Haiti's looming political crisis (Feb. 4, 2021)

 Haiti's protracted political crisis is likely to deepen this weekend. Government opponents say Feb. 7 is the last day of President Jovenel Moïse's term, while Moïse maintains that his mandate ends in February 2022.

The crisis comes amid rising unrest over an alarming rise in kidnappings and gang violence. This week unions staged a two day strike that shut down schools, businesses and markets. Protesters have filled the streets demanding Moïse's departure and an end to gang violence, reports the Miami Herald.

The disagreement over when Moïse's term stems over when it effectively began. The opposition argues the term started when that of former President Michel Martelly expired in February 2016, while Moïse said it started when he was sworn in, a year later due to a chaotic electoral process. The Federation of Bars of Haiti is backing up the opposition’s claim, noting in a recent six-page declaration that the president himself utilized the same narrow interpretation of the constitution in dismissing two thirds of the Senate last year. (Miami Herald)

Opposition party leaders plan to name a new head of state on Sunday, and agreed to create a commission tasked with choosing a president to lead the transitional government from members of Haiti's Supreme Court. Under their plan, The prime minister would be chosen among the opposition politicians, and the heads of government ministries would be selected by the new government. (Voice of America)

Moïse, who has been governing by decree for a year, said he will hand power over to the winner of a presidential election scheduled for September. Speaking on Monday, Moïse urged Haitians to support his constitutional reform proposal, reports the Associated Press. Haiti's government unveiled multiple proposed changes to overhaul the country’s Constitution, yesterday. Public meetings are scheduled to be held across Haiti for the next three weeks, ahead of the April 25 constitutional referendum, which would be the first one held in more than 30 years. (Associated Press)

Democratic Governance

• Haiti is among the worst performers in Latin America and the Caribbean in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index 2020. Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Dominican Republic all showed little improvement over their scores in previous years, while Guyana has improved 13 points since 2012.
• A new collection of essays edited by Global Americans seeks to "identify the causes of corruption in the Caribbean, while determining how it influences the region’s socioeconomic environment and pointing to what is needed to foster better governance going forward." The chapters look specifically at Suriname, Haiti, the Caribbean, and comparative perspectives.

Security and Rights

• Jamaica had the highest homicide rate in Latin America and the Caribbean last year, at 46.5 per 100,000 people, according to the 2020 Homicide Roundup by Insight Crime. Breaking from an overall decrease in “serious” crimes last year, shootings across the nation rose. Gangs in Jamaica and Haiti have reportedly been engaged in a deadly trade where marijuana is exchanged for guns.

• Trinidad and Tobago recorded a significant fall in homicides last year, a rate of 28.2 per 100,000, also according to InSight Crime's roundup.

• Puerto Rico closed 2020 with 529 killings and a homicide rate of 16.5 per 100,000 people. This marked a slight decline from last year’s total of 614 and meant the territory was able to welcome its lowest number of homicides in over 30 years. (InSight Crime)

• Arnel Joseph, a Haitian gang leader arrested in July 2019, testified to court he was working for both government officials and people in the opposition who frequently paid him in American currency. (Haitian Times)

• A recent documentary about mogul Peter Nygard's alleged sex crimes in the Bahamas, airs claims that the Canadian fashion mogul paid off senior Royal Bahamas Police Force officers to cover up his crimes. Commissioner of Police Paul Rolle defended the force and said there were no complaints against the officers. (Eyewitness News)

• The Bahamas government will immediately cease all forms of corporal punishment at children’s homes across the country, following an investigation into allegations of child abuse at the Children’s Emergency Hostel. (Eyewitness News)

• A court backlog in the Cayman Islands has led to dozens of people stuck in pretrial detention for years. (Cayman Compass)

Migration

• Trinidad and Tobago's treatment of Venezuelan migrants and refugees and its deportations of Venezuelans, including children and asylum seekers, are not only egregious rights violations but also a sad reminder of its unswerving allegiance to the Nicolás Maduro government, argue Human Rights Watch's Tamara Taraciuk Broner and Martina Rapido Ragozzino in Americas Quarterly.

Finance and Debt

• Suriname became the second country to default on its sovereign debt in the aftermath of Covid-19, last November. The country is yet another example of the failings of the international sovereign debt architecture, according to the European Network on Debt and Development, which says developing countries are being left to challenge powerful creditors in a playing field tilted against their development needs.

• The FinCEN leaks demonstrate how powerful onshore jurisdictions frequently turn a blind eye to wrongdoing by banks in their own backyards, while castigating offshore International Financial Centers which are often more tightly regulated than their onshore counterparts, argues Alicia Nicholls in IFC Review. As several Caribbean countries prepare for their inclusion on the EU tax haven "blacklist," "the FinCEN leaks have proven yet again why such heavy-handed actions against offshore IFCs are misplaced." (See last week's Just Caribbean Updates for more on the blacklist.)

• The U.S. Biden administration approved releasing $1.3 billion in funding for Puerto Rico as part of a Hurricane Maria disaster relief package, reports the Miami Herald.
  

• A month into Cuba's economic reform, the innovations have largely caused more social pain than anything else. And they come as Cuba faces the economic pain of harsh U.S. financial restrictions enacted by Trump and the mounting pressure of Covid-19, writes Abraham Jiménez Enoa in the Post Opinión. Periodismo de Barrio unpacks the specific economic reforms.

Gender and LGBTQ Rights

• Imminent decisions by the ancient Privy Council court in London will help determine whether marriages of same-sex couples will be permitted in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and more than a dozen other former British colonies. (Erasing 76 Crimes)

• Puerto Rican Governor Pedro Pierluisi’s declaration of astate of emergency on gender-based violence "is a long-awaited, hard-fought victory," writes Lizette Alvarez in the Washington Post. Last year, Puerto Rico saw at least 60 femicides — the murder of women because they are women — according to a local watchdog organization, the Gender Equity Observatory. This represents a frightening 62 percent increase over 2019. (See last week's Just Caribbean Updates.)

Climate Justice and Energy

• The UNEP launched the Regional Coalition on Circular Economy to support Latin America and the Caribbean in the transition to a circular economy as part of the COVID-19 recovery. The Coalition will support access to financing by governments and the private sector, with special emphasis on small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

• Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley stressed the need for collaboration among CARICOM members states and Latin America, which she described as “at-risk’ nations, to combat climate change and its adverse effects. (Barbados Today)

• ExxonMobil paid US$5.6 billion in income taxes last year, accounting for its global operations -- nearly four times Guyana’s 2020 budget. Kaieteur News makes the point that Guyana received nothing of this because ExxonMobil's contract for Stabroek block operation granted them a permanent tax waiver.

• The Jamaican Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries lifted a two-year ban on the fishing of an endangered species, Queen Conch, but Emma Lewis at the Petchary blog questions how the allowable catch of 250-300 metric tons will be monitored. 

Covid-19

• CARICOM nations are mostly unable to procure Covid-19 vaccine supplies independently, and await arrangements with the World Health Organization (WHO) and PAHO to deliver a vaccine they probably won’t see before April, "while waiting-in-line outside the locked gate," writes Earl Bousquet in the St. Lucia Times, advocating for quick approval of Cuban, Russian and Chinese vaccines for the region.
  

Diplomacy

• The 12 Guyanese fishermen who were detained by the Venezuelan military on January 21, along with their respective fishing vessels, Sea Wolf and Lady Nayera, were released earlier this week and were expected back in Guyana Friday. (Kaieteur News) President Mohamed Irfaan Ali, today, expressed gratitude to Guyana’s regional and international partners for their support in the episode with Venezuela. (See last week's Just Caribbean Updates.)

• Relations between Cuba and the U.S. don't go exclusively through government channels, but also through a multiplicity of parallel paths that include educational and cultural exchange, writes Rafael Hernández in Cuba Debate.

Culture

• Author Édouard Glissant identifies both the malaise of and the potential within Martinican society through a powerful collective narrative of geographic identity explored through multiple narrators in "Mahagony: A Novel" -- Repeating Islands.

• Leonardo Padura on Cuba's U.S. dependence and belonging. (Infobae)
• The African Caribbean Institute is presenting a series of lectures on storytelling for Black History Month -- or  Reggae Month in Jamaica, which inherited a legacy of oral tradition from West Africa, writes Emma Lewis at Petchary.
  

Upcoming Events

• Feb. 10 - The Caribbean Centre For Human Rights -- Virtual dialogue "Human Rights and National Security: Immigration Detention"

• Feb. 18 - Online streaming of LANDFALL – a documentary by Cecilia Aldarondo that examines the kinship of two storms – one environmental, the other economic – and juxtaposes competing utopian visions of recovery.
  

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