Mottley calls for "global moral strategic leadership" (Sept. 29, 2021)

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley used her United Nations General Assembly speech last week to decry "what she characterized as the international failure of ‘global moral strategic leadership’ by world leaders. “How many more crises need to hit before we see that the international system divides, not lifts?” she asked.

Setting aside her planned speech and quoting Bob Marley & the Wailers, Mottley criticized rich countries’ inertia in the face of the existential threats facing vulnerable countries and people “If we do not control this fire, it will burn us all down,” she said, in reference to the failure of rich countries to deliver adequate finance for others to adapt to climate change. (PassBlue)

“If we can find the will to send people to the moon and solve male baldness as I have said over and over, we can solve simple problems like letting our people eat at affordable prices.” (Caribbean Life)

She also called for more equitable vaccine access for the Global South and questioned the unwillingness of states to deal effectively with fake news even as they continue to defend the public digital spaces. (CMC)

Climate Justice and Energy

• "For the Caribbean, the climate crisis is an existential threat," write Pedro Abramovay and Heloisa Griggs in an Americas Quarterly piece on how China and U.S. rivalry could accelerate green investment "The Biden administration can help center the voice and power of vulnerable populations in anticipating, adjusting to, and withstanding climate impacts through increased climate financing and assistance. This could include a focus on renewable, distributed, and community-controlled microgrids, which can ensure energy sustainability after major climate disasters."
  
  
• Signatories to the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism (which will be launched at COP26 in November) are committing to cut global tourism emissions by at least a half over the next decade and reach Net Zero emissions as soon as possible before 2050. 
  
  
• The Allied for Climate Transformation by 2025 details five key priorities for vulnerable nations at the COP26 Climate Summit. (World Resources Institute)
  
  
• The Caribbean Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency  – a specialised energy agency of CARICOM -- and the Caribbean Climate-Smart Accelerator – a non-governmental organisation – have teamed-up to help advance and accelerate the Caribbean’s sustainable energy transition. (Kaieteur News)
  
  
• Dominica has lived through increasingly intense hurricanes and was devastated by Hurricane Maria, which laid bare vulnerabilities that date back to colonial decisions. For Dominica and all Caribbean islands, colonisation and climate change have, and will continue to have, damaging consequences -- Caribbean Comeback podcast episode on climate justice.
  
  
• About 86,000 Puerto Rican homes are suffering electrical outages this week, after sargassum affected a power station over the weekend. The woes are part of an ongoing energy crisis on the island. Governor Pedro Pierluisi has said the situation is unacceptable and the energy authority head resigned this week. (EFE)
  
  
• Guyana's oil profits are less than reported, due to an agreement with companies that absolves the
  companies from paying annual income taxes to the Guyana government. (Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis)

Debt, Finance and Economics

• The Caribbean’s fragile economy is being battered by the pandemic, leaving heavily-indebted countries ill-prepared to cope with violent hurricanes and other emergencies, say experts, who worry that rising Caribbean debt will reduce countries’ ability to borrow more money in the case of a major hurricane while forcing them to spend even more on servicing their borrowing costs.  (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction)
  
  
• Guyana President Irfaan Ali said his government supports the development of the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index (MVI) to aid Small Island Developing States , since the current system of using GDP per capita is inadequate.
  
  
• Cuts to the United Kingdom’s aid budget will hit lower-income and fragile countries harder than middle-income nations, some of which will enjoy aid budget increases, according to Devex.
  
  
• The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank launched a pilot program in March for the region’s first secure digital sovereign currency, known as DCash. It’s the digital equivalent of the Eastern Caribbean dollar, and bank leaders seek to explore whether the currency could lead to deeper financial inclusion, economic growth, resilience and competitiveness in the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union. (BVI Beacon)

Migration

• The pace and scale of U.S. expulsions to Haiti this month -- nearly 4,000 Haitian migrants, including hundreds of families with children, without allowing them to seek asylum -- could make the operation one of the swiftest and largest U.S. deportation campaigns of migrants by air, reports CBS. (See more recent coverage in the Latin America Daily Briefing.)
  
  
• The current tragedy at the US border is just the latest fallout from the U.S.’s failed policies toward Haiti, writes author Edwidge Danticat in the New Yorker. 
• Brought to the Dominican Republic by the promise of jobs in the sugar fields, Haitian Dominicans have spent generations in a Kafkaesque trap of statelessness, enduring decades of exploitation and even government-sanctioned murder, reports Jacobin.

Regional Relations

• The U.S. Biden-Harris administration can and should prioritize the immediate humanitarian needs of the Cuban people. U.S. leaders should uphold their campaign promises, empower the Cuban people to determine their own fate, and remove U.S. obstacles impeding stated U.S. policy goals, argues the Center for Democracy in the Americas in a new memorandum.
  

Covid-19

• Cuba has begun commercial exports of its homegrown COVID-19 vaccines, sending shipments of the three-dose Abdala vaccine to Vietnam and Venezuela, reports the Associated Press.

Education

• The University of the West Indies continues to rise among the upper echelons of the best universities in the world, according to the latest report from rating and standards agency Times Higher Education. (Jamaica Gleaner)
  

Caribbean Thinkers

• Jamaican political philosopher Charles Mills, best known for his first and now canonical 1997 book The Racial Contract, died. He used his gut-punching wit and moral clarity in defense of racial justice -- Dissent.

Culture

• Suriname’s 60-year-old vice president Ronnie Brunswijk inserted himself into a pro soccer match last week, becoming the world’s oldest professional soccer player, reports the Washington Post.
  
  
• Most literary mythical creatures draw from European folklore -- but some authors are adding to the monster canon by drawing from their respective Latinx cultures. (Tor)

• Love of cigars runs deep in many Caribbean countries. In fact, the word cigar comes from the Mayan word “Sikar,” which means “to smoke rolled tobacco leaves.” (Be Latina) 

Events and Opportunities

• COP26 Coalition is calling for decentralised actions worldwide on Nov. 6. Can’t find an action or local hub near you? You can organise one with the Coalition's assistance. 
  
  
• ACT2025's webinar, Securing an Ambitious and Just outcome at COP26: Insights from Vulnerable Countries featured Antigua and Barbuda´s Climate Change Ambassador Diann Black-Layne and Mark Bynoe (Guyana) of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre among others, and highlighted the central need to rebuild trust at the upcoming global meeting, given rich countries’ failure to make good on previously made commitments to vulnerable ones.
  
  
• The Ameena Gafoor Institute for Study of Indentureship and its Legacies is excited to announce the launch of the open access Volume 1, Issue 1 of the Journal of Indentureship and Its Legacies.
  
  
• Florida International University panelists will discuss recovery efforts disperse aid to isolated communities, and the preemptive steps to prepare for future extreme events in Haiti. Sept. 30 Registration 

We welcome comments and critiques on the Just Caribbean Updates. You can see the Updates on our website, as well as receive it directly through the mailing list. Thank you for reading.

Belize's green debt restructing (Sept. 21, 2021)

Belize could close a unique environmentally-friendly debt restructuring deal, to buy back a $526.5 million bond at a discount with money provided by the Nature Conservancy’s blue bond financing program, which will use private capital to help refinance nations’ public debt.

As part of the deal, the government would fund a $23.4 million marine conservation trust that would help protect the world's second-largest barrier reef. It would also enact “durable marine conservation efforts and sustainable marine-based economic activity.”

A significant portion of bond holders have expressed interest in the groundbreaking proposal. Belize's debt-to-GDP ratio is above 120%, and the country has defaulted five times in the last 15 years. Under the proposed deal, eligible holders who tender their bonds will receive 55 cents for every $1 in outstanding principal.

But there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical about the proposal, warns Eurodad's Daniel Munevar on Twitter. "The proposed restructuring is unlikely to restore debt sustainability. As a result, current bond holders might end up getting a better deal than under a comprehensive debt restructuring under an IMF program ... the green component of the deal seems more like a "greenwashing" smoke screen to distract from the fact that this agreement fails to ensure Belize's debt sustainability while providing an easy exit to bondholders"

The World Wildlife Fund, which has worked with the country, estimates that more than 40% of the population lives and works along its Caribbean coast and depends on its ecosystems for their livelihoods.

(Reuters, Bloomberg)

More Debt, Economics and Finance

• Economist Marla Dukharan signaled the Bahamas and Trinidad and Tobago as the next two Caribbean countries expected to default on their sovereign debt,  following defaults by Barbados and Suriname, with widespread repercussions for their economies, populations, creditors and, eventually, the corrective policy prescriptions that are likely to come to bailout vehicles such as the IMF, reports the Jamaica Gleaner.
  
  
• The Trade and Development Report 2021 argues that international coordination is key to reforming and rebalancing the global economy. The solutions proposed by UNCTAD include a concerted effort for debt relief (including cancellation), a reassessment of the role of fiscal policy in the global economy, greater policy coordination across systemically important economies, and renewed international support for vaccine distribution and deployment within developing countries.
  
  
•  The Bahamas’ national debt has surpassed the $10 billion mark due to the borrowing blow-out inflicted by the combination of COVID-19 and Hurricane Dorian. (The Tribune)

Speech

• Scores of new Cuban-made podcasts -- including the popular El Enjambre -- are competing for residents’ attention and limited internet bandwidth, upending the island’s hyperpartisan media landscape, reports the New York Times. While Cuban authorities block access to many news sites, and new regulations make it a crime to criticize the government on social media, they have not yet taken action to censor or block access to the more than 220 podcasts that are produced in Cuba or cater largely to Cuban audiences
  

Climate Justice and Energy

• The countries most vulnerable to climate change are calling for an "emergency pact" to tackle rising temperatures ahead of COP26. The Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) consists of countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Pacific. (BBC)
  
  
• Climate change is having multiple adverse health effects in the Caribbean, said the University of West Indies in the lead up to a conference on the issue in October. It said costly non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular, diabetes, cancer and respiratory diseases are partly caused by climate change.
  
  
• Key climate change threats in the Bahamas include risks to food security and tourism income, increases in displacement, and impacts on human health, according to a report by the Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience Research Centre at the University of the Bahamas.
  
  
• In small island developing states, the magnitude of IDPs is expected to rise due to the increasing impacts of climate change, particularly from the prevalence of more intense hurricanes, tropical storms and flooding, according to a report by the same Centre, which found that official displacement numbers in the Bahamas after 2019's Hurricane Dorian are likely a significant underestimation.
  
  
• The Cayman Islands' environmental authority has said the current blanket approach to planning applications to build on the oceanfront needs to be reconsidered because it is not climate resilient. The current high water mark setback rules are based purely on beach or ironshore and take no account of the variety of coastlines around the islands, the impact of the ocean in different places or rising sea-levels. (Cayman News Service)
  
  
• A year into office, Guyanese President Irfaan Ali’s administration has still done little to set itself apart from its predecessor on the disclosure of information, all the while maintaining a tight political grip on the oil sector. Despite his claim that his government has been transparent, a deficit still persists and widens, reports Kaieteur News.
  
  
• Barbados is pursuing what a key official called the “Norwegian model” by exporting oil and gas while cleaning up its own cars and electricity production, reports Climate Home News.
  

Covid-19

• The Caribbean showed the sharpest increase in food insecurity during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic during 2019 to 2020 the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) said in recent report. (Carib Mag Plus)
  
  
• Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States have “ample provision” in their constitutions to support mandatory vaccination laws, according to a confidential legal brief submitted to the countries' leadership. In addition, the governments of Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, St Kitts-Nevis and Montserrat, have been informed that there are corresponding jurisprudence and medical data to support the position of mandatory vaccination. (Carib Mag Plus, see Aug. 10's Just Caribbean Updates post)
  
  
• Cuba said it would seek World Health Organization approval for two home-grown coronavirus vaccines it hopes to commercialize widely, reports AFP. Cuban scientists say the Abdala and Soberana 02 jabs have been shown to be more than 90 percent effective at preventing symptomatic Covid-19 cases.
  
  
• Trinidad and Tobago’s health minister has dismissed claims by the rapper Nicki Minaj that a cousin’s friend had become impotent after receiving the Covid-19 vaccine, reports the Guardian.

Migration

• The U.S. is deporting Haitians from a makeshift border camp in Texas -- authorities expected to expel about 14,000 Haitians over the coming three weeks. It's the beginning of what could be one the US's swiftest, large-scale expulsions of migrants or refugees in decades, reports the Associated Press. Mexico said yesterday it would also begin deporting Haitians. A government official said the flights would be from towns near the US border and the border with Guatemala, where the largest group remains.
  
  
• Haitian officials have pleaded with counterparts to stop deportation flights, because the country is in crisis and cannot handle thousands of homeless deportees, reports the New York Times. Three flights were scheduled for yesterday, and six flights a day for the next three weeks, split between Port-au-Prince and the coastal city of Cap Haitien.

Public Security and Corruption

• Despite improving homicide statistics, Belize continues to regularly declare states of emergency due to crime rates. These repeated SOEs are seen as a “pause button” by authorities in Belize, but their effectiveness is in doubt, reports Insight Crime.
  
  
• The dismantling of a drug trafficking and money laundering network implicating government officials in the Dominican Republic has presented a serious challenge to President Luis Abinader’s anti-corruption drive, reports InSight Crime.

Privacy

• A controversial bill that would provide Jamaicans with a national identity card while collecting their personal information and biometric data could be replicated across the Caribbean. Some activists fear the proposal poses unique dangers for the country's trans population. (Coda Story)

Democratic Governance

• A coalition of progressive groups called for the U.S. Congress to abolish Puerto Rico's Fiscal Control Board, which they say has deepened economic strain for the U.S. territory's residents. (The Hill, El Nuevo Día)
  
  
• Critics of PROMESA, the law that created the oversight board, have called out its austerity-focused approach, its conflicts of interest, and its democratic legitimacy. They argue it hasn’t succeeded at doing what it claims to do — put Puerto Rico on the track to solvency. In fact, most Puerto Ricans view the board unfavorably, write Edoardo Ortiz and Gustavo Sánchez at Data for Progress.
  
  
• Earlier this year, "The Board," as it's called, sued Puerto Rican government officials, an attempt to invalidate a new local law — the Dignified Retirement Act — designed to protect pension-holders and essential services in the debt restructuring deal being considered in court. The Board, in taking this action, is violating the spirit of the power-sharing arrangement we established through federal law, wrote U.S. lawmakers Nydia Velázquez and Jesús “Chuy” García in The Hill.
  
  
• Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry might fall victim to an intense political battle for the country's leadership, after he has been linked to President Jovenel Moïse's July assassination by a prosecutor he fired. (See last Friday's Latin America Daily Briefing.)
  

Indigenous Rights

• Guyana SPEAKS continues its celebration of the Indigenous People of Guyana with a documentary filmed in the Village of Wakapoa, Pomeroon, Guyana. First Year Students from the University Of Guyana meet both Lokono and Warrau residents who discuss their visions for their people’s development. 

LGBTQ Rights

• Cuban officials published a draft of a new family code that would open the door to marriage equality if approved. The draft still needs to go to a grassroots debate, however, and will then be amended to take into account citizens’ opinions before going to a referendum. In 2018, the government withdrew a constitutional amendment that would have permitted same-sex unions in response to evangelical churches' campaigns. (Reuters)

Culture

• The roots of the Booker prize are problematic because of their links to colonialism and the British empire, according to organisers. (The Times of London)
  
  
• The Global Extraction Film Festival (GEFF) 2021—which this year consisted of more than 150 documentaries, shorts, and “urgent shorts” from over 40 countries—focuses on the various destructive impacts of extractive industries, primarily fossil fuels and mining. It was founded in 2020 by Jamaican filmmaker Esther Figueroa and Emiel Martens. (Global Voices)
  
  
• "The Buena Vista Social Club," 25 years after it became a surprise blockbuster -- Repeating Islands
  
  
• "Waiting for the Waters to Rise" by Maryse Condé, follows a Malian obstetrician living in Guadeloupe whose life is upended when he learns an undocumented Haitian immigrant has died during labor, leaving behind an infant girl. He ultimately travels to Haiti where he bears witness to the ravaging cycles of violence and prejudice that have long fractured the Caribbean nation -- Repeating Islands

Events

• Friends of the Earth Grenada presents a national conversation on CLIMATE CHANGE, FOOD SECURITY AND GOVERNANCE IN TIMES OF COVID-19, September 21 1900-2100.  

  
  

• The Timehri Film Festival, Sep 23 - 26. In honour of Indigenous Heritage Month in Guyana, videos will be screened by and in Indigenous-Guyanese communities, and in Indigenous communities in Colombia. 
  
  

• Climate Resilience in the Caribbean - Lessons from Puerto Rico and Cuba (Environmental Defense Fund),  23 September
  
  

• WHO/Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children - Corporal punishment of children and public health: what does the research tell us? - 5 October
  
  

• As part of the fifth UNESCO National Indigenous Languages Faire 2021, Voices Guyana will be presenting on “Bilingual and Inter-Cultural Education for migrant indigenous peoples and receiver communities in Guyana” on 14 September 
  
  

• Inaugural TCI Fellowship Conference: Pollution Externalities & Community Realities, October 6. Registration: Registration is now live on Eventbrite. . The Conference will feature fantastic speakers, a Fellow breakout session, live musical performances, and more. 

 Opportunities

• Applications Open for UN Women Caribbean Regional Spotlight Initiative Small Grants
  
  
• Climate Tracker is funding Global South journalists to report on COP26! You can direct questions to dizzanne@climatetracker.org or apply direct. 1) COP26 Climate Justice Fellowship (online, for journalists from across the Global South)  https://bit.ly/cop26-online-web; 2) COP 26 Climate Journalism Fellowship (in-person, for journalists from the Global South residing in Europe or the UK)   https://bit.ly/cop26-inperson-web
  
  
• University of the West Indies Institute of International Relations - Online training module: Caribbean Small States and Disaster Diplomacy to be held from 21st - 24th February, 2022.  For information on this certificate training opportunity, including on the course tuition fee and Facilitator, please click here.

We welcome comments and critiques on the Just Caribbean Updates. You can see the Updates on our website, as well as receive it directly through the mailing list. Thank you for reading.

"Tax havens" -- Who decides? (Sept. 9, 2021)

The Bahamas, Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands are among the 17 low-tax districts scrutinized in a new report from the EU Tax Observatory, which found that Europe’s top banks are siphoning an extra €20 billion a year by shifting profits to "tax havens." That accounts for 14% of their total profits, the analysis found. 

Despite the growing public debate over tax havens, "European banks have not significantly curtailed their use of tax havens since 2014," the study noted. "These countries exhibit a higher chance of being used by banks as a means of avoiding taxation, rather than having real production activities in the country."

(CNBC, Politico, Nassau Guardian)

The list brings up a perennial issue regarding tax havens, which is who is doing the identification and for what purpose. "Identifying a tax haven isn’t as simple for the governments intent on controlling them as it is for the taxpayers who seek them out. This is mainly because governments and international organizations tend to think a tax haven is somewhere other than where they live," wrote Beverly Moran in the Conversation earlier this year. "For example, the European Union produces an annual list of tax havens that contains no EU member countries, even though many other lists identify Ireland, Luxembourg and a host of other European countries as tax havens." 

Indeed, crackdowns by highly developed countries against "tax havens" have unfairly targeted smaller Caribbean countries while turning a blind eye to countries in the Global north that have similar fiscal structures. A proposed global minimum tax would impact a region already hit by the pandemic economic downturn, writes Bruce Zagaris in Global Americans.

(See Jan. 28's Just Caribbean Updates for more on the issue.)

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Guyana rejects Venezuela "accord" on Essequibo

Representatives of Venezuela's government and opposition reached partial agreements in Mexico City negotiations this week. The partial accords include the country's approach to the coronavirus pandemic and Venezuela's stance on a disputed border area controlled by Guyana.

The two sides also agreed Venezuela has a "historic and inalienable" claim to Guyana's Essequibo region, the focus of a century-old dispute, reports AFP. They share the idea of "reconquering" the 159,000 km area of Guyana, reports El País. Venezuelan prosecutors have previously accused Guaido of treason for allegedly plotting to hand over Essequibo to multinational companies.

Guyana officials and opposition politicians objected strenuously to the terms of accord. “That agreement is an overt threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Guyana,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said in a statement. “Guyana cannot be used as an altar of sacrifice for settlement of Venezuela’s internal political differences. While the government of Guyana welcomes domestic accord within Venezuela, an agreement defying international law and process is not a basis for mediating harmony,” the statement added.

The Guyana-Venezuela dispute is before the International Court of Justice.

(CMC, Kaieteur News)

Democratic Governance

• What does “semiautonomous” mean for Puerto Rico's governance? The question has increasingly vexed Puerto Rico’s residents, the federal government, and the Supreme Court, reports the New Republic. Now a potential case before the justices has reframed the question in unusual terms: whether Congress can ban cockfighting within Puerto Rico.  
  

Climate Justice and Energy

• Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley criticized wealthy nations' failure to live up to their climate commitments, and called for debt restructuring or cancellation to give fiscal space for climate adaptation for small island developing states. Speaking at the Argentina-hosted High-Level Dialogue on Climate Action this week, she also called for the adoption of a multidimensional vulnerability index so that middle income countries can access concessional finance.
  
  
• Vaccine inequity, unaffordable accommodation, travel challenges and new surges in the Covid19 pandemic will lock out huge numbers of developing country delegates from the UN climate talks set to take place in November, warns the Climate Action Network. An in-person COP in early November would de facto exclude many government delegates, civil society campaigners and journalists, particularly from Global South countries, many of which are on the UK’s Covid19 ‘red list’. This week the U.K. government said it had offered to cover the hotel quarantine costs of delegates from red list countries. (Guardian)
  
  
• Ayuda Legal Puerto Rico released its "Third Report Towards a Just Recovery" which addresses the intersection of housing justice, land justice and climate justice in the wake of Hurricane Maria.
  
  
• The Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience Research Centre at the University of Bahamas launched a new website looking to generate learning from the experiences of people in Hurricane Dorian in 2017.  It contains a short documentary on Hurricane Dorian and climate change, broad results of our national survey on disaster risk management, collected stories of Dorian that highlight climate justice issues, and other resources.
  

• Remote Black communities with their own distinct identities, language, and culture have been under relentless siege by the threat of commercial development -- the case of Barbuda, where the Antigua government is challenging the island's 200-year tradition of communal landholding, is yet another example, writes Mikki Harris in National Geographic. "Barbuda is not just land.  It is a Black diasporic identity.  It is 1,500 lives that represent a freedom tradition, a legacy worth fighting for and preserving."
  
  
• Colombia's Constitutional Court is evaluating a guardianship request presented by 90 Raizal families from the Caribbean island of Providencia, who seek the protection of their rights after the impact they suffered from Hurricane Iota in November 2020. (El Tiempo)
  
  
• Jamaica's attitude towards  mangroves seems schizophrenic, writes Emma Lewis at Petchary's Blog. "On the one hand, the relevant Government agencies go out of their way to celebrate mangroves and to teach schoolchildren about their importance. On the other hand, the mangroves are destroyed – primarily in the name of tourism and highways – and then, at some point, replanted."

Public Security

• Haiti’s government promised to fight criminal organizations, and warned about a spike in kidnappings and other crimes. But two gang leaders retorted that any crackdown will bring greater violence aimed at police in the already unstable country, reports the Associated Press.
  
  
• Haiti's recent earthquake has created a whole new generation of orphans, who are vulnerable to street gangs and sexual violence. Complicating the response for vulnerable children is the damage sustained by so many of the region’s schools, reports the Guardian.

Economics and Finance

• Remittances to Latin American and Caribbean countries declined less than originally predicted during the Covid-19 pandemic because many migrants are in essential jobs and industries benefiting from U.S. income-protection measures, writes Gabriel Cabañas at the AULA blog.

Food Security

• Jamaica is undertaking a major assessment of its food systems ahead of the global U.N. Food Systems Summit. (Petchary's Blog)
  
  
• Weather events -- such as massive floods this year -- are affecting Guyana's food production, and, together with Covid-19 increased food costs, can push parts of the country's population into food insecurity. (Guyanese Online)

Women

• The sex work industry in Latin America and the Caribbean was affected tremendously by Covid-19, particularly migrant workers, writes Shanna- Kay Gillespie at Feminitt. "For the Caribbean feminism movement to make strides, sexual minority works, and inclusion needs to be at the forefront."
  

Histories

• A 19th century "Golden Carriage" built for the Dutch royal family, which depicts glorified scenes of slavery and colonial opression, is a source of conflict in The Netherlands. (New York Times)
  
  
• "The critical thing for Latin America and especially for the Caribbean is that these are parts of the world in which the vast majority of the preconquest population was either exterminated or displaced or marginalised," historian Richard Drayton Kings College London Decolonising History Project. "Essentially decolonisation in the Caribbean and Latin America is very much linked to an assertion of the hybridity, of the mixed, metisse, mestizo character of people of the Caribbean and Latin America."

Culture

• “Dust Specks on the Sea: Contemporary Sculpture from the French Caribbean & Haiti,” approaches to the subject matter, materials and processes that address contemporary practices by various artists of the Caribbean region. This helps create a globalized space encompassing an art world that puts pressure on who is at its “center” and who is on its “periphery," reports ABQ News.
  

We welcome comments and critiques on the Just Caribbean Updates. You can see the Updates on our website, as well as receive it directly through the mailing list. Thank you for reading.

Surinamese ex- president Bouterse's murder sentence upheld (Sept. 2, 2021)

A Suriname court confirmed former President Desi Bouterse's 20-year jail sentence for the murder of 15 people in 1982, while he governed as military dictator. Bouterse, 75, was not present at the verdict due to an illness.

The judges upheld the prison sentence that Bouterse was given in 2019 for the murders of 15 opponents to his military regime. Because Bouterse was never present during that trial, he was sentenced in absentia. He then filed an objection, forcing the court-martial to reconsider his case.

Bouterse was on trial for murder and co-perpetration of  the murder of 15 critics of his then-regime on 8 December 1982, known as the "December Murders." At his command, sixteen men had been arrested on the night of 7 to 8 December that year and transferred to Fort Zeelandia, then the headquarters of the Surinamese National Army. Fifteen of those men had been tortured that night and summarily executed.

Bouterse became a democratic president in 2010 after his National Democratic Party won the elections. He remained in power until last year when his party suffered an election defeat, and his rival Chan Santokhi became the new president.

(NL Times, Demerara Waves, New York Times)

Human Rights

• An estimated 30 percent of 48 children’s homes in the south of Haiti that care for about 1,700 children were damaged by the Aug. 14 earthquake. Save the Children, an organization of civil society, has warned that children who lost caregivers in the quake are at risk of neglect, different forms of abuse or even trafficking. (St. Kitts Nevis Observer)
  

Climate Justice and Energy

• The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says events like floods, droughts, and heatwaves account for over 90 percent of all disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean in the last 20 years. It warns that climate change impacts are likely to become more intense for the region, reports IPS.

• Climate change is affecting the Atlantic storm season in a variety of ways; warmer oceans mean hurricanes have stronger winds, more rain, slower movement, wider-ranges, and volatility. (New York Times)

• Indicators of the impact of climate change on health and of health-related adaptation and mitigation measures can enable evidence-based policy and initiatives. This presentation, to the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) Online Scientific Conference 2021, presents research with stakeholders in Caribbean and Pacific Small Island Developing States to identify priority areas for research and action in these highly vulnerable regions.

• Central and South America and Small Islands generally report greater constraints and both hard and soft limits to adaptation to climate change. (Regional Environmental Change)

• Grand Cayman currently lacks sufficient hurricane shelter capacity to cope with expected demand in the event of a major storm. There are 15 shelters across the island with space for 5,120 people – just 8% of the population. (Cayman Compass)

• ExxonMobil plans to use Corexit 9500, a highly toxic chemical dispersant in the event of an oil spill in any of its projects off of Guyana's coast. Corexit was banned in the UK and faulted for severe human and environmental harms when used in previous oil spills such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the Macondo oil spill, reports Kaieteur News.

Indigenous rights

• Guyana President Irfaan Ali promised that an updated Amerindian Act will become the principal legal means of protecting the rights of indigenous people including as it relates to their entitlement to lands and rights over those lands. Amerindian leaders for years have been calling for a revamping of the Act and for the full recognition of their rights to ancestral lands, reports Stabroek News.

• Guyana has provided the world with a model for the reconciliation of indigenous titled lands and national protected areas, argues Jessica George-Joseph, in a piece that points to the promulgation of the Amerindian Act in 2006 by Guyana’s parliament, afterwhich the government declared and demarcated several indigenous territories. (ICUN World Conservation Congress)
  

Gender and LGBTQ+

• Trinidad and Tobago's government has preserved a historic gender binary perspective that marginalizes queer identities, its failure to establish gender as an integral component of identity along with its continued use of binary gender language in official documents like cultural policy, argues Shari Bissoondatt at Feminitt Caribbean Blog.

Human Rights

• At Puerto Rico’s two juvenile lockups, isolation among detained youths — and temporary shortages among the staff trained to deal with it — have led to a worrisome spike in the number of youths contemplating or attempting to injure themselves, reports the Miami Herald.
  

Debt, Finance and Economics

• What can debt reveal to us about coloniality and its undoing? In Colonial Debts: The Case of Puerto Rico, Rocío Zambrana theorizes the way debt has been used as a technique of neoliberal coloniality in Puerto Rico, producing profit from death on the island -- New Books in Caribbean Studies

• St. Lucia's new Labour government plans to immediately undertake a process of debt restructuring, in keeping with its campaign platform promise to renegotiate and consolidate existing loans to ease the burden of repayments. (St. Lucia News Online)

Labor

• An International Organization for Migration report provides an overview of the mechanisms that facilitate regular labour migration in the Caribbean, as these mechanisms constitute important elements in regional and national migration governance structures.
  

Regional Relations

• Haitian women who had children with U.N. peacekeepers face intricate legal battles to obtain child support -- the vast majority of cases have stalled in Haiti’s courts and lawyers say judges are reluctant to rule against international institutions or countries providing Haiti with vital aid. In the wake of a presidential assassination in July, and a major earthquake in August, calls for the U.N. to dispatch new peacekeepers triggered resentment among the women left to raise children alone, reports Buzzfeed.
• A broad coalition of 344 organizations called on the U.S. Biden administration to expand relief for Haitian migrants, including halting all deportations to the country, reports The Hill. At least 130 people deported from the U.S. to Haiti since President Jovenel Moïse's assassination in July.
• The United States announced, last week, that it’s providing an additional $32 million in humanitarian assistance to Haiti, part of a broader response to the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that devastated the country's south earlier this month. (Miami Herald) 

• The first ever Caribbean Community (CARICOM)-African Summit will take place virtually on September 7 -- Nation News

• The Cuba Study Group explains U.S. policies on remittances to Cuba.

Covid-19

• Returning to 2019 annual levels of tourism arrivals and expenditures will be gradual, warns the IDB's Caribbean Quarterly Bulletin 

• Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley said her government will not implement mandatory Covid-19 vaccination policies. (Barbados Today)

• The Guyana Teachers’ Union, Guyana Public Service Union and their umbrella Guyana Trades Union Congress asked the High Court to quash the government’s vaccination policy which they say amounts to coercion to take the jab -- Demerara Waves
  

Health

• On several Caribbean islands, sea moss has been used medicinally for centuries, but it has recently become increasingly popular around the world as a so-called ‘superfood’ because of its various health benefits -- Caribbean Export Development Agency

Culture

• Afro-Barbadian American writer Rachelle J. Gray’s novel “Kingstown Burning” is a literary social commentary told through the lens of a contemporary cast of Caribbean characters of Rastafari faith, who brave the choppy realities that a new economic order brings into their world -- Repeating Islands
  

Upcoming

• Making Up Your Mind About Natural Resources & The Extractive Sector -- Policy Forum Guyana (PFG) Sept. 1-3

• The second Global Extraction Film Festival, founded by Jamaican film-maker Esther Figueroa, will take place from 9-12 September with over 150 documentaries and shorts from over 40 countries, including a special Focus on the Americas that includes the Caribbean.

• Cuba: An American History: Ada Ferrer with Ben Rhodes -- Sept. 9, New York Public Library

• The Latin American and Caribbean Research Network calls for proposals for the project “LGBTQ+ Persons in Latin America and the Caribbean: Measuring Population Sizes and Obstacles to Economic and Social Inclusion.”
  

We welcome comments and critiques on the Just Caribbean Updates. You can see the Updates on our website, as well as receive it directly through the mailing list. Thank you for reading.