Reality in Writing : Caribbean Political Economy

February 21, 2013 NACLA.org While it is too early to tell whether or not Jean Claude Duvalier will appear in court today to face charges for embezzlement and corruption, it is important, whatever the outcome, to highlight that Guatemala’s arduous 14-year struggle to prosecute former military dictator Efrain Rios Montt for crimes against humanity provides an important template for Haiti moving forward. After Guatemala’s civil war ended in 1996, a National Reconciliation Law (NRL) was enacted which granted amnesty for political crimes committed by both the Guatemalan Armed Forces and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union. The hasty establishment of the NRL was seen as a crucial component mandating that both sides lay down their arms, but it also threatened to institutionalize impunity in a nation seeking to rebuild itself after 36 years of civil war. Following the models of nations seeking to move forward from a history of brutal military governments

February 14, 2013 NACLA.org In January 2012, Judge Carves Jean triggered a wave of shock and disappointment throughout Haiti and much of the world by ruling that the former dictator of Haiti, Jean Claude Duvalier, would stand trial for the embezzlement of public funds, but not for the much greater charge of committing crimes against humanity. While it is widely acknowledged that Duvalier looted the Haitian treasury to the tune of $800 million , he has also been implicated in carrying out systemic human rights abuses, consisting of the murder, torture, disappearance, and imprisonment of tens of thousands during his rule from 1971 to 1986. Judge Jean’s decision to drop the most serious charges against Duvalier was based upon his reading of the Haitian constitution, which cited that the abuses fell outside of the 10 year period outlined in the statute of limitations . Contrary to the ruling by Judge Jean, international law states that there is no such limitation wh

The Drug Trade and the Increasing Militarization of the Caribbean February 8, 2013 NACLA.org Given the current controversy surrounding the extent of the U.S. drone program and targeted killings, it is important to revisit that in the summer of 2012, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency announced that unmanned drones would begin patrolling Caribbean airspace as an expansion of the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI). This is only one aspect of how the War on Drugs in the Caribbean is increasingly looking like the War on Terror. The U.S.–Caribbean border is the often ignored “Third Border,” which the Department of Homeland Security has referred to as an “open door for drug traffickers and terrorists.” A recent study by the National Defence University has stated that “the region's nexus to the United States uniquely positions it in the proximate U.S. geopolitical and strategic sphere. Thus, there is an incentive, if not an urgency, for the