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.

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