Jamaica's state of emergency (Nov. 19, 2021)

Jamaica's government declared a state of emergency in seven police districts on the island on Sunday, in response to increases in violent crimes, ranging from 16 to 57 per cent. Prime Minister Andrew Holness said the murder rates in these districts far surpasses the national average of 15 per 100,000 inhabitants, reaching as high as 190 per 100,000. (Jamaica Information Service) 

Jamaica's homicide rate is among the highest in the world -- in a country with a population of nearly 3 million, more than 1,240 Jamaicans were murdered in the first ten months of the year despite no-movement days and nightly curfews brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, notes the Jamaica Gleaner.

Critics of the government's iron-fist move say the policy has limited reach. "The prime minister is pinning the hopes of the nation on a strategy that has already been tried," argues a Gleaner editorial. "The results then were not spectacular, but even more troubling is the fact that the constitutionality of such measures is still to be determined by a court of law. What happens if the court confirms that SOEs are unconstitutional?"

Human rights lobby group Jamaicans for Justice voiced concern "that knee-jerk reactions to tackle crime and violence often result in the infringement of the human rights of the most vulnerable" and questioned the sustained use of states of emergency "creating a possible de facto military state." (Jamaica Gleaner)

United Independents' Congress of Jamaica called for social policies aimed at loosening gang grip in affected neighborhoods. (Jamaica Observer) And the People's National Party suggested that a balanced approach involving the strengthening of the Peace Management Initiative islandwide could be used instead of states of emergency to eliminate violent crimes.

In response to rising crime rates, the country passed the National Consensus on Crime in mid-2020, a crime reduction plan that is being overseen by a multi-sectoral, non-partisan committee, reported InSight Crime in March. The plan calls for the prioritization of effective social and community programs, reforming Jamaica’s Constabulary Force and the incorporation of the military into targeted crime fighting efforts in areas racked by high numbers of killings and other violent crimes.

The ongoing landmark trial of dozens of members of the Klansman gang in Jamaica -- who of face charges of criminal organization, murder, arson, extortion and illegal possession of firearms -- is shedding light on how criminal groups function on the island, reports InSight Crime. The outcome is also likely to be seen as a bellwether for government efforts to curb escalating violence through Plan Secure Jamaica.

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SIDS, fossil fuels and COP26

Island nations under threat from climate change were incensed by the final wording of the Glasgow Climate Pact last weekend, in which India and China watered down a pledge to “phase out” fossil fuels, replacing the phrase with "phase down." "The very language they are using shows us that they are trying to game the system. For us in the Caribbean, in the Pacific Ocean, this is imperiling our very existence," Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne told the Washington Post.

Instead some small island developing nations are taking the case to court. Antigua and Barbuda signed a new agreement with Tuvalu, recently joined by Palau, aimed at finding legal levers to compel large emitters to pay a price for the destruction in island states, reports the Washington Post. 

The countries announced a commission that would investigate legal ways to hold large emitters responsible for the loss and damage experienced in their home countries and other SIDS. The issue is existencial for island nations, writes Zico Cozier at Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. (Global Voices)

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Reconstruction in Providencia, San Andres and Catalina

A year after Hurricane Iota devastated the Caribbean islands of Providencia, San Andres and Catalina, the archipelago's reconstruction is far behind the 100 days promised by Colombian President Iván Duque.

While the Colombian government has rebuilt nearly 900 homes on Providencia, residents still rely on a field-campaign tent hospital, and about 800 more homes are still unfinished, reports El País.

But organizations of civil society say lack of information by official entities in charge of reconstruction on the islands doesn't permit a real balance on the advances over the past year, reports El Espectador.

Climate Justice and Energy

• Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley "is on a mission to make the international financial system deliver for those on the frontline of the climate crisis," reports Climate Change News.  "Armed with concrete proposals, Mottley elevated wonky discussions about the global finance system to the highest political level," at COP26.
  
  
• Malene Alleyne explores the framework to leverage economic, social, cultural and environmental (ESCE) rights as a tool against climate change, in a guest blog for the “Caribbean Voices for Climate Justice” series. (Canari)
  
  
• For the vast majority of countries, and especially in the case of developing countries, without strong and progressive interventions from the public services sector much of the agenda set by the Nationally Determined Contributions to reduce emissions will not be possible, warns Sandra Massiah in another guest blog for the series. (Canari)
  
  
• The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and The Nature Conservancy are calling for governments to urgently invest in climate change adaptation measures to tackle the growing climate crisis in the Caribbean.
  
  
• Puerto Rico's efforts to privatize its electricity system have become part of an "almost biblical saga," according to the Washington Post.
  
  
• Anti-corruption watchdog Transparency Institute of Guyana Inc denounced the government's negligence in failing to meet the deadline for the audit of over US$9 billion in expenses claimed by ExxonMobil. (Stabroek News)

Public Security

• It has been 30 days since 17 foreign missionaries were kidnapped at gunpoint in the Haitian rural community of Ganthier, the group includes five children, the youngest of which is 8 months old. According to the Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights in Port-au-Prince, at least 803 people have been abducted between January and October of this year, reports the Miami Herald.
  
  
• The Haitian G9 gang coalition eased a blockade on fuel deliveries that has caused crippling shortages in the country for nearly a month, reports Reuters. But the relief is temporary, reports the Associated Press. Gang federation leader Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier held a news conference Friday to announce a seven-day reprieve for hospitals, schools and gas stations to send trucks to the Port-au-Prince port refueling station. He warned the blockade would resume if Prime Minister Ariel Henry did not resign.

Debt and Economics

• A New York judge is set to rule soon on largest local government bankruptcy in US history -- the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. "The judge will decide whether to approve a debt restructuring deal that will have major consequences for Puerto Rico’s people and economy over the next several decades. It is a deal reached by holders of Puerto Rican debt and the Financial Oversight and Management Board, a congressionally created fiscal control board with the power to negotiate on behalf of Puerto Rico’s government," explains Cathy Kunkel in Jacobin.

Covid-19

• Puerto Rico is a Covid-19 relative success story. Part of the reason was an early lockdown, followed by widespread vaccination, reports the Economist.

Diplomacy

• China’s Confucius Institutes in Latin America and the Caribbean form a cornerstone of its global public diplomacy efforts – with an increasingly clear emphasis on laying the groundwork for deeper business relations -- Aula Blog.

Indigenous Rights

• The Caribbean Maroons and Merikins are joining global efforts to protect and reclaim Indigenous lands and societies.They are faced with rising stakes, including threats to their land, to their bodies, and criticism from detractors who claim that their Indigeneity is nullified by their Blackness — that they cannot claim a kinship to a land to which their ancestors were brought, reports Teen Vogue.

Culture

• Grenada restored the country's Underwater Park, created by the British-Guyanese sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor, located off the west coast of the marine protected area of ​​Molinière Beauséjour. (Repeating Islands)

Events

• 19 Nov. “The Haitian Revolution: AnD Island-Wide Affair” -- The Ph.D. Program in History, Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
  

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.

Climate Change Adaptation for SIDS at COP26 (Nov. 10, 2021)

The economic impact of climate change for vulnerable countries -- particularly Small Island Developing States like those in the Caribbean -- along with the need to finance adaptation measures, is a major issue at the COP26 meeting in Glasgow. "Islands have contributed little to global emissions yet stand to suffer disproportionately from climate change. Now, they are demanding more funding to protect themselves," reports The Nation.

A study released by charity Christian Aid this week highlighted the devastating economic impact climate change could inflict on the most vulnerable nations in the absence of sharp cuts to climate-heating emissions and measures to adapt to warming already baked in. (Reuters)

The Paris Agreement laid out the need for financing for both mitigation and adaptation measures. So far, about 75 percent of climate finance goes toward mitigation, reports Climate Wire, but climate-vulnerable countries are pushing to close that gap now.

Weather-driven losses to vulnerable islands in the Caribbean, combined with pandemic hits to tourism income, have caused debt levels and borrowing costs to soar.  That is leaving them struggling to invest in the climate protection their citizens need,the head of the U.N.-backed Green Climate Fund Yannick Glemarec told Reuters.

Lia Nicholson, lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States and a delegate of Antigua and Barbuda, said that the lack of economic aid has “forced islands into unsustainable debt, arresting development and holding us hostage to random acts of charity.”

Demands are especially strong for new types of "loss and damage" finance to help countries build back better after destructive disasters and relocate at-risk communities away from crumbling, flood-prone coastlines. Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley proposed a 1% tax on fossil fuel sales in high-emitting nations that would go into a special fund for countries that lose more than 5% of their GDP to extreme weather.

Loss and damage “is already a lived reality for the poorest communities in the world”, and even worse climate change impacts are ahead. Instead of waiting to resolve disagreements over liability, countries can agree to start providing loss and damage finance on the basis of solidarity, accounting for local needs, and the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities," argues a new Stockholm Environment Institute briefing paper

The Caribbean Development Bank called on developed countries to re-allocate 2% of their latest Special Drawing Rights to facilitate investment in climate adaptation measures in small island developing states.

The CDB also proposed a resilience-adjusted Gross National Income measure for Small Island Developing States to access concessional finance.

More COP26

• Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley's representation of and advocacy for the Caribbean region at COP26 captured international attention -- Global Voices. 

Belize's debt-for-nature swap

Belize finalized the world's biggest debt-for-marine conservation deal last week: a commitment to protect the northern Hemisphere’s biggest barrier reef in exchange for aid to buy back its $533 million "superbond" at a discount. (See Sept. 21's Just Caribbean Updates) The announcement comes as COP26 delegates grapple with how to provide financial incentives to poorer countries to help combat climate change. (See above.)

It's a pioneering deal, in which Belize promises to to spend $4 million a year and fund a $23 million marine conservation trust to protect the world’s second-largest coral reef, damaged in the past by oil drilling and overdevelopment. The deal was financed by non-profit organization The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and European bank Credit Suisse.

Belize’s swap is large enough though that is can pave the way for many sovereign restructurings, which have often seen countries pushed to exploit environmentally-damaging resources such as oil, to also include eco-friendly elements, reports Reuters.

Belize’s investment will drive US$180 million back into the conservation of its marine ecosystems over the next two decades. The country has also committed to protecting 30 percent of its ocean territory, which it will achieve using a participatory, stakeholder-driven marine spatial planning process. (Nature Conservancy)

While debt-for-nature swaps waned in popularity since the 1990s, they are re-emerging as a solution to economic crises caused by the pandemic in the region, reports Diálogo Chino.

Climate Justice and Energy

• Guyana is at existential risk from climate change, Georgetown could be submerged by rising sea levels. But the country has also bet its future on producing oil, the very fossil fuels that accelerate climate change, reports NPR.
  
  
• The Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda and the Pacific nation of Tuvalu have registered a new commission with the United Nations, creating the possibility of claiming damages from major polluting countries through judicial means, such as the UN's International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. (CBS)
  
  
• The Cayman Islands will undertake a climate change risk assessment with a UK-based environment agency that will identify the risks, threats and opportunities posed by climate change for biodiversity, society and the wider economy to shape future policy. (Cayman News Service)
  
  
• A conflict between a private pool under construction on a beach, and a sea turtle that wanted to lay its eggs on that site, has become a symbol of the battle for Puerto Rico's waterfronts. (New York Times, Huffington Post)

Migration

• Anti-deportation activists in the UK blocked a road in front of a detention center, in an attempt to prevent people slated for deportation to Jamaica. Many of the people came to the UK as children, and efforts to send them back to Jamaica, where they haven't been in decades have been controversial.(Guardian and Guardian)
• The Dominican Republic is requiring hundreds of thousands of Haitians to register their whereabouts inside the country, a move the government said aims to shield the country from its neighbor's gang violence and unrest. But migrant advocates say the crackdown is exacerbating Dominican “xenophobia and racism” by playing into fears that Haitians are a nexus of crime, reports Bloomberg.
  
  
• Haitian migrants are increasingly arriving in Puerto Rico, sounding alarms among top island officials, reports the Miami Herald.

Decolonization

• A case before the U.S. Supreme Court looks at the legality of policies that exclude residents of Puerto Rico from a Social Security program. (New York Times) The justices seem reluctant to rule in favor of the Puerto Rico resident challenging the program, reports the Associated Press, instead implying it is up to Congress to rectify the problem of differential treatment.

,History

• Barbados will digitize its Department of Archives at Black Rock, the world's second-largest cache of documents on the transatlantic slave trade, announced Prime Minister Mia Mottley. (Barbados Today)

Public Security

• The ability and willingness of Haiti’s gangs to choke off fuel and water, seemingly at will, is enhancing their influence as they push the country to the brink, reports InSight Crime.
  
• Equality for All Foundation Jamaica has blamed Jamaica’s social and justice systems for distressed members of the LGBTQ+ community falling prey to gangs in recent years. (Jamaica Gleaner)

Culture

• Caribbean culinary traditions originated with intuitive or “feel” cooking and the most popular Caribbean dishes have been a product of adaptation -- Daphne Ewing-Chow in Forbes.

Events

• 10 Nov. -- The Role of Human Rights; How Can Human Rights be Mobilised through the Courts to Tackle Climate Injustice? -- University of Essex

Opportunities

• Consultancy To Conduct Desk Review And Operational Research On The SRHR Situation In The Caribbean With Linkages To Gbv -- Caribbean Family Planning Affiliation
  
  
• Senior Manager -- Feminist Alliance for Rights (FAR)

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.

The Caribbean at COP26 (Nov. 3, 2021)

Tackling climate change is a global life-or-death proposition, but the stakes are particularly high for Small Island Developing States (SIDS), whose short-term survival is at risk. The tenor of many Caribbean leaders' COP26 speeches reflects this dramatic reality. 

"Our people are watching, and our people are taking note. And are we really going to leave Scotland without the resolve and the ambition that is sorely needed to save lives and to save our planet?" exhorted Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley. (Guardian)

Climate change is an “existential threat” to the Caribbean, reports Global Voices. Activists in the region have rallied around the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 C message through a campaign website called "1.5 to stay alive," created by Panos Caribbean. The reality, however, is that the Caribbean needs to prepare for some amount of already inevitable change, which means the region’s second major priority at COP26 is securing climate finance for adaptation.

Several leaders, among them Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne pressed forcefully for a discussion of loss and damage. They are, in effect, demanding reparations of a sort for countries that bear little responsibility for the emissions warming the earth — but are already suffering the effects, reports the New York Times.

Many developing countries—including the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), to which the many Caribbean countries belong—feel the issue of Loss and Damage should have a much higher profile at COP26. "We are already experiencing Loss and Damage in the Caribbean, forcing people to leave their homes due to floods, landslides and so on," Le-Anne Roper, the senior technical officer for adaptation in the climate change division of Jamaica’s government, told Global Voices.

In September the AOSIS issued a Leaders’ Declaration which largely focuses on climate change and sets out some of the issues they wish to see raised at COP26. By demanding that SIDS, which are disproportionately affected by climate change, receive a higher share of climate finance, the Leaders’ Declaration frames climate change as a rights issue, according to Henrice Altink at the University of York blog.

In an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Mottley reiterated a call for countries to set aside $500 billion a year, not in cash, but in “special drawing rights from the IMF – [International Monetary Fund]” for 20 years that could create a trust to help those countries between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. 

In response to a question from Amanpour, Mottley warned that forced migration would be a natural consequence of failing to act on climate change. She said those who had a problem with it, would then have to deal with the consequences. (Nation News)

To meet the Paris agreement, the world would have to eliminate 53.5 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide each year for the next 30 years. Avinash Persaud also points to IMF Special Drawing Rights as a key tool to meet that difficult goal. (Vox EU)

More COP26

• Acclaimed British-Trinidadian visual artist Zak Ové and the Costa award-winning Caribbean-born novelist Monique Roffey released a scorching poster evoking the return of paradise after the collapse of “Babylon”, represented as the oil industry and the powers that stoke it. Created by XR Writers Rebel, the image forms part of their street presence during COP26. (Repeating Islands)
  
  
• Young climate activists from the Caribbean say they have gotten little to no support to attend COP26 despite representing the demographic that stands to face the worst effects of the climate crisis, reports Climate Tracker.
  
  
• A new study by the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI), Climate Analytics and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) highlights key barriers and opportunities for civil society organisations (CSOs) in accessing climate finance and improving their engagement for climate action in the Caribbean region.
  
  
• The Presidents of Guyana and Suriname appealed to leaders at COP26 for payments to keep their forests intact and consequently, help mitigate the harmful effects of climate change such as flooding. “Forest-rich countries must be provided with the incentives necessary to keep their forests intact and to reduce deforestation and forest degradation,” Guyana’s President Dr. Irfaan Ali stated during his address. (Climate Tracker)

More Climate Justice and Energy

• The Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda and the Prime Minister of Tuvalu signed an agreement allowing for litigation before international courts. This move will allow for a legal path to address the severe damage to Small Island States caused by climate change, reports the Jamaica Gleaner.
  
  
• Increased plastic pollution is destroying Caribbean mangroves and producing microplastics, which more easily move throughout coastal and ocean systems and spread contamination at several levels,” Mona Webber, professor of marine biology and director of the Centre for Marine Sciences at the University of West Indies told the Jamaica Gleaner.
  

Public Security

• Bahamas National Security Minister Wayne Munroe said the outcome of Royal Bahamas Police Force Disciplinary Tribunal proceedings should not be kept secret from Bahamians unless a compelling rationale exists. (Tribune 242)

Migration

• Countries in the hemisphere are failing to provide international protection and safety for Haitians on the move, exposing them to a range of human rights violations, including detentions and illegal pushbacks by authorities; extortion; anti-Black racial discrimination; abuses by armed groups, including gender-based violence; and lack of access to adequate housing, healthcare, and employment, said Amnesty International and Haitian Bridge Alliance in a new briefing. (El País)
  
  
• "With migration increasing throughout the Americas, border policy is no longer a sufficient means to control immigration," writes Andrew Selee in a New York Times guest essay. "The United States must enlist other countries in the hemisphere to become partners in measures to prevent recurrent political and humanitarian crises that force people to flee their homelands."

Feminism

• "Caribbean feminists and feminisms come from a rich, radical, and deeply transgressive tradition," explains the Equality Fund's Amina Doherty. But "for far too long, Caribbean feminist movements have been sorely underfunded. This has had significant implications on the ways that Caribbean feminist movements have been able to organize and sustain their work."
  

Culture

• As world leaders gather in Glasgow for COP26, read the special adda series, a collection of short stories, poems and texts by Commonwealth writers – including from Jamaica, Guyana and Bermuda – responding to the climate emergency.
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Critter Corner

• Animals in Cuba's National Zoo took advantage of the peace and quiet brought on by the coronavirus pandemic for romantic encounters that resulted in a bumper crop of exotic and endangered baby animals. (Reuters)

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.