Just Caribbean Updates

Arianna Kohan and Jordi Amaral , Just Caribbean Updates

September 25, 2024

As a result of escalating violence during protests over the high cost of living, Martinique officials have imposed a curfew from 9:00 pm to 5:00 am, reports the Guardian. The curfew, which is to be implemented in parts of the capital of the French Caribbean island, comes after at least 14 people, including 11 police, have been injured during protests. Two men were killed, according to Reuters. French anti-riot police, which had been banned in Martinique for 65 years, were sent to the island to quell the protests, says AP News. The unit’s presence had been requested by the Martinique government. 

In addition to the curfew, protests were banned in specific municipalities until Monday, September 23. Two of the most powerful unions in the country joined in on the protests, with other unions announcing indefinite strikes beginning Thursday, reports Caribbean Loop News.   

Martinique residents have long attempted to bring attention to the notable disparities between the cost of living in mainland France and overseas territories, with authorities and businesses ignoring demands for greater equity. Martinique residents have been unable to afford basic necessities, including food. Martinique’s new prime minister, Michel Barnier, who just last week presented his cabinet to French president Emmanuel Macron, has struggled to form a government amid no party holding a majority, notes Al Jazeera. 

Decolonsiation

• Only 1 percent of Jamaica’s beaches are accesible to locals. Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement says the discriminatory prohibitions, based on colonial laws, favor all-inclusive resorts for foreign tourists, and compares them to plantations. (Al Jazeera)

Climate Justice

• Climate change advocate Dina Hinds explains how “you cannot separate economic growth from environmental degradation,” using the mangroves and wetlands in Barbados as examples of how natural habitats were destroyed to add housing and development projects, among others (LinkedIn). 
  
  
• By recognizing the ocean waves in the Brazilian city of Linhares as living beings, giving them “the intrinsic right to existence, regeneration, and restoration,” Brazil is an important step in recognizing the ocean’s rights, according to Hakai Magazine, and could provide a path forward for Caribbean nations pursuing similar policies. 
  
  
• A series of videos from Rainforest Foundation US explain the role of carbon markets on the rights of Indigenous and local communities. Check out the 6-part series here.
  
  
• Ryan Assiu, a climate change consultant, expands on his statements made during a panel at the National Youth Convention in Trinidad and Tobago, explaining the 3-tiered risk management approach Caribbean nations should adopt in the context of the climate crisis. (LinkedIn)  
  
  
• Grenadian Blue Planet Alliance Global Ambassador Renee Smith recounts her experience onboard the Peace Boat, where she and other young activists committed to advancing SDGs learned about global conservation efforts and citizen-science initiatives. 
  
  
• Outgoing Executive Director of the Cropper Foundation, Trinidadian Omar H. Mohammed questions the value of ESG efforts: “I do believe that we need to get comfortable with the fact that business literally can’t go on as usual – and that includes the international financial architecture, business models, our definition of profit and value and so on.” (On LinkedIn)
  
  
• GlobalVoices highlights the biodiversity of Trinidad’s Caroni Swamp, located on the country’s western coast. “Over the past eight years, however, local conservation officials have observed an increase in the number of flamingos at the swamp… While the increase in flamingos has been welcomed, the growing presence of mussels at the swamp has been received with less fanfare,” with some concerned about their impact on the oyster population.
  
  

• A CESaRE Voices podcast explores innovation in protecting and rehabilitating coral reefs. The September issue of the Caribbean Coral Reef Watch is out, available here.
  
  
• FisherFolkFirst, a nonprofit organization working in the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI), has just launched a 12-minute video for local commercial fishers. The short film summarizes the country’s fishing regulations in English, Spanish, and Creole, the main languages spoken by fisherfolk in the TCI. The video explains the ecological reasons behind the rules, and why we need certain regulations to ensure that local fisheries can continue to provide good livelihoods for future generations. See more, including the videos, here.
  
  
• DanChurchAid released their most recent report on climate-related Loss and Damage, establishing a formal marker for tracking loss and damage using existing OECD guidelines. 

Energy

• “Former Guyana finance minister Winston Jordan has said that with no agreement between the government and ExxonMobil made public or shared with the Parliament on how the pipeline for the more than US$2 billion gas-to-energy (GtE) project is being funded, it seems like the government has taken an illegal loan,” reports Stabroek News; Jordan is calling for greater transparency on the project.

Development and Finance

• Food Tank highlights how the free trade market, especially with regards to agriculture, are negatively impacting economic development opportunities for Caribbean islands.  

Human Rights

• “The Caribbean Vulnerable Communities (CVC) is enrolling more civil society organizations (CSOs) across the region in its Shared Incident Database (SID). SID is the region’s first online database providing a standard system for capturing, collating and reporting cases of human rights violation,” explains CVC.
  
  
• Caribbean Investigative Journalism Network highlights the threat of sex trafficking and other forms of human trafficking in the Caribbean, noting, for example, that “in Belize, as in other countries, many victims of sex-trafficking are migrants seeking employment that will allow them to send money back home.”
  
  
• Indigenous community representatives gathered in August for Suriname’s First National Indigenous Congress, where they discussed the marginalization and discrimination their communities are facing and developed a plan to demand the Surinamese government to recognize the collective land rights of Indigenous peoples, writes Stefanie Lauchman for Nia Tero. 
  
  
• “An IRAP report “exposes the U.S. government’s secretive practice of interdicting refugee families at sea and detaining them indefinitely in inhumane conditions at the Migrant Operations Center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.” IRAP’s press release notes, “Refugees held at the GMOC provided IRAP with firsthand accounts of inhumane conditions, mistreatment, and a complete lack of accountability at the offshore detention site, where the U.S. refuses to apply domestic standards related to immigration and detention. Conditions include undrinkable water and exposure to open sewage, inadequate schooling and medical care for children, and collective punishment of detained Cuban and Haitian refugees,”” notes Jordi at Americas Migration Brief.
  
  
• “The #HaitianosRD collective denounced last week that a Dominican immigration official allegedly threw a Haitian migrant from a rooftop, causing serious injuries.” (EFE; via Americas Migration Brief)
  
  
• Laura Vichot Borrego considers at La Joven Cuba the role of feminism and feminist thought in the context of the Cuban state, arguing, “in Cuba there is neither a considerable reception nor a broad production of critical thought in favor of a socialist feminism.”

Migration

• “More than 850,000 Cubans have arrived in the US since 2022 in ‘the largest exodus in Cuban history’” as the country’s economy continues to flounder and political repression has not slowed. (El País)
  
  
• The Center for Economic and Policy Research provides an overview of the Haitian community in the U.S., amid increased public safety concerns as a result of recent false statements made by former president Donald Trump.
  • “The relationship between the United States and Haiti is soaked in centuries of blood, greed, and manipulation,” says Syncopated Justice.  
    
    
• “Some Venezuelans registered through the Dominican Republic’s regularization plan from 2021-2022 have expressed concerns about delays in receiving their document renewals, “claiming that their employers have withheld payments and warned them of possible dismissals or exclusion from the Social Security Treasury (TSS) due to the expiration of their cards,” per Diario Libre.” (via Americas Migration Brief)
  
  
• “Belize is looking to speed up the vetting process for some 11,000 regularizations through the country’s Amnesty program.” (LoveFM; via Americas Migration Brief)

Democratic Governance

• Dialogue is the way forward for Cuba, writes Ariel Dacal Díaz at La Joven Cuba.
  
  
• “Haiti’s government has set up a provisional electoral council to prepare the troubled Caribbean country for its first general elections since 2016,” reports Al Jazeera, noting that the elections would be held by 2026.

Public Security

• Kenyan President William Ruto visited Haiti this weekend, on his way to the UNGA meeting in New York, and promised to send an additional 600 police officers to Haiti over the next two months and to plea for additional money to fund the international security mission headed by his country. He acknowledged that the mission has been undermined by lack of equipment and funding. (Miami Herald)
  
  
• “The Caribbean, historically a key region for drug trafficking, has once again become the center of attention with the seizure of a narco-submarine, signaling the use of these types of vessels is potentially becoming a more common tactic for drug shipments in this smuggling route,” reports InSight Crime. The sub was apprehended just south of the Dominican Republic.

Academic Leadership

• University of the Southern Caribbean highlights comments from alum Dr. Leon Wilson: “Dr. Leon Wilson is persuaded that leaders in academia and elsewhere, blunder badly when they see themselves as bosses, and suppressors of dissenting views. Academic leadership for Dr. Wilson is a position of privilege and not of power. “People who last, are not bosses” he says.

Culture

• The National Gallery of Art profiles ten of Haiti’s most significant modern and contemporary artists and their wide array of work. 
  
  
• Cosmata Lindie, an indigenous writer and artist, incorporates elements of Guyanese life with her traditional Kwakwani culture, as an “extension and expression of who she is,” writes the Guyana Chronicle. 
• “Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Carolyn Cooper’s book, Sound Clash” (Jamaica Woman Tongue)

Events

• OSF and partners are hosting a webinar on climate litigation with a focus on the case of Bonaire, Thursday, October 3rd from 5-7pm. Check it out here.
  
  
• EcoSeas Caribbean is hosting a webinar on issues such as the blue economy, fisheries management, coral restoration, and maritime policy on Thursday Sept 26th from 6pm to 7pm. Check it out here.
  
  
• Event in person in San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago about the Warao Indigenous community: “Join us at the San Fernando North Community Facility Auditorium from October 13th to October 19th, 2024, to experience the richness and diversity of indigenous culture at the first annual Indigenous Festival hosted by The Warao Community of San Fernando & Siparia.” More information here.

Opportunities

• Students from Commonwealth countries are eligible to apply for fully-funded PhD programs to study in the UK. Apply here by October 15. 
  
  
• The Centre for International Sustainable Development Law is accepting applications for a fellowship position for the 2024-2028 cohort. Apply here.  
  
  
• ClimateTracker.org is seeking Fossil Fuel Reporting Fellows to investigate and report on the impacts of the fossil fuel industry. More information here. 

EnergiesNet.com 10 01 2024