Reality in Writing : Caribbean Political Economy

January 31, 2013 NACLA.org The expansion of the Panama Canal is to be completed in 2015. In preparation for this, Jamaica has embarked upon an ambitious program of infrastructure development to position it as a “global transshipment and logistics hub”—joining the likes of Singapore, Dubai, and Rotterdam. However, the cost to join the ranks of such global hubs is estimated to cost Jamaica anywhere between US$8 and $10 billion. While Jamaica is endowed with natural advantages, such as geographic proximity—it is the island closest to Panama and home to the world’s seventh largest natural harbor in the world—it is also saddled with a crippling amount of debt. In order to successfully complete the daunting project before the canal opens, Jamaica will have to dredge the Kingston harbour in order to ensure that the massive ships will be able to enter port, expand existing port facilities, construct a dry dock for ship repairs, establish a transshipment commodity port, a...

Originally Published: January 24, 2013 NACLA.org On January 8, 2013, Canada’s Minister of International Cooperation—and head of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)—blindsided Haiti, the United States, and the United Nations by announcing through the media that he would be freezing any further distributions of development aid. The announcement made just before the three year anniversary of the devastating January 12 earthquake has since created a great deal of controversy for Fantino both within Canada and abroad, but so far there have been no signs that the decision will be reversed. Fantino’s reasoning for the shift was due to his disappointment with the slow process of reconstruction and thus attempted to justify this position by remarking “Are we going to take care of their problems forever? They also have to take charge of themselves.” Such a poor characterization of the challenges faced by Haiti and the Haitian government’s handling of the r...

Haiti Three Years Later: Reversing the Arrow of Corruption In The Diaspora January 14, 2013 Stabroek News (Guyana) Kevin Edmonds is a freelance journalist and doctoral student in Political Science at the University of Toronto. He is one of the authors of the recently released report by a Harvard University based research group, on MINUSTAH in Haiti. Editor’s note: Saturday marked the third anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti. A letter to the British Guardian newspaper, and signed by members of the Global Women Strike, the, Women of Colour Global Women Strike, US, the Haiti Action Committee (US) and Red Thread (Guyana), points out that “the robbery of Haiti by governments, NGOs and private contractors, under the protection of UN troops which have been occupying since 2004, is more glaring than ever.”  The letter also underlines the double standard in the treatment of former presidents Jean-Bertrand Aristide (deposed by a US, French and Canadian backed ...

January 10, 2013 NACLA.org In 2012, the Caribbean was the site of many positive developments—but overall the region as a whole is desperately trying to keep its head above water. An example of this could be seen in both Jamaica and Trinidad’s 50 th anniversary of political independence. While last year marked half a century since the end of formal British colonialism, it also highlighted that new and perhaps more powerful structures of control have arisen in the region such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization and the international drug trade. The continued advance of all three of these influences has been relatively unimpeded in the politically fractured Caribbean of today. What one can only hope is that from the lack of progress following prescriptions handed down from Washington, Geneva and Brussels, will lead to a reorientation towards discussing new alternatives for the region. The ugly reality of austerity has rolled back much of the...

December 21, 2012 NACLA.org Due to the decline of the traditional sugar and banana exporting industries, many cash strapped Caribbean islands have been resorting to an unusual and controversial method to raise revenue—selling citizenship. While economic citizenship programs already exist in Austria, Bulgaria, Britain, and Canada, they often take several years for the applications to be processed—while in the Caribbean it only takes a couple of months. While no specifics on the nationalities involved have been released, it has been widely circulated that those most interested in the economic citizenship program are primarily the wealthy from China and the Arab World. Armand Arton, of Arton Capital, a financial advisory business based in Montreal specializing in immigrant investment programs, remarked that his firm “had provided advice to more than 500 families in 2011 and that 75% of them had been from the Middle East.” Since September 11, there has been a crackdow...

December 17, 2012 NACLA.org On December 11, the United Nations announced a long overdue initiative to end the cholera epidemic which has devastated Haiti for more than two years—taking over 7,750 lives and infecting 600,000 more. While the announcement by the Secretary General Ban Ki Moon is a welcome and much needed step, the ten-year plan is not without controversy. Perhaps most practically, the Initiative for the Elimination of Cholera in the Island of Hispaniola remains largely unfunded. Of the $2.2 billion price tag, only $238.5 million has been committed. The initiative seeks to implement clean water and sanitation infrastructure in addition to public education and capacity building programs throughout both Haiti and the Dominican Republic. When pressed about the lack of funding, Nigel Fisher, the U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Haiti could only state that “I'm confident that more resources will come”. Given that the only half of the $12 ...

November 23, 2012 NACLA.org “Make no mistake about it. Our region is in the throes of the greatest crisis since independence. The specter of evolving into failed societies is no longer a subject of imagination. How our societies crawl out of this vicious vortex of persistent low growth, crippling debt, huge fiscal deficits, and high unemployment is the single most important question facing us at this time. Indeed, if CARICOM (the Caribbean Community) wishes to be relevant to the lives of the people of the region, then that issue should dominate its deliberations at the next summit. CARICOM cannot be seen to be impotent when societies and economies are at risk, on the brink of collapse.” These were the words of Dr. Kenny Anthony , Prime Minister of St. Lucia to a meeting of the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry on October 31. While fighting an uphill battle in an unfriendly global economic environment, a key part of the Caribbean’s socio-economic descent has to ...