Covid-19 impact in the Caribbean (Aug. 27, 2021)

 Covid-19 impact in the Caribbean

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Covid-19 Impact

• Pan American Health Organization Director Carissa F. Etienne said the severe shortage of COVID-19 vaccines in Latin America and the Caribbean is a “wake-up call” for increased regional production of vaccines and announced the start of a new platform to reach that goal.

• The World Health Organization is starting a program to manufacture vaccines in Latin America and the Caribbean. The move aims to address global inequalities in vaccine access, an issue that “remains the Achilles’ heel” of the pandemic fight, said Etienne. Vaccines produced by the program are to be distributed to countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, a region where an average of only 23 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated so far, reports the New York Times.

• Covid-19 is having a more devastating effect on many Caribbean economies than natural disasters in recent times -- Media Institute of the Caribbean

• International vaccine inequality likely played a role in the second wave of Covid-19 infections in Trinidad and Tobago earlier this year, according to a data review in the BMJ that points to the difficulties Caribbean countries have had in procuring vaccines.

• France's government warned of an "extremely serious" Covid-19 crisis in the country's overseas territories, especially in the Caribbean. Martinique tightened the lockdown already in place and told tourists to leave while similar measures were also expected on Guadeloupe, a huge economic blow to the Caribbean islands, reports AFP.

• Medical staff in St. Vincent and the Grenadines are threatening to strike in response to the government's regulation requiring frontline workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19, reports the Asberth News Network. (See Aug. 10's post.)

• Record numbers of Jamaicans sought Covid-19 vaccines this week, in the midst of weekend lockdowns aimed at containing a surge in infections. (Reuters, Petchary's Blog)

Debt Relief

• Haiti’s crushing debts are hampering its ability to respond to crises, like the recent earthquake that devastated the country's south earlier this month. Large scale debt relief would be a quick and simple way to free up resources for Haiti to address the aftermath of the earthquake. It is also a vital part of creating fiscal space for the country to address the climate crisis, sustainable development and other national needs in the mid and long run.  (Jubilee Debt Campaign)
  

Reparations and Decolonization

• A British citizen has agreed to contribute US$500,000 to the University of West Indies' development fund as reparations for her family’s involvement in slavery. (UWITV)

• Caribbean Labour Solidarity (CLS) has joined the ongoing campaign to Decolonise the Curriculum of the United Kingdom’s constituent nations. 

• In Boom and Bust in Puerto Rico  journalist A. W. Maldonado charts the rise and fall of the Puerto Rican economy and explains how a litany of bad political and fiscal policy decisions in Washington and Puerto Rico destroyed an economic miracle.

Climate Justice and Energy

• Suriname is in the midst of a severe economic crisis. "With the prospects of a booming oil industry, it is important to approach the current crisis with an eye to the past and examine how earlier Surinamese governments have responded to crises," writes Mavrick Boejoekoe in Global Americans.

• Guyana must offset the environmental impact of its oil wealth with measures to transition to a green economy -- Global Americans.

• Guardians of the land, we the Maya Q'eqchi and Mopan of Belize
  

Food Security

• Amid a global banana crisis, Puerto Rico’s abundant biodiversity offers a taste of hope, reports the Washington Post.

• Jamaican athlete Shelley-Anne Fraser-Pryce suffered from chronic food insecurity as a child -- Forbes

Culture

• Graphic novelist Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez is the creator of La Borinqueña, a superhero character who was created as a direct response to the struggles Puerto Ricans were facing after the devastation that Hurricane Maria left behind and the lack of government support -- Remezcla.
  

Opportunities

• Call for papers: A forthcoming special issue of the journal Environmental Justice will focus on how communities are using law and organizing to reimagine environmental governance from the bottom up. 

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

Haiti grapples with aid issues (Aug. 20, 2021)

The 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti on Saturday has, perversely, provided a respite for Haiti's tenuously positioned caretaker government, according to Foreign Policy. The tragedy has provided distraction from the country's acute political crisis, but instead put a harsh spotlight on Haiti's long-term problems. "The earthquake victims, not to mention the rest of the Haitian majority, are left basically on their own. Haitian communities have an incredible capacity for self-reliance—one forged out of necessity in the face of repeated abandonment."

Official efforts to aid victims of a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck southwest Haiti on Saturday have been patchy and limited. This hasn't surprised local communities, which have little faith in the government, reports the New York Times. Instead people have been forced to manage their own crisis, reports the Washington Post.

Many small Haitian communities affected by last weekend's earthquake have given up hope that the government will come to their assistance, reports the Miami Herald. "Many people in the isolated villages say it’s as if they’ve been forgotten." 

Nonetheless, tensions over lack of assistance are growing, reports the Associated Press. Haitian authorities said at least 600,000 people were in need of humanitarian assistance and 135,000 families displaced, reports Reuters.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry said his administration will try not to “repeat history on the mismanagement and coordination of aid,” a reference to the chaos after the country’s devastating 2010 earthquake, when the government and international partners struggled to channel help to the needy amid the widespread destruction and misery.

Humanitarian groups are adamant that immediate and long-term help must be implemented differently this time, compared with the aftermath of a devastating 2010 earthquake and Hurricane Matthew in 2016, reports the Miami Herald. "Many in the humanitarian sector say they are committed to improving coordination across an array of non-governmental organizations to meet" victims' needs.

Activists have urged the public to avoid large international organizations, and instead donate and provide resources to local organizations and groups directly connected to people in the country rather than give to large, disconnected organizations, reports NBC.

Haitians were marginalized in 2010, and many emergency interventions caused long-term harm in Haiti. "We again have the chance to create sustainable improvements by maximizing Haitians’ role in all aspects of disaster response," argue Brian Concannon and Kathleen Bergin in The Hill. 

"We need a truly Haitian Solution, once and for all… Haitians have the capacity and expertise, even if Haiti doesn’t have enough financial resources to address the multiple crises," said the Haitian Studies Association in a statement. (Repeating Islands)

"Democratic institutions are vital for strengthening Haiti’s ability to respond to crises," argue Sophonie Milande Joseph and François Pierre-Lois at In These Times. Haiti's political crisis is a result of the undermining of the country's democracy by domestic elites and foreign meddling, they write.

In a similar vein, Jonathan Katz rejects narratives that call Haiti "unlucky": "Haitians’ constant suffering is the result of very intentional decisions (about who gets money, who avoids accountability, and construction codes, among other things) made in foreign capitals and Port-au-Prince—not random chance." (Slate)

The international community must assist with Haiti's political crisis, but not interfere, writes Harvard lecturer Christopher Rhodes in Al Jazeera. "The country’s long-term political stability depends on outside forces taking a back seat to a Haitian-driven rebuilding process."

And, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley called for a “global reckoning in which we must all come together and truly participate to give Haiti and the Haitian people their rightful chance for stability and prosperity ... And it starts with working to create a floor in our Caribbean — to create a standard below which no one must fall, to guarantee access to the basics needed." (Caribbean News Roundup)

Climate Justice and Energy

• ExxonMobil’s huge new Guyana project faces charges of a disregard for safety from experts who claim the company has failed to adequately prepare for possible disaster, according to an investigation by the Guardian and Floodlight. "Experts claim that Exxon in Guyana appears to be taking advantage of an unprepared government ... allowing the company to skirt necessary oversight. Worse, they also believe the company’s safety plans are inadequate and dangerous." The investigation quoted industry analysts at IHS Markit who said the Guyanese government was receiving a below-average return on ExxonMobil’s projects.
• Guyana aims to increase its oil royalties and revamp other contract terms as part of a new profit-sharing agreement for future crude and gas projects now in its draft stage, said vice president Bharrat Jagdeo. "We have made it clear that in any new PSA we negotiate for those blocks, the conditions will be very, very different than the ones from the Stabroek block," Jagdeo said, including higher royalties and mechanisms for deducting costs from investment. (Reuters)

• Trinidad and Tobago environmental activists documented the Paria Fuel Trading Company Limited's half-hearted attempts to clean up an oil spill. The region’s oil industry has come under increasing fire as the Gulf of Paria has been plagued by spills over the past few years, reports the Guardian.

• Dominica is among the countries most vulnerable to natural disasters and climate change, according to an IMF report. During 1997-2017, it was the country with highest GDP losses to climate-related natural disasters and ranked in the top 10 percent among 182 countries for climate-related fatalities.

• Adaptation is more relevant for Caribbean countries grappling with climate change than mitigation, which is why Trinidadian lawyer Michelle Scobie, an expert in environmental governance, says it's important to get "home-grown understandings of the ways in which we can overcome disasters [in the] medium and long-term." (World Wise)

• The quality of one of Jamaica's major water resources, the Rio Cobre, has also been severely compromised by a recent spill of caustic effluent from the nearby bauxite plant, reports Emma Lewis in Global Voices.
  

Democratic Governance

• The Puerto Rican Partido Nacional Progresista's quest to make the territory into a U.S. State is quixotic, unlikely to succeed or be discarded, according to Pedro Cabán at Latin American Perspectives. But statehood does not solve the economic inequality and insecurity, and widening impoverishment of the population that threaten Puerto Ricans' human rights, he argues.

• Two bills in the U.S. Congress aimed at resolving Puerto Rico's territorial status -- one granting statehood and another offering Puerto Ricans the chance to decide regarding statehood -- are deadlocked in Congress. Instead legal experts Rafael Cox-Alomar and Christina D. Ponsa-Kraus say lawmakers should combine both. "The key is to recognize that it is up to the people of Puerto Rico to choose their future, but it is up to Congress to offer them a choice— and the information they need to make it," they write in the Miami Herald.

Regional Relations

• A lack of coordinated policy and over-reliance on a one-size-fits-all trade structure have long hindered the development of the maritime transport infrastructure that Caribbean small island developing states need. The region’s current infrastructure, which carries more than 90 percent of its goods, is vulnerable to disruptions and inefficiencies, writes Ryan Sullivan at the Aula Blog.

Corruption

• The new Saint Lucia Labour Party government intends to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate corruption under the former United Workers Party administration. (St. Lucia Times)
  

Covid-19 Impact

• Confrontations over vaccine mandates in Guyana are, at heart, about a broader lack of trust and fairness. Both the mini-bus sector, nurses and teachers’ opposition to vaccination is influenced by unresolved non-COVID 19 grievances, without this being explicitly acknowledged, according to the Guyana Human Rights Association.

• The Executive Council of the House of Rastafari Inter-Mansion Collective, in the Bahamas, issued a statement claiming religious exemption from mandatory vaccination. (Eyewitness News)
  

Human Rights

• The Guyanese National Assembly has passed a bill that formally repeals the ban on cross-dressing that was struck down as unconstitutional by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in 2018. (76 Crimes)
  

History

• Researchers have traced the origins of the Zoutsteeg Three, 17th century skeletons found on Saint Martin, to at least two distinct linguistic groups in West Africa. "The study paints a fuller picture of the African populations that were subjected to the transatlantic slave trade and suggests that DNA may help scientists reconstruct the life histories and ancestry of enslaved individuals," reports Black Wall Street Media.

• Raymond Ramcharitar’s A History of Creole Trinidad, 1956-2010 offers a history of post-Independence Trinidad and Tobago and critically analyses the popular conception of creolization as the driving force in the country. (Repeating Islands)
  

Culture

• Astrid Roemer, the Surinamese winner of the Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren, came under fire after showing support for former president Dési Bouterse, who was convicted of murder, reports the Guardian.

Olympics

• A 1996 rule bars dependent territories from forming National Olympics Committees, leaving many Caribbean countries unable to participate, though six Caribbean countries were grandfathered in. (Caribbean and Co) 

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

Anti-Vax protests in the Caribbean (Aug. 10, 2021)

Anti-vaccine protests are popping up in Caribbean countries, particularly in response to efforts to make jabs mandatory for certain groups. 

Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, was hospitalized after being hit in the head with a rock thrown by a protester, at an anti-vaccine demonstration led by nurses and other workers. Gonsalves clarified that he would not make vaccines mandatory, but an amendment to the country's Public Health Act “requires certain frontline workers to be vaccinated” (Associated Press, iWitness News)

Caribbean leaders denounced the violent turn: "The introduction of violence into the political life of Caricom is shameful and deplorable and those responsible for it must be brought to justice with all due dispatch,” said Caricom chair Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne. (Jamaica Observer) “This development in Caribbean politics is reprehensible. We should all strongly condemn it,” said Sir Ronald Sanders, Antigua and Barbuda Ambassador to the United States.

Just a few days later, police in Antigua and Barbuda broke up an anti-vaccine protest with tear gas. (News Americas Now)

This weekend people in Guadeloupe marched during a French National Day Of Protest against the compulsory COVID-19 vaccination for certain workers and the mandatory use of the health pass called for by the French government.  The march came as French authorities appealed for volunteer doctors and nurses to travel to the country's overseas territories of Guadalupe and Martinique, where hospitals on the two islands are overwhelmed by a wave of COVID-19 infections. (Reuters, News Americas Now)

And in Barbados hundreds of demonstrators -- some reports say 2,000 people -- protested potential mandatory vaccination for Covid-19 policies. (Jamaica Gleaner, St. Lucia Times)

In Guyana there have not yet been major protests, but a multitude of local organisations and entities have already expressed their disdain over the incremental transition to a truly mandatory COVID-19 vaccine. (Kaieteur News)

The Jamaican Economy Panel said information campaigns pivotal to combat misinformation and increase vaccine uptake though more forceful measures could be considered. (Petchary's Blog)

More Covid-19

• Fears that Covid-19 jabs could impact fertility are driving some Jamaican women's vaccine hesitancy, reports Our Today.

Diplomacy

• CARICOM's 14 member states have less loyalty to the so-called community than to client relationships with richer and more powerful countries, writes Sir Ronald Sanders in his latest column. "More often than not in their relations with each other, and in their hemispheric and global affairs, it is their sovereignty that they exercise, not their community. Consequently, each of them has remained small, weak and inconsequential in global affairs."

Democracy

• Social media played a pivotal role in catalyzing widely dispersed demonstrations in Cuba last month. There is evidence it was not all spontaneous: "The hashtag #SOSCuba, which served as a major focal point for spreading the word on July 11, appears to have been driven to an extraordinary level of activity from bots and automated accounts based outside of Cuba, retweeting multiple times per second while disguising their footprints to appear as if the posts originated on the island," writes William LeoGrande in World Politics Review, while still emphasizing that this "does not change the irreducible reality of July 11: Thousands of Cubans were discontented enough to come out on the streets and join the protests."

• The U.S. embargo on Cuba is "a big distraction," that impedes the multilateral action that the Cuban people so desperately need, Human Rights Watch's Juan Pappier told NPR.

Climate Justice and Energy

• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has an interactive climate atlas that shows potential climate futures by region. Scientists are observing changes to the Earth's climate in every region and across whole climate systems, according to the Panel's latest report. (Caribbean News Service)

• The message from climate scientists in the IPCC report confirms the critical need for governments to take urgent action, and that it’s not too late to keep warming to 1.5˚C once concerted action is taken, says the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).

• Rising temperatures have inundated Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and Florida coastlines with Saragassum wreaking environmental and economic havoc. (The Conversation)

• A report commissioned by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) paints damning picture of Guyana’s Production Sharing Agreement with ExxonMobil, Hess and CNOOC. The report, which was authored by Tom Sanzillo, an American investment banker and financial analyst, highlights how the contract leaves Guyana at the mercy of the oil companies. (Kaieteur News)

• Among the contract’s weak provisions Guyana never imposed a “ring fence,” which means that the oil companies can charge the government for costs incurred for new development and pay for it out of the revenues from Liza Phase One, an oil field that commenced production in December 2019. (IEEFA) 

• The World Bank priced a catastrophe bond that will provide the Government of Jamaica with financial protection of up to US $185 million against losses from named storms for three Atlantic tropical cyclone seasons ending in December 2023.

• Repeated discharges into the Rio Cobre have negatively impacted the water quality of the river resulting in fish kills and loss of livelihood for fishers and community members, according to the Jamaica Environment Trust. (Our Today)

Human Rights

• Jamaican police authorities ordered an internal investigation after a 19-year-old woman claimed an officer forcibly cut off her dreadlocks that she had grown since birth as part of her Rastafarian beliefs, reports the Washington Post.

• "For many Jamaicans, this appeared to be yet another example of the policing of black hair," writes Emma Lewis at Global Voices, who notes that over the years, there have been regular conflicts regarding natural hair and dreadlocks.

Culture

• "Snaking through the hissing of the windy wetlands/Eyes stare in search of pea doves, iguanas, turtles and crabs/And windswept trees, but where are they to be found?" -- A protest poem (An Ode to Levera Wetlands and Mangroves that once was) -- Louise Nyack Francois

• Runner Jasmine Camacho-Quinn’s gold medal sparked a debate about Puerto Rican national identity. "Puerto Rico is, in fact, a U.S. colony in the 21st century. But although Puerto Rico lacks sovereignty, Puerto Ricans have created complex, fluid and ever-changing national identities in this context," Jorell Meléndez-Badillo writes in the Washington Post.
  

Security

• Haitian police have detained more than 40 suspects in the killing of President Jovenel Moïse, but many people fear Haiti’s crumbling judicial system could result in the assassination going unpunished, reports the Associated Press.
• Nearly a month after the murder, "the circumstances remain just as murky, with no shortage of suspects and speculation—and more new questions than answers," reports the Wall Street Journal. Key investigators are in hiding after receiving death threats.
• Amnesty International is calling on the government of Haiti to protect the families of a murdered journalist and an opposition activist who were gunned down in Port-au-Prince in June. Since the killing, family members and close confidants of the victims have told Amnesty International that both had received threats prior to their murder, and that they themselves are now facing intimidation for speaking to the authorities, reports the Miami Herald.
  

Economics and Finance

• Cuba's government approved legislation permitting the creation of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The major shift in policy comes a month after massive anti-government protests on the island, reports AFP. Cuba's government has accelerated economic reform in recent months, spurred by an economic crisis that stems, in part, from U.S. economic sanctions and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Gender and LGTBQ

• U.S. federal prosecutors charged three men with hate crimes in the 2020 assault of a transgender woman in Puerto Rico. They were charged for assaulting a transgender woman "because of her gender identity," reports CBS News.

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

Jamaica's reparations request (July 30, 2021)

A Jamaican proposal for reparations would ask Britain for compensation for the Atlantic slave trade's impact on the former colony. 

The government's reparations petition is based on a private motion by Jamaican lawmaker Mike Henry, who said it was worth some 7.6 billion pounds, a sum he estimated is roughly equivalent in today's terms to what Britain paid to slaveholders after abolishing slavery in 1834. To compensate slave owners, the British government took out a 20 million pound loan - a very large sum at the time - and only finished paying off the ensuing interest payments in 2015.

Opposition leader Mark Golding said there’s bi-partisan support for the effort and also pointed to a CARICOM initiative to seek reparations which Jamaica is part of. CARICOM’s 10-point program for ' ‘reparatory justice’ ‘is framed as a development strategy to use reparations payments to deal collectively with economic and educational challenges facing the Caribbean.’

(Reuters, Caribbean Life News)

Climate Justice and Energy

• An international climate minister's meeting in Paris wrapped up this week reaffirming the commitment to prioritising loss and damage — a contentious article under the Paris Agreement which small island developing states have been lobbying to put on the agenda, reports the Jamaica Observer. Loss and damage includes the effects of sudden-onset climate disasters such as hurricanes, as well as slow-onset events such as sea level rise.

• Caribbean countries are experiencing the full range of climate impacts, from coastal erosion driven by sea level rise, to extended drought periods, to more frequent and severe hurricanes and tropical storms, warns Jamaica-based ocean scientist Danielle Nembhard. “A liveable future for all Small Island Developing States hangs in the balance as we barrel towards a threshold from which recovery is unlikely," she told Ours to Save.

• From heatwaves to flash floods, the Caribbean islands continue to be among the regions most threatened by climate change. Islands and coasts see their future most compromised, inciting migration to “safer” regions. These instances of dangerous climate change and migration in the Caribbean are captured by extraordinary Haitian photographer Cristina Baussan, reports Kulture Hub.

• Guyana is a carbon sink and a climate leader, but has been airbrushed out of the global climate movement due to its status as a developing country, environmental lawyer Melinda Janki told the Climate Curious podcast by TEDxLondon. She makes the broader point that the people who have contributed the most to climate change are not really the ones that are bearing the brunt of it.

• IT technicians have detected what they have described as a collective and continued effort to bring down Kaieteur News' website that appears to be well funded. The newspaper is highly critical of Guyana's oil extraction management. 

Environment

• Locals near the Dominican Republic's Puerto Viejo mine say Barrick Gold is literally poisoning the area -- Jacobin. 

Finance and Economics

• The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the risk of a debt crisis for low- and middle-income countries, warns Unicef. In many countries, debt payments outweigh government budgets for social expenditure.

Covid-19

• The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) wants the region to develop platforms for producing and distributing new vaccines and medicines as part of “a concerted regional health strategy." (Caribbean Media Corporation)

• The Covid-19 pandemic has deepened preexisting socio-economic inequalities in Jamaica. The pandemic largely exacerbated extant issues of low, uncertain incomes, with the added risk of catching the virus and falling ill, according to a report by the Caribbean Policy Research Institute.

• CARICOM should be proud of the success of a Caribbean woman who was at the center of the effort to manage the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Dominican born Dr. Carissa Etienne, the Director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), writes Sir Ronald Sanders.

Regional Relations

• CARICOM countries called on the U.S. to lift its trade embargo against Cuba. In a July 26 letter sent to President Joe Biden, CARICOM chairman and Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne said that “strong and mutually beneficial relations” have been developed between Cuba and the Caribbean countries over a 49-year period and CARICOM regards “Cuba and its people as a valuable and respected member of our family of Caribbean nations”. (Caribbean Media Corporation)
  

Indigenous Rights

• Belize's Supreme Court ruled in favor of Maya land rights in Jalacte Village vs. the Attorney General, ruling that the government breached the Maya Peoples’ constitutional rights, obligating Belize's government to return the lands that had been taken without the community’s consent and ordering compensation of the equivalent of $3.12 million, reports Cultural Survival.  
  

Migration

• More than 10,000 migrants from Haiti, Cuba and several African countries, many trying to reach the United States, are overwhelming Necoclí, a town on Colombia’s north coast on the way to the dangerous Darién Gap. Migrants are spurred by worsening conditions in Haiti and Cuba, and the recent reopening of South American borders. But officials say the surge is creating a public health emergency in the midst of the pandemic, reports the Washington Post.
• The U.S. could soon be facing dual migrant crises stemming from Haiti and Cuba. In response, the Biden administration has preemptively warned migrants not to try to come to the U.S. by boat, reports Vox.
• The first group of almost 100,000 Venezuelan migrants without legal status in the Dominican Republic have received visas allowing them to work, open bank accounts and join the social security system under the country's Migration Normalization Plan, reports the International Organization for Migration.

Culture

• The Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico is an institution for activism, according to its executive director and chief curator, Marianne Ramírez Aponte. “In Puerto Rico we are facing so many challenges: financial difficulties, social inequality, challenges in our education system, climate crises plus earthquakes and hurricanes," Ramírez told Forbes. She explains that they approach these issues in a cross disciplinary manner and regularly work with scientists, human rights organizations and environmental groups.  

• “Landfall” and “Stateless,” two new films about Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, portray complexity rarely granted to Caribbean narratives, according to the New York Times. "The films lean into ambiguity and uncertainty, resisting a binary vision of pure abjection or simple victory."

• The World Food Travel Association (WFTA) named Grenada and its sister islands Carriacou and Petite Martinique the world’s first “Culinary Capital.” (Caribbean Life News)
  

Hello again, I'm returning after a welcome two-week break. We welcome comments and critiques on the Caribbean News Updates, which is still a work in progress. You can see the Updates on our website, as well as receive it directly through the mailing list. Thank you for reading.

15 killed in Port-au-Prince (July 2, 2021)

At least 15 people were killed in Port-au-Prince on Tuesday, apparently in retaliation for the murder of the spokesman of  group of disgruntled police officers known as Fantom 509, said Leon Charles, director general of the national police force, at a news conference. Among those killed were two journalists and a political activist. They were killed execution style using heavy automatic rifles in the Christ-Roi area of Petion-Ville. Police said the attack is still under investigation and gave no details on whether it was staged by a single person or multiple shooters. Charles blamed allies of Fantom 509 for the mass killing but did not provide any evidence. (Reuters, Al Jazeera, Associated Press)

The United States condemned what it described as a systematic violation of human rights, fundamental freedoms and attacks on the press in Haiti, urging the government to counter a proliferation of gangs and violence, yesterday.

A political mission from the Organization of American States presented its findings yesterday, and is recommending that Haitian President Jovenel Moïse promptly appoint a new prime minister and cabinet, urgently take steps to establish a climate of security and appoint a new elections body so that Haiti can hold legislative, local and presidential elections before the end of the year. 

But the delegations of St. Lucia and Antigua and Barbuda to the OAS raised concerns that the mission’s failure to facilitate dialogue as spelled out in its marching orders meant that the visit could not be seen as a success, reports the Miami Herald.

Earlier this week Haitian authorities announced that a postponed (and controversial) constitutional referendum will be held on Sept. 26, the same date as presidential and legislative elections. (Reuters)

In a statement yesterday, members of a newly formed Haiti Caucus in the U.S. Congress blasted the referendum decision and the OAS report, which they said “deeply troubled” them.

In view of increasing gang crime and autocracy, German development organizations, including Brot-fuer-die-Welt, called for the German government and the other members of the Core Group to immediately abandon their support for Moïse.

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Elsa becomes first hurricane of 2021

Tropical Storm Elsa strengthened into the first hurricane of the 2021 Atlantic storm season this morning, threatening to unleash flooding and landslides in the Caribbean. Elsa became the earliest E storm on record, beating out Edouard, which formed July 6, 2020. Elsa is the fifth named storm of the season in the Atlantic. (USA Today)

The links between hurricanes and climate change are becoming more apparent. A warming planet can expect to experience stronger hurricanes over time, and a higher incidence of the most powerful storms, reports the New York Times.

A hurricane warning is in effect for Barbados, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, as well as St. Lucia. A hurricane watch is in effect for southern Haiti from Port Au Prince to the southern border with the Dominican Republic. The system is expected to continue on a general west-northwest path over the Caribbean and is likely to remain a hurricane while approaching Hispaniola and Jamaica this weekend. (Accuweather)

Economics and Finance

• The international proposal to establish a global minimum corporate tax rate is a significant issue for the Caribbean, which should respond regionally, argues Sir Ronald Sanders. Alliances are vital, he writes, because "if the G20 endorses the plan, smaller countries will again be cast aside – the hapless victims of the world’s powerful states, as they are with climate change and getting vaccines to fight COVID-19." (See last week's Just Caribbean Updates.)

• It is important to unite with other countries outside the region as well, according to Sanders. "Low taxes help Caribbean countries and others to attract investment they desperately need, because their exploitation and under development, for centuries, have made it difficult for domestic investment alone to drive their needed economic growth and social improvement."

• The coronavirus pandemic has created the need for a new Bretton Woods -- but "one proposal missing from the table is for a much-needed shock absorber as risks such as climate change and falling biodiversity intensify," writes Avinash Persaud in the Financial Times.  Barbadian-style natural disaster clauses are an example of how such a tool could help.

• Caribbean Development Bank President Dr Gene Leon said the institution's current size may need to be revisited if it is to remain an effective partner for the region. In his inaugural address, Leon pointed to the predicted financing gap which will impinge on Caribbean countries’ efforts to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as one of the factors driving the need for such a rethink.

LGBTQI and Gender

• Caribbean nations are losing $4.2 billion a year in missing tourism, productivity and competitiveness to laws that discriminate against LGBTQ people, according to a new report by Open for Business. (Al Jazeera)

Migration

• Thousands of Haitians are crossing into the Dominican Republic without legal permits, stoking perennial xenophobia in DR. Smugglers say Haiti's exacerbated political crisis has changed migration demographics: more children are fleeing Haiti, reports Vice News.
• Guyana's government withdrew the automatic six-month stay granted to Haitians on arrival in the country, revoking an earlier order that allowed nationals from Haiti to enter the country without a visa. The move comes after authorities found 10 Haitian children in a hotel room without documentation, and as officials signal increasing numbers of Haitian and Cuban people without legal status. Haiti, despite being a full member of CARICOM, has not always enjoyed free movement into member countries under the CARICOM Single Market and Economy. (Caribbean National Weekly)

Regional Relations

• The U.S. embargo against Cuba hasn't only affected that island. "The collective economic development of the Caribbean has been impaired as the embargo inhibits trade, investment and tourism with a market of over 30 million people," said Jamaican Spokesman on Foreign Affairs Lisa Hanna. (Caribbean Chronicle, see last week's Just Caribbean Updates)

• Nascent scientific cooperation between Cuba and the U.S. was also thwarted by Trump's reversal of detente. (JDSUPRA)

Food Security

• El Toque has a multimedia deep-dive into Cuba's food crisis -- and looks at how archaic production, lack of supplies and climate change, among others, have contributed to an island with three problems: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Cuba imports more than 70 percent of its food, an increasing challenge given the country's current economic crisis, compounded by the pandemic. Cubans trying to navigate the labyrinth of actually obtaining food are stymied by cost and availability.

Climate Justice and Energy

• Small island nations on the climate crisis frontlines have been overlooked in overseas aid, according to advocates of the universal vulnerability index (UVI). Researchers from the Commonwealth secretariat and the Foundation for Studies and Research on International Development (Ferdi) say the new index should be an alternative to GDP as a measure for aid allocation. (Guardian)

• In a new report by the World Resources Institute, researchers argue for transformative adaptation, a concept based on the idea that climate change is pushing systems, including agriculture, to the brink of collapse and that fundamental changes are needed to tackle the challenges wrought by global warming. Rather than maintaining current systems, transformative adaptation, the authors say, will mean shifting which crops are grown where, or hundreds of millions of people could face “catastrophic hunger.” (Inside Climate News)
  

Covid-19 Impact

• Caribbean and Latin American countries continue to be hammered by increased coronavirus infections and deaths, highlighting the stark inequalities in access to vaccines around the world, according to the WHO. Economic inequality, the huge informal economy and the difficulty of implementing public health measures in Latin America and the Caribbean have all been major obstacles to containing the Covid-19 there, reports the New York Times.

• The cost to the global economy of the tourism freeze caused by Covid-19 could reach $4 trillion by the end of this year, according to a report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. The varying pace of vaccine rollouts are expected to particularly affect developing nations and tourist centers. Ecuador’s GDP is projected to fall by 9% in the worst-case scenario and 7.5% at best. (Guardian)
• U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona that Puerto Rico will receive nearly $4 billion in federal education pandemic relief funds to help boost the U.S. territory’s fight against Covid-19. (Associated Press)
  

Education

• There are about 80 medical schools in the Caribbean -- most are for-profit and tend to have more lax admissions standards than their U.S. counterparts, reports the New York Times. Though some charge tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and fees and they often fail to position their students for career success internationally: graduates from Caribbean medical schools have been frustrated by difficulties in accessing U.S. residencies. 

Human Rights

• Prisoners in Haiti often spend years in inhumane conditions subjected to ill-treatment and torture and in many cases while still awaiting trial, according to a new UN report. More than 80 percent of inmates in Haiti are in pre-trial detention, notes the report, and most prisons suffer extreme overcrowding.

Public Security

• Caribbean islands like Curaçao and the Cayman Islands, as well as Aruba, have become convenient transit points for illicitly sourced gold, bound for the United States and elsewhere, reports InSight Crime.

Histories

• Through a series of biographical essays, poems and articles, The Other Windrush shines a light on the hidden history of a 'minority within a minority': Caribbean migrants of Indian and Chinese descent - often the descendants of indentured labourers - who were the 'invisible passengers' of the Windrush generation.
  

Culture

• U.S. actor Michael B. Jordan backtracked on his plan to name a rum brand "J'ouvert," after a wave of criticism about cultural appropriation. Jeanine Mendes-Franco explores the many facets of why people were angry, and what it implies for cultural stewardship. (Global Voices)

• Jamaican-Canadian writer Olive Senior discusses her poetry collection, Pandemic Poems: First Wave -- Repeating Islands.

• The Mennonites of Belize – a Guardian photo-essay on the community’s gentle pace of life.
  

Events

15 July

• The Catastrophe of Prohibition and the ‘War on Drugs’ in Latin America and the Caribbean - WOLA
  

We welcome comments and critiques on the Caribbean News Updates, which is still a work in progress. You can see the Updates on our website, as well as receive it directly through the mailing list. Thank you for reading.

Bahamas' Court of Appeal hands down landmark citizen ruling (June 25, 2021)

The Bahamas' Court of Appeal this week upheld a historic Supreme Court ruling that children born out of wedlock to foreign women and Bahamian men are entitled to citizenship at birth. It "is light at the end of the tunnel for some residents who have long sought to be recognized as citizens of The Bahamas and to benefit from that recognition, one of five plaintiffs in the matter" told The Tribune. Born to an unwed Bahamian father and a Jamaican mother, he said he hopes that soon people like him will no longer endure the hurt of not being able to travel or find a job because they lack a passport.

But the Bahamas government says it will file an appeal with the London-based Privy Council. The country's attorney general, Carl Bethel, said the ability of all Bahamian men to automatically pass citizenship to their children “remains an open question." (EyeWitness News, Caribbean Media Corporation)

Nonetheless people sought to register to vote at the Parliamentary Registration Department following this week's ruling, raising the question over whether the change is immediate or must await final appeal for implementation, reports the Caribbean Chronicle.

 In 2016, Bahamians in a referendum rejected the idea of amending the Constitution to allow Bahamian fathers of children born out of wedlock to non-Bahamian mothers to automatically pass citizenship to their children.

A bill has been drafted by the Law Reform Commission, that aims to dramatically reform the country’s immigration laws and address long-standing issues surrounding statelessness and the right to pass on citizenship. (Eyewitness News, Tribune 242)

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UN votes against Cuba embargo

The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in support of a resolution that calls for the U.S. to lift its embargo against Cuba, as it has since 1992. As is customary, the U.S. and Israel voted against the motion, which was supported by 184 countries. Colombia and Brazil abstained in yesterday's vote -- Brazil had accompanied the Trump administration in voting against the  2019. (United Nations)

The only time the U.S. didn’t cast a no vote was in 2016 during the Obama administration’s opening toward Cuba, when both the U.S. and Israel abstained. (Miami Herald)

The yearly vote is symbolic, and has no practical effect. But it is an indicator of international alliances. This year's vote was seen as a litmus test of U.S. President Joe Biden’s willingness to quickly reverse his predecessor’s tough stance toward Cuba, reports the New York Times. The choice to vote against the resolution appeared to signal that Biden will continue to move cautiously on Cuba. The U.S. ratified the use of sanctions, which it believes are key to advancing democracy and human rights which "remain at the core of our policy efforts toward Cuba," the U.S. Mission's political coordinator, Rodney Hunter, told the assembly. (Associated Press)

But Cuba, and the vast majority of countries in the U.N. focused on the enormous costs the sanctions have levied on Cubans: some speakers yesterday indicated they have cost the Cuban economy around $147.8 billion in losses over nearly six decades, and about $9 billion calculated from April 2019. Many countries flagged the embargo as a Cold War holdover that has been a financial and humanitarian disaster. (Miami Herald)

The resolution has particular relevance in the pandemic context: The embargo is hurting Cuba’s ability to access medical supplies and imposing significant difficulty in obtaining equipment to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, said the country's foreign minister Bruno Rodríguez, citing hurdles the island faced when trying to buy respirators last year. Recent reports indicate that lack of syringes for vaccines is a major challenge. (See Monday's briefs.)

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Cuba's homegrown vaccines

Cuba announced yesterday that two of its nationally developed coronavirus vaccine candidates showed high efficacy rates in late-stage trials. BioCubaFarma, the government-owned pharmaceutical company, that its three-dose Abdala vaccine candidate had an efficacy rate of 92.28% in phase III of clinical trials, while the state-run Finlay Institute of Vaccines said its Soberana 02 had completed phase III trials with an efficacy rate of 62% after two out of three recommended shots. Both vaccines are expected to be granted emergency authority by local regulators shortly. (Miami Herald, Reuters)

Cuba's authorities have already started administering the experimental vaccines en masse as part of "intervention studies" they hope will slow the spread of the virus. About a million of the country's 11.2 million residents have been fully vaccinated to date.

However, some are concerned about a lack of transparency and data about the trials. Cuba hasn’t provided any information about its vaccines to the World Health Organization. Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, Bolivia and Vietnam, among other countries, have expressed interest in buying Cuban vaccines.

The vaccine news was seen as a rare cause for celebration on an island hammered economically by the pandemic's impact on tourism and U.S. economic sanctions, reports the New York Times. Cuba is currently experiencing its worst coronavirus outbreak since the start of the pandemic. It reported 1,561 new cases on Monday, a record.

Climate Justice and Energy

• Climate change is making Atlantic hurricanes far more intense -- the causes are far beyond the control of people on the islands, who suffer the worst consequences, writes Bahamian Bernard Ferguson in the New York Times Magazine that looks at the horrific damage wrought by Hurricane Dorian in 2019. "My Bahamas are facing effects of climate change that we could never have caused ourselves, and crises larger than we can survive alone."

• The six largest private oil companies in the world, ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Total, will be key in meeting the International Energy Agency (IEA) goals to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Oil Now makes the case for CCUS technology, which is the process of capturing, storing and sometimes utilizing CO2 that would have otherwise been emitted to the atmosphere.

• But some scientists are arguing that the net-zero strategy simply allows the perpetuation of the status quo and is certain to fail. The hope is that allowing negative emissions to balance continued CO2 emissions as part of net-zero policies will provide a safety net for industries where it is technically impossible to eliminate all emissions — in aviation and agriculture, for instance, explains Fred Pearce in Yale Ecology 360. But some fear the safety net will become a cover for business-as-usual in highly polluting industries.

• Another challenge with the net-zero strategy are indications that climate response to emissions and removals is actually “asymmetrical” – that is, the carbon cycle and climate response to CO2 emissions is not equal and opposite to CO2 removals of the same magnitude, writes Professor Kirsten Zickfeld at Carbon Brief.

• An overseas Guyanese group, "The Oil and Gas Governance Network," launched a campaign calling on Guyana's government to renegotiate its contract with Exxon. (Kaieteur News)

Covid-19 Impact

• Covid-19 is expected to wipe out more than a decade of development and progress in the Caribbean and Latin America. But countries in the region have received limited multilateral debt support, as middle-income countries are not eligible for the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) or its Common Framework for Debt Treatment. The European Commission and ECLAC are calling for a paradigm shift in development cooperation, that recognizes that classifications based solely on income-per-capita criteria do not reflect the whole range of a country’s multidimensional vulnerabilities, structural gaps and financing needs, write Alicia Bárcena and Jutta Urpilainen.

• Haiti is the only Caricom country expected to benefit from the direct U.S. donation of 14 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine to Latin America and the Caribbean. So far, it hasn't received a single jab, reports the Caribbean News Network.

• The U.S. announced it will also donate approximately 14 million vaccines for Latin America and the Caribbean through Covax, some of which will go to other Caribbean Community countries. (White House)

• Getting the vaccines is one thing; getting people to take them is another, noted Janine Mendes-Franco in a recent Global Voices piece. Many smaller regional territories in the Caribbean are experiencing vaccine hesitancy and their governments have been donating part of their allocations to larger Caribbean Community (CARICOM) neighbors who need them.

• Masked, a documentary, features St. Lucian women on the frontline of the pandemic: small entrepreneurs in early childhood education; hospitality and agriculture - sharing their personal stories of the immediate and longer-term impact of Covid-19 which has resulted, in some cases, in them losing their jobs.

• The pandemic has made it drastically harder for Venezuelan migrants to Trinidad and Tobago to survive economically: 68 per cent of employed migrants lost their jobs due to Covid-19. (International Organization for Migration) 

Democracy

• Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Pierluisi said the U.S. territory's lack of statehood is a form of discrimination and called on Congress to lay out steps for the island to become a state. (CBS)

• The pro-statehood movement now feels especially urgent for supporters who see an opportunity in the majority Democratic U.S. Congress, reports CBS separately. 

• Haiti's government sought to assure the United Nations Security council that the country's "electoral process is following its normal course.” Acting Haiti Prime Minister Claude Joseph asked skeptical members of the international community to ante up $17 million for an elections fund, reports the Miami Herald.

• Amid worsening socioeconomic conditions, rising criminal gang violence and a resurgence of COVID-19, Haiti’s leaders must commit to good-faith dialogue aimed at ending a longstanding and damaging political impasse, the UN’s senior official in the country told the UN Security Council last week.

• A controversial constitutional referendum pushed by Haitian President Jovenel Moïse scheduled for this weekend was postponed due to Covid-19. But the delay only adds to the building political chaos in Haiti stemming from Moïse’s efforts to expand his power in the country, reports AS/COA in an explainer on the country's prolonged political crisis.

Human Rights

• An estimated 95 armed gangs control about a third of Port-au-Prince in Haiti. These gangs are increasingly engaged in armed battles for territory control, affecting the lives of around 1.5 million people, warns UNICEF. The current situation of gangs’ violence and IDPs in the capital city’s metropolitan area is feared to go towards a further deterioration with elections later this year.

• The U.S. announced it would ease some of its sanctions against the Royal Saint Lucia Police Force, and resume full cooperation with and assistance to a number of local police units. The US withdrew training and material assistance to the police in 2013, due to ‘credible allegations’ of gross human rights violations. (St. Lucia Times)

Culture

• U.S. actor Michael B. Jordan backtracked on plans to name his rum brand "J'Ouvert," after backlash over what many considered cultural appropriation of a term that signals the start of carnival in the Caribbean and is a cornerstone of tradition in Trinidad and Tobago. (Guardian)

• Jamaican Roland Watson-Grant won this year's Commonwealth Short Story Prize for the Caribbean region. His writing tells us about the strained and tenuous links between rural life in 21st century Jamaica and the rapid changes taking place outside the narrow confines of communities, writes Emma Lewis in Global Voices.

• 12 Best Audiobooks by Women for Caribbean Heritage Month -- Repeating Islands

Events

28 June

• Vaccines for the Caribbean: Why it matters for the United States -- Atlantic Council

We welcome comments and critiques on the Caribbean News Updates, which is still a work in progress. You can see the Updates on our website, as well as receive it directly through the mailing list. Thank you for reading.