CARIBBEAN INSIGHT the Editorially Independent Publication of the Caribbean Council
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CARIBBEAN INSIGHT The editorially independent publication of The Caribbean Council 3 February 2014 Volume 37, Number 5 Political discontent grows over Barbados’ economy Divisions within Barbados’ ruling Democratic Labour Party (DLP) over economic policy, the island’s ailing economy, and the way in which government and the country is being run, threaten to cause political turmoil. Speaking to journalists on 29 January, the Island’s Agriculture Minister, Dr David Estwick, said that he can no “longer sit silent” on whether the island’s present economic path is the right or wrong one or the path to be pursued. Dr Eastwick said, “this is not the time to be pig headed or this is not the time to close off all options. This is the time for innovation, this is the time for creativity and this is the time that every single option must be evaluated clinically and surgically in the interest of Barbados.” He said he could also not sit by “when this debate is raging on and when the outcome of any action may seriously undermine the stability of this country”. Dr Estwick, who is a former finance minister, said that he is uneasy about the direction of the island’s economy and is promising to make public his position in the coming weeks when he will make a full statement. “I am going to make my statement very, very soon on what my position is,” he told reporters, adding, “I was a man before I got into politics, and I can stay one if I am out of it. But I will do what I believe I have to do, honestly and diligently in the interest of Barbados and in the interest of my children and grandchildren to come.” Mr Estwick said that he has served as a government minister from 2008 and prior to that he was the spokesperson on Finance and Economics during the DLP’s prolonged period in opposition. He also served as the minister responsible for economic affairs and economic planning between October 2008 and October 2010, serving as the Chairman of the Cabinet Committee of Economic Policy and the Chairman of the Infrastructural Committee of the Cabinet. He is often tipped as a future Prime Minister. The Minister’s comment comes as the Barbadian government prepares to lay off 3,000 public servants and has approved a strategic plan to create 2,000 new jobs in the global business and financial services industries. Speaking the same day as Dr Estwick, to a meeting of the Barbados International Business Association, the island’s Attorney general, Arial Brathwaite said that that cabinet had approved a plan which aimed to achieve a 40% increase in foreign exchange earnings from the financial services sector, a 40% increase in revenue from corporate and personal income tax, and that Government hoped it would create 2,000 new jobs over the next five years. Mr Brathwaite said that the plan proposed the registration of 2,000 to 3,000 new corporate entities in Barbados. This compared with 474 new entities in 2013. Another part of the plan includes the registration of 50 new foundations and private trust companies as well as the conclusion of 20 new double taxation agreements and 15 agreements for tax treaties. The Attorney General said that he had discussed the registration of such companies with officials in Anguilla over foundations and that he could “see no reason why we cannot…be able to attain, if not surpass this target [for foundations]”. One additional part of the plan is to develop Barbados as a centre for medical and educational services, including a possible boarding school development and upgrading of the island’s medical school as well as making Barbados a location for private banks and investment from Canada and South America. In other recent comments on the Barbados’ deepening economic crisis, the Prime Minister, Freundel Stuart, has said that his country will get out of its current economic slump. Speaking to ruling party supporters, the prime minister compared his country’s current problems to the period between 1973 and 1975 when he said unemployment had been running at 22.5% and inflation at 40%. “This is not the first occasion on which we’ve had to traverse this treacherous terrain,” he said. Prime Minister Stuart told a gathering of ruling party supporters that thousands had been laid off in the 1980s when Barbados had called in the IMF. He also recalled the 1990s when the IMF helped Barbados once again at a time when it had two weeks of foreign exchange cover remaining. He added that Barbados currently had 15 to 16 weeks of foreign reserve cover. “The difference between those three recessions and this one is that whereas each of those recessions lasted for about two years almost, this one is five years and counting. The wealthiest countries in the world are having the same difficulties that Barbados is having,” he said, adding, “there are challenges related to growth in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy and all over the place”. CELAC summit reaches a number of political agreements The Second Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) held in Havana from 25-29 January resulted in a number of agreements that suggest that the body will play a continuing political role in the Americas. Among the elements expected to be contained in the final communiqué are: the establishment of a CELAC-China forum, with a focus on economic issues and China’s role in the world; CELAC’s involvement in the peace process in Colombia and the negotiations between the FARC and the Colombian Government; language supporting Argentina’s sovereignty over the Malvinas (Falkland) Islands; and the declaration of the Latin American and Caribbean region as a zone of peace. In all some thirty documents were considered during the meeting. In his keynote speech as host for the summit, President Castro said that CELAC should consider self- determination, sovereignty and equality as indispensable principles of the organisation. He argued that the bloc should aspire to unity despite its diversity, describing it as “the legitimate representative of the interests of Latin America and the Caribbean.” “We should establish a new regional and international cooperation paradigm,” he said. “In the context of CELAC, we have the possibility to create a model of our own making, adapted to our realities, based on the principles of mutual benefit.” “The integration of Latin America is a strategic project ... CELAC does not impede bilateral relations within and outside of the region. On the contrary, it strengthens them,” Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, said in her evening address. In his wide-ranging opening speech, President Castro touched on the risk that global climate change poses to the region, especially low-lying Caribbean islands. He expressed solidarity with Argentina’s claim to the Falkland Islands (Malvinas); for Puerto Rican independence; and for Ecuador in a legal battle with the US oil company Chevron. He also criticised the 52-year-old US economic embargo on Cuba as well as American surveillance targeting the communications of foreign heads of state, companies and individuals, appearing to call for an international agreement on cyber warfare. The CELAC summit attracted 31 of the 33 invited leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean to Havana. Only two Latin American presidents stayed away: Mauricio Funes of El Salvador, who was involved in presidential elections, and Ricardo Martinelli of Panama, who declined to attend in protest at last year’s capture in the Panama Canal of a North Korean ship that was carrying Cuban weapons in violation of a UN arms embargo. The large turnout of regional heads of state was in contrast to the 2013 Ibero-American Summit in Panama City, in which 12 of the 22 leaders from that body failed to show up. The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, was invited as an observer and met with President Castro and with Fidel Castro. Speaking to journalists he praised Cuba for its historical preservation efforts, its international medical missions and its work fighting violence against women and girls while emphasising to reporters the importance of “providing spaces for people’s right to peaceful assembly and freedom of association, and the cases of arbitrary detention occurring in Cuba”. The Organisation of American States, (OAS) Secretary-General José Miguel Insulza also attended the summit as an observer, in what is believed to be a first visit by a secretary-general to Cuba since its founding in 1948. His attendance went unremarked in the extensive CELAC coverage in the Cuban media. In Washington, a State Department spokesman said that US officials have strong alliances with other regional forums and will push for greater cooperation on common issues at next year’s Summit of the Americas, which will be held in Panama. In an interview with the Spanish newspaper, El Pais, the Costa Rican President, and CELAC’s next President, Laura Chinchilla, said that CELAC should not been seen as a replacement for the OAS. “Each hemispheric body, whether it is a dialogue group or an institution like the OAS, has its own dynamics, its own priorities and its own agenda. And like Costa Rica and other countries have said, CELAC isn’t here to replace or destroy the OAS; they can both continue to co-exist. But the important thing here is to nurture institutionalization in the region, which an instrument like CELAC can do,” she said. CELAC was established in 2010 out of the Rio Group, and reflects a desire to reduce the overwhelming influence of the United States on the politics and economics of Latin America and to lessen the influence of institutions such as the OAS sometimes seen as being a construct of the Cold War.