Barbuda's disaster capitalism development controversy (Dec. 16, 2020)

Activists in Barbuda are pitted against international investors who plan to build a US $2 billion luxury resort project. Construction is already underway and affects environmentally vital wetlands according to conservationists. The Global Legal Action Network filed a complaint on behalf of Barbuda council earlier this month in the hopes of having the project stopped. The complaint alleges that construction has already damaged the Codrington Lagoon. (Guardian)

Locals are also concerned that the development is part of a broader upending of a communal land ownership system that has survived on Barbuda since slavery's abolishment in 1834. The island's communal land protections were overridden by Antigua and Barbuda's government in the wake of Hurricane Irma destruction three years ago. Locals fear the repeal will turn Barbuda "into the environmentally destructive mass tourism hub that Antigua has come to represent," reports The Intercept.

Barbuda's struggle is a microcosm of larger trends and issues from climate-induced displacement and disaster capitalism, argues Open Global Rights. 

More Land Rights and Climate Justice

• Hurricane destruction on the Colombian island of Providencia could push the local Raizal off their lands. The Afro-Caribbean community has resisted major tourism investments, but most of the land on the island is informally held and could be challenged in the reconstruction process, warns Rodrigo Uprimny of Dejusticia. In the meantime, reconstruction efforts have not yet begun on the island after Hurricane Iota destroyed 98 percent of its infrastructure, reports El País.

• Ongoing land grabs of indigenous territories in Belize, and the government's failure to respond meaningfully, demonstrate the difficulties indigenous communities face defending their land, even after a landmark 2015 Caribbean Court of Justice land rights victory, reports NACLA.
  

Migration

• The bodies of at least 21 migrants who were traveling by boat from Venezuela to Trinidad and Tobago were found over the weekend -- eleven at sea and the rest on nearby beaches. There are reports that two boats carrying 20 Venezuelans each disappeared this weekend in transit. Authorities identified 19 victims, among them four children. The United Nations human rights office called on Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago to coordinate and cooperate to protect migrants and refugees. According to David Smolansky, coordinator for the migratory crisis designated by the National Assembly, the boat could have been sent back by Trinidad. Trinidad authorities denied their personnel was involved. (Associated Press, Relief Web, Caracas Chronicles, Loop News see Nov. 27's updates.)

• The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) launched a US$1.44 billion regional plan to respond to the growing needs of refugees and migrants from Venezuela and the communities hosting them across 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. (Loop News)

• Suriname authorities told several hundred Cubans they must abandon a pier from which they are attempting to enter Guyana or else they would be evicted. They were informed that Guyana has officially denied their entry into the country. (Kaieteur News)

• Thirteen Jamaican men deported from the UK last month, despite the fact that several had lived there for much of their lives, are being set up to fail by a process that has labeled them as "foreign criminals," argues Margaret Byron in the Conversation. (See Dec. 9's updates on the deportation process.)

• Britain will step up compensation for thousands of long-term UK residents originally from the Caribbean who were wrongly caught up in a government drive to reduce illegal immigration, reports Loop News.
  

Borders

• The International Court of Justice (ICJ) will rule this week whether or not it has jurisdiction in the border dispute filed by Guyana against Venezuela. Guyana seeks to confirm full legal validity of the 1899 Arbitral Award which established the international boundary between the two countries. Venezuela has maintained its claim to 70 percent of Guyana’s territory, arguing that the 1899 arbitral award which determined the boundaries between the two countries is null and void. (Caribbean National Weekly)
  

Regional Relations

• U.S. president-elect Joe Biden plans to reverse many of the Trump administration's Cuba policies, pushing for more normalized relations with the island. That strategy includes reducing restrictions on travel, investment and remittances for the island nation that are perceived to disproportionately hurt Americans and ordinary Cubans, reports Bloomberg. The approach would leave measures that target Cuba for human rights abuses.

• The San Isidro Movement protests shouldn't deter Biden from engagement as the activism is the result of Obama era engagement policies, argues Michael Bustamante in the Financial Times.

• Tech is expected to be a central interest for the U.S. moving forward with Cuba. Though the Trump chill on Cuban relations didn't stop U.S. telecoms investment, business interest was cooled by the uncertain legal landscape, reports Politico. In the meantime, China has jumped into the market with both feet, saturating the island with low-cost telecommunications equipment.

Economics

• Cuba is ending its dual currency system on Jan. 1, and will phase out the Cuban Convertible Pesos (known as CUCs) wielded by travelers. President Miguel Díaz-Canel announced the changes in a special televised speech on December 10. (Cigar Aficionado)

• The Bahamas and Barbados tied for the top Caribbean countries in the United Nations Development Programme Human Development Index 2020, launched globally yesterday with a keynote speech by Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley. However, the income disparity between men and women persisted in 2019. (Loop News, EyeWitness News)
  

Tourism

• Barbados is among several countries that have sought to mitigate the Covid-19 impact with "digital nomad" visas, encouraging temporary residents hoping to ride out the pandemic in sunnier climes, reports the Financial Times.

• A cluster of 26 new cases of the coronavirus on Grenada has been linked to a Sandals resort. Grenada officials moved on this week to impose a partial lockdown amid the island’s new rise in cases. (Washington Post)

• The Christmas tourism outlook is grim for about 20 Caribbean territories and countries that are under a Level 4 warning from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in relation to Covid-19. Some countries, like Jamaica, are clamping down in hopes of limiting contagion, while others, like Haiti, are welcoming tourists and diaspora populations in hopes of boosting the economy in the midst of a rough year, reports the Miami Herald.

Security and Rights

• But high rates of violence and fear of kidnapping will likely deter many diaspora Haitians from returning for the holidays, according to the Haitian Times. (See Dec. 9's updates on the increase in abductions this year in Haiti.)

• Drugs flowing out of Venezuela are a threat to the Caribbean where they are associated with rising violence, according to the new U.S. House of Representatives report on Western Hemisphere Drug Policies. "The amount of cocaine moving through the region, mostly on go-fast boats and fishing vessels, has more than quadrupled in recent years, rising from 39 metric tons in 2011 to 185 metric tons in 2017. The Dominican Republic is the largest transit point, though traffickers are also moving large shipments directly into Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

• Caribbean nations have among the highest incarceration rates in the world but have been ineffective in reducing crime and drug trafficking according to an IDB report which highlighted the need to focus on reducing pre-trial detention and expanding rehabilitation and reintegration programmes: “Incarceration in the Caribbean is neither effective nor efficient in producing greater safety or just outcomes”. (Jamaica Gleaner, Nation News, Caribbean News Global, EwNews, Trinidad Express, Nationwide Radio)  

Covid-19

• A trial against a woman charged with breaching a coronavirus quarantine has provided insight into pandemic communications and oversight in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, according to iWitness News.

• Cayman Islands Premier Alden McLaughlin says a coronavirus mass vaccination campaign will be rolled out across the territory starting in January, and hopes to open local borders by March. (Caribbean National Weekly)

• Curaçao's government declared a 90-day state of emergency that permits police greater leeway in enforcing Covid-19 restrictions. (Curaçao Chronicle)

Democracy, Race, and Human Rights

• Representatives of the international community in Haiti, known as the Core Group, have expressed concerns about two presidential decrees issued by President Jovenel Moïse in November. One of the orders creates a national intelligence agency. The other was published under strengthening public security and expands the definition of terrorism. (Miami Herald)

• A U.S. Marine accused of transporting guns, ammunition and body armor to Haiti was found guilty of weapons smuggling in a U.S. federal court last week. Jacques Yves Sebastien Duroseau was arrested in 2019 at the Port-au-Prince airport with several guns and ammunition in his luggage. He reportedly sought to become Haitian president. Haiti is under an arms embargo. (Miami Herald, NPR)

• The Director of the Argentine Team of Forensic Anthropology (EAAF) Dr. Luis Fondebrider visited Guyana and is assessing his team can assist the police with the murders of West Coast Berbice (WCB) cousins Isaiah and Joel Henry as well as Haresh Singh. He visited the crime scenes and met with the families of the teenagers, reports Stabroek News.

• Bermuda’s first black and female governor, Rena Lalgie, was sworn into office on Monday. (CMC)

Corruption

• Former Bermuda Premier Dr. Ewart Brown could be facing corruption charges following a nine year police investigation. (CBC)

• Trinidad and Tobago passed a controversial procurement regulation bill, reports Global Voices.

• The United Kingdom published draft legislation which sets out the minimum it expects to see from British Overseas Territories when they publish the owners of companies registered there. The legislation – which is supported by the Overseas Territories themselves – will improve corporate transparency and deter illicit finance. (Loop News)
  

Climate Justice

• Seven Caricom countries spoke last weekend at the Climate Ambition Summit, that marked the 5th Anniversary of the Paris Agreement. Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley noted that global emissions of greenhouse gases continued to rise while the window of opportunity to meet the 1.5-degree target was rapidly closing. (Caribbean Climate Blog)

• What will become the largest solar farm in the Caribbean is under construction in St. Kitts and Nevis and is expected to be complete within 18 months. (Caribbean News Service)

• ExxonMobil said it would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, bending to pressure from investors that have been calling on the oil giant to address the risks posed to its business by climate change. But the pledge is limited and modest, and does not represent a change in strategy for the company, according to Inside Climate News. In fact, because Exxon’s new climate plan does not include a commitment to reduce oil production, this could still result in the company increasing its overall carbon footprint, notes Heated.

• Guyana and Suriname could help oil companies transition towards cleaner energy amidst investor pressure. (Menafm)
  

Anti-Colonialism and Reparations

• British Tory MP Richard Drax's fortune partially stems from his family's role as plantation owners in Barbados, reports the Guardian. The case is emblematic of contemporary reparations debates. Sir Hilary Beckles, chairman of the Caricom Reparations Commission and vice-chancellor of the University of the West Indies, estimates that as many 30,000 slaves died on the Drax plantations in Barbados and Jamaica over 200 years.

Archeology

• The discovery of a 115,000-year-old iguana nest (more specifically, it's fossilized remains) in the Bahamas greatly extends the natural history of iguanas in this location. (Conversation)
  

Culture Corner

• Marina Salandy-Brown, known as the ‘Godmother’ of Caribbean literature, was made honorary fellow of Royal Society of Literature. She founded the biggest literary festival in the Anglophone Caribbean, reports Global Voices.

• Set against the backdrop of protests that toppled Puerto Rico's governor in 2019, the film Landfall shares kaleidoscopic glimpses of collective trauma and resistance after Hurricane Maria. (Repeating Islands)

• Toussaint Louverture led the most important slave revolt in history, effectively forcing France to abolish slavery, in 1794. But the Haitian revolutionary hero gets short shrift in French history books, reports the New Yorker.

• Children's books by Caribbean authors for the readers among us. (Loop News)

We are pleased to announce that the Caribbean News Updates is public, and can be accessed at this site. Let us know if you are interested in signing up to receive it regularly. We will be taking a break for the holidays and will return the first week of January.

Caribbean News Updates (Dec. 9, 2020)

Migration

• Twenty-six Haitians detained in Guyana have been granted a temporary reprieve from deportation while the country's High Court determines the legality of their detention. Human rights groups, including the Caribbean Centre for Human Rights, Stand up for Jamaica and the Transparency Institute of Guyana Inc (TIGI), have objected to the migrants' detention as possible subjects of human trafficking, noting that detention is an inappropriate response for victims. (Kaieteur News, Demerara Waves, Jamaica Observer) Sir Ronald Sanders criticizes prejudice Haitian migrants face in other Caribbean countries. (Kaieteur News)

• Guyana's government suspended ferry service between the country and Suriname in order to block entry of more than 1,000 Cubans who say they want to come to the American embassy to seek asylum in the United States. Authorities believed that the Cubans want to enter Guyana to eventually enter Brazil. (Demerara Waves)

• A High Court judge in Trinidad and Tobago ruled that an 11-year-old Venezuelan child can be deported. The girl's mother lives in T&T and has United Nations High Commission for Refugee (UNHCR) asylum-seeker status, but the judge said the application by the child’s mother was void of evidence that she or her daughter were facing persecution in Venezuela, reports News Americas. (See Nov. 27's post.)

• The judge's decision hinged on the fact that the child's legal submission was based on the 2014 Draft Policy on Refugees and Asylum Seekers, a document that has been approved by Cabinet, but not by Parliament, explains Global Voices.

• One of the 13 prisoners deported from the UK to Jamaica last week has tested positive for Covid-19, the Jamaican government has confirmed. Many concerns were raised about the Covid risk of chartering a flight to Jamaica during the pandemic, reports the Guardian. The plane containing 13 prisoners took off on Wednesday - 23 were left off it following legal challenges. Campaigners said there was a risk people were being wrongly removed as had happened in the Windrush scandal, reports the BBC. 

• Alejandro Mayorkas, the first Latino chosen for U.S. president-elect Joe Biden's cabinet, will head a Department of Homeland Security that is expected to drastically overhaul President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration policies. Biden’s selection of Mayorkas was supported by several immigrant advocacy groups despite record deportations under the Obama administration, notes NBC.

• Security at the land and maritime borders between the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Jamaica will be reinforced through a cooperation program with five million euros from the European Union (EU). (Dominican Today)

Climate Justice

• This year's Goldman prize winner, Kristal Ambrose, had to overcome prejudice about class and race in her campaign against plastic waste in the Bahamas. Ambrose started her campaign close to home and among the young, before branching out to address the structural and political causes of the plastic problem, reports the Guardian. Ambrose helped draft the Bahamas' ban on single-use plastic that came into place this year.

• This year's record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season is officially over: 30 named storms, 13 or which developed into hurricanes, six of which became major hurricanes. (Cayman Compass)

• Weather experts say that global warming has upended old assumptions about Atlantic hurricanes -- storms are more frequent, stronger and later in the season than before. A larger portion of Latin America and the Caribbean may now be vulnerable to them, reports WLRN.

• The University of the West Indies' "State of the Caribbean Climate Report" notes that the extreme weather affecting the Caribbean requires a regional response.

• Environmental activists are protesting Disney's plans to build a multi-million dollar cruise destination in South Eleuthera in the Bahamas. (Caribbean News Service)

• Jamaica has assumed chairmanship of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (5Cs), which the government sees as an opportunity to advance its position of leadership on issues of climate change in the region. (Jamaica Observer)

• Aggressive algae is the latest deadly threat to Caribbean coral reefs -- Loop.

Human Rights

• At least 84 high schoolers became pregnant in a small Haitian town following Covid-19 school closures this year. In most cases students from rural areas were coerced, reports the Haitian Times.

• Trying to comprehend and explain what is happening in Cuba by reducing it to the San Isidro movement is to miss the forest for the trees, argues Alina Bárbara López Hernández in Jóven Cuba.

• All Dominicans will receive access to the Covid-19 vaccine once it is made available, according to Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit. (Caribbean News Service)

Economy and Finance

• CARICOM's members are mostly above the threshold for soft-loan and debt-forgiveness initiatives, despite the Caribbean being the most highly indebted region of the world. Because of this, the regional bloc has sought to implement a universal vulnerability index to determine countries’ eligibility for development assistance from the IMF. (Jamaica Gleaner)

• A new, 20-year treaty that will broadly define relations between the EU’s 27 member countries and 79 nations that belong to the Organization of African, Caribbean and Pacific States. It will replace the Cotonou Agreement, which was enacted in 2000 with the aim of reducing poverty and helping to integrate ACP countries into the global economy. The agreement focuses on six broad areas: human rights, democracy and governance; security; human and social development; environmental sustainability and climate change; sustainable growth; and migration and mobility, reports Politico. 

• Covid-19's economic toll in the Caribbean remains high, even as partial reopening boosts some recovery, according to the International Labour Organisation. (Caribbean News Service)

• Could the World Trade Organisation's Dispute Settlement system be a recourse for Caribbean countries blacklisted by the EU? Shridath Ramphal Centre 

• The United Kingdom’s representative in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) has so far declined to sign off on a new law to permit medical cannabis production and sales -- a move that has delayed the nascent industry, reports Marijuana Business Daily.

• Guyana’s multiple major oil discoveries beginning in May 2015 may have set the country on the path to realising a level of wealth not before seen in the Caribbean, but a recent World Bank Review still regards the country as being “one of the poorest in South America," notes Stabroek News.

• Guyanese President Dr. Irfaan Ali said his administration is currently having discussions for the development of a second city in Guyana. (Caribbean National Weekly)

Regional Relations

• Two joint projects announced by Guyana and Suriname -- a bridge across the Corentyne River linking the two countries and the construction of a US$1-billion offshore base to support huge oil discoveries -- will deepen the beneficial relations between the two countries and could have a positive effect for Caricom, argues Sir Ronald Sanders. (Jamaica Observer)

• Ruben Gonzalez-Vicente and Annita Montoute question the "South-South" characterization of Sino-Caribbean relations in Third World Quarterly.

Corruption

• Despite legal and policy-related advances, corruption ratings for Suriname have worsened in recent years -- Ine Apapoe explores why in Global Americans.

• Dominican Republic authorities carried out more raids within “Operation Octopus” that so far has left 10 former officials arrested and charged with corruption. (Dominican Today)

Gender

• Forty-five women and two girls have been murdered in Trinidad and Tobago so far this year -- 13 percent of the homicides to date. (Trinidad Guardian)

• St. Vincent and the Grenadines' first female Speaker of the House of Assembly, Rochelle Forde, was elected last month, and urged MPs not to equate “a particular gender” with weakness. (iWitnessNews)

Public Security

• Healthcare staff at many Haitian facilities went on strike last week in protest of an intern's kidnapping. The intern was released after a ransom payment, but the case indicates a broader problem with kidnappings, some of which may involve the police, reports AFP. Prominent journalist Guyler Delva was also victim of a kidnapping last week, reports the Caribbean News Service.

• According to the United Nations,there was a 200 percent rise in the number of reported abductions in Haiti in the first five months of 2020. But the real number is much higher according to some estimates -- Global Voices.

• Haitian small farmer and human rights organizations — including Grassroots International partners — denounce the ongoing violent land grabs in north and northeastern Haiti.

Anti-Colonialism

• Significant electoral gains by Puerto Rico's left in November's elections should be appreciated as a vote for decolonization and social change argues Luis Fernando Coss in NACLA.

• Aruba and Curaçao have agreed to liberalize their economies in order to qualify for continued financial support from the Netherlands, without which the islands would almost certainly have gone bankrupt. Sint Maarten, the third autonomous Dutch island in the Caribbean, has yet to meet the terms of Dutch aid, which include cutting public-sector salaries by 12.5 to 25 percent. (Atlantic Sentinel)

Culture Corner

• UK-based writer and curator of Bajan and Jamaican heritage, Aliyah Hasinah, muses on the disconnect between the Caribbean diaspora from the politics or culture of the lands they hail from, in a blog post about her Fresh Milk residency. (Repeating Islands)

• New publications by Daniel A. Rodríguez and Don Fitz demonstrate that there are deep historical roots to Cuba's twenty-first century medical exceptionalism. (NACLA)

• Two Trinidad and Tobago writers, Monique Roffey and Ingrid Persaud have been nominated for the 2020 Costa Book Awards. (WIC News)

• A "Sea of Empires: Networks and Crossings in the Revolutionary Caribbean," by Jeppe Mulich, analyzes the nature of imperial politics and colonial law in chapters centering on free ports and black markets, imperial warfare and colonial violence, prize courts and privateers, slave laws and free communities, abolition and the illegal slave trade, among other topics -- Repeating Islands.