#CaribbeanReview – Not all bad news in the region

Today we continue this article on 2021 Caribbean in Review. The first part was published in our December 30 edition on Pages 10 & 11.

By Peter Richards

But there were some bright spots economically in the region in 2021.

The Belize government, for example, said it will be able to wipe away a significant amount that the country owes from the principal, capitalised interest and past due interest by retiring all of its US dollar bonds due in 2034.

Belize has been looking to restructure a US$572 million superbond that emerged from 2006-07 restructuring and now contributes to a 133 per cent debt to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio that the IMF deems unsustainable.

Prime Minister John Briceño said with the consent of the Cabinet and the support of holders of 50 per cent of the principal amount of these bonds, the new agreement calls for the bondholders to sell their claim at a very significant discount to Belize.

The government has since tabled a resolution authorising the purchase and redemption of the country’s US dollar bonds under the Blue Loan Agreement, the Conservation Funding Agreement and the Ancillary Agreements Motion 2021.

The Guyana economy grew by 14.5 per cent during the first six months of this year, with Senior Minister of Finance, Dr Ashni Singh, indicating that the country would be one of the fastest growing economies in terms of real GDP, predicting a rapid transformation in several sectors given that the government was making efforts to boost the non-oil sector.

The Ministry of Finance said the favourable economic performance at the end of the first half of 2021 in the non-oil economy bodes well for the upcoming second half of 2021 and into the future.

The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) said the Caribbean’s travel and tourism sector is recovering at a faster rate than any other region in the world, with its contribution to GDP expected to rise more than 47 per cent this year, compared to just 30.7 per cent globally.

“Our research clearly shows that while the global travel and tourism sector is slowly beginning to recover from the ravages of COVID-19, the Caribbean is recovering much faster than any other region,” said WTTC president and chief executive officer, Julia Simpson.

“Last year, the COVID-19 pandemic stole almost a quarter of all travel and tourism jobs from the region, but due to a significant increase in international and domestic spend, both jobs and GDP are on the rise,” she added.

But the coronavirus pandemic could not be blamed for the death of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise in July. He was assassinated at his private residence on July 7. His wife, Martine, was also injured in the attack and had to be flown to the United States for medical treatment.

Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph declared a state of siege and told Haitians hours after the assassination that the killers appeared to have been foreigners.

“The first pieces of information we have is that it is a group of English and Spanish-speaking individuals with large caliber weapons who killed the President of the Republic,” he said.

The government then called on the United Nations to conduct an international investigation into the assassination, saying the probe should form an “international commission of inquiry”, along with a special court to prosecute the suspects.

Even before his death, the 53-year-old Moise had been trying to hold the French-speaking CARICOM country together in the face of widespread political discontent, including plans to stage a referendum to change the country’s Constitution. In addition, he had been forced to replace prime ministers amid socio-economic problems that included fuel shortages
and kidnappings.

The authorities have detained more than 40 people, including several former members of the Colombian army, in respect of Moise’s murder. Other suspects have since been detained in Jamaica and Turkey, with the businessman, Samir Handal, detained at Istanbul airport, while he was in transit from the US to Jordan.

But Haiti’s chaotic political environment has taken another turn, with the country’s chief prosecutor asking a judge investigating the assassination to charge Prime Minister Ariel Henry with involvement in the case over alleged phone calls he made to the main suspect.

The announcement by Bed-Ford Claude, the Port-au-Prince Government Commissioner, came even as Prime Minister Henry had announced that he had dismissed Claude and two others, including the Justice Minister Rockefeller Vincent.

“There are enough compromising elements… to prosecute Henry and ask for his outright indictment,” Claude wrote in the order.

By year end, no one has been formally charged with murdering the head of a government in CARICOM, the second since 1983, when Maurice Bishop was gunned down in a palace coup in Grenada.

At year’s end, US media were reporting that the Haitian President was compiling a list of officials and businessmen linked to the illegal drug trade before he was assassinated. The New York Times said he had planned to give the names to the US government.

Moise’ wife had recalled during the shootings the attackers ransacked the room and looked through the president’s files, all while speaking Spanish.

“‘That’s not it. That’s not it,’” she recalled them saying before one finally declared: ‘That’s it.’” She doesn’t know what they were seeking or found.

Moise’s murder did not overshadow, perhaps the biggest political event in the Caribbean in 2021, when on November 30, Barbados became the fourth English-speaking CARICOM country to replace Britain’s Queen Elizabeth as its head of state and The Most Honourable Dame Sandra Mason was sworn in as the island’s first President with a 21-gun salute.

The move to republican status coincided with the island’s 55th anniversary of political independence from Britain and Dame Sandra told the ceremony at the newly renamed National Heroes Square in the heart of the capital, that the new journey has now started “so we may seize the full substance of our sovereignty.

“For decades, we have had discourse and debates about the transition of Barbados to a republic. Today, debate and discourse have become action. Today, we set our compass on a new direction, girded by the successes of the last 55 years, buoyed by the confidence garnered by our triumphs and accomplishments, committed to country and each other and motivated to press confidently and boldly forward for the sake of our nation and for present and future generations,” said Dame Sandra, who was bestowed with the Order of Freedom of Barbados.

Britain’s Prince Charles, along with leaders from some CARICOM countries, were present during the more than two hour gala ceremony at the National Heroes Square, a stone throw away from the Parliament building that was constructed between 1870 and 1874, and a former site of Colonial administration of Barbados.

“The creation of this Republic… also marks a point on a continuum, a milestone on the long road that you have not only travelled but which you have built,” Prince Charles told the ceremony.

He said from the darkest days of the past and “the appalling atrocities of slavery which forever stain our history, the people of this island forged their path with extraordinary fortitude. Emancipation, self-government and independence were your way points.”

The move to republican status was welcomed by St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves, who in a lengthy letter of congratulations to his Barbadian counterpart, Mia Mottley, wrote that he hoped other CARICOM countries, would follow suit, joining also the French-speaking Haiti and the Dutch-speaking Suriname which both adopted a republican form of government and have executive presidents.

“Guyana and Dominica have been republics since independence respectively in 1966 and 1977, although Guyana has an executive Presidency and Dominica, a Non-Executive President.

“Trinidad and Tobago, which became independent in August 1962 with a constitutional monarchical system with a largely ceremonial Governor General, altered its constitution in 1976 to a republican one with a Non-Executive President,” he said.

Gonsalves said that prior to Prime Minister Mottley’s successful leadership on this issue, only Dr Eric Williams, “the political titan of Trinidad and Tobago”, was able to lead triumphantly on republicanism by way of an alteration to an existing post-independence Constitution.

“So, Barbados is not doing anything novel. But what it is doing is of utmost significance, for the better, for its people and our Caribbean civilisation. It is my hope that, in my lifetime, all or most of the independent countries of CARICOM would move from a monarchical system to a republican one.”

Prime Minister Holness is promising that the issue of Jamaica’s future constitutional status will be addressed shortly, even as he warned that “there must not be empty symbolism” moving forward.

In recent days, Jamaicans have raised the issue of the island replacing Queen Elizabeth as the head of state and former prime minister, PJ Patterson, has said the removal of the Queen cannot wait on a full review of the constitution.

Patterson, 86, who served as the island’s prime minister from 1992 to 2006, has written to Holness and Opposition Leader, Mark Golding, urging them to swiftly begin the process for removal of the queen as Jamaica prepares to celebrate its 60th year of independence.

However, Holness, who is promising that the questions raised would be addressed shortly, said he would like to see Jamaica accomplish certain things before taking the step to replace the Queen.

“The nation is as the nation does, and there are some people who want to speak prosperity into being, speak sovereignty and independence into being. My philosophy is that we must do these things into being. We must make them happen.

“There must not be empty symbolism. It must be genuine. It is what we are in our actions and in our achievements and what we have done. So, I am building towards the aspiration,” Holness said.

Former St. Lucia prime minister, Dr Kenny Anthony, has called on his government to follow in the footsteps of Barbados, noting “over the past few years, Barbados has achieved two constitutional milestones which have surprised me.

“It has done the unthinkable – first, it jettisoned the Privy Council as its final Court of Appeal and adopted the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), then secondly, it replaced the British Monarchy as its Head of State in favour of a Republican President.”

Anthony, a former law lecturer, said the actions were “unthinkable” for the reason that for years, the wider Caribbean treated Barbados as the “most Anglophile nation” in the Commonwealth Caribbean. (CMC)

Continued and concluded on Pages 16 & 17.