Cuba's vaccination success (Jan. 7, 2022)

Cuba has inoculated the majority of its population against Covid-19, using nationally developed vaccines. The country has vaccinated 91 percent of people with at least one dose, and fully vaccinated 83 percent of the population -- of countries with populations of over a million, only the United Arab Emirates has a stronger vaccination record, reports the Guardian. Nearly all of Cuba’s children aged 2 to 18 have now been vaccinated, reports Reuters.

After registering less than 100 cases a day for weeks, infection rates are now rising due to the highly contagious Omicron variant. The Cuban ministry of public health has fast-tracked its booster campaign, and aims to give almost the entire population an extra shot of vaccine this month.

Cuba has begun commercial exports of the three-dose Abdala vaccine to Vietnam and Venezuela. This week, Mexico’s health safety council has approved the use of Cuba’s three-dose Abdala coronavirus vaccine. (Associated Press)

The vaccines, which can be produced affordably and do not require deep-freezing, are seen by international health officials as a potential source for much needed doses in low-income countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia -- but Cuba has not yet published results of its large-scale clinical trials in peer-reviewed journals, nor has it submitted the documents required by the World Health Organization for approval of its vaccines.

Covid-19 Vaccinations in the Caribbean

Guadeloupe anti-vaccine protests continue

The French government declared a “state of health emergency” for Guadeloupe and several other overseas territories this week, citing a “considerable rise” in coronavirus cases due to omicron’s fast spread.” The measure allows the government to issue decrees that temporarily curtail freedoms, including restrictions on movements, trade, entrepreneurship and gatherings. (AFP)

The declaration followed an attack against a hospital director and other medical staff by dozens of anti-vaccination protesters in Guadeloupe, following recent violent demonstrations against vaccines and COVID-19 restrictions, reports the Associated Press. A health workers’ union that organized Tuesday’s demonstration and previous ones that turned violent to protest vaccine requirements and other measures told local media that members are seeking to recover lost wages after being suspended for refusing to become vaccinated as required by law.

The current social unrest in Guadeloupe and Martinique has brought international attention back to the critical issue of chlordecone pollution in these Caribbean islands. This highly toxic insecticide, banned since 1993 throughout France, has been named as one of the key factors behind the social unrest provoked by the Covid-19 situation. Chlordecone has poisoned, to varying degrees, more than 90% of the population of the two islands, according to Santé publique France and Inserm, and has left many residents mistrustful of French authorities' health policies. (AFP)

Democratic Governance and Corruption

• Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley called a snap general election for January 19. The move came just weeks after the country removed Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state and became the world's youngest republic, reports Deutsche Welle.  There are 108 persons vying for seats across the 30 constituencies of Barbados, reports Loop News.
  
  
• Audits of Guyana's government expenditure in 2020 were hampered by the absence of pertinent records. According to an official report presented by officials to the National Assembly, 1328 payment vouchers totaling $2.806 billion were not presented for the 2020 audit. (Kaieteur News)

Migration

• Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne said the government is considering granting an amnesty to undocumented migrants as he urged all people on the islands to work together to rebound economically and socially from the pandemic. (The Caribbean Alert)

Climate Justice and Energy

• Developing countries fought hard for a dedicated loss and damage funding facility, a formal body set up under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to provide new financial support to affected nations. But the final Glasgow climate pact last year made no reference to climate finance to address the rising costs of losses and damages in developing countries. Campaigners say vulnerable nations need at least $300 billion a year to respond to loss and damage in 2030. Developing countries say this recovery finance should be in addition to money set aside for climate mitigation and adaptation, which falls under a global climate finance pledge. (BBC)
  
  
• Guyanese experts say anger over the terms of Exxon’s oil contract and questions over the awarding of the Canje field speak to broader problems with how the sector is being managed, reports CBC News.
  
  
• An alliance of Caribbean organizations have objected to the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the Exxon-led Yellowtail project in the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana, saying that regional states that could potentially be affected were excluded from the process, reports Stabroek News.
  
  
• Jamaica's government reduced the area that will be offered to the Noranda Jamaica Bauxite Partners II for mining close to the Cockpit Country, but critics say significant concerns remain, reports Petchary's Blog.

• Colombia's judiciary suspended a coast guard base construction on the Caribbean island of Providencia based on potential environmental impact, reports El Espectador. (See post for Nov. 19, 2021 on post Hurricane Iota reconstruction on the island.)

Economics, Debt and Finance

• CARICOM countries have been arguing that GDP should not be the only determinant of development status and eligibility for concessionary financing. The size and vulnerability of countries to economic shocks and natural disasters must be considered. (Jamaica Gleaner)

Food Security

• Puerto Rico was once a thriving agricultural hub thanks to its tropical climate, rich biodiversity, and sustainable farming traditions. But now the island imports 85 percent of its food, grocery prices are among the highest in the US and last year two in five people experienced food insecurity, reports the Guardian, which profiles three farms that are part of the agroecology movement that seeks food sovereignty and climate solutions.

Public Security

• The United States charged Mario Antonio Palacios, a retired Colombian commando, with taking part in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse of Haiti. He is the first suspect to face U.S. prosecution in the crime, reports the New York Times. (See yesterday's briefs.)
  
  
• Though Palacios is a key suspect in Moïse's assassination the fact that he has not been formally charged may have played a role in Jamaica’s failure to adhere to a request by Haitian authorities to extradite him to Port-au-Prince, reports the Miami Herald.

• The other 19 Colombian mercenaries detained in Haiti in relation to the assassination remain in a legal limbo, in jail without access to lawyers, reports El País. Their families say the mercenaries have been tortured and coerced into confessing.

Development

• Latin American and Caribbean governments face a conundrum: "Their aspirations of leveraging Chinese resources to finance national development and other objectives versus the very real risks that engaging with Chinese entities can bring," argue Leland Lazarus and Evan Ellis in the Diplomat. "A lack of due diligence, corruption, and a disregard for indigenous rights and the environment have characterized many Chinese infrastructure projects in the region."

Gender

• Affordable and accessible childcare services are a pathway out of poverty for some single mothers in the Caribbean. Addressing the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians Regional Conference, UN Women MCO Caribbean Programme Specialist Isiuwa Iyahen said a mixed intervention approach may be needed. (UN Women)

Opportunities

• Jamaicans For Justice (JF) is inviting human rights activists and critical thinkers to lend their voice to its upcoming Justice Report.

• CATAPULT, a COVID-19 relief grant, aims to aid 300 creatives in the Caribbean with grants worth $500 USD. Apply
  

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.

Deep sea mining on ISA agenda (Dec. 15, 2021)

The International Seabed Authority (ISA), a UN body, met in Kingston, Jamaica, last week to agree a route for finalizing regulations by July 2023 that would allow the undersea mining of cobalt, nickel and other metals to go ahead, reports the Guardian. Discussions on this topic have been under way since 2017, but have been snarled up over how to share future mining proceeds among nations.

Then in June of this year, the South Pacific island nation of Nauru invoked a rule that requires the ISA to complete the code within two years or provisionally approve a “plan of work” to mine polymetallic nodules by a company Nauru sponsors under whatever regulations are in place at the time, explains China Dialogue Ocean.

Mining companies counter that the minerals that could be obtained from deep sea mining – copper, cobalt, nickel and manganese – are essential for a green transition, reported the Guardian in a deep-dive article earlier this year. Nonetheless many battery-makers and industrial users are lining up with the conservationists rather than the miners. In April, BMW, Volvo, Google and Samsung joined a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) call for a moratorium on seabed mining; 621 marine science and policy experts also signed the open letter calling for a pause on deep seabed mining until “sufficient and robust scientific information has been obtained”. (Climate Change News)

"More than 80% of the oceans remains unmapped, unobserved and unexplored, and there is increasing opposition to deep-sea mining from governments, civil society groups and scientists, who say loss of biodiversity is inevitable, and likely to be permanent if it goes ahead."

In October, a group of 10 Latin American and Caribbean nations, including Costa Rica, Argentina and Chile, filed a submission to the Council expressing unease with the two-year deadline. It noted that, among other things, the ISA has yet to agree on the creation of an inspectorate to monitor mining and enforce regulations and has not adopted environmental management plans for areas of the deep sea targeted for mining.

But there is little reason to believe the ISA would act in favor of conservation: The commission has a 100% record of approving exploration applications, reports the Guardian. Membership of its  Legal and Technical Commission is skewed towards extraction rather than environmental oversight – a fifth of the members work directly for contractors with deep-sea mining projects.

Climate Justice and Energy 

• Fish populations were significantly benefited by pandemic lockdowns in the Cayman Islands -- during which local waters were devoid not just of cruise ships, but also of jetskis, fishing vessels and dive boats -- according to an ongoing Central Caribbean Marine Institute study. (Cayman Compass)
  
  
• "Like many small island, big ocean states, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines faces a complex web of interconnected environmental challenges that affect human rights, especially the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment," said United Nations Special Rapporteur David R. Boyd after an official visit to the country. "The global climate crisis is multiplying a number of environmental risks, forcing the government to dedicate its limited resources to repair, rebuild, and reconstruct instead of develop. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines represents a textbook example of global climate injustice. Despite its negligible contribution to the problem, this nation is suffering and will continue to suffer dramatic consequences with major human rights implications, especially with regard to vulnerable populations."
  
  
• Guyanese Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said the country's Natural Resources Fund legislation "is cumbersome" and "almost impossible to operationalize," and indicated the government will seek to remove an oversight committee consisting of 22 organizations, reports Kaieteur News. Critics counter that the move would open the door for more corruption, reports Kaieteur News separately.
  
  
• The Guyanese decision to reopen mining at Marudi Mountain has attracted a growing chorus of denunciations from people who say the South Rupununi Development Council, that represents the Indigenous people of the surrounding area, mostly Wapichan, was not adequately consulted about the extraction plan that affects the territory, reports Stabroek.
  
  
• The United Nations Environment Programme recognized Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley with the Champions of the Earth award for policy leadership, the UN’s highest environmental honour.
  
  
• Yamide Dagnet, from Guadeloupe, will take on the newly created role of director for Climate Justice at the Open Society Foundations, leading efforts to strengthen the Foundations’ commitment to climate justice and make it the centerpiece of Open Society’s work.
  

Public Security

• Before being assassinated in July, Haitian President Jovenel Moïse had been working on a list of powerful politicians and business people involved in Haiti’s drug trade, reports the New York Times. He planned to hand the dossier over to the U.S. government. The attackers who killed Moïse ransacked his bedroom, and in interrogations, some of the captured hit men confessed that retrieving the list was a top priority.
  
• Haitian blogger Patricia Camilien calls on the Moïse aides who were compiling the list to publicize the information, and contextualizes the piece within the ongoing power struggle between Moïse supporters and those of former president Michel Martelly, originally Moïse's political mentor. (La Loi De Ma Bouche)
• Religious groups are among the final institutions left in Haiti, delivering aid and support to an afflicted population -- but that has made priests, nuns and missionaries prime targets for kidnapping and extortion, explains InSight Crime.
• Several aid organizations in Haiti have temporarily cut back operations in response to a spike in violence that has hindered their work precisely as it is most needed, reports the Associated Press.
• A gasoline tanker overturned and exploded in northern Haiti yesterday, unleashing a fireball that swept through homes and businesses on its way to killing at least 75 people, reports the Associated Press.
  

Decolonization

• Jamaica's Chief Justice Bryan Sykes has reaffirmed his commitment to ensuring that Jamaica adopts the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as the island’s final appellate court, instead of the UK Privy Court, reports the Jamaica Gleaner.
  
  
• Calls for Jamaica to cut ties with the British monarchy have heightened arising from Barbados' transition to a republic last week. Prime Minister Andrew Holness said more attention should be given to building a strong and prosperous country rather than “empty symbolism," reports the Jamaica Gleaner.
  
  
• DefendPR released a documentary about the process of public school closures (over 500 in past years) in Puerto Rico, pushed by the U.S. imposed Fiscal Oversight Board. Watch at https://vimeo.com/535737291, PW: defendprmedia.

Economics, Finance and Debt

• Barbados' government is advancing on a plan to provide citizens with a universal basic income. Avinash Persaud, Special Envoy to the Prime Minister of Barbados on Investment and Financial Services, wrote recently that “despite all the pressure from international agencies to ‘target’ we hold the line on universality." (Barbados Today)
  
  
• President of the Caribbean Development Bank Gene Leon urged regional governments to institute strong accountability and compliance mechanisms to ensure that corruption does not limit access to climate finance from multilateral and private sources, reports Kaieteur News.
  
  
• The International Monetary Fund has warned of “economic collapse” in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Haiti, and other low-income countries, unless creditors in the world’s richest nations suspend debt-service obligations and help renegotiate new terms. With the Group of 20’s debt-service suspension initiative expiring at the end of the year and interest rates poised to rise, “low-income countries will find it increasingly difficult to service their debts,” the IMF officials said. (St. Vincent Times)
  
  
• The Caribbean Centre for Human Rights in Trinidad & Tobago held a dialogue on human rights and banking. The recording can be found here

Covid-19

• Covid-19 variants, coupled with high levels of vaccine hesitancy, correspondingly low vaccination rates, rampant social media misinformation, and economic hardship exacerbated by recurring lockdowns set the Caribbean stage for vaccine mandate unrest, writes Janine Mendes-Franco at Global Voices.
  
  
• A Global Americans report focuses on vaccines in the Caribbean region, with a view to understanding some of the vaccine diplomacy dynamics, notably in relation to the great powers and their combination of humanitarian and geopolitical motives. 
  
  
• "Without massive testing and complete mortality statistics, it is impossible to know how many people have been infected and died from Covid-19 in Haiti. But one thing is clear, the Haitian health authorities have not had control over the spread of the virus in the country," report the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo and AyiboPost.  

Migration

• Aruba, Curaçao, the Dominican Republic, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago host some of the world’s highest concentrations of refugees and migrants per capita, according to the Regional Inter-agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela.
  
  
• Trinidadian Agriculture  Minister Clarence Rambharat said there has been a global increase in food prices, and Trinidad and Tobago’s agricultural production was saved by Venezuelan labor -- Trinidad Express.
  
  
• Sexual trafficking here has become one of the most prevalent risks for Venezuelan women in Guyana, with mining sites becoming hotspots for this kind of exploitation, reports Connectas.
  

Gender

• "Boy, Girl and All the Rest" -- A short film about an abused non-binary child and their plight for acceptance and redemption in Jamaica. 

Culture

• Haitian film 'Freda' was selected for the Cannes Film Festival and has generated excitement at home and abroad -- Washington Post.
  
  
• “The dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson fused Jamaican music, linguistic innovation, and socialist politics. A new study finally treats his work with the seriousness it deserves," writes Edmund Hardy in Jacobin.
  
  
• One of reggae music's most admired bass players, Robbie Shakespeare, died in Florida at age 68 from kidney-related complications. He was "considered by many to be the greatest reggae bass player of all time," writes Emma Lewis in Global Voices.

Opportunities

• Apply now - University of the West Indies Climate Change and Health Leaders Fellowship Program.  Eligible Caribbean Countries for Round 2:  Antigua & Barbuda, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago. Application process open.
  
  

• Consultancy for Capacity Building through Training Programmes in Treaty and Legislative Drafting. Assignment duration: 24 months, home-based with regular trips to CARIFORUM Member. Project information: This consultancy is inscribed within the project “Support to CARIFORUM Member states in furthering the implementation of their Economic Partnership Agreement commitments and on meaningfully reaping the Benefits of the Agreement”, financed under the 11th EDF. https://www.bseurope.com/node/60342

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.

Barbados becomes a Republic (Dec. 2, 2021)

Barbados officially became a republic this week -- with a midnight swearing in of President Sandra Mason in a Bridgetown ceremony. “Republic Barbados has set sail on her maiden voyage,” Mason said in her inauguration speech as the first president of the country, recognising the “complex, fractured and turbulent world” it would need to navigate. Barbadian singer Rihanna also attended the ceremony and was declared a national hero. "The republic is part of a wider agenda building steam across the Caribbean to forge a future outside a British framework," reports the Guardian. (See also New York Times.)

Barbados' decision to become a republic is intimately tied to last year's Black Lives Matter protests, and also reflects a debate in the Caribbean over the ongoing legacies of colonial era slavery, and a simmering demand for reparations from those who profited from the work of enslaved people. (Guardian, National Geographic)

"Slavery’s legacy is underdevelopment and dependency," writes Kareem Smith in Open Democracy. The transatlantic slave trade a "barbaric and brutal form of human trafficking, murder, torture, and rape made rich men of the perpetrators of these heinous crimes. They amassed huge fortunes, which laid the foundations for multi-generational wealth."

Some voices in the Caribbean hope "that Barbados’ decision will be a catalyst for more changes in the region, or at the very least renew conversations about colonialism, reparations, and the legacy of the British monarchy, which built its wealth on the backs of enslaved Africans," writes Jacqueline Charles in National Geographic.

The debate is salient for current diplomacy, argues David Comissiong, Barbados Ambassador to CARICOM in Democracy Now. "The reality is that formerly enslaved and colonized nations and people like those in the Caribbean, including Barbados, have been inserted in that international order in a structurally subordinate and exploitative manner. So, many, many remnants of those centuries of enslavement, of colonial exploitation and domination that we are still trying to undo."

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Vaccine mandate protests in French Caribbean

Police reinforcements arrived in Martinique on Tuesday in the midst of ongoing unrest that erupted over Covid-19 measures, in particular the mandatory vaccination of healthcare workers. Protesters in Guadeloupe and Martinique have erected barricades and blocked roads this month as anger mounted over an order also in place in mainland France requiring health workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19. 

Hundreds of police reinforcements have also been sent to the islands, and strict night curfews implemented, reports AFP.

Paris announced that it would be postponing a requirement that public sector workers in Guadeloupe and Martinique get a Covid-19 vaccination. But the move has failed to quell unrest, which reflects long-standing grievances over living standards and the relationship between France's Caribbean islands and Paris, reports Reuters. 

Martinique and Guadeloupe, islands of 375,000 and 400,000 people, respectively, are considered formal parts of France whose inhabitants hold French citizenship and are allocated representation in the French National Assembly. But the territories suffer higher poverty and unemployment rates than mainland France, and the protests have put a spotlight on local anger over broader issues with the French government, reports Al Jazeera.

Suspicion of public health policies is especially high in the French Caribbean, where the government authorized the use of a highly toxic pesticide called chlordecone on banana plantations for decades, despite repeated health warnings, notes the New York Times.

Democratic Governance

• Haiti's "best hope is a political transition in which inclusion provides legitimacy, leading to free elections," writes Monique Clesca, a member of the civil-society led Commission to Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis, in a New York Times guest essay. The group has proposed "an interim government whose members, in the absence of elections, will be nominated by various sectors to legitimately represent Haitians," and calls on the U.S. to support the commission's plan for democratization in Haiti.
  
  
• Haitian Interim Prime Minister Ariel Henry named a new cabinet last week. Ministers will be tasked with assisting Haiti to adopt a new constitution and elect a new president, parliament and local mayors, said Henry, who obtained the country's leadership following a power struggle after the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. “With the installation of a new government, we are entering a decisive new stage in the interim period,” he said. (Miami Herald)
  
  
• But the new list consists of only eight new changes in the 18-member cabinet, leaving some to speculate that two months after the signing of a political pact between Henry, political parties and other organizations, he still has not fully found a consensus on who should be in his interim government, reports the Miami Herald.
  

Public Security

• Haiti's increasingly powerful criminal gangs are carrying out a wave of extremely accute sexual violence, say health workers who are overwhelmed by the numbers of women affected and the sheer horror of the victims' ordeals, reports AFP.

Migration

• The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued the resolution "Protecting Haitians in Human Mobility Contexts: Inter-American Solidarity," which seeks to provide guidance for States in the region to protect the rights of Haitians who are migrants, refugees, stateless persons, or victims of human trafficking, or who have been displaced.
  
  
• Turks and Caicos police say they have recovered the bodies of seven undocumented Haitians who authorities say were attempting to illegally migrate from their country. (Miami Herald)
  
  
• Puerto Rico's historic Iglesia San Mateo de Cangrejos, in San Juan, helps Haitian migrants, part of a long history of aid to Afro-Caribbean people on the island. Between May and October of this year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Puerto Rico detained 310 Haitian nationals in Puerto Rico, reports the Miami Herald. 

Food Security

• In 2020, 59.7 million people in the Caribbean and Latin America suffered from hunger, according to a new U.N. report. The prevalence of hunger in the region increased by two percentage points last year, which means  13.8 million more people suffered from hunger in 2020 than the year before.  Over the same period, moderate or severe food insecurity increased by nine percentage points and 41 percent of the population of the region is moderately or severely food insecure.
  

Economics, Finance and Debt

• Caricom Commission on the Economy proposed that participating member states should establish a single, independently operated, internationally credible and scrutinised agency that would deliver an anti-money laundering certificate that would be accepted by all government agencies and voluntarily any others in participating countries.This, it said, would dramatically reduce the cost and time of ­compliance for local and regional businesses and release resources for more productive use. (Trinidad Express)

Climate Justice and Energy

• Coastal mitigation efforts against rising sea levels stemming from climate change could cost some Caribbean countries more than five percent of their GDP each year,  according to World Bank official Carlos Felipe Jaramillo. (Kaieteur News)
  
  
• "We must recognise that climate mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage are three different things requiring three different funding mechanisms for three distinct outcomes," wrote Avinash Persaud on Twitter, in reference to COP26 calls for climate financing.
  
  
• "The final Glasgow Climate Pact is a mixed bag," writes Ryan Assiu in an analysis of COP26. 
  
  
• Trinidad and Tobago is currently the fifth highest emitter per capita in the world, but its ambitions for cutting greenhouse gas emissions are “not sufficiently bold," according to Dr. Devon Gardner, Head of the Energy Unit at the Caribbean Community Secretariat. He said that a perceived lack of ambition on the part of the Trinidad and Tobago government could cause other nations to question the region’s commitment to climate action. (Climate Tracker)
  
  
• Local Guyanese fisher-people say ExxonMobil’s ongoing oil operations in the country's waters have led to declining catch, but the oil company said impacts from its operations on marine life is minor to negligible. (Kaieteur News)
  
  
• An ExxonMobil report on its fourth project in Guyana, the Yellowtail development, estimates that greenhouse gas emissions are set to increase by as much as 30 percent, throughout the production stage. But the company argues that Guyana's forest will offset the environmental impacts. (Kaieteur News)

Racial Justice

• Scholars and activists criticize Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program for its lack of government oversight, disrespect for migrant rights and indentureship of foreign workers. "Sentenced for the season: Jamaican migrant farmworkers on Okanagan orchards," by Elise Hjalmarson, argues the program is predicated upon naturalised, deeply ingrained and degrading beliefs that devalue Black lives and labour.
  

Critters

• A mythic white sperm whale was captured on film near Jamaica. The type of whale immortalised in Moby-Dick has only been spotted a handful of times this century, reports the Guardian.

Events

1 Dec 2021  |  Online Book Launch  |  Legal Identity, Race and Belonging in the Dominican Republic: From Citizen to Foreigner Speakers: Junot Díaz (MIT), Raj Chetty (St John's), David Howard (Oxford) & Eve Hayes de Kalaf (CLACS) 7 Dec 2021  |  Online Seminar  |  Papers for The People: The Radical Press of the late Colonial Caribbean  Speaker: Kesewa John (UCL Institute of the Americas)

Opportunities

• AOSIS Fellowship Programme -- Fellows will work at their UN Permanent Mission in New York, receive comprehensive training on climate change, oceans, environmental protection, and sustainable development issues, and gain real-world negotiation experience working with their national delegations and AOSIS at related UN conferences.
  

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.

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.