The Caribbean in a New Cold War (Jan. 21, 2022)

If a new multidimensional Cold War is brewing in the world, "it could test Caribbean leadership and the response of civil society to the limits, as remaining nonaligned, which in the past has offered a way out of overtly taking sides, this time may be harder to achieve," writes David Jessop in the Jamaica Gleaner. "For this reason, it may be the moment for the Caribbean to consider how global confrontation might offer it leverage to obtain new, well-financed, rapidly delivered support from one or another global actor."

Exclusive focus on Chinese motivations for engaging Latin America and the Caribbean discounts the agency and influence regional leaders exhibit, particularly in crisis situations, argue Wazim Mowla & Pepe Zhang in the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. "During the COVID-19 pandemic, LAC leaders leveraged their asymmetrical relationships with China and other global actors to shape international discussions on inequitable vaccine access or to procure development assistance."

For example, critics of Barbados' recent transition into a republic "have given undue emphasis to the role of China, demonising Beijing while simultaneously belittling Barbados’s agency – in other words, an ugly cocktail of fearmongering and geopolitical mansplaining," argues Sebastian Shehadi in Investment Monitor.

Barbados PM Mia Mottley, who won a landslide second term this week, is just one of a raft of strong women across the Caribbean and South America tackling society’s most pressing issues, argues Mandeep Rai in the Guardian. She "has changed the face of democracy in the country. ... It is difficult to overstate what her commitment to collaboration across the region and internationally has done for Barbados ... Countries like Barbados are often not the protagonist, yet Mottley put issues such as the climate crisis and international development to the front on the world stage.

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Puerto Rico restructures debt

Puerto Rico’s nearly five-year bankruptcy battle is ending after a federal judge signed a plan this week that slashes the U.S. territory’s public debt load as part of a restructuring and allows the government to start repaying creditors, reports the Associated Press. 

The plan marks the largest municipal debt restructuring in U.S. history and was approved following grueling bargaining efforts, heated hearings and multiple delays. Since Puerto Rico entered bankruptcy, its economic crisis has only been further deepened by Hurricanes Irma and Maria, a series of earthquakes and the coronavirus pandemic, notes the New York Times.

The restructuring plan will reduce the largest portion of the Puerto Rico government’s debt — some $33 billion — by about 80 percent, to $7.4 billion. The deal will also save the government more than $50 billion in debt payments. But critics worry that Puerto Rico will not have enough money in its general fund to make even the reduced debt payments over the long run, eventually forcing more painful economic cuts.

Nor is the plan "a cure-all for what snared the commonwealth in an economic tailspin in the first place. A lot of hard work still remains to put the island on a sustainable fiscal path," writes Brian Chappatta in Bloomberg.

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Vaccine Hesitancy in the Caribbean

Limited take up of Covid-19 vaccines has been an ongoing issue hampering the response to the pandemic
across the Eastern Caribbean subregion as elsewhere -- a new UNICEF survey examines vaccine hesitancy in Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago. 

"The study provides insight into what might change minds," said U.N. Resident Coordinator for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean Didier Trebucq. "51 per cent cite the need for more medical and scientific information. Over 40 per cent want to know more about side effects and efficacy. 30 per cent want information on the impact of the vaccine on sexual health and their ability to have children. These are all rich veins to explore.” The research also suggests that vaccine promotion interventions need to be tailored to their audience. (iWitness News)

Democratic Governance

• Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley won a second term in elections this week, in which her Barbados Labour party won all 30 seats, up from 29 in 2018. She gained international fame last year with an incendiary speech at COP26, urging leaders to stand up to the challenge of climate change. She also oversaw Barbados' transition to a full republic last year. (Guardian)
  
  
• The situation in Haiti has reached a crisis point, as gang violence has surged across the country in the wake of President Jovenel Moïse's assassination last July. International observers are raising concerns that February 7 – the date Moïse's term would expire – could bring more violence and further complicate the country’s political transition, reports Al Jazeera.
• Haitian Judge Garry Orelien, who is overseeing the inquiry into Moïse’s July assassination is being removed from the case after failing to meet a legal deadline on bringing formal charges. The move comes amid doubts about Haiti’s ability — or even its desire — to prosecute those responsible for the brazen crime, according to the Miami Herald.

Migration

• The Government of the Dominican Republic said it will buy the private lands located along the border with Haiti in order to advance a border wall project aimed at limiting migration from the neighboring country, reports Dominican Today.
  
  
• The Government of the Dominican Republic and 30 political parties called on the international community to intervene in Haiti -- marking particularly that there will never be a "Dominican solution" to the problems facing that country, reports Dominican Today.

Climate Justice and Energy

• A new study has found that, for the sixth year in a row, the world’s oceans have been hotter than they’ve ever been in recent history due to human-induced climate change -- Mongabay.
  
  
• Suriname and Guyana might be able to achieve the seemingly mutually exclusive goals of alleviating poverty with oil revenues, while respecting their commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement -- the key lies in leveraging their forests, argues Robert Looney in the World Politics Review.
  
  
• Guyana’s laboratories do not have the capability to do proper environmental tests associated with the oil and gas sector, though oil extraction has been ongoing for three years already, reports Kaieteur News.
  

Racial Justice

• Racial injustice in Cuba spills over into Cuban arts and the anti-government protests led by the islands artists, argues Juan Pedro Torriente in Hyperallergic.

Housing Rights

• Tax breaks implemented by Puerto Rico's government incentivize foreigners to move to the island are leading to gentrification in some areas, as Puerto Rican residents are pushed out of their homes by foreigners seeking to make money. (Bianca Graulau and Los Angeles Times)
  

Finance

• The Global Minimum Tax deal could open yet another door to discrimination and act as yet another vector for vulnerability of weaker states, argues Marla Durkharam in IFC Review. (Video here.)
  

Food Security

• As the pandemic persists, there is growing concern region wide about the ability of Caribbean countries to maintain reliable supplies and production of affordable, safe, and nutritious food. Leading Caribbean agriculturalist, Dr H. Arlington Chesney, discusses this and other issues with the Media Institute of the Caribbean.
  

Human Rights and Justice

• The mass trials against July 11 protesters in Cuba continued this week, despite local and international outcries, reports the Miami Herald. (See Monday's Latin America Daily Briefing.)
  
  
• The Greater Caribbean for Life “Building a Platform for Abolition: Strengthening the Anti-Death Penalty Movement in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean” has come to a close after three years of work challenging the death penalty in Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
  

Education

• St. Vincent and the Grenadines will begin bonding locally trained nurses to work in the country for a number of years, announced Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves. The bonding will begin with current cohorts or nurses enrolled at the nation’s training school and comes amidst a significant number of nurses choosing to work overseas, reports iWitness News.
  

In the Diaspora

• Four Windrush generation descendants have lost their high court battle for the British scheme for victims to be widened to include them, reports the Guardian. The current rules state that descendants who arrived as adults over the age of 18 after 1988 are excluded from the Windrush scheme.
  

Culture

• The ecosystem of artists in Jamaica according to Veerle Poupeye -- Le Nouvelliste
  

Events

• 27 Jan -- Youth Climate Anxiety: Implications for Litigation -- NYU -- Register here.
  
  
• 28 Jan -- Cuba: The U.S. Embargo After Sixty Years, an event co-sponsored by the National Security Archive and the Washington Office on Latin America, hosted by WOLA's Assistant Director for Cuba, Mariakarla Nodarse, and moderated by Peter Kornbluh, the Archive’s Cuba policy specialist. Register here.
  
  
• Oxford University Caribbean Studies Network programme for this coming term: Faith Smith, Professor of English at Brandeis University, will be talking to us about modernism and 'non-soverignty' in the early twentieth-century Caribbean; the philosopher Rocío Zambrana will speak on 'Colonial Debts'; and Meleisa Ono-George (Queen's College, Oxford) will talk to us about her current work on Afro-Caribbean women in late c.18^th and c.19^th Britain. All events will be on Zoom, sign up here.
  

Opportunities

• The recently established Legal Empowerment Fund will consider grant proposals from grassroots organizations doing legal empowerment work for up to 24 months of general support (core funding).  This is a global call and Caribbean actors are eligible to apply.  More information see here.  Deadline: 18 February.

  
  

• War on Want is holding a 3-day workshop series on Post-Extractive Futures,taking place between February 1-3.  Register here.

  
  

• Prince Claus Seed Awards: Annually recognising 100 emerging artists and cultural practitioners - including from the Caribbean - the Award creates space for experimentation and development of new perspectives on societal challenges.
  
  

• Island Innovation asks: Have you ever asked yourself how you could contribute more to the sustainable development of your island? Being an Island Ambassador provides you with the opportunity to bring members of your community together and create positive, tangible changes. For more information, see 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.

Guyana's gov't passes new Natural Resources Fund act (Jan. 13, 2022)

Guyana’s parliament approved local content rules for oil producers and a sovereign wealth fund to oversee the country's oil earnings, on Dec. 30, 2021. The bills are part of updates to the country's regulatory framework for oil exploration and production. The local content bill requires that energy projects use local businesses for certain jobs, including environmental studies and metal fabrication. Changes to the Act Governing the Natural Resources Fund (NRF) in Guyana, will permit the government to use funding from the country's oil payments for the new financial year and its associated budget. (Reuters, Jamaica Observer)

The Natural Resources Fund assigns oversight of oil revenue to parliament instead of the finance ministry. Proceeds could be used for development and “essential projects that are directly related to ameliorating the effect of a major natural disaster,” according to the bill.

The governing PPP/C used its one-seat majority to pass the bill, despite opposition questions about its legality in a raucous session, reports Kaieteur News. Guyana’s President Mohamed Irfaan Ali has since signed the National Resources Fund into law. (News Americas)

But critics say the government passed the NRF Act without consultation with the parliamentary opposition or other civil society stakeholders. Kaieteur News posits that a principal concern are "loopholes that could give way to massive corruption, borrowing frenzies, as well as spending sprees."

Local democratic watchdog Article 13 has warned that the ‘undue haste’ opens the door for misuse of the oil funds. (Kaieteur News)

Climate Justice and Energy

• Jamaica's government is a 51% shareholder of Noranda, the applicant for a mining lease and environmental permit for bauxite mining in the contested area of Cockpit Country. That the regulator is also the Jamaican government ·is an irreconcilable conflict of interest," argues environmental activist and Founder of the Jamaica Environment Trust (JET) Diana McCaulay. (Petchary's Blog, see last week's Just Caribbean Updates on the Cockpit Country project.)
  
  
• The Cuban approach to climate adaptation and mitigation offers an alternative to the globally dominant paradigms based on the private sector or public-private partnerships, according to Jacobin. Cuba's Tarea Vida policy has increasing relevance to tourism-dependent Caribbean small island developing states, and others in the Global South.

Food Security

• Underpinning much of Haiti's troubles is environmental injustice and food insecurity, with 4.4 million people (of a population of nearly 11 million) at risk of hunger, reports the Guardian. Haiti's grassroots Papaye Peasant Movement (MPP) works to tackle deforestation and the climate crisis in Haiti’s poorest regions by working with subsistence farmers.

Decolonization

• A history professorship named after Cecil Rhodes has been axed by a Kings University London following a row over its imperial heritage and links to racism and slavery. The current post holder, Guyanese Richard Drayton was a key voice in lobbying for the move, reports the Daily Mail.
  
  
• Coolitude, a neologism advanced by Mauritian cultural theorist Khaleel Torabully, has grown into an intellectual framework over three decades that underpins a number of studies on the global Indian indenture experience. It has paved the way for an increasing body of literature that captures the experience of Indian labourers who were taken across the kala pani from ancestral India in the 1800s to diasporic colonial plantations, writes Baytoram Ramharack in Stabroek News.
  

Public Security

• Two Haitian journalists were killed by gang members while reporting in a conflictive area south of Port-au-Prince, last Thursday. A third journalist who was part of the group survived. Laboule 12, where the journalists were killed, has for months been the site of violent gang clashes and is the only way by road to reach the southern region of the country, which has been cut off since June by gang violence at the southern entrance of Port-au-Prince, reports the Miami Herald.

Culture

• The Tate Britain’s show “Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art, 1950s — Now” charts 70 years of Caribbean-British art through the works of over 40 artists with either Caribbean heritage or other connections to those islands. It tackles the themes of identity and family, colonialism and racism, and celebrates the richness of Caribbean culture, reports the New York Times.
  
  
• The Caribbean is mourning the passing of legendary actor, director, humanitarian and ambassador Sir Sidney Poitier, who passed away at the age of 94. Poitier was a native of Cat Island in The Bahamas. (The Caribbean Journal)
  
  
• Ten of the top Caribbean reads released in 2021, according to the Jamaica Gleaner, including How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps her House by Cherie Jones and Pleasantview by Celeste Mohammed.
  

Opportunities

• Call for papers for Shifting the Geography of Reason XX: “Philosophy, Literature, and Liberation,” organized by the Caribbean Philosophical Association. (Repeating Islands)

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.

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.