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'Uncle Sam's' contempt for Caribbean
-- Different strokes for a 'spy' and a terrorist
By Rickey Singh
HEMISPHERIC security with a special focus on countering terrorism, reducing poverty and other major social issues that contribute to political stability and undermine good governance, would have formed part of yesterday's Rio Group Summit in the Guyanese capital Georgetown.
We should know by today if not by late last night, the key decisions reached from the official communique expected from the 20-nation summit of Latin American and Caribbean leaders, whose deliberations had been preceded by a series of technical and ministerial meetings.
The Rio Summit was concluding in Georgetown five days ahead of President George Bush's one-week tour of five Latin American states starting on Thursday, March 8.
The journey would take him to Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala and Uruguay with favourite topics of his like "war on terrorism", "democracy" and "social justice" on his work agenda.
It is ironic, though by no means surprising, that President Bush would want to discuss coordinated responses in the battle against "terrorism" while his administration maintains a policy of benign neglect, to say the least, in relation to one of the most notorious terrorists currently in the U.S. and wanted for the single most horrific terrorist act in the modern history of the Caribbean.
The wanted man is the Cuban emigre, Luis Posada Carriles, who has been implicated as playing a key role in the 1976 bombing of a Cubana passenger aircraft off Barbados killing all 73 people on board.
Two years ago CARICOM made a passionate call for Posada to be brought to justice for his role in the Cubana tragedy, consistent with the war against terrorism. Both Cuba and Venezuela are also still waiting on the U.S. government for the extradition of Posada to face trial for that unprecedented criminal act in Caribbean air space.
Now, as arrangements were being finalised for last week's Rio Group Summit and this week's five-nation tour of Latin America by President Bush, an important development took place in a Miami court that further exposes the hypocrisy and contempt of the administration in Washington in its "war on terrorism" and observing the rule of law.
The development was last Tuesday's sentencing by a Miami district court judge of a Cuban-born university professor and his wife to five and three-year prison terms respectively for admitting to "spying" for Cuba.
Eleven days earlier, another Cuban, Luis Posada Carriles, who should be facing trial for causing 73 deaths by terrorism, was instead informed of charges of "lying" to U.S. immigration. The contrast perhaps represents the latest example of the hypocrisy, the moral inconsistency, of the Washington administration.
This hypocrisy is well located in President Bush's policy and related attitudes of United States authorities in dealing with the documented case of the anti-Castro terrorist, Posada for his involvement in the Cubana tragedy off Barbados.
More, later, of the now 77-year-old Posada. First to the "spying" 61-year old professor Carlos Alvarez of Florida International University.
He admitted in court to sharing, in collaboration with his wife Elsa, information to Cuban intelligence on Cuban exiles living in Florida. Alvarez told Judge Michael Moore that he was once part of "an underground movement" to topple the government of President Fidel Castro. Later, however, he chose to be "an advocate for dialogue" with the intention to help improve relations between Cuba and the U.S.
According to information provided the prosecution by the political and intelligence arms of the United States government, Alvarez had used the codename "David" while he and his 56-year-old wife Elsa (codenamed Deborah) were engaged in sharing information with Cuban intelligence to "influence dialogue".
In sentencing them, judge Moore correctly noted that "a good motive is never an excuse for criminal conduct…" Well, Posada and his collaborators in crime must be laughing.
They would include officials of the Ronald Reagan administration, and also significant roles played by U.S. Central Intelligence personnel who had trained, bankrolled and protected Posada over the years of sustained anti-Castro activities as documented in books, magazines and newspaper articles published in and out of the U.S. and found in archives.
Even before being facilitated in escaping from prison in Panama for his involvement in the attempted assassination of President Fidel Castro in that Central American state in 2004 during an official visit, Posada had earlier been assisted by U.S. intelligence personnel in Caracas and anti-Castro Venezuelan elements to escape from jail while awaiting trial for his role in the 1976 Cubana tragedy.
Perhaps for that Cubana bombing tragedy, Posada also had "a good motive", to use words of judge Moore, since it was consistent with his driven CIA-sponsored commitment to get rid of a "dangerous enemy" of the Empire in the Western Hemisphere -- namely the Castro government. That very government in Havana with which the other Cuban emigre, Alvarez, was an intelligence collaborator.
Posada's "good motive" in his campaign against "Castrosim" had previously engaged him -- as also documented -- in bombing targets inside Cuba, that resulted in deaths, injuries and destruction, Also, as an active collaborator with the CIA and the anti-Sandinistas "Contras" when he operated out of El Salvador under the codename "Ramon Medina" to help destabilise the then government in Nicaragua..
Now, however, while the governments in Havana and Caracas, as well as CARICOM have been calling for him to face trial for his murderous role in the Cubana bombing tragedy, Posada is waiting to answer charges in a Texas court. But surprise, surprise, not for ANY of his terroristic activities.
No way. Simply for "lying" to immigration officials in his quest to become a citizen of the "greatest democracy"—U.S. -- that has been his sanctuary, on and off, for a pretty long time.
It seems that in Bush's America, a Cuban emigre who engages in confessed intelligence collaboration with Castro's Cuba must pay the price, along with his wife, of imprisonment for their unlawful "spying" activities But the other Cuban emigre, Posasa, a well documented terrorist whose criminal activities have wasted many lives, can simply be prosecuted for "lying" in order to secure U.S. citizenship and be at home with members of his family
What utter hypocrisy, what deep contempt for our Caribbean governments calling for Posada to be tried for the Cubana tragedy. What mockery of the rule of law and Bush's own "war on terrorism".
Posada is due to face a jury on May 11 on charges of illegal entry into the U.S. (which one of them?) and "lying" to immigration personnel in his effort to secure U.S. citizenship. What a political show – U.S.-style!
Integrating Latin America and the Caribbean
By Sir Ronald Sanders
(The writer is a business consultant and former Caribbean diplomat)
GUYANA has become the first English-speaking country to host a summit meeting of the Rio Group made up of 20 Latin American and Caribbean nations.
In addition to the Guyanese President Bharrat Jagdeo, several other Heads of Government of the Rio Group were in Guyana for the meeting held on the weekend of March 2nd and 3rd.
While a larger turnout of Heads of Government would have made the meeting more meaningful, some very important ones showed up including Mexico’s Felipe de Jesus Calderon Hinojosa, Brazil’s Luis Ignacio Lula de Silva and Chile’s Michelle Bachelet.
Guyana is the current official representative in the Rio Group of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) countries, but Belize is also a member of the group, and the Guyanese President invited Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Patrick Manning to participate in the informal sessions of the summit.
With attendance too by the Dominican Republic (DR) President Leonel Antonio Fernandez Reyna, there were several interests represented at the meeting.
The DR and CARICOM countries are together presently negotiating with the European Union (EU) for an Economic Partnership Agreement which will determine the aid, trade and investment relationship between these two groups for some time to come.
Similarly the DR and Central American countries represented at the summit are party to a Free Trade Agreement with the United States, and five of the Latin American countries are deepening their own trading arrangements under the umbrella of Mercosur.
Then there is the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) being promoted by the Venezuelan President as a regional integration strategy for Latin America, as well as a possible alternative to the U.S. notion of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
And, in the midst of all this, are the, albeit stalled, but nonetheless overarching negotiations in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for new arrangements that would govern world trade rules.
Discussions about trade were not expected to feature highly on the agenda of the meeting, and while the Declaration of Turkeyen, the end of conference communiqué, will undoubtedly try to reflect a consensus position of the Rio Group, with all the different and, in some cases, divergent interests involved, whatever they say on trade is unlikely to advance the international agenda.
The great value of this summit is that it provided an opportunity for a small but important number of Heads of Government from the Caribbean and Latin America to talk informally and to exchange ideas about how the relationship between Latin American and Caribbean countries could be deepened in their joint interest.
Meeting at the political level is a necessary first step for creating the framework for an economic relationship that could benefit the people of Latin America and the Caribbean, through trade and investment. But, at the practical level it is the business communities in each of these countries that could give flesh to the bones of such an economic relationship. In turn, they will need an enabling environment which must include the establishment of direct transportation arrangements, access to financing, and a facility for English, Spanish and Portuguese.
The Rio Group is primarily an organ of political consultation; it does not have a mandate to institute arrangements for economic integration, and a summit meeting of only some Heads of Government, however influential they may be, would be reluctant to do so.
Further, the group does not have a permanent secretariat and its work between meetings is carried out by the country to which the Chairmanship falls.
However, there are other organisations to which members of the Rio Group belong who have the capacity to initiate arrangements for structured economic relations between Latin American and Caribbean countries. CARICOM and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) countries, and CARICOM and Mercosur could formally pursue discussions that might have arisen from informal consultations between the Heads of Government.
It is to be hoped that, arising from this meeting, the Rio Group will take on the role of promoting Latin American and Caribbean economic integration through institutions such as the Inter-American Development Bank.
In any event, Guyana did well to carry the work of the Rio Group during its period of Chairmanship. It has also done well to host the summit, and, in doing so, to act as a bridge between Latin America and the Caribbean.
A conference of Latin American countries in English-speaking Guyana as the representative of CARICOM has immense symbolic value.
It demonstrates that the divide between the two sub-regions, which are a consequence of colonial history and imperial interests in the past, can be overcome.
(Responses to: ronaldsanders29@hotmail.com)
What's wrong with Italy?
By Gwynne Dyer
THE most extreme diagnosis of Italy's problem was offered by journalist Peter Popham in the Independent.
He blamed it all on the Vatican: "Imagine that Hitler did not die in his bunker in 1945 but instead cut a deal with the new West German government, giving him continued sovereignty over a small patch of Berlin -- and continued intellectual hegemony over the millions he had brainwashed during the previous decade....Italy's Vatican problem is a lot like that, with the difference that the Church has been wielding its mind-control for nearly two millennia."
The trigger for this extraordinary outburst was the week-long political crisis that nearly brought down Prime Minister Romano Prodi's centre-left government, Italy's 61st since the Second World War. Yet Popham is not anti-Catholic. It's just that, like most people who spend a lot of time in Italy, he has simultaneously fallen in love with the country and utterly lost patience with it.
It's an affliction he shares with a great many Italians: no country except Argentina spends more time debating what is wrong with it. He blamed the Vatican on this occasion because the crisis was provoked by a government plan to legalise "civil unions" (marriages by another name) even for gays, which greatly annoyed the Catholic Church. But it's more complicated than that.
The vote that Prodi's government lost was actually on a proposal to leave 1,900 Italian troops in Afghanistan until 2011 and to double the size of an American military base outside Vicenza. Both projects are very unpopular in Italy, but they were part of the deal that created the nine-party coalition behind Prodi's government, and only two senators from the far left defected in the key vote on 21 February.
The government would still have won the vote if senator-for-life Giulio Andreotti had not unexpectedly voted against it. But the 87-year-old Andreotti, seven times prime minister and often known as the "Prince of Darkness," is a strong supporter of NATO and the American alliance, so why would he vote against that bill? Because it was going to be so close that his surprise "no" vote could bring Prodi's government down.
Why would he want to do that? Andreotti has always been very close to both the Catholic Church and the Mafia, but on this occasion it was the former tie that mattered. The Vatican wanted to kill the "civil union" proposal, which required killing Prodi's government. Andreotti just seized the opportunity that presented itself. It worked, too: a week later Prodi managed to revive his coalition government, but this time their agreed programme does not include the "civil union" project.
The normally judicious Peter Popham was so irked by this that he implicitly compared the Pope to Hitler, but it is nonsense to blame all of Italy's ills on the Vatican. The Catholic Church used to have huge clout in Italian politics, but that is because almost all Italians used to be devout Catholics. It's still a bit weird to have a tiny sovereign state ruled by a foreigner in the middle of your own capital city, but the Vatican today has no more influence on politics in Italy than the evangelical churches have in the United States. (But no less, either.)
Most Italians would agree that there is something wrong with their country, but it's not the Church that bothers them. The stagnant economy makes matters worse -- even Spain will overtake Italy in per capita income in a couple of years -- but there is an underlying sense of frustration that permeates Italian life.
The Byzantine bureaucracy and the ubiquitous corruption are a big part of the problem. Getting a job usually depends on what group, party or family you belong to, not on your abilities, which is hugely frustrating.
The core problem is that Italy is not really a modern society at all.
For almost forty years after 1945, while the rest of Europe was growing and changing very fast, Italy grew but didn't change, because politics and all of society were frozen in a deeply conservative and profoundly corrupt pattern. In order to keep the huge Communist party from winning power and taking Italy out of NATO, the Christian Democratic party had to be kept in power permanently -- and it was, thanks to foreign money and foreign intelligence services, to its alliance with the Catholic Church, and to its other alliance with the Mafia.
That system ended fifteen years ago when the Christian Democrats imploded in a blizzard of corruption scandals and Communism simultaneously went out of fashion, but Italians have a lot of lost time to make up.
Moreover, the decision to swap the lira for the euro was a disaster for Italy, because it lost the ability to remain competitive by continually devaluing its currency. Italian politics are still poisonous, the justice system is a joke, and the efforts at reform are endlessly sabotaged by the beneficiaries of the current state of affairs.
But that is about what you'd expect at this stage of the process of modernisation, because it IS a process, and it takes time. Spain is about thirty years into a similar process, dating from the death of Franco and the end of fascism, and it is thriving at every level. Italy is fifteen years in, and feeling the strain. But it will probably get there in the end.
(** Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.)
Public Justice
By Kwame Gilbert
PEACE is simply defined as “freedom from war or strife”.
Technically, peace in this sense can be imposed by the sword or the barrel of a gun. Marxist and totalitarian governments have managed to have “peace” for years. Yet the collapse of Marxism in 1989 showed that coercion will not bring peace or sustainable development. A structure for growth and social development must be in place that will allow for a reasonable degree of freedom and justice.
The Biblical foundation for social peace is justice. This divine concern is so serious that in the Old Testament, the word Justice and related terms are used about 500 times and about 200 times in the New Testament. It is not easy to define Justice, but its essence can be inferred from the Old Testament concept of lex talionis or the famous “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” dictum (Ex. 21:24).
The term justice “suggests primarily man’s conduct towards others, especially in matters of legal or personal rights”. (Carl F.H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority).
It is external. It deals with laws governing relationship and the use or things that order life in society. God insists that governors are to rule with justice (Ps.89:14). Such a command is not a contradiction to His nature as merciful.
Justice has three essential dimensions. Firstly, it deals with equitable and fair legislation for every one. This is important for evangelicals to note, since in a pluralistic society, the challenge is that one has no legal right to impose his religion on others. How then can evangelicals be faithful to the command of evangelizing the lost and at the same time observe the command to do justice?
Firstly, the Christian should so live their lives by both word and deed in a way that promotes a process of inculturating Christian values in society. The attempt must not be to demonize or discriminate against others on the basis of their religion. To do this would be promoting the very injustice Christ abhors. Rather the focus should be on living the Christian life so effectively that those who are otherwise persuaded will be converted, not by unjust force, but by our Christ likeness.
Secondly, the Christian legislator must seek the denominators of common grace for all mankind and ground their actions on them. The second dimension of justice is that it is concerned with remedy. Due process is crucial in administering justice. If the remedial process is violated, then there can be no ample protection for the rights of a person.
The penal code of a nation may consider rape as a crime but if a poor victim has no means to hire or avail the services of a good lawyer, or if the accused has the means to bribe a judge, then there will be a miscarriage of justice. The crucial question then would be: Is the remedy available and affordable to the poorest of the poor? If this is not the case, then that society is unjust. God commands that justice be given to the afflicted and to slaves (Job 36:6; 1 Chr. 18:4)
Thirdly, justice includes penalty. For justice to exist, the penalty of law must be equally applied to the guilty, whether he/she is rich or poor, and not dependent on whom one knows or does not know. Moreover, it must be commensurate to the offence.
It must also be noted that because God requires everything to be just, then justice is a standard which can be applied not only to people. Even weights and measures must be just, i.e., they must be fair (Lev.19:36).
The responsibility to do justice is not only for evangelicals. It is for all of us who are God’s creation. If we as sons and daughters of Guyana do not give justice to our own people, we cannot expect foreigners to give justice to our people in the Diaspora.
Charity and justice begin at home.
Rationalising the depravity of human reasoning
“Never reason for what you do not know. If you do you will soon believe what is utterly against reason.”
-- Ramsay
By P.S. Thakur
THE human mind is never at rest.
There are external (awake) and internal (asleep) stimuli. Within seconds, the mind goes from one subject to another and from one level to another. In wakefulness in human beings, the thinking power becomes even more active -- from brawn power to brain power.
The term “rationalization” in the dictionary is often defined as “reasoning” or “explaining”. This may not be fully correct as “explaining” may not be the same as “reasoning”.
This paper will define “rationalizing” as “justifying”. Unlike explaining which may offer several points of view and objects, “rationalizing” here is where the speaker attempts to justify his own argument or behaviour. It is therefore not objective but subjective.
As long as man has had the ability to reason, from time immemorial, he has been using reasoning to justify his actions. The basis upon which this is done is his “ego”, his self-protecting and self-esteem. An individual has the strong need for self-preservation. The ego has been with us and developed from childhood. Those of us who are more insecure more have the need to protect that ego, especially if it had been abused as a child.
There are three main levels of rationalization. The first is to blame others when events go wrong in our lives. The next is to blame things and events associated with the person or the incident – a divorce, failing an examination, etc. The third is to blame our self, followed by guilt.
(a) Blaming others is a way of protecting the ego. Blaming the person directly involved is the first step in failing an examination; it is the teacher in an examination; it is the spouse in a divorce. It is often what he did or did not – error of commission, error of omission.
(b) While still blaming others, there is onset of the next step. We then tend to blame things or events associated with the person or event. In the case of divorce we may blame it on financial problems, in-laws, etc. In case of failing the examination it may be the type of test, multiple choice or essay or matching time to study. At this point the mind goes searching to find reasons that may be the cause of the problem. The mind even becomes creative in doing so. This makes the ego feel good and this matters a great deal, to alleviate the pain.
(c) The third level is to search the self to find possible causes. “Maybe I should have…” “Maybe I should not have…” The degree of self-blame depends on the level of self-esteem. Those with low self-esteem tend to dwell more on the self-blame. This may reach unhealthy proportions. Those with strong egos will give little or no blame to self. A constructive and realistic self-examination is what is best needed to deal with any such problem. While it may be difficult to change others or the circumstances, it may be much easier to understand ourselves, adapt or change our perception and behaviour.
Guilt is often associated with self-blame. Where it is not obsession or debilitating, it may be a good censor to thoughts, feelings and behaviour that need examination or change.
When we blame others, we often look to others who will support us in our rationalizing. We tend to turn to close friends and relatives who may agree with us even if we are wrong -- a principle known as Groupthink. We then stay away from those who disagree with us. The rationalizing then becomes more ingrained and others may confirm our rationalizing and even extend it, offering more “good reason”. The more the better. If we were once in doubt, we are now convinced -- innocent or not.
The next step in the process is to move to extremes and even become bitter. In the case of the examinations we may drop the course. This may be even after just one examination.
In the loss of a job, we may seek revenge of one kind or another. While doing so the rationalizing continues each step of the way.
In the constructive self examination we adapt, adjust and go on with our lives. In other instances we become bitter, hurting ourselves in the form of heart attack and ulcer. If we have not adapted, but maladapted, the bitterness will continue.
It is always advisable to self examine and even become aware of the rationalizing process as a first step to deal with the problem.
Each difficult situation in life should become a learning experience as we become more mature and constructive in dealing with similar or other problems in the future.
The Greater Caribbean This Week
8th Business Forum of Greater Caribbean to support trade among ACS countries
By Rubén Silié
SINCE its inception, the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) has placed emphasis on the issue of trade as one of the more dynamic themes, and in fact, it can be said that the initial leitmotif that encouraged the countries of the region to come together under this scheme was precisely the issue of trade.
Nevertheless, the countries comprising the ACS have been restricted in the advancement of negotiations to establish their own trade area, since each group of countries comes from a very specific trade tradition, which to some extent, having operated in a particular way for so many years, limits their possibilities of opening up to new markets, even if it is with their closest neighbours on the littoral.
For historic reasons, the earliest trade links were confined to direct relationships with the metropolises, which is understandable given the monopolistic and concentration mechanisms applied during this period of Caribbean history. However, that initial stage, led by European countries, was followed by the predominance of the United States of America over any other trade destination. That northern power's dominance explains why trade with and from the United States accounts for approximately eighty per cent of total trade within the region.
It could be said that the Caribbean has always (though not entirely) been under the control of one authority or another, commercially speaking. Its political independence has not allowed the region to redirect the focus of its trade relations from a perspective that reflects its own interests and the interests of its neighbours.
The link with the North American market is so strong for ACS countries that the fluctuations in their own market follow the demand generated in the North.
At the core of all of this is the regional economic liberalisation process in which international organisations played a crucial role, with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank leading the structural adjustment programmes that give a new shape to our countries' economies and trade schemes.
However, the mechanism of subjection of these economies to the United States economy does not function solely because of geopolitical reasons (although this factor lies at the heart of the current hegemonic scheme), but it also influences a clearly defined policy regarding differential treatment for exports from that group of countries.
It must be borne in mind that the numerical growth of the Greater Caribbean diaspora in the territory of the United States of America is seen as a new factor for attracting exports toward that country. This is influenced by the growing demands for ethnic products by the migrant population in that country, as well as by the financial sector that is becoming stronger as a result of remittances.
When the governments decided to come together in the ACS, they thought that this association could serve as a mechanism to give a new direction to their trade relations, giving greater consideration to the interest of the countries within the group, or at least reversing the historically inherited order.
With respect to increasing intra-ACS trade flows, one of the initiatives undertaken has been the Business Forum of the Greater Caribbean, whose eighth instalment will be held in March, in Panama City, Panama.
The Business Forum of the Greater Caribbean has undoubtedly played a proactive role, seeking to create a business environment that would help improve the competitiveness of the companies belonging to ACS states, regardless of each state's level of development or export strategies. Every year, business meetings are held as part of the activities developed during the said forum and they have been giving entrepreneurs an opportunity to expand their businesses and make them grow. The statistics from recent forums have proven this and companies are deciding more and more to exhibit their products at that event, which has facilitated the insertion of new products into other international markets.
Yet another beneficial result of the forum, and one that we must emphasise, is the participation of international presenters, who develop relevant topics regarding international trade. As high level professionals, they provide an up to date tool with their knowledge on the issue. This is highly useful for entrepreneurs who are developing their skills on how markets operate in the Greater Caribbean region.
Without a shadow of a doubt, the experiences gained in previous forums have allowed us to deepen the understanding of this new "business culture", and the ACS Secretariat therefore recognises that the expansion and strengthening of trade relations among the countries of the region require actions that go beyond market access. Thus, it is imperative for contact to be established between the social and political actors, which for us, is the fastest way to increase knowledge among them, this being the best approach toward overcoming the stereotypes that still hinder spontaneous rapprochement among Caribbean people.
(** Dr. Rubén Silié Valdez is the Secretary General of the Association of Caribbean States. The views expressed are not necessarily the official views of the ACS. Feedback can be sent to: mail@acs-aec.org)
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