their way to Six Roads to scrutinise what sort of physical work was being done on the roundabout. We were certain the Government had to be erecting either a statue or a bust of Crawford on the roundabout. Imagine our shock when we discovered that there was to be no statue or bust - merely the naming of the roundabout after Crawford.
Clearly, an historical figure of Crawford's stature deserves much more than the mere naming of a roundabout after him. As far as the PEP is concerned, Wynter Crawford should be declared a "national hero" and a statue should be erected in his honour.
Wynter Crawford's contribution to the public life of Barbados began in 1934. At a time when Grantley Adams was still a supporter of the 'conservatives' and a fierce opponent of Dr Charles Duncan O'Neal, Crawford launched his radical and progressive Barbados Observer newspaper.
The Observer played a crucial role in the fledgling 'worker's movement', by raising critical issues and giving a voice to the advocates of social and political reform. Of great significance was the role played by Crawford in recording the workers' rebellion of 1937, and ensuring that the plight of the 'martyrs' remained in the public consciousness.
Wynter Crawford was also virtually the founder of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) in 1938. It was he who met with the visiting lawyer, Hope Stevens, and proposed the formation of a political organisation to unite the progressive forces of Barbados. Indeed, it was Crawford who set up the meeting in Bay Street at which the BLP was formed.
However, Crawford subsequently broke with Grantley Adams, and in 1944 established an even more radical and progressive political party - the West Indian National Congress Party. Indeed, throughout the second half of the 1940s, Crawford's Congress Party was responsible for developing the core agenda of the progressive movement - compulsory education, universal adult suffrage, free books and hot lunches for school children, a national health and unemployment scheme, disestablishment of the Anglican Church, the development of manufacturing industries, and labour migration schemes.
Although the Congress Party went into decline in the 1950s, Wynter Crawford occupied such a respected position on the political landscape that the young Errol Barrow and his infant Democratic Labour Party (DLP) naturally gravitated to Crawford for his advice and input.
Crawford ultimately assumed the position of Deputy Premier in the first DLP Government and undertook responsibility for establishing the National Insurance Scheme, and for putting in place the institutional infrastructure for the industrial development of Barbados and for developing the Farm Labour Programmes.
* The PEP Column represents the views of the People's Empowerment Party.
Published: August 28, 2009
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