Anti-Vax protests in the Caribbean (Aug. 10, 2021)

Anti-vaccine protests are popping up in Caribbean countries, particularly in response to efforts to make jabs mandatory for certain groups. 

Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, was hospitalized after being hit in the head with a rock thrown by a protester, at an anti-vaccine demonstration led by nurses and other workers. Gonsalves clarified that he would not make vaccines mandatory, but an amendment to the country's Public Health Act “requires certain frontline workers to be vaccinated” (Associated Press, iWitness News)

Caribbean leaders denounced the violent turn: "The introduction of violence into the political life of Caricom is shameful and deplorable and those responsible for it must be brought to justice with all due dispatch,” said Caricom chair Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne. (Jamaica Observer) “This development in Caribbean politics is reprehensible. We should all strongly condemn it,” said Sir Ronald Sanders, Antigua and Barbuda Ambassador to the United States.

Just a few days later, police in Antigua and Barbuda broke up an anti-vaccine protest with tear gas. (News Americas Now)

This weekend people in Guadeloupe marched during a French National Day Of Protest against the compulsory COVID-19 vaccination for certain workers and the mandatory use of the health pass called for by the French government.  The march came as French authorities appealed for volunteer doctors and nurses to travel to the country's overseas territories of Guadalupe and Martinique, where hospitals on the two islands are overwhelmed by a wave of COVID-19 infections. (Reuters, News Americas Now)

And in Barbados hundreds of demonstrators -- some reports say 2,000 people -- protested potential mandatory vaccination for Covid-19 policies. (Jamaica Gleaner, St. Lucia Times)

In Guyana there have not yet been major protests, but a multitude of local organisations and entities have already expressed their disdain over the incremental transition to a truly mandatory COVID-19 vaccine. (Kaieteur News)

The Jamaican Economy Panel said information campaigns pivotal to combat misinformation and increase vaccine uptake though more forceful measures could be considered. (Petchary's Blog)

More Covid-19

• Fears that Covid-19 jabs could impact fertility are driving some Jamaican women's vaccine hesitancy, reports Our Today.

Diplomacy

• CARICOM's 14 member states have less loyalty to the so-called community than to client relationships with richer and more powerful countries, writes Sir Ronald Sanders in his latest column. "More often than not in their relations with each other, and in their hemispheric and global affairs, it is their sovereignty that they exercise, not their community. Consequently, each of them has remained small, weak and inconsequential in global affairs."

Democracy

• Social media played a pivotal role in catalyzing widely dispersed demonstrations in Cuba last month. There is evidence it was not all spontaneous: "The hashtag #SOSCuba, which served as a major focal point for spreading the word on July 11, appears to have been driven to an extraordinary level of activity from bots and automated accounts based outside of Cuba, retweeting multiple times per second while disguising their footprints to appear as if the posts originated on the island," writes William LeoGrande in World Politics Review, while still emphasizing that this "does not change the irreducible reality of July 11: Thousands of Cubans were discontented enough to come out on the streets and join the protests."

• The U.S. embargo on Cuba is "a big distraction," that impedes the multilateral action that the Cuban people so desperately need, Human Rights Watch's Juan Pappier told NPR.

Climate Justice and Energy

• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has an interactive climate atlas that shows potential climate futures by region. Scientists are observing changes to the Earth's climate in every region and across whole climate systems, according to the Panel's latest report. (Caribbean News Service)

• The message from climate scientists in the IPCC report confirms the critical need for governments to take urgent action, and that it’s not too late to keep warming to 1.5˚C once concerted action is taken, says the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).

• Rising temperatures have inundated Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and Florida coastlines with Saragassum wreaking environmental and economic havoc. (The Conversation)

• A report commissioned by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) paints damning picture of Guyana’s Production Sharing Agreement with ExxonMobil, Hess and CNOOC. The report, which was authored by Tom Sanzillo, an American investment banker and financial analyst, highlights how the contract leaves Guyana at the mercy of the oil companies. (Kaieteur News)

• Among the contract’s weak provisions Guyana never imposed a “ring fence,” which means that the oil companies can charge the government for costs incurred for new development and pay for it out of the revenues from Liza Phase One, an oil field that commenced production in December 2019. (IEEFA) 

• The World Bank priced a catastrophe bond that will provide the Government of Jamaica with financial protection of up to US $185 million against losses from named storms for three Atlantic tropical cyclone seasons ending in December 2023.

• Repeated discharges into the Rio Cobre have negatively impacted the water quality of the river resulting in fish kills and loss of livelihood for fishers and community members, according to the Jamaica Environment Trust. (Our Today)

Human Rights

• Jamaican police authorities ordered an internal investigation after a 19-year-old woman claimed an officer forcibly cut off her dreadlocks that she had grown since birth as part of her Rastafarian beliefs, reports the Washington Post.

• "For many Jamaicans, this appeared to be yet another example of the policing of black hair," writes Emma Lewis at Global Voices, who notes that over the years, there have been regular conflicts regarding natural hair and dreadlocks.

Culture

• "Snaking through the hissing of the windy wetlands/Eyes stare in search of pea doves, iguanas, turtles and crabs/And windswept trees, but where are they to be found?" -- A protest poem (An Ode to Levera Wetlands and Mangroves that once was) -- Louise Nyack Francois

• Runner Jasmine Camacho-Quinn’s gold medal sparked a debate about Puerto Rican national identity. "Puerto Rico is, in fact, a U.S. colony in the 21st century. But although Puerto Rico lacks sovereignty, Puerto Ricans have created complex, fluid and ever-changing national identities in this context," Jorell Meléndez-Badillo writes in the Washington Post.
  

Security

• Haitian police have detained more than 40 suspects in the killing of President Jovenel Moïse, but many people fear Haiti’s crumbling judicial system could result in the assassination going unpunished, reports the Associated Press.
• Nearly a month after the murder, "the circumstances remain just as murky, with no shortage of suspects and speculation—and more new questions than answers," reports the Wall Street Journal. Key investigators are in hiding after receiving death threats.
• Amnesty International is calling on the government of Haiti to protect the families of a murdered journalist and an opposition activist who were gunned down in Port-au-Prince in June. Since the killing, family members and close confidants of the victims have told Amnesty International that both had received threats prior to their murder, and that they themselves are now facing intimidation for speaking to the authorities, reports the Miami Herald.
  

Economics and Finance

• Cuba's government approved legislation permitting the creation of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The major shift in policy comes a month after massive anti-government protests on the island, reports AFP. Cuba's government has accelerated economic reform in recent months, spurred by an economic crisis that stems, in part, from U.S. economic sanctions and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Gender and LGTBQ

• U.S. federal prosecutors charged three men with hate crimes in the 2020 assault of a transgender woman in Puerto Rico. They were charged for assaulting a transgender woman "because of her gender identity," reports CBS News.

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