26 Venezuelans granted temporary reprieve in Trinidad and Tobago (Nov. 27, 2020)

Twenty-six Venezuelans who returned to Trinidad and Tobago in a small boat on Tuesday, following an initial deportation days earlier, will be permitted to stay until their challenge to the legality of their deportation is determined by a High Court judge. The group, which includes 16 minors and up to 13 adults, has attracted international attention, and demonstrates the difficulties faced by Venezuelans who continue to flee the crisis at home. (Newsday, Trinidad Express)

The group initially arrived to TT in two small boats last Sunday and were escorted back to international waters by the Coast Guard. Concern for the deportees grew on Monday when the boat did not arrive in eastern Venezuela. The whereabouts of the group, which included children as young as four months, were reportedly unknown for 24 hours, before they returned to Trinidad by boat on Tuesday, though the details are still unclear. Rights groups criticized TT's apparent failure to comply with international asylum law. The United Nations rights office said the initial deportation decision was deeply concerning, while the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called on TT to "strictly observe the duty of special protection of (children and adolescent) migrants." (Reuters, Caracas Chronicles, AFP, Newsday)

The group's return gives authorities of Trinidad and Tobago a second chance to uphold their domestic and international obligations to provide protection for people seeking safety from danger, said the Caribbean Centre for Human Rights, Amnesty International, Refugees International and 14 other organizations in an open letter to Prime Minister Keith Rowley.

But Rowley responded harshly yesterday, saying the country cannot open its borders to 34 million Venezuelans and accusing the Organization of American States of  “triggering and fueling the current Venezuelan situation" and punishing TT for not joining U.S. efforts at regime change in Venezuela. He cited Covid-19 border closures as part of the justification for preventing asylum seekers from entering the country. (Daily Express)

Rowley said if left unchecked under the rubric of humanitarian interpretation, illegal immigrants "will effectively prise open our borders to every economic migrant, gun runner, drug dealer, human trafficker and South American gang leader/members. All they will be required to do is make the seven-mile boat trip and claim to be 'refugees.'" (Newsday)

Other government officials cited the dangers that asylum seekers are victims of human trafficking. (Daily Express)

Cuban authorities break up San Isidro Movement hunger strike

Cuban authorities broke up a prolonged hunger strike by demonstrators of the San Isidro Movement yesterday. The standoff between Cuban security forces and SIM protesters had been escalating throughout the month, 14 activists have been on hunger strike since Nov.16 demanding the release of the musician Denis Solis González, a musician arrested earlier this month. Cuban officials said they intervened late yesterday in response to Covid-19 concerns, but activists dismissed that as an excuse. Most of the protesters were detained briefly and released to their homes last night. (Reuters, El País)

Writer Carlos Manuel Álvarez had joined the hunger strikers this week, after returning from Miami, and alerted yesterday that authorities would try to leverage Covid-19 concerns to disarm the group that has been increasingly visible in internationally. (CiberCuba) The SIM is a multifaceted group that has combined art and political activism in an irreverent key in opposition to Cuban government repression. (BBC) Though it has been active since 2018, SIM has gained international prominence this month. Numerous organizations of civil society and international groups had called on Cuba's government to guarantee their safety.(Amnesty International, Havana Times)

La Joven Cuba defends SIM's right to protest in an editorial, though it rejects the group's ideology and methods.

"Both the danger that the members represent and the seduction they inspire can be explained by the fact that they are perhaps the only Cubans on the island today who are living in a democracy, exotic animals that no one has seen alive in the country in 60 years," wrote Álvarez in a recent Washington Post op-ed.

More migration

• Venezuelans in Trinidad and Tobago are concerned about the lack of information about the renewal of registration cards for 16,523 refugees, which expire on December 31. (Newsday)

• Guyana might impose a visa requirement for Haitians, after several foreign nationals were arrested earlier this month in a possible trafficking case. Authorities indicated the seven Haitian children who were found during the two police operations might not be related to the adults, and may have been trafficked. (Kaieteur News) It seems to be an indication of a broader trafficking problem related to Haitian migrants, according to Sir Ronald Sanders, who argues for urgent international attention to be paid to Haiti's political crisis. (Caribbean News Service)

Human Rights

• The hunger situation in Haiti remains dire, despite improvements over the past two decades: it the hungriest country in the Americas and the fourth hungriest country in the world. (Forbes)

• FIFA, has banned the president of the Haitian Football Federation (FHF), Yves Jean-Bart, from the sport for life, following an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment and abuse, reports CNN. The decision should be followed by swift action to sanction other abusers and their accomplices, criminal prosecutions in Haiti and other jurisdictions, and ongoing therapeutic support for survivors, argues Human Rights Watch.
  

Covid-19

• Officially the Caribbean has had 282,282 coronavirus cases -- Loop News has the country-by-country breakdown.

• Jamaica announced it hopes to secure vaccines for 270,000 residents (ten percent of the population) under the PAHO/WHO scheme. (Loop Jamaica)

Tourism

• To date, 2,796 persons have sought the Barbados Welcome Stamp, a visa for distance workers to live in the country for a year. The effort is aimed at supplementing tourism income lost during the pandemic. Applications processed by September had brought in $1 million. (MarketWatch)

• U.S. airlines are adding flights, and in some cases Covid-19 testing programs, for travel to Mexico and the Caribbean, reports Reuters.

Economics

• Countries lose more than $427 billion in revenue each year from tax dodging by companies and wealthy individuals, according to groundbreaking new research by the Tax Justice Network. The Cayman Islands, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United States, all tax havens, are the five places most responsible for the world’s tax deficits, TJN found. According to the advocacy group’s analysis of country-by-country earnings reported by multinationals, the Cayman Islands tops the list by being responsible for 16.5% of global tax losses or more than $70 billion. (Cayman Compass) Analysis of the jurisdictions on the EU tax haven blacklist found the cohort to be collectively responsible for just 1.72 per cent of global tax losses, costing countries over $7 billion in lost tax a year.

• Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley renewed her call to reform funding for the CARICOM Development Fund (CDF). She said the CDF needs a new financing model that would allow it to focus on resilience and growth within the region. (Barbados Today)

Energy

• The Production Sharing Agreement governing Guyana's oil rich Stabroek Block, has some of the world’s most oppressive provisions. They ensure that Exxon Mobil will take a disproportionate share of earnings, and could saddle Guyana with debt for decades, reports Kaieteur News.

• The former politician sent by Canada to review ExxonMobil’s US$9B Payara project in Guyana, has benefitted from thousands of dollars in donations made to her political party by a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, reports Kaieteur News.
  

Diplomacy

• The incoming U.S. Biden administration will have to balance its desire to re-thaw relations with Cuba against the danger of ceding Florida to the Republicans in 2024, reports the Washington Post.

Anti-colonialism

• Chlordecone, a persistent organic pollutant related to DDT used to protect banana plantations in the French West Indies has been linked to unusually high rates of prostate cancer in Martinique and Guadeloupe. (BBC)

• For more than 160 years, the United States and Haiti have disputed the ownership of tiny Navassa Island at the southwest entrance of the Windward Passage. (Miami Herald)
  

Culture Corner

• "There are few places on earth where the question of identity is as complex and consequential as in the Caribbean," writes Peter Laurie in Barbados Today. "Caribbean people are extraordinarily creative, not to mention resilient and tough. Our intellectual achievements, our literature and arts are some of the
  finest in the world. The explanation for this paradox is simple: our greatest weakness is also our greatest strength. The very instability, fragility and fragmentation of our history and geography have made us flexible, nimble, and creative."

• An ode to the Caribbean's Scotch Bonnet flavors -- Forbes.

We are pleased to announce that the Caribbean News Updates will be public from now on, and can be accessed at this site. If you wish to receive the newsletter by e-mail you can sign up here.

26 Venezuelans granted temporary reprieve in Trinidad and Tobago (Nov. 27, 2020)

China's growing Caribbean presence (18 November 2020)

How to react to growing Chinese presence in the Caribbean will be an important policy issue for the government of U.S. president-elect Joe Biden. China has quietly, but assertively, sought to expand its influence in the Caribbean through government grants and loans, investments by Chinese companies, and diplomatic, cultural and security efforts. The efforts have been welcomed by governments in the region, but viewed with suspicion by the U.S. Trump administration, reports the New York Times.

Evan Ellis details how China is expanding its presence in the strategically important Caribbean, through infrastructure investment, COVID-19 aid, and security sector assistance. He argues that the expanded Chinese presence in the Caribbean, known as the United States’ 'third border,' presents a policy challenge to the United States. (Wilson Center report)

Ruben Gonzalez-Vicente asks a broader question about Chinese investment in the region, namely, what makes this form of capital distinct when compared to local and transnational companies in the region. In a very in-depth delve into the issue, he argues that "the combination of Chinese state-led predistribution through government-to-government arrangements in the Caribbean, and firm-based accumulation, adds up to a distinct mechanism of accumulation." Partnerships between Caribbean states and China have permitted heavily indebted governments to pay in kind (land, in this case, and oil, copper or cocoa in others) for much needed infrastructure projects. "However, and crucially, this type of arrangement also requires spaces of exception where sovereignty is effectively circumvented to enable the realization of profit." (Made in China Journal) 

The change in the U.S. government would not have a significant impact on the country's policies towards the anglophone Caribbean, wrote Samantha S.S. Chaitram at Global Americans before the election. In addition to the China issue, the incoming Biden administration will face a Caribbean divided over U.S. policies towards Venezuela.

Cubans don't expect U.S. president-elect Joe Biden to lift the long-standing embargo against their country, but they hope he will reverse the Trump administration's harsh sanctions aimed at choking-off Cuba's economy to foment political change. Press reports indicate that Biden plans to roll back limitations on family travel and remittances, as well as re-staff the embassy in Havana. (Reuters) The U.S. trade embargo on Cuba, tightened under Trump, cost the island a record total of more than $5 billion over the last financial year and hurt its ability to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, according to foreign minister Bruno Rodríguez. (Reuters)

Environmental activists are hopeful about Biden's stance towards climate change, notes Alicia Nicholls at Caribbean Trade Law and Development.

Caribbean and the World

• Outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump's refusal to accept his electoral loss reminded some in Guyana of the country's protracted presidential election dispute this year. One meme circulating on the local Internet there Friday showed Trump phoning Guyana’s indicted election chief, Keith Lowenfield. “Yo Lowenfield help me out bro. Joe Biden leading,” Trump says in a caption. “Sure no problem but you have to gimme back my visa,” Lowenfield replies, referencing the U.S. penalty imposed on him for the disputed vote. (Washington Post)

• The U.S. election resonated in Jamaica in a special way, as vice president-elect Kamala Harris's father is from there. Jamaica’s prime minister, Andrew Holness, saluted Harris’s “monumental accomplishment for women” as well as her Jamaican heritage. (Washington Post) 

Democracy

• Pedro Pierluisi of Puerto Rico’s pro-statehood New Progressive Party won a majority of votes to become the U.S. territory’s next governor. He received nearly 33% of votes compared with nearly 32% obtained by Carlos Delgado of the Popular Democratic Party, which supports the current territorial status. It is the first time that Puerto Rico's two main parties fail to reach 40% of votes. (Associated Press)

• Puerto Rican voters participated in a non-binding referendum during last week's election over whether the territory should become a U.S. state immediately. More than 52% of voters approved in what is the island's sixth such referendum, though changes to the island’s political status go through the U.S. congress. But Puerto Ricans have allowed an obsession with the territory's status to elide broader debates over how to generate democratic alternatives for Puerto Rico, argues Carlos Pabón Ortega in Nueva Sociedad.

• Puerto Rico’s elections commission said yesterday that it has discovered more than 100 briefcases containing uncounted ballots a week after the U.S. territory held its general election, drawing criticism and scorn from voters who now question the validity of the outcomes of certain races. (Associated Press)

Human Rights

• Thousands of outraged Haitians have poured into the streets to protest the death of Port-au-Prince high school student and kidnapped victim Evelyne Sincère. She was tortured and killed, her lifeless body was then dumped on a heap of trash on the side of a road. Some activists see murder as more than an indication of Haiti’s worsening climate of violence, but part of the systematic abuse of women and girls that feminists in the country say is aimed at suppressing women. (Miami Herald)

Climate Change

• Hurricane Eta's hit Central America and the Caribbean, including Jamaica and Cuba. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans began evacuating their homes on Saturday as Eta neared the Caribbean island’s southern coast, threatening torrential rain and flooding. (New York Times, Reuters, Reuters, Financial Times)

• The U.K. hopes to take a leadership role in the fight against climate change, and could support Caribbean islands' efforts in areas like renewable energy and resilience adaptations, according to Cayman Islands governor Martyn Roper. (Cayman Compass)

Public Health

• UN Secretary-General António Guterres praised Caribbean nations for their Covid-19 response, calling the crisis a once-in-a generation opportunity to create a new alliance for an inclusive, sustainable, and resilient recovery. -- Aviso LatAm: COVID-19

• Covid-19 has stalled the education of over 137 million children in Latin America and the Caribbean. A new report by UNICEF warns of a "generational catastrophe": 97 percent of the students in the region have missed out on an average of 174 days of learning and are at risk of losing an entire school year. More than 3 million children may never return to school. 

• The UNICEF report highlights the case of Jamaica, where the pandemic has put the spotlight on the inequities of the education sector, emphasizing the digital divide in the country: in 34% of households, children do not have exclusive access to an Internet device for education purposes . Also, there are glaring disparities between urban and rural areas.

• Virtual public consultation sessions due to Covid also exclude many Jamaicans, particularly those in rural areas with less connectivity. (Petchary)

• Coronavirus restrictions may have changed the face of tourism in the Caribbean forever. Cruise ships in particular remain affected and are unlikely to return en masse soon. The crisis is an opportunity for the industry to evolve towards higher quality and greener alternatives. (Skift)

• Saint Lucia limited commercial fishing for a week in a bid to stop illegal entry into the country by people seeking to get out of Martinique which has instituted a Covid-19 lockdown. Fishers criticized the move as an unwarranted attack on their livelihoods, and the government moved towards limits on hours that can be worked and the number of people on vessels. Saint Lucia fishers caught  engaging in human trafficking activities will have their fishing license suspended for a period of one year. (St. Lucia Times, St. Lucia Times, St. Lucia Times)

• Dengue is sweeping through the Eastern Caribbean: St Vincent and the Grenadines is currently experiencing the most severe dengue fever outbreak in its recent history; Saint Lucia's Ministry of Health recorded approximately 900 cases of the mosquito-borne disease; and Barbados has had 301 suspected cases. (Loop)

LGTQI Rights

• Open for Business seeks to measure the socioeconomic impact of LGBTI exclusion in the anglophone Caribbean. (Antigua Breaking News)

• With Barbados’ male population being depleted by gun violence, the country can ill afford losing more to same sex unions is one religious leader's esoteric argument against legalizing same-sex unions in Barbados. (Barbados Today)

• The Cayman Islands recognized the first same-sex "civil partnership" on Oct. 29. (Cayman Compass)

Energy and Climate Justice

• ExxonMobil ramped up flaring last month in Guyana, by increasing production at its Liza Phase One operations. The national environmental agency indicated that the company flared 16.496 million standard cubic feet of gas per day – up from its previously publicized rate of 15 million cubic feet per day. (Kaieteur News)

• Guyana might not have the oil bonanza it expects, warns a new report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis that found that oil revenues won’t cover Guyana’s annual budget deficit over the next three years and meet its pledge to build a Sovereign Wealth Fund.

Anti-Colonialism

• Professor Sir Hilary Beckles urged the United Nations Security Council to support an economic development plan for the Caribbean funded with reparations from former colonizers. He called on the Security Council to acknowledge and support the reparatory justice framework and movement that have emerged from the need to repair the continuing suffering caused by extreme extractive colonialism and its instruments of slavery and indenture. (Antigua Newsroom)

• The National Museum Wales will give greater context to a portrait of Welsh slave owner Sir Thomas Picton. Picton has been celebrated as a hero who died at the Battle of Waterloo, but as governor of Trinidad [aka the Tyrant of Trinidad] he abused the slaves he owned, and was known as a tyrant even at the time. (Repeating Islands)

Culture Corner

• Jamaica's government is moving to retrieve pre-colonial indigenous sculptures housed at the British Museum in the United Kingdom. (Jamaica Gleaner)

• Jamaican poet Claude McKay was lauded by fellow Harlem Renaissance luminaries like Langston Huges and James Weldon Johnson, but has been ignored in many texts about the era, writes Rob Perrée at Africanah.

Thank you for reading -- comments and suggestions are welcome.