IACHR rules in landmark Isseneru case (June 28, 2022)

A landmark ruling from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) found that the rights of the Indigenous people living in Guyana's Isseneru were violated. Guyana’s government is tasked with informing the rights commission of the measures it intends to adopt to provide recourse to the villagers in about two months’ time. (Newsroom Guyana)

“The reparations must include measures of compensation, satisfaction and any other which are deemed appropriate in accordance with the Inter-American Standards including the provision of any required health care services to community members affected by environmental pollution,” the IACHR recommended in its report. (Stabroek News)

Isseneru residents plan to propose compensatory solutions to the government. The Isseneru Village Council said it hopes to meet with President Irfaan Ali and members of government to discuss solutions. (Newsroom Guyana)

Human Rights

• At least eight inmates have died in a Haitian prison that ran out of food two months ago. Hunger and oppressive heat in the overcrowded penitentiary contributed to the inmates’ deaths, reports the Associated Press. The United Nations Security Council released a report last week saying 54 prison deaths related to malnutrition were documented in Haiti between January and April alone.
  
  
• Conditions at Haiti’s garment factories are akin to prison camps, with non-existent labour rights and where sexual abuse is rife, according to activists. About 60,000 Haitians work in the country’s 41 factories, producing clothes for more than 60 American companies. Female garment factory workers say that to get a job women are expected to have sex with a male manager, reports the Guardian.
  
  
• Ten years after international luminaries inaugurated Caracol Industrial Park in Haiti, thousands of people displaced from the project are still waiting for compensation. It’s just part of how many international efforts to rebuild Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake have backfired, condemning a generation of children to poverty and causing irreversible damage to their families’ livelihoods, reports Buzzfeed.
  
  
• A court in Paris found the French government guilty of wrongful negligence involving the former use of a banned pesticide in the French Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique but denied compensation to those affected, reports the Associated Press.
  
  
• The Covid-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected Afro-Caribbean and Latin-American people and their communities, according to a new ECLAC report that cites violation of many of their rights and increasing inequality and the incidence of racism and discrimination.
  

Climate Justice and Energy

• Climate negotiators came together last week at the Commonwealth People's Forum in Rwanda to discuss how the coalition of 54 Commonwealth member states can advance climate justice ahead of COP27. In particular, advocates proposed a World Environment Court, a new global dispute resolution mechanism to arbitrate negotiations over climate loss and damage funding. (Jamaica Gleaner)
  
  
• The persisting problems facing Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to develop, sustain and locally retain capacity indicates that business-as-usual approaches to capacity building are not sufficient to meet the needs of SIDS to secure a thriving future as the Ocean undergoes climate change-related change, according to the Alliance of Small Island States.
  
  
• A series of visualizations by Florent Lavergne shows how rising sea levels could impact countries in terms of flood risk by the year 2100. (Visual Capitalist)
  
  
• Ideological bias and structural inequality prevent the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from exploring possibilities for fundamental transformation, argue Yamina Saheb, Kai Kuhnhenn, Juliane Schumacher at the Rosa Luxemburg Siftung site.
  
  
• The impacts of global warming will change the identity of Bonaire, warns Greenpeace, in a call for the Dutch government to take action. Sea level rise, the vanishing coral, extreme droughts, storms: the island will be facing many challenges. 
  
  
• A U.S. federal court of appeals ruled that the liquefied natural gas import terminal New Fortress Energy constructed without permits in Puerto Rico should have first been reviewed by the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. New Fortress must now submit an after-the-fact application to obtain a permit for the terminal. That application process will finally allow the neighboring communities and the Puerto Rican public a meaningful opportunity to challenge the lack of safety and environmental considerations at the site, according to Earth Justice.

Regional Relations

• Haiti and Jamaica are among the group of countries that recognized Juan Guaidó as Venezuela's legitimate leader, a stance they should reverse, argues Sir Ronald Sanders. He notes that 7 of the 13 countries in the Western Hemisphere, which originally joined the US and Canada in aggressively supporting the notion that Guaidó was in charge of Venezuela, have now abandoned that position and reverted to dealing with President Nicolás Maduro's government.
  
  
• Baroness Patricia Scotland narrowly defeated challenger Jamaican Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smitt to remain Commonwealth Secretary General in a vote last week. The Dominica-born lawyer has been secretary-general of the Commonwealth since 2016, reports Reuters. (See also Caribbean National Weekly) 

History and Decolonization

• Britain's royals paid tribute to the 'Windrush generation' last week at the unveiling of a statue to commemorate the arrival of post-war migrants from the Caribbean. "Without you all, Britain would simply not be what it is today," Prince William, Queen Elizabeth's grandson, said at the unveiling of the National Windrush Monument at London's Waterloo Station. The statue, by Basil Watson, backed by £1m of government funding, portrays three figures – a man, woman and child – dressed in their “Sunday best” climbing a mountain of suitcases hand in hand. (Guardian)
  
  
• The homage came as the government again apologised for the migrants' recent mistreatment, after a tightening of immigration policy in recent years meant thousands were denied basic rights despite having lived in Britain for decades, and dozens were wrongly deported, reports Reuters.
  
  
• Contradictory Indianness by Atreyee Phukan shows that Indo-Caribbean writers and their reimagining of Indianness in the region must be considered in a postcolonial Caribbean aesthetics that has, from its inception, privileged inclusivity, interraciality, and resistance against Old World colonial orders. (Repeating Islands)
  
  
• Maroons in Guyane: Past, Present, and Futures, by Richard and Sally Price, reviews the history of Maroon peoples in Guyane, explains how these groups differ from one another, and analyzes their current situations in the bustling, multicultural world of this far-flung outpost of the French Republic. (Repeating Islands)
  
  
• 25 maps that illustrate the Caribbean's rich history.

Finance and Economics

• President of the African Development Bank Akinwumi A. Adesin said the Caribbean and Africa desperately need debt relief, debt restructuring and debt sustainability, speaking last week in Turks and Caicos. (Loop News)
  
  
• The European Union's changing rules and unclear methodology on back listing are putting some of the world's most vulnerable countries at a greater disadvantage, explains economist Marla Durkharan in a discussion with the Barbados Government Information Service.

Migration

• More than 140,000 Cubans were detained at U.S. borders between October last year and May. The figure surpasses the 125,000 Cubans who departed from the Port of Mariel near Havana between April and October 1980, reports the Miami Herald.

Health 

• Cuba’s nationally developed Covid-19 vaccines — which are used in children starting at age 2 — become a case study of how poorer countries can invent their own shots, reports the Washington Post.

Critter Corner

• Gigantic bacteria 50 times larger than any bacterial species previously known to science, dubbed Thiomargarita magnifica, have been discovered in a Guadeloupe mangrove swamp. (Financial Times, New York Times)

Events

• 29 June -- Climate Action Global Youth Accelerator Launch Webinar -- Barbados Environmental Conservation Trust -- Register Here
  

Opportunities

• Creativity meets Adaptation Competition -- Prepare a piece using the Theme “What does Climate Adaptation mean to YOU?” (Art, Writing and Video Competition) -- Caribbean Climate Network -- Competition open to July 5

Privy Council rules against Barbuda communal land rights (June 17, 2022)

The London-based Privy Council ruled against communal land rights in Barbuda, part of a long battle between the island's residents and the Antigua and Barbuda government. Barbudans have practiced communal land ownership for centuries; the 2007 Act codified it into law. Efforts to overturn the practice have invoked a stormy response from many Barbudans who feel it will destroy their unique way of life and erase their cultural identity, reports the Antigua Observer.

Since 1834, when the British emancipated their slaves, Barbudans as a community have owned all their island’s land. Barbuda, the smaller of the two biggest islands of Antigua and Barbuda, with a population of approximately 2,000, codified this long-existing communal ownership in 2007 in the Barbuda Land Act. The island's communal land protections were overridden by Antigua and Barbuda's government in the wake of Hurricane Irma destruction in 2017, but was the subject of the court battle that ended with Monday's ruling.

Locals fear the repeal will turn Barbuda "into the environmentally destructive mass tourism hub that Antigua has come to represent," reported The Intercept in 2020. (See Just Caribbean Updates for Dec. 16, 2020.)

With the Privy Council’s latest ruling, the development of the island now seems all but certain if plans by the government to make the island green and a high-end tourist attraction are realized, reports the Antigua Observer. Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne has argued that Barbuda's development depends on a developed property rights system that provides individuals freehold and leasehold ownership, and said that his administration continues to work towards this “by creating the registry and selling the Barbudan people’s land for $1 per plot."

Browne has called the Barbuda Land Act unconstitutional – and denigrated Barbudans who defend it to the media as “deracinated Imbeciles, Ignorant [sic] elements.”

“A change in land ownership in Barbuda could harm Barbuda’s most vulnerable people, including women, children, and the elderly,” said Juliana Nnoko-Mewanu, researcher on women and land at Human Rights Watch in 2018. A Human Rights Watch report highlighted that research in Zambia, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Mozambique has consistently shown that taking away land used by communities – without due process and without adequate compensation and rehabilitation – results in serious risks to people’s rights to food, water, housing, health, and education.

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Caribbean at Summit of the Americas

Leaders from across the Caribbean participated in the ninth Summit of the Americas, which concluded last Friday in Los Angeles with new commitments to climate adaptation, clean energy, and food security.  Both U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met with CARICOM members and Secretary of State Antony Blinken hosted multiple Caribbean government heads.

The U.S. leaders announced the U.S.-Caribbean Partnership to Address the Climate Crisis, or PACC 2030.  The new initiative will elevate U.S. cooperation with Caribbean countries to support climate adaptation, strengthen energy security, and accelerate the transition to clean energy, while building the resilience of critical infrastructure and local economies to the climate crisis.  

PACC 2030 specifically focuses on improving access to development financing, a priority for the region.  PACC 2030 will work to expand existing access to project financing and unlock new financing mechanisms to support climate and clean energy infrastructure development in the region.  Key actions under this pillar will include increasing U.S. International Development Finance Corporation financing for climate and clean energy projects in underserved Caribbean countries, as well as collaborating with multilateral development banks and multilateral climate and environmental trust funds to improve the policy environment and unlock access to additional infrastructure financing for the Caribbean.

Many Caribbean leaders criticized the U.S. decision to exclude Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela from the Summit. CARICOM Chairman John Briceño, the Prime Minister of Belize, strongly condemned the exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua as inexcusable, incomprehensible, and unforgivable. He insisted that the summit belongs to all of the Americas and “it is therefore inexcusable that all countries of the Americas are not here, and the power of the Summit diminished by their absence”.

“At this most critical juncture, when the future of our hemisphere is at stake, we stand divided. … Geography, not politics, defines the Americas,” said Briceño.

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley called for dialogue rather than exclusion: "We need to speak to those with whom we disagree. We don’t only need to narrowcast, that is the problem with the world. There is too much narrowcasting than broadcasting, there is too much talking instead of talking with,” she said. But she also called on the leaders of the three missing countries to put people before ideology.

Decolonization and Racial Justice

• The UK foreign secretary decided to give the British Virgin Islands’ emergency administration two years to implement reforms to tackle endemic corruption, avoiding direct rule in the meantime, reports the Guardian.
  
  
• Jamaica's government said it will create a Constitutional Reform Committee, with representatives from the government, parliamentary opposition, relevant experts, and civil society, to ensure Jamaica’s smooth transition to a republic.
  
  
• “Forgotten Souls of Tory Row: Remembering the Enslaved People of Brattle Street,” the installation of bottle trees now on view at the History Cambridge headquarters in Boston represents the people – adults and children – who were enslaved by the 18th century owners of the mansions on Brattle Street (many of whom amassed fortunes through their plantations in the Caribbean). (Repeating Islands)

Development and Aid

• Ten years after international luminaries inaugurated Caracol Industrial Park in Haiti, thousands of people displaced from the project are still waiting for compensation. It’s just part of how many international efforts to rebuild Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake have backfired, condemning a generation of children to poverty and causing irreversible damage to their families’ livelihoods, reports Buzzfeed.

Regional

• The threat of food shortages -- coupled with already high prices -- means Caribbean leaders should take rapid action to ensure food security, writes David Jessop in the Jamaica Gleaner. Achieving food security requires Caribbean leaders to facilitate large-scale, well-capitalised regional and international private-sector investment in the region's agriculture, in ways that address mechanisation, training, and introduce global best practice.

Migration

• Over the last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Puerto Rico has detected and intercepted an increasing number of migrant voyages, mostly made up of Dominicans and Haitians, looking to land on Puerto Rico’s shores, reports the Miami Herald. The Mona Passage, a historic migrant route with a deadly reputation for swallowing yolas, or small migrant boats, is at the heart of the activity.
  
  
• Charter flights from Haiti to South America, with premium-price tickets, provide an escape route for Haitians seeking to migrate, including many who were deported from the U.S. The flights from Haiti became a lucrative business as restrictions aimed at controlling the spread of the coronavirus decimated tourism, reports the Associated Press.

Climate Justice and Energy

• Island states say a fund for climate disaster victims must be created by Cop27. Developing countries demanded a losses and damages fund during last year's COP climate talks, but settled for a “dialogue”, co-chaired by the US and Singapore. At the first session of the dialogue small island states said 2024 was too late for money to start flowing to communities on the frontline of climate impacts. They want to establish a finance facility at this year’s climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, and work out the details along the way. (Climate Change News)
  
  
• A GeoPoll survey of 13 Caribbean countries found that most respondents believe climate change is happening and are at least somewhat worried about it. Hurricanes comprise their biggest concern. Most respondents have personally experienced the effects of climate change including damage to infrastructure, and some have already had to move as a result.
  
  
• A region-wide stony coral tissue loss disease outbreak in the Caribbean is killing off up to 94 percent of some coral species. The outbreak is probably is made worse by coastal development and climate change, according to researchers. (Washington Post)

Public Security

• The violent armed gangs that control much of Haiti are using social media to expand their reach and tighten their grip on the country, reports the Washington Post. Posts aimed at energizing recruits, intimidating rivals and terrorizing the population are challenging the platform’s ability to police the problematic content.
  
  
• A powerful Haitian gang attacked and occupied the country’s Supreme Court nearly a week ago. Reports that police have still not retaken the courthouse, display authorities' inability to deal with expanding criminal groups, reports InSight Crime.
  
  
• Dominican Republic environment minister Orlando Jorge Mera was fatally shot in his office, allegedly by a childhood friend, over denied environmental permits, reports Al Jazeera.

Economics and Finance

• The Bank of Jamaica is preparing to issue a nationwide digital currency following recent approval from legislators, reports the Associated Press.

Education

• Barbados, which recently transitioned to a republic, should reform its education system, argued former Senator and retired principal Alwyn Adams, who has described the current system as “a preservation of British rule." (Barbados Today)

Gender

• The United Nations Population Fund published Guidelines for the Management of Safe Shelters for GBV survivors in the English and Dutch-speaking Caribbean. These guidelines address the practical and functional aspects of setting up a safe shelter for GBV survivors, while focusing on a survivor- centred approach and on the principles of non- discrimination, respect, safety and confidentiality.

Culture

• The exhibition, “Everything Slackens in a Wreck,” highlights the experiences of South Asian and Asian indentured laborers who came to the Caribbean from 1838 to 1920. Despite the violence and economic bondage of their lives in the Caribbean, they created new forms of culture and new ways of thinking that endure today, reports the New York Times.
  
  
• Invisibilizadas e innombradas: Cuentos de mujeres puertorriqueñas negras by Rosario Méndez Panedas is divided into two parts: Invisibilized Women, biographies of black women forgotten by the collective memory despite the extent of their work, and Unnamed Women, imaginary narratives of slave women whose only known data are those printed in advertisements in Gaceta del Gobierno Constitucional de Puerto Rico. (Repeating Islands)
  
  
• New Political Culture in the Caribbean is a collection of essays edited by Holger Henke and Fred Reno. Caribbean political discourse "has significantly shifted over the first decades of the twenty-first century, and the impact of social media and a concomitant rise of political fringe discourses have accelerated the fragmentation of the public and polity, leading to sharper confrontations in the political sphere and giving once again rise to crude forms of nationalism." (Repeating Islands)
  
  
• Odyssée Garifuna, an art exhibit in Martinique, took artist Robert Charlotte to St. Vincent, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and from the east to the west of the United States, to meet the Garifuna people. The work narrates the rootlessness [l’itinérance] of this people, born of the fortuitous meeting of deported Africans and kalinagos from the Caribbean. Over the course of the travels he embarked upon to explore one of the less valued—and even, little known—facets of Caribbean identity, Robert Charlotte substantiates the urgency of understanding how a culture evolves, endures, is transmitted or disappears. (Repeating Islands)
  
  
• Ayanna Lloyd Banwo's list of “must-read magical Caribbean novels” at Repeating Islands.

Events

• 28 June -- Climate Resilience and the Rights of Persons with Disabilities -- SAEDI Consulting. Register here.
  
  
• 29 June -- DAWN-UWI WEBINAR: Caribbean Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Towards Policy Transformations? - Conversation on the policy direction and political responses during the pandemic based on case studies of Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. Register here.
  

Opportunities

• Creativity meets Adaptation Competition -- Prepare a piece using the Theme “What does Climate Adaptation mean to YOU?” (Art, Writing and Video Competition) -- Caribbean Climate Network -- Competition open to July 5

 

Alex kicks off Atlantic Hurricane season (June 7, 2022)

Tropical Storm Alex became the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which started last week. It killed at least three people in Cuba this weekend. Alex formed in the Gulf of Mexico last week partially from the remnants of Hurricane Agatha, a Pacific region storm that killed at least nine people as it moved over Mexico and into the Gulf. (New York Times)

Last week marked the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season, which forecasters say has a 65% chance for an above-normal number of storms. Experts predict a likely range of 14 to 21 named storms, of which six to ten could become hurricanes, including three to six major hurricanes. Climate factors contributing to the trouble ahead include La Nina, human-caused climate change, warmer ocean waters, the Loop Current, increased storminess in Africa, cleaner skies, a multi-decade active storm cycle and massive development of property along the coast. (Guardian, Loop News, Associated Press)

Last year was the third most active season on record, with 21 named storms and seven hurricanes. But that is part of a longer trend. In the past two years, forecasters ran out of names for storms. 

Studies show that climate change is making hurricanes wetter, because warm air can hold more moisture, and are making the strongest storms a bit stronger. Storms also may be stalling more, allowing them to drop more rain over the same place.

Democratic Governance, Transparency and Accountability

• The Caribbean Investigative Journalism Network launched an investigative series on citizenship by investment programmes in the Caribbean. The stories examine the benefits of the programmes, along with transparency and accountability concerns in St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, Dominica and Saint Lucia. The cross-border collaboration highlighted the economic value of such programmes to these small island developing states.

Climate Justice and Energy

• Guyana's environmental authority renewed the environmental permit for ExxonMobil’s Liza 1 development in the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana for five years even as the company continues to commit flaring violations owing to the failed gas compressor, reports Stabroek News.
  
  
• Activists and experts had sought to use the permit expiry to push the oil major to obtain a better financial deal from its oil endowments, as well as adequate protection for the environment. (Kaieteur News) "The so-called protection that is in this permit is very weak and we are already seeing there is destruction of Guyana’s natural resource base as a result,” said Guyanese environmental lawyer Melinda Jankis. (Kaieteur News)
  
  
• Colombia's Constitutional Court granted a special emergency protective measure ("tutela") for the Providencia Raizal community to Raizal leader Josefina Huffington. It is an English-speaking Afro-Caribbean community in Providencia, which is governed by Colombia. The court accepted the argument that the community's rights were put in jeopardy by climate displacement without an adequate government response in the wake of Hurricane Iota in 2020. (El Isleño)
  
  
• Colombian rights organization Dejusticia asked the Court to evaluate climate change as a factor that "greatly affects the threat or violation of human rights", such as access to housing, water, health, food security that have been evidenced in Providencia. The request stressed that, as a consequence of what happened, many people have had to move from the island to San Andrés and other Caribbean municipalities. (El Espectador)
  
  
• Organizations of civil society asked the United Nations to take measures to protect Raizal communities in San Andrés and Providencia. They called on the international organization to pressure the Colombian government to meet its obligations of prevention and climate event risk management for the protection of the Raizal people. (El Isleño)
  
  
• Jamaica's mining minister recently called for Jamaica to plan for life after bauxite and alumina, pointing to limestone as a possible option. But the extractive limestone industry presents significant environmental challenges, and limestone plays an important role in the filtering, storage and supply of our fresh water, warns Theresa Rodríguez-Moodie of the Jamaica Environment Trust.

Decolonization and Racial Justice

• The future of the British monarchy in the Caribbean looks bleak: In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, public sentiment toward the monarchy has soured, and calls for reparations for Britain’s often brutal role in the slave trade have been rising, reports the New York Times.
  
  
• "There is no better example of the complex need for localization than Haiti, where it is a first step to correcting historic exploitation of the Haitian peoples and their land, including the “double debt” that has burdened the country for over two centuries," writes Tanvi Nagpal in Devex.

Covid-19 impact

• Countries in the Americas should fortify their health systems to confront rising coronavirus deaths as well as the growing threats posed by other contagious diseases, including monkeypox, viral hepatitis and the flu, said PAHO Director Carisse Etienne, last week. (New York Times)

Diplomacy

• The Summit of the Americas' utility is increasingly questioned by experts. Sir Ronald Sanders joins the discussion, and argues that the Caribbean would be better served by a more specific forum where regional concerns could get U.S. attention.

Food Security

• IPS looks at a growing effort by small Cuban farmers to recuperate degraded land and use environmentally friendly techniques, a critical need in a country lacking in domestic food security and facing high import prices in the midst of economic crisis. At the end of 2021, Cuba had 226,597 farms, 1202 of which had agro-ecological status while 64 percent of the total – some 146,000 – were working towards gaining agroecological certification, according to official statistics.

Human Rights

• Haitian prisons have suffered lack of food and water scarcity for at least three weeks, but shortages have worsened recently, reports the Miami Herald. The shortages, along with the reduction in prison visits and recreation activities, is a recipe for a prison revolt or a prison break, the latter of which has been a threat for months, according to Pierre Esperance, who heads the National Human Rights Defense Network.

Public Security

• Trinidad and Tobago is likely to see a rise in violent crimes, as gangs splinter and bounce back from the pandemic, according to island authorities. It appears that gangs are splintering and, in the process, becoming more vicious, reports InSight Crime.

• Seizures of military-style assault weapons in the Dominican Republic are raising concerns that criminal groups are accessing powerful firearms smuggled from the United States and elsewhere, reports InSight Crime.
  

Womens' Rights

• Antigua and Barbuda became the first country in the Caribbean to ratify the International Labour Organisation's Violence and Harassment Convention. Convention No. 190 is the newest ILO Convention and the first to address violence and harassment in the world of work. (St. Lucia Star)

Aid

• One of the first new international assistance trends to emerge in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the increased focus on the health sector and on social assistance, writes Stephen Brown in ANN.
  

Culture

• Renowned Barbadian novelist George Lamming died last weekend at the age of 94. He will be accorded an official funeral on his native island. -- Global Voices
  
  
• For the Jamaica Gleaner, "Lamming’s death was another pointer to the end of the era of that first generation of West Indian writers, artists, and intellectuals who, despite the turmoil of their colonial experiences, discerned the existence of a genuine Caribbean civilisation and fought for its acceptance and embrace."
  
  
• The BBC's "Big Jubilee Read" celebrates great books from across the Commonwealth, to coincide with the Platinum Jubilee. It features 70 titles - ten from each decade of the Queen's reign, with a great selection from Caribbean writers.
  

Events

• 18 June -- CEDAW Speaker Series: Article 4 -- Gaynel Curry, Bahamian human rights expert -- Equality Bahamas. More info
  

Opportunities

• Opening -- Director of Programmes -- International Planned Parenthood Federation
• Climate Change Time Capsule competition -- The Climate Change Initiative

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.

Nearly 150 killed in Haiti's recent gang warfare (May 23, 2022)

Nearly 150 people have been killed and scores wounded during gunfights between warring gangs in Haiti in recent weeks. Médecins Sans Frontières said that it had treated more than 96 people with gunshot wounds in its medical facilities in Port-au-Prince since 24 April. (Guardian)

The United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, says armed violence has reached “unimaginable and intolerable levels” in Haiti and that the surge in violence is being fuelled by heavily armed gangs in Port-au-Prince. (United Nations)

The UN said that between April 24 and May 16, at least 92 people unaffiliated with gangs, and some 96 alleged gang members, were reportedly killed during coordinated armed attacks in the sprawling Haitian capital. Another 113 were injured, 12 reported missing, and 49 kidnapped for ransom, according to figures corroborated by UN human rights officers, although the actual number of those killed may be much higher.

The security situation has direct impact on the country's political crisis, notes the Latin America Risk Report: "Even accepting some level of electoral weakness if Haiti holds elections this year, elections under the current levels of gang violence and influence would not be accepted by much of Haitian society. Solving the security situation must be a priority."

Last week, Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry resumed negotiations with the opposition coalition, the “Montana Accord," which favors the creation of a transition government to bridge the gap between the Henry government and a government to eventually be democratically elected. Negotiations between the Haitian government and the group had been on hold since February 14, reports the Latin America Risk Report.

Decolonization and Reparations

• Persistent corruption is one reason for Haiti's apparently perpetual crisis. But a history of crippling reparations and later extractivist policies by French financial institutions are critical to understanding Haiti's current woes. For generations after independence, Haitians were forced to pay the descendants of their former slave masters,  the world’s first and only country to do so. Loans from French banks were used to finance these payments, what became known as Haiti’s “double debt” — the ransom and the loan to pay it — a stunning load that boosted the fledgling Parisian international banking system and helped cement Haiti’s path into poverty and underdevelopment, reports the New York Times, in a report that builds on existing academic research and original historical records.
  
  
• A New York Times investigation into historical records uncovers how Parisian bank Crédit Industriel et Commercial, which in 1880 set up Haiti's national bank, choked Haiti’s economy, taking much of the young nation’s income back to Paris and impairing its ability to start schools, hospitals and the other building blocks of an independent country. Crédit Industriel, known in France as C.I.C., is now a $355 billion subsidiary of one of Europe’s largest financial conglomerates.
  
  
• The historical tie between debt and gunboat diplomacy is ugly, rooted in imperialist and racist encounters with western powers. Few examples better illustrate the point than Haiti, according to a Clauses & Controversies podcast featuring Laurent Dubois, a leading historian of Haitian colonial history.
  
  
• And the history continues to have significant repercussions: French diplomats admit that Jean-Bertrand Aristide's sudden calls for reparations in 2003, a bombshell that became a hallmark of his presidency, played a role in his eventual ouster in a coup supported by France and the U.S., reports the New York Times.
  
  
• A group of U.S. Democratic lawmakers, including the House majority leader proposed a binding plebiscite to decide whether Puerto Rico should become a state or gain some sort of independence. The draft proposal would commit Congress to accepting Puerto Rico into the United States if voters on the island approve it. But even if the plan were to pass the Democratic-led House, the proposal appears to have little chance in the Senate, where Republicans have long opposed statehood, reports the Associated Press.
  

Diplomacy

• The U.S. Biden administration announced a partial lifting of sanctions on Cuba last week. Changes will include restoring flights to Cuban cities other than Havana and reestablishing a family reunification program suspended for years. The changes also include relaxing the ban on remittances. The new policies follow the recommendations of a long-anticipated review of U.S. policy toward Cuba, launched after a Cuban government crackdown on widespread street protests on the island last summer. (See May 17's Latin America Daily Briefing.)
  
  
• The U.S. Biden administration has several reasons for its newly announced (marginal) shifts towards moderation in its policies towards Cuba and Venezuela -- including concerns over migration and oil shortages related to conflict with Russia. But officials could also be aiming to counteract the threat of a regional boycott of the upcoming Summit of the Americas, motivated by its stance towards these countries. (Latin America Brief)
• U.S. President Joe Biden’s new Cuba measures "appear driven by the confluence of the migration crisis and Latin America’s rebellion over U.S. Cuba policies," writes William LeoGrande in World Politics Review. In fact, the growing chorus of regional dissent regarding the U.S. decision to likely exclude Cuba from the Summit of the Americas is nothing new. "Obama’s 2014 decision to normalize relations was heavily influenced by the public scolding he received from Latin American heads of state at the Sixth Summit of the Americas in 2012. Even close U.S. allies warned that unless Cuba was invited to the 2015 summit, they would not attend." 
• U.S. officials accused Cuba of creating controversy about its possible exclusion from the US-hosted Summit of the Americas next month to portray Washington as the “bad guy” and distract attention from Havana’s human rights record at home. Kerri Hannan, deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, said countries that have threatened to skip the regional meeting if Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua are not invited should attend or else they would lose an opportunity to engage with the United States, reports Al Jazeera. (See last week's Just Caribbean Updates)
• Guyana will be attending the Summit to discuss high-priority matters, President Dr. Irfaan Ali has said. “There are a number of issues that we have to discuss as a region including climate change, energy security and food security and we want to be part of those conversations.
  

Climate Justice and Energy

• The increase in Atlantic tropical cyclone activity since the 1980s can be robustly ascribed to variations in atmospheric circulation as well as sea surface temperature increase, according to a new study in Weather and Climate Dynamics.
  
  
• Expected accumulated damages from tropical cyclones could increase by up to 5% in 2030 and 150% in 2100 relative to 2020, due to increased cyclone intensity as a result of climate change, according to a Climate Analytics study. For some islands, a mix of adaptation measures, including grey infrastructure, nature-based solutions, improved infrastructure, and risk insurance, have the potential to avert economic damages from tropical cyclones.
  
  
• Guyana's Shadow Oil and Gas Minister, David Patterson said an amended motion, seeking full spill insurance coverage by oil giant ExxonMobil will be resubmitted to the House this week. It is an opportunity to reverse the mistakes made regarding oil spill insurance, said the former head of Guyana's environmental authority, Dr. Vincent Adams. (Kaieteur News)
  
  
• For the period April 28, 2020 to January 27, 2022, Guyana received US$81 million in royalty payments, scraped from the two percent deal it signed with ExxonMobil in 2016. However, Kaieteur News reports that between 2019 and 2020 alone, Guyana granted US$657 million in tax exemptions to Exxon.
  

Children's Rights

• A recent Trinidad and Tobago government task-force report  documented widespread abuse in state-run and funded residential children's homes. The Judith Jones Task Force report detailed everything from drug transactions to rape of minors, writes Flora Thomas in Global Voices.

Public Security

• Cuban lawmakers approved a new penal code last week. Some rights groups have criticized the reform, arguing its clause on foreign funding could be used to stifle dissent and independent journalism. The government said the new code is in line with the country's new constitution approved by referendum in 2019, as well as international treaties. (Reuters)

LGBTQ Equality

• Haitian human rights group Héritage pour la Protection des Droits Humains has issued a statement condemning a tweet by a high-profile lawyer detailing a false and defamatory story about a group of homosexuals being caught having sex in a national historical site that went viral last month. This incident is the latest in a string of recent social media attacks on the queer community in the French-speaking Caribbean, after incidents in Martinique and Guadeloupe last month, reports Erasing 76 Crimes.
  
  
• Director of Empowering Queers using Artistic Learning (EQUAL) Anil Persaud has issued a call for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community to play a more meaningful and tangible role in Guyana's development. (Alturi) 
  

Migration

• A UK deportation flight to Jamaica took off last week with seven people onboard. Home Office deportation flights to Jamaica are among the most contentious carried out by the department, reports the Guardian, as many of those earmarked for removal have Windrush connections or have been in the UK since childhood, with children and other close relatives in the country.
  
  
• Engaging Migrants in Guyana is a guide for government and humanitarian organisations wishing to better include migrant voices in decision making. Through presenting eight tips and numerous recommendations, it is hoped that migrants can play a greater role in leading initiatives that seek to benefit their own communities. (Voices GY)
  

Culture

• Diana McCaulay (Jamaica) and Cecil Browne (United Kingdom/St. Vincent and the Grenadines) were selected as winners of the 2022 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for their respective regions. (Repeating Islands)
  

Events

• 25 May -- How do we get governments to commit to climate adaptation? -- Caribbean Climate Network. Register. 
  
  
• 26 May -- Still Standing: Notes from the Ti Kai Project, Dominica -- Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, University of London. Register.
  
  
• 30 May -- The critical decade for climate: unpacking the IPCC Working Group reports -- Constrain. Register.

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.

We aim for the JCU to be an informational tool, as well as a space for connection between Caribbean experts, policy-makers, activists and organizations. If you would like to post an event or opportunity on the JCU, we invite you to send the information to justcaribbeanupdates@gmail.com. Please put in the following format: date -- title of event -- organizer -- registration link OR title of opportunity -- institution -- link to more information. 

Caricom pushes for inclusive Summit of the Americas (May 14, 2022)

Caribbean countries form part of a growing group of countries annoyed at the U.S. organization of the upcoming Summit of the Americas, to be held in Los Angeles in June. Caribbean Community (Caricom) leaders have discussed a collective boycott of the summit if nations are excluded and criticized the U.S. plan to invite Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó. Caricom leaders cited "disrespect [of] the Democratic Charter" by part of the US after not inviting Venezuela, Cuba, or Nicaragua to the meetings. (Associated Press, Associated Press, Ultimas Noticias)

Cuba, particularly, is a flashpoint for governments nettled by U.S. gatekeeping: "CARICOM countries take the view that the Summit of the Americas is not a United States summit, which it isn’t. It is a summit of all the countries of the Americas, of which the United States is only one," Ambassador Ronald Sanders of Antigua and Barbuda told the Washington Post. “Does hosting the summit give you the right to decide who should or should not be representing countries of the Americas? ... Many have come to the conclusion that ... everybody should be there. That must include Cuba.”

Some countries in the region that condemn nondemocratic regimes in Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba still feel the Summit of the Americas invite-list kerfuffle is "yet another reminder of what they see as U.S. hubris when it comes to the hemisphere," reports the Washington Post.

The growing chorus of discontent in Latin America and the Caribbean over the upcoming Summit of the Americas to be held in the U.S. -- the invites still haven't been sent out -- underscores the challenges facing the U.S. Biden administration in advancing its interests in the region, reports the New York Times. 

In an April conference Sanders said that when it comes to how the United States treats its Caribbean neighbors, U.S. President Joe Biden’s policies aren’t that much better than those of his predecessor, Donald Trump. Biden, he said, “inherited Trump’s virulent anti‑Cuba posture, and an equally hostile attitude to Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela.” The decision to recognize Juan Guaidó, then-president of the National Assembly—rather than Maduro—as Venezuela’s head of state, said Sanders, “has continued to haunt US‑Caribbean relations, and will be a significant issue as we approach the upcoming Summit of the Americas.” (Antigua Newsroom)

Diplomacy

• While the U.S. Biden administration recently announced that it is resuming “limited” consular functions at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, it still appears unlikely to restart the normalization process with Cuba. The Biden administration has placed electoral politics ahead of U.S. interests and appears unlikely to do more, write Fulton Armstrong and Philip Brenner at the AULA blog.
  
  
• Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said he prevented “dangerous things” from happening during the time President Donald Trump was in office, including military intervention in Venezuela and a blockade of Cuba. “At various times, certainly during the last year of the administration, folks in the White House were proposing to take military action against Venezuela," Esper said in an interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes. At some point, he said, “somebody proposed we blockade Cuba.” (Miami Herald)

Climate Justice and Energy

• Global Americans has launched a research project to assess the political, economic, and social consequences of climate change in the Caribbean.

• Guyanese environmentalists say ExxonMobil  indifferent to the dangers of an oil spill off the country's coast, while Guyanese politicians have accused Exxon of fleecing the country of billions of dollars by bouncing an ill-experienced government into a contract that pays far less than other countries earn from their oil, reports the Guardian.
  
  
• A new study published in Science estimates the costs of possible legal claims from oil and gas investors in response to government actions to limit fossil fuels, such as canceling pipelines and denying drilling permits. The study’s findings show ISDS claims could reach $340 billion, a substantial amount that would divert critical public finance from essential mitigation and adaptation efforts to the pockets of fossil fuel industry investors.
  
  
• Adjuntas, a community of about 18,000 in central Puerto Rico’s densely forested mountains, has become a showcase for how solar power could address one of the island’s most vexing problems — an energy grid that has struggled to recover after Hurricane María practically wiped it out in 2017, reports the New York Times.
  
  
• Vanuatu’s push for the international court of justice to protect vulnerable nations from climate change has received the backing of 1,500 civil society organisations from more than 130 countries, as it heads toward a crucial vote at the UN General Assembly later this year, reports the Guardian.
  

Public Security

• Haitian gang members raped women and girls and burned people alive during turf wars over the past coupe of weeks near Port-au-Prince, the Haitian National Human Rights Defense Network said in a report detailing the bloody conflict between the rival Chen Mechan and 400 Mawozo gangs. The battles left 148 people dead, some of whom were hacked to death with machetes or died when their homes were set on fire. (Reuters)

Food Security

• Several Caribbean leaders -- including Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and Guyanese Prime Minister Irfaan Ali -- have referenced the urgent need to reduce the regional Food Import Bill. (Carib Direct)
  
  
• "Rather than launching large-scale but short-term projects where international intermediaries absorb a major portion of the funds, the Haitian rural world needs small-scale investments that are sustained over a long time span with encouragement for local markets, school canteens and small-scale tourism outfits," argues Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis in Americas Quarterly.
  
  
• Cassava could be part of the solution to the grain supply challenges aggravated by the Ukraine war, argues Chiedozie Egesi in the Guardian.
  
  
• Melissa Fuster’s Caribeños at the Table, demonstrates that a global shift towards Americanized food has shaped the food practices of Caribeños, not just upon migration, but also before they arrive. Fuster disrupts the discourse of migrants’ “universal longing for traditional foods” by arguing that dietary practices are significantly influenced not just by culture; but more importantly, by intersectional structural factors such as class, race, and gender, both in their homeland and their new home. (Nacla)
  

Decolonization and Racial Justice

• Following the arrest of British Virgin Islands’ Premier Andrew Fahie on drug charges, the UK, which already controls the islands’ defense and foreign policies, is considering taking over the country’s domestic policy and budgets as well, reports The Guardian.

• CARICOM, and the University of the West Indies have called on Britain to retreat from stated political calls to subvert and subordinate the sovereignty of the people of the Virgin Islands.

Drug Rights

• St. Vincent and the Grenadines' first cannabis consumption lounge opened last week -- people can obtain permits to buy cannabis products for a year after an onsite consultation with a physician. (Nation News)
  

Culture

• Anguilla's education officials updated the country's school code to permit students to wear natural protective hairstyles like dreadlocks, braids and cornrows, reports Loop News. Education Minister Dee-Ann Kentish-Rogers said the change aims to move past "engrained colonial perspectives," part of a broader Caribbean debate. 
  
  
• "Splintered," written and directed by Emily Aboud, is a primer on the life of queer women in the Caribbean, reports the Guardian -- complete with the hypothesis that the homophobia embedded in their culture is founded in the legacy of colonialism.

Events

• 21 May -- CEDAW Speaker Series: Esther Eghobamien-Mshelia -- Equality Bahamas. Register.
  
  
• 25 May -- "Centering Justice in Global Climate Finance Governance on the Road to COP27" -- Climate Justice - Just Transition Donor Collaborative. Register.

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.