Jamaica's reparations request (July 30, 2021)

A Jamaican proposal for reparations would ask Britain for compensation for the Atlantic slave trade's impact on the former colony. 

The government's reparations petition is based on a private motion by Jamaican lawmaker Mike Henry, who said it was worth some 7.6 billion pounds, a sum he estimated is roughly equivalent in today's terms to what Britain paid to slaveholders after abolishing slavery in 1834. To compensate slave owners, the British government took out a 20 million pound loan - a very large sum at the time - and only finished paying off the ensuing interest payments in 2015.

Opposition leader Mark Golding said there’s bi-partisan support for the effort and also pointed to a CARICOM initiative to seek reparations which Jamaica is part of. CARICOM’s 10-point program for ' ‘reparatory justice’ ‘is framed as a development strategy to use reparations payments to deal collectively with economic and educational challenges facing the Caribbean.’

(Reuters, Caribbean Life News)

Climate Justice and Energy

• An international climate minister's meeting in Paris wrapped up this week reaffirming the commitment to prioritising loss and damage — a contentious article under the Paris Agreement which small island developing states have been lobbying to put on the agenda, reports the Jamaica Observer. Loss and damage includes the effects of sudden-onset climate disasters such as hurricanes, as well as slow-onset events such as sea level rise.

• Caribbean countries are experiencing the full range of climate impacts, from coastal erosion driven by sea level rise, to extended drought periods, to more frequent and severe hurricanes and tropical storms, warns Jamaica-based ocean scientist Danielle Nembhard. “A liveable future for all Small Island Developing States hangs in the balance as we barrel towards a threshold from which recovery is unlikely," she told Ours to Save.

• From heatwaves to flash floods, the Caribbean islands continue to be among the regions most threatened by climate change. Islands and coasts see their future most compromised, inciting migration to “safer” regions. These instances of dangerous climate change and migration in the Caribbean are captured by extraordinary Haitian photographer Cristina Baussan, reports Kulture Hub.

• Guyana is a carbon sink and a climate leader, but has been airbrushed out of the global climate movement due to its status as a developing country, environmental lawyer Melinda Janki told the Climate Curious podcast by TEDxLondon. She makes the broader point that the people who have contributed the most to climate change are not really the ones that are bearing the brunt of it.

• IT technicians have detected what they have described as a collective and continued effort to bring down Kaieteur News' website that appears to be well funded. The newspaper is highly critical of Guyana's oil extraction management. 

Environment

• Locals near the Dominican Republic's Puerto Viejo mine say Barrick Gold is literally poisoning the area -- Jacobin. 

Finance and Economics

• The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the risk of a debt crisis for low- and middle-income countries, warns Unicef. In many countries, debt payments outweigh government budgets for social expenditure.

Covid-19

• The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) wants the region to develop platforms for producing and distributing new vaccines and medicines as part of “a concerted regional health strategy." (Caribbean Media Corporation)

• The Covid-19 pandemic has deepened preexisting socio-economic inequalities in Jamaica. The pandemic largely exacerbated extant issues of low, uncertain incomes, with the added risk of catching the virus and falling ill, according to a report by the Caribbean Policy Research Institute.

• CARICOM should be proud of the success of a Caribbean woman who was at the center of the effort to manage the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Dominican born Dr. Carissa Etienne, the Director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), writes Sir Ronald Sanders.

Regional Relations

• CARICOM countries called on the U.S. to lift its trade embargo against Cuba. In a July 26 letter sent to President Joe Biden, CARICOM chairman and Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne said that “strong and mutually beneficial relations” have been developed between Cuba and the Caribbean countries over a 49-year period and CARICOM regards “Cuba and its people as a valuable and respected member of our family of Caribbean nations”. (Caribbean Media Corporation)
  

Indigenous Rights

• Belize's Supreme Court ruled in favor of Maya land rights in Jalacte Village vs. the Attorney General, ruling that the government breached the Maya Peoples’ constitutional rights, obligating Belize's government to return the lands that had been taken without the community’s consent and ordering compensation of the equivalent of $3.12 million, reports Cultural Survival.  
  

Migration

• More than 10,000 migrants from Haiti, Cuba and several African countries, many trying to reach the United States, are overwhelming Necoclí, a town on Colombia’s north coast on the way to the dangerous Darién Gap. Migrants are spurred by worsening conditions in Haiti and Cuba, and the recent reopening of South American borders. But officials say the surge is creating a public health emergency in the midst of the pandemic, reports the Washington Post.
• The U.S. could soon be facing dual migrant crises stemming from Haiti and Cuba. In response, the Biden administration has preemptively warned migrants not to try to come to the U.S. by boat, reports Vox.
• The first group of almost 100,000 Venezuelan migrants without legal status in the Dominican Republic have received visas allowing them to work, open bank accounts and join the social security system under the country's Migration Normalization Plan, reports the International Organization for Migration.

Culture

• The Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico is an institution for activism, according to its executive director and chief curator, Marianne Ramírez Aponte. “In Puerto Rico we are facing so many challenges: financial difficulties, social inequality, challenges in our education system, climate crises plus earthquakes and hurricanes," Ramírez told Forbes. She explains that they approach these issues in a cross disciplinary manner and regularly work with scientists, human rights organizations and environmental groups.  

• “Landfall” and “Stateless,” two new films about Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, portray complexity rarely granted to Caribbean narratives, according to the New York Times. "The films lean into ambiguity and uncertainty, resisting a binary vision of pure abjection or simple victory."

• The World Food Travel Association (WFTA) named Grenada and its sister islands Carriacou and Petite Martinique the world’s first “Culinary Capital.” (Caribbean Life News)
  

Hello again, I'm returning after a welcome two-week break. We welcome comments and critiques on the Caribbean News Updates, which is still a work in progress. You can see the Updates on our website, as well as receive it directly through the mailing list. Thank you for reading.