Just Caribbean Updates

Arianna Kohan/Jordi Amaral, Just Caribbean Updates

Sept. 11, 2024

Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced Jamaica would send 24 military and police personnel to Haiti as part of the Multinational Security Support mission, on Tuesday, Sept. 10. The personnel, which are expected to arrive in Haiti as early as Thursday the 12th, will “provide command, planning and logistics support” to the UN-led mission. They will join almost 400 police officers from Kenya, a country which, up until now, had been the only country to deploy personnel to Haiti. Two additional senior officers from the Belize Defence Force will also join the Jamaican delegation. Benin and the Bahamas had previously pledged to send troops, but have yet to announce any updates. 

However, Holness cautioned against the belief that the security mission would solve all of Haiti’s problems. He warned that the mission was only an initial step in finding a solution for Haiti’s crises, and that it would need to be complemented by other initiatives to have the chance of being successful.

The deployment of Jamaican personnel comes amid calls for the replacement of the Multinational Security Support mission with a peacekeeping effort, arguing that the efforts of the Kenyan-led mission should be supplanted with UN peacekeepers “in order to sustain the gains” made. However, in order for the resolution to go through, the U.S.-led initiative will need support from both China and Russia, who are also permanent members of the UN Security Council. 

Jamaica Gleaner, Reuters, Reuters, AP News, Miami Herald

Climate Justice and Energy

• An episode of the One Ocean Hub podcast explores “how the colonial pasts shape present issues in ocean governance in an island context,” including in the Caribbean, featuring UWI researcher Alana Malinde Lancaster. The podcast “(dwells) on the challenges that the lack of access to ocean-related decision-making fora pose for SIDS and (discusses) the Indigenous ways of knowing and (post)colonial knowledge extraction.”
  
  
• Jamaica joined a group of five Latin American countries touching the Caribbean basin in the creation of a bio-reserve in the southwestern Caribbean. (press release)
  
  
• A new podcast by Climate Decoded explores the issue of climate litigation—with accessible language and explanations for non-legal experts.
  
  
• IOM highlights the impact of Hurricane Beryl across Jamaica’s agricultural heartland, noting, “the storm caused an estimated USD 6.5 billion in damage, affecting approximately 45,000 farmers across the southern parishes of Clarendon, Manchester, and Saint Elizabeth.” 8,700 Jamaican homes were damaged.  

Development and Finance

• UWI’s Dr. Maziki Thame critiques at Stabroek News the appointment of Jamaica’s Finance Minister, Dr. Nigel Clarke, as Deputy Managing Director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF): “Clarke’s success will have no bearing on the status of Caribbean countries in the world. Indeed, Clarke has merely gone deeper into the capitalist order that exploits and impoverishes countries like those in the region.” 
  
  
• Improvements to Jamaica’s infrastructure and other aspects critical to the country’s development should not be conducted at the expense of the environment, argues Emma Lewis in her blog.
  
  
• The Honduran Caribbean island of Roatan is the focus of a New York Times article exploring the town of Próspera, founded by a US corporation “to escape government control.” The government of Honduras now wants the town gone, and “Critics have described it as a neocolonial state within a state, or an example of corporate monarchy, where yacht-owning C.E.O.s exploit land and labor in a poor country… the zones are low-tax, deregulated marketplaces.”

Reparations

• “The Barbados National Task Force on Reparations says while it welcomes the positive and responsible initiative being taken by the Church of England’s United Society Partners in the Gospel (USPG) to partner with the Barbados-based Codrington Trust to improve the living standards of the tenants currently residing on the Estates, the move must not be considered a reparations or a reparatory justice project,” reports WiredJA.

Human Rights

• The Franklin & Marshall Global Barometers (FMGB) Global Barometers LGBTQI+ Perception Index (GBPI) is live, including a global survey for LGBTQI+ individuals available here.

Public Security

• “The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has expressed concern over Jamaica’s continued use of states of public emergency (SOEs) and called on the Andrew Holness government to ensure that measures used to prevent and combat crime are implemented in accordance with international human rights standards,” reports The Gleaner.
  
  
• “Human Rights advocate Mary Francis has expressed skepticism regarding the appointment of Verne Garde as Acting Commissioner of Police (CoP)” in St. Lucia, arguing that insufficient attention is placed on addressing the root causes of crime and violence, per St. Lucia Times.
  
  
• Jamaica is in need of a new prison, but an emphasis on convict rehabilitation is crucial, too, according to Petchary’s blog.
  
  
• “Activist Yesenia Gonzalez criticized authorities’ attempts to blame migrants for crime in Trinidad and Tobago, arguing that recent public comments amount to discrimination and “will create more xenophobia,” explains Jordi Amaral at the Americas Migration Brief newsletter, citing Newsday.

Migration

• “Belize issued permanent residency cards awarded through the country’s Amnesty Program for migrant regularization that concluded last year with 12,765 applications. The ceremony was celebrated by UNHCR in a press release. (see also Channel 5)” – Americas Migration Brief

Culture

• Three Caribbean music icons were honored at an awards show in New York last week: The Mighty Sparrow (Calypso), Alison Hinds (Soca) and Marcia Griffiths (Reggae). (St. Lucia Times)
  
  
• “Roy Cape, the revered Trinidadian saxophonist who provided the musical backdrop for generations of regional performers, died on Thursday, September 5 at the age of 82, leaving the calypso and soca music fraternity bereft,” says Global Voices.

Events

• A new series of webinar events on Just and Equitable Finance for the Caribbean runs from September 12 to October 24. Check it out here.
  
  
• The University of Guyana GREEN Institute (UGGI) is hosting a webinar event on The Living Design of Silica City in Guyana on Friday, September 20th at 11:00 AM. Register here.

Opportunities

• The Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research and EPIC-N are launching the project “Catalyzing Unconventional Partnerships in the Global South for Urban Ecosystem-based Adaptation,” with the aim of awarding seed grants and hosting workshops to support ecosystem-based adaptation projects. Deadline for submitting Expression of Interest: September 27th. More information here.
  
  
• Fossil Fuel Reporting Fellowship focused on Belize, Grenada, and Antigua and Barbuda. Deadline: September 13th. More information here. 
  
  
• Caribbean Climate Justice Journalism Fellowship. Deadline: September 20th. More information here.
  
  
• 2-year WIRE Mentorship Program for Caribbean women working on renewable energy. Deadline: September 20th. More information here and application available here.
  
  
• The Caribbean Biodiversity Fund (CBF) has opened applications for proposals under The Advancing Circular Economy (ACE) Facility, seeking to promote solutions to damage caused to marine environments. The call for proposals can be found here. 

EnergiesNet.com 09 15 2024