Mahogany CoConut Blog

Tribute to Dr. Slinger Francisco The Mighty Sparrow

2026-10-19T06:21:27.246-07:00

One Caribbean Nation.

The Mighty Sparrow Calypso King of the World

The passing of Dr. Slinger Francisco, whose stage name was The Mighty Sparrow, represents a profound loss to the Caribbean. He was recognized as the Calypso King of the World and an artiste of immense talent, that many believe will never be surpassed in the Calypso art form. To have maintained that standard could not have been as easy or comfortable as he made it appear.

His vast volume of work, represents an encyclopedia of what Caribbean culture means to those who are unafraid of embracing, respecting and promoting the Caribbean civilization. Sparrow through his music, magically turned all of us into his students when he instructed and generously shared his vast wisdom. He was a teacher par excellence. Like all great teachers, he made us comfortable and excited in his class. His mastery of Caribbean wit with its poignant message about politics , sex, injustice along with social and economic messages, always cleverly hidden, in a manner that we could find them and we listened and danced filled with knowledge inspiration and joy. This remains the unmatched genius of a uniquely remarkable mind and an intellect that few possess.

He taught us that size, power and pure abuse of others did not need anything more than an alert mind to expose and dismantle their nefarious actions. He didn’t call himself the biggest bird, just the small but unquestionably purposeful and alert sparrow. And perhaps, in a mystical way, he taught us and will continue to teach us , once we take time to reach for the Sparrow’s encyclopedia in its many but all totally accessible forms.

The Mahogany Coconut Blog extends profound condolences to his family and wishes him a pleasant flight to the Ancestors.

Kamla – slide to irrelevance

2026-09-17T06:57:34.702-07:00

One Caribbean Nation.

Kamla – slide to irrelevance

Professor Tennyson Joseph

Kamla – slide to irrelevance

CARIBBEAN PEOPLE are not often afforded the privilege of witnessing the inevitable slide towards irrelevance, in slow motion, of a key regional figure. Thus, when it occurs, it should be grasped as a precious teaching moment.

The “independence” day speech by Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago Kamla Persad-Bissessar as well as her public interventions in the preceding months, has presented such a moment.

Political leadership, by its very definition, implies greater levels of intellectual sophistication and articulation than that of the ordinary citizen. Ordinary citizens may be forgiven for “talking foolishness” but the political leaders cannot.

If Persad-Bissessar hoped that her “I’m cool with colonialism” independence speech would have shock value, she failed miserably.

No one was surprised. Since Donald Trump’s election the world has accepted the intellectual decay of political leaders as normal. His open racism, his description of the South, his crude vocabulary and his lack of humanism are no longer newsworthy.

Political leaders saying the " wrong thing" just to prove that one can do it now is the flavour of the month. Thus , Kamla Persad-Bissessar's insistence to black-majority Trinidadians that they should be grateful for colonialism, was improper. No one took her seriously.

Best Chance

Therein lies her descent into irrelevance. Just as we are unmoved by the ramblings of our octogenarian grandparents in their last days, then similarly is Persad-Bissessar’s politics on its death bed. In her desperation, she decided that her best chance for achieving political relevance was to sound exactly like the region’s powerful oppressors. She assumed that by attacking socialist Cuba and Venezuela, she would get “special treatment” by the United States. It is political naivety masquerading as hubris.

Had Persad-Bissessar demonstrated historical knowledge she would have known better. The US itself has admitted that while being its enemy may be dangerous, being its friend is always fatal. Ask Canada. Or better still, ask Persad-Bissessar who is the US more interested in following her treatment of Maduro: Trinidad or Venezuela?

While in the present Trumpian phase being anti black and anti-South may appear hegemonic, events in the Middle East portend a spectacular collapse of US global power. It is ironic that it is to this declining US power that Persad-Bissessar has hitched her wagon.

However, this anti-blackness was always unsustainable and is being challenged everywhere.

It must fall. So will those like Persad-Bissessar who were blinded by assumptions of Trumpism’s permanence, and who, like others inside the US MAGA movement, could not help but be sneering, and obnoxious, towards the despised, poor, black populations. They will soon occupy their places in the dustbin of history.

Tennyson Joseph is associate professor of political science at North Carolina Central University.

Email tjoe2008@live.com

Nation Newspaper Barbados, Thursday , September 17th., 2026

PANAMA CANAL GETS FIRST FEMALE CHIEF

2026-09-09T08:39:02.230-07:00

One Caribbean Nation

HISTORIC APPOINTMENT

PANAMA CANAL GETS FIRST FEMALE CHIEF

Naval engineer Ilya Espino de Marotta takes the helm Monday as the first woman to lead the Panama Canal administration, stepping into the role at a challenging time for the vital maritime route.

Buoyed by her leadership of the multi-billion-dollar expansion project last decade, Espino moves up from deputy administrator to take full command of the canal. Only three other Panamanians have held the position since the United States handed over the interoceanic waterway in late 1999.

Her appointment to the canal's top post is already seen as a symbol of women's capability for executive leadership roles in the industry. The canal serves as the engine of the Panamanian economy and handles nearly three per cent of global maritime trade.

Shortly before taking office, Espino told The Associated Press that her priority would be advancing the project to build a reservoir on the Indio River within the canal's watershed.

The $1.5 billion project aims to secure drinking water for 50 per cent of the Central American nation's four million people and to support the future operation of the canal, opened by the US in 1914.

The canal's Board of Directors had previously appointed her to lead this $1.5 billion plan, which encompasses community resettlement and environmental considerations. It is the largest project since the waterway's expansion, which opened in June 2016 at a cost exceeding $5.25 billion. Officials expect the reservoir to be completed by late 2031 or 2032.

For Espino, the goal is to guarantee future water supplies without compromising reliability in the eyes of the shipping industry. If customers perceive that the canal is not seeking a long-term water solution, they could shift their cargo to other routes.

(Associated Press)

Barbados Today 8th. August 2026

What if Washington wanted one of our islands?

2026-08-19T08:51:31.344-07:00

One Caribbean Nation

Professor Justin Robinson

THE UNFINISHED MEANING OF EMANCIPATION IN 2026

By Professor Justin Robinson

(The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of this publication.)

Caribbean people can't wait for summer. Long school and university vacations, Vincy Mas, Lucian Mas, Antigua Carnival, Kadooment, Spice Mas, beach days and overseas shopping. Many hardly notice that August 1 is Emancipation Day and quietly grumble: who are these mad people talking about a season of Emancipation? Slavery and colonialism went together as the imperial powers, England, France, Holland and Spain in the main, decided the fates of people resident in these idyllic Caribbean islands.

This season of Emancipation, I intrude on your vacation time to ask you to examine the imperial habits that survived Emancipation. I want you to consider a crazy-sounding question. What if, like Greenland, Washington decided that one of our islands was indispensable as a military base? The old and new imperial powers always claimed the right to decide who is permitted to be free, who can own land, the fate of nations and whose homes can be sacrificed when a great power declares them strategically necessary.

If you think my question is crazy, just ask the people of the Chagos Archipelago.

In February 2026, President Donald Trump posted six capitalised words on his Truth Social platform: "DO NOT GIVE AWAY DIEGO GARCIA!" Diego Garcia is a military base in the Chagos Archipelago, which is just off Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. Chagos is a place Caribbean people will recognise in an instant. Immediately. Enslaved Africans were taken to its coconut plantations and were later joined by indentured labourers from India. They are not strangers to us; they are an Afro-Asian Creole plantation people, our cousins across an ocean.

In the 1960s, Washington identified the Chagos Islands as an ideal place for a military base. In 1965, three years before Mauritius became independent, Britain detached the Chagos Archipelago and created the "British Indian Ocean Territory" and then made the islands available for a United States military facility. The United States wanted an empty land, so between 1968 and 1973, Britain made sure it got an empty land as the entire Chagossian population, commonly estimated at roughly 1 500 to 2 000 people, was relocated to Mauritius and Seychelles, where many entered lives of severe poverty.

During the forced deportation of the Chagossians in the late 1960s and early 1970s, British colonial authorities, acting under a joint plan with the US, rounded up and killed the islanders' pet dogs. The animals were brutally gassed with exhaust fumes or shot to intimidate the residents into leaving.

In 1966, senior Foreign Office official Denis Greenhill wrote, "Along with the birds, would go some few Tarzans or Men Fridays."

This was Britain's imperial civil service describing British subjects whose removal Britain was arranging in 1966, the same year Barbados became independent. What would our fate have been if Barbados had been identified as an ideal place for a military base and a land with no people was wanted in 1966? If you wanted a reason for a season to reflect on Emancipation, the Chagos affair provides a clear one, as it demonstrates that the imperial instincts and racial prejudice did not retire with Emancipation and Independence. Lloyd Best taught us that the plantation is not merely a place but a structure. As Best predicted, on Chagos, the structure endured; only the crop changed, from copra to strategic position.

With the land free of the dispensable Creoles, the United States and Britain built a major military installation from which aircraft supported wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and rendition flights passed through the territory after years in which London denied that they had. The land was useful, so the people had to go, and the Chagossians became another sordid chapter in what imperial powers make of racialised people lacking military might. They are treated as collateral damage in the pursuit of profits, strategic necessity or whatever is important to imperial powers.

In the finest tradition of colonised people, the Chagossians fought for their rights and challenged Britain in its courts, while Mauritius carried the issue to the international system.

In 2019, the International Court of Justice concluded that the decolonisation of Mauritius had not been lawfully completed and that Britain should end its administration of Chagos as rapidly as possible. The United Nations General Assembly endorsed that opinion by 116 votes to six.

Under mounting legal and diplomatic pressure, the United Kingdom and Mauritius signed a treaty in May 2025. The treaty recognised Mauritian sovereignty over the whole archipelago while allowing Britain to exercise authority over Diego Garcia for an initial 99 years. The British government put the average annual cost at £101 million and the discounted net present value at £3.4 billion. Mauritius could arrange Chagossian resettlement on the outer islands, but not on Diego Garcia. The Chagossians who wanted to could not go home, as their homeland was still too strategically important.

The President of the United States denounced the agreement as weakness and demanded that Britain retain the territory. Britain first defended the treaty and then yielded.

The implementing legislation made no further progress after Parliament was prorogued in April 2026, and the agreement remains unratified. President Trump's social media post had no force in British law, yet London, ever more dependent on the USA in a post-Brexit world, treated it as a veto.

If you ask why not just move on and why celebrate a season of Emancipation, I say to you that Emancipation ended the legal ownership of our bodies, but it did not end the imperial assumption that Black and brown bodies, communities and territories could be rearranged for the convenience of others.

The Chagossians are still waiting to go home. What if Washington wanted one of our islands? Reflect on this during this season of Emancipation. Our answer cannot be entrusted to the goodwill of the empire.

Professor Justin Robinson is an economist and Pro Vice- Chancellor of the Board of Undergraduate Studies at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Cave Hill Campus.

Barbados Today Tuesday, August 18th.2026

Panama and Barbados: A bridge built by people

2026-08-18T06:59:19.713-07:00

One Caribbean Nation.

Daily Nation Barbados , Tuesday, August 18, 2026

BARBADIAN WORKERS played a significant role in the construction of the Panama Canal

by BOLÍVAR JACK BARRIOS LA FONTAINE

THE STRONGEST BRIDGES between nations are not always built through treaties, trade agreements, or official visits. More often, they are built quietly by ordinary people whose lives cross borders in search of opportunity, carrying with them their traditions, memories and aspirations. The relationship between Panama and Barbados is a remarkable example of this truth. Long before modern diplomacy connected our governments, people connected our societies, creating a bond that continues to shape both countries today. At the beginning of the 20th century, Panama became the site of one of the world’s greatest engineering achievements: the Panama Canal. The project demanded an immense workforce, attracting thousands of migrants from across the Caribbean. Among them, Barbadians played an especially significant role. They arrived not only with their labour and technical skills, but also with a rich cultural heritage forged through resilience, community and a deep sense of identity. For many of these migrants, the journey was marked by sacrifice. Working conditions were difficult, the tropical climate unforgiving, and opportunities uncertain. Yet despite these challenges, Barbadian workers became indispensable to the canal’s construction and to the communities that emerged around it. Many ultimately chose to make Panama their permanent home, raising families, contributing to the country’s development and becoming an integral part of its multicultural identity.

Enriched social fabric

Their contribution extended far beyond the canal itself. They transformed neighbourhoods, established churches and schools, nurtured businesses and enriched Panama’s social fabric with customs that continue to resonate generations later. Today, the legacy of Barbadian migration remains visible not only in family names and historical records, but also in the traditions, values and cultural expressions that continue to unite both nations across the Caribbean Sea. Perhaps nowhere is this shared heritage more evident than in food. Cuisine has a unique ability to preserve history, passing it from one generation to the next without books or monuments. Recipes travel with people, adapting to new environments while retaining the memories of the places from which they came. When Barbadians settled in Panama, they brought culinary traditions rooted in African heritage, island ingenuity and communal life. Coconut, seafood, root vegetables, spices and slow-cooked stews became familiar elements within Afro Caribbean communities along the canal and Panama’s Caribbean coast. Over time, these traditions blended naturally with local ingredients and Panamanian tastes, creating dishes that are neither exclusively Barbadian nor exclusively Panamanian, but unmistakably shared. One of the clearest examples is found in a humble yet meaningful dish: souse in Barbados and saus in Panama. Though each country prepares it with local variations, both versions reflect the same culinary philosophy, making creative use of preserved meats, citrus, spices, and patience. In both societies, the dish is associated with weekends, celebrations and family gatherings. More than a recipe, it is a living reminder of the migration that connected our peoples more than a century ago. Like food, music travels effortlessly across borders. It preserves memory, creates community and builds connections where words often fail. The musical traditions of Barbados and Panama reveal a common Caribbean rhythm born from shared African heritage and strengthened through migration. Barbados is home to vibrant traditions such as calypso, soca, spouge and tuk music, genres that blend celebration with storytelling and collective identity. Panama’s musical landscape reflects a parallel evolution. Afro Caribbean communities, including many of Barbadian descent, introduced rhythms that gradually merged with local influences while preserving their Caribbean roots. The similarities are unmistakable. The central role of percussion, call and-response traditions, and music designed for participation rather than observation reveal shared cultural grammar. Whether during Crop Over in Barbados or Carnival in Panama, music transforms public spaces into celebrations of belonging, where history is experienced collectively rather than simply remembered. I experienced this connection personally during an evening in Bridgetown. While speaking with a Barbadian friend named Richie, we began exchanging music from across the Caribbean. What initially seemed like different languages quickly revealed a common pulse. We realised that the sounds of Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Panama reflected centuries of shared history both in English and Spanish.

Lesson for diplomacy

Richie later visited Panama and confirmed what we had discussed: although the music had evolved with local influences, it never felt foreign. It felt familiar, as if the Caribbean had crossed the isthmus and found a home in Panama City – in its neighbourhoods, its rhythms, and its people – continuing to live on the shores of the Pacific. This is why the relationship between Panama and Barbados offers an important lesson for diplomacy today. International relations are often understood through institutions, treaties and political dialogue. While these remain essential, they are strongest when supported by genuine human connections. Trust is easier to build when societies already recognise themselves in one another through shared history, culture, and memory. The historical relationship between our two countries demonstrates that cultural diplomacy is not something governments invent but something they inherit. The migration of Barbadian workers created relationships that continue to facilitate cooperation in education, tourism, commerce and multilateral engagement. These exchanges are contemporary expressions of a much older connection.

Strengthen relationship

Looking ahead, this shared history offers an opportunity rather than merely a legacy. New generations travel between Barbados and Panama not out of necessity, as many migrants once did, but for education, business, tourism and friendship. Students, artists, entrepreneurs and visitors continue to strengthen a relationship whose foundations were laid by workers more than a century ago. In an increasingly fragmented world, the story of Panama and Barbados reminds us that the most enduring international partnerships are human. Geography may separate islands and isthmuses, governments may change, and political priorities may evolve, but relationships rooted in people possess remarkable resilience. They are carried into family and friends’ histories, celebrated through music, remembered around dinner tables, and renewed through every new encounter. Panama has long described itself as the bridge of the world. Our relationship with Barbados reminds us that the most meaningful bridges are not only those built of concrete and steel, but those built by people.

Bolívar Jack Barrios La Fontaine is a career diplomat.

Panama and Barbados: A bridge built by people BARBADIAN WORKERS played a significant role in the construction of the Panama Canal. (FP)

The Chains That Never Rusted

2026-08-14T06:13:49.065-07:00

One Caribbean Nation.

The Chains That Never Rusted

WHAT ARE WE CELEBRATING EMANCIPATION FROM AND WHY IT MATTERS IN 2026?

by Professor Justin Robinson

It began with smoke.

Our journey to Emancipation began with the journey to slavery by our ancestors. Their journey to slavery in the Caribbean typically began with the smoke of their village afire.

Maybe they were engaging in some everyday activity like grinding millet. Maybe they were braiding a sister's hair, or teaching a son to track the river's current, when they saw the smoke. The slave raiders often came at dawn or some other vulnerable time, when they knew people were relaxed and exposed. Some people fought back, some were even able to run away, but many were herded like cattle through the brush, iron collars already around their necks and the chains attached.

As they were marched, still in shock, it did not cross their minds that their lives had changed forever, that they would never see their land or ancestors' grave again. They could not fathom that their language, the one that held the names of your ancestors, would soon become a liability and that speaking it would earn them the lash. They were marched for weeks, maybe months as a pack of human beings reduced to cargo.

Some died on the march and the living did not stop to bury them.

Then the coast.

If they were one of the lucky, or unlucky, ones who survived the journey to the coast, they saw the ocean, many for the first time in their lives. In the movie Roots when confronted with the sight of the ocean, the character Kunta Kinte asked, where is the river bank. As they were handed over to the slave traders they became property, branded and inspected like livestock.

Their new, temporary home would be the dungeons, which would hold hundreds of them for weeks, maybe months. They would be forced to live in darkness, in their own filth and witnesses spoke of the sound of endless weeping.

Then the ship.

If they were one of the fortunate, or unfortunate ones who survived the dungeons they went through the infamous point of no return as they were loaded onto ships to embark on the journey we know as the Middle Passage. The Middle Passage would be a journey of unspeakable horror. A voyage of infinite human suffering that has been documented in vivid mathematical detail by slave traders, insurance companies and others as they kept their business records.

On the slave ships your ancestors were stacked on shelves.

They were forced to lie on their sides, chained to strangers whose names they would never learn. Many had never been on a ship before and were plagued by seasickness. Your ancestors on the Middle Passage had to learn to live and sleep in their own vomit and bodily waste as well as that of others. The air below deck became thick with vomit, urine, blood, and the rot of dying flesh, and disease spread like wildfire. The dead were thrown overboard like bait. The case of the slave ship, Zong, tells us that sometimes the living were sometimes thrown overboard too. The Zong facing limited supplies tossed slaves overboard and then filed an insurance claim in London for lost cargo. It was for this reason that sailors said that the sharks followed the ships for weeks.

The historical record says that of the 12.5 million humans shipped as cargo, 20 percent of them did not survive the crossing. However, survival was its own horror. The women and men were raped by crew members. The men who were feared most because they were likely to rebel were chained longest. Their limbs wasted and some seemed to lose their minds. Children were the most vulnerable and the most likely to get sick and die and thrown overboard without record.

For those who completed the Middle Passage, a new life as property in the Caribbean awaited. These people, your ancestors, were "freshened up" and led off to slave auctions where they would be sold as property to be deployed at the discretion of their new owners. The best available historical evidence suggests that the majority would die in seven years on average creating a constant need for more Middle Passage journeys.

This is what we are celebrating Emancipation from.

In the season of Emancipation, the descendants of these slaves celebrate the end of this brutal system. We celebrate the end of a deliberately engineered system of dehumanization that treated human beings as property to support corporate profits and national wealth. The trade, the crops such as cotton, rum, indigo, sugar, tobacco and the rice, the shipping, the banking, the insurance and all the ancillary sources of wealth all required this violent system. The smoke of burning villages in Africa, the horrors of the slave ship, the whip, the branding iron, the chains and the intellectual scaffolding of racism were all part of this brutal system that said it was acceptable to own other human beings.

So why care in 2026? The chains, the hateful symbol of slavery were broken as slavery formally ended on August 1, 1834, in the British Empire. However, the links from the chain of that long lasting and deeply embedded system are littered across our lives today.

The chain never rusted because our countries, Western Europe and the Americas are fundamentally shaped by the legacy of slavery. The chain never rusted for us of African descent as we are still too often judged by the color of our skin. The chain never rusted as the wealth extracted from our economies went to build inter-generational wealth.

You should care in 2026 because to celebrate the season of Emancipation without understanding what was endured, without feeling it as the suffering of ordinary human beings risks turning the season of Emancipation into mere ceremony.

This season of Emancipation remember the smoke.

I urge you to remember the families torn from each other and kept apart and to remember it by building strong families.

I urge you to remember the violence of the slave raiders, the slave traders and slave masters, the violence of the slave raid, the slave coffle, the Middle Passage, the slave auction and plantation life and to remember it by ending the senseless and endless cycle of violence that now plagues our society.

Remember that this violent system was not some inevitable stage in some historical process. The system saw real humans make choices to violently enslave other humans. The system I described were moments in the lives of our ancestors, real people who loved and feared and hoped exactly as we do.

The season of Emancipation Day is not an invitation to remain wounded but rather an invitation to remain awake.

Professor Justin Robinson is an economist and Pro Vice- Chancellor of the Board of Undergraduate Studies at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Cave Hill Campus.

Barbados Today Thursday August 13th. 2026

The Caribbean: what next?

2026-08-06T10:08:10.111-07:00

One Caribbean Nation

All ah we is One

Professor Tennyson Joseph

Nation Newspaper Barbados. Thursday 6th. August 2026

ONE WEEK after the dignified burial of Barbadian National Hero and Caribbean cricketing icon Sir Garfield Sobers, and as the lofty speeches and uplifting songs of farewell and gratitude fade away, the Caribbean must now come face to face with its harsh existential present. The heaping of praise upon a fallen hero always boomerangs. It goes out buoyed by how great we once were but returns with the pain of how far we have fallen.

Significantly, while the world is rapidly changing, the Caribbean is at its most vulnerable state since independence. Despite this, there has not been any fundamental self reflective critical analysis aimed at determining what next for the Caribbean. There is little Caribbean awareness of the scale, depth and implications of its existential crisis.

Our news and public discourses continue to be dominated by electoral partisan contestation, and our academic analyses remain trapped in these considerations. If in normal times such complacency is problematic, in periods of significant change, it is always fatal.

Policy responses

In such periods, two responses become necessary. The first is for a deep and critical objective economic, political and socio-cultural analysis of the world in which the Caribbean is immersed. This would be the diagnosis. The second is for a comprehensive, detailed, appropriate and sustainable set of policy responses.

This would be the urgent and necessary action that any independent, sovereign, self actualised, non-colonised people would undertake. Only a genuinely free people, unafraid of colonial overlords, confident in their capacity, can undertake such steps.

Thus far, there is no evidence that such urgent reflection has taken place in the Caribbean. Our news wires have not informed us of any emergency CARICOM meeting of regional experts aimed at identifying a survival and re-positioning strategy.

There have been no reports of regional academies organising conferences to assess and and discuss relevant policy options. there is no outcry from civil society organisations demanding answers. The taking over of Venezuela and the overt squeezing of Cuba with the Caribbean as helpless onlookers (if not as cajoled participants) provide a clear window into the Caribbean’s future unless a firm decision is taken to actively determine the outcome the Caribbean wishes for itself. Such a course of action requires bucketloads of political awareness but shiploads of sovereign political will to do something about it. The regional experts aimed at identifying a survival and re-positioning strategy.

There have been no reports of regional academies organising conferences to assess and discuss relevant policy options. There is no outcry from civil society organisations demanding answers.

As the United States faces frustration in its wars in Iran, Southwest Asia and Europe, and as it sees its global power weakening with a declining Europe and an increasingly volatile global economy, the Caribbean and Latin America then become the US’ bullying playground. The taking-over of Venezuela and the overt squeezing of Cuba with the Caribbean people as helpless onlookers ( if not as cajoled participants) provide a clear window into the Caribbean's future unless a firm decision is taken t to actively determine the outcome the Caribbean wishes for itself.

Such a course of action requires bucketloads of political awareness but shiploads of sovereign political will to do something about it. The Caribbean people and leadership can never be faulted with not knowing or understanding the world in which they live. One must only listen to Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley to see this clearly. But, political will? We continue to wait in hope, rather than expectation.

Tennyson Joseph is Associate Professor of political science at North Carolina Central University.

Email tjoe2008@live.com

Tribute to Sir Garry

2026-07-23T05:23:22.699-07:00

One Caribbean Nation.

Sir Garfield Sobers

There is, or at least was, a picture of Sir Garfield Sobers, in the hall of the Bay Primary School, located in Bayville that most of us will recall was once called Bayland. The striking aspect of the picture is that Sir Garry is standing there with bat in hand, it appeared to us that he is batting slightly outside the leg stump. In other words, all of his stumps were exposed. Many young boys have stared at this picture for years trying to figure out how Sir Garry could “move so fast” to avoid his stumps being uprooted. In those days, we argued whether that stance was genuine or if it was merely done for the cameras!

He is perhaps the only sports man, whose exceptional talents have not been surpassed by any in his sport, and who remains unchallenged , as the greatest allround cricketer to have ever played the game.

Sir Garry has walked with Kings and Queens but has never lost the common touch. The entire Caribbean region, has not produced any other citizen who has displayed such excellence, in his or her chosen field, and whose talents have not been surpassed.

The Mahogany Coconut Blog extends condolences to his family on the passing of Sir Garry. His humility, generous spirit and down to earth approach to interpersonal communication, will be remembered and treasured along with his brilliant and unsurpassed cricketing skills.

Sir Garry will bat on in our memories forever.

May he rest in peace.

The Colour of Our Believing

2026-07-21T07:53:07.874-07:00

One Caribbean Nation.

Diaspora Voices

Pofessor Justin Robinson

Prof. C. Justin Robinson is a national of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, He obtained his PhD in Finance from the University of Manchester, UK. A Professor of Corporate Finance, he is currently Pro Vice Chancellor and Campus Principal, University of the West Indies Five Islands Campus. Professor Robinson also serves as a Director of the Central Bank of Barbados, Member of the Fiscal Responsibility Mechanism, St. Vincent & The Grenadines, Director Jamaica Money Market Brokers International and Director WIBISCO. He also serves as Chair of the Ratings Committee of CARICRIS (the Caribbean’s sole credit rating agency), and President of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society.

The 2026 Fifa World Cup has ignited animated conversations about race and skin color. Consider Vinícius Júnior, Champions League winner, global icon, a talent commanding the attention of millions. Yet match after match, stadium after stadium, the same things follow him, monkey chants, thrown bananas and the crowds mimicking apes. His wealth is no shield and his fame is no shelter. In Spain, in France, in the heart of European football, a dark-skinned man at the pinnacle of his profession is still reduced to an animal by thousands of voices acting on an inherited reflex.

If a man who commands the world’s attention cannot escape this degradation, imagine the fate of the invisible. The dark-skinned child in a Brazilian favela, the African migrant drowning at a European border or the Black man stopped by police for the crime of breathing while melanated. Millions lack Vinícius’s platform, his legal team, his fortune. Their suffering makes no headlines. They are collateral damage in a system whose programming was written long before they were born.

I was a boy in St Vincent and the Grenadines when I first noticed that programming in myself. Watching football, athletics and cricket beyond the West Indies, I felt a quiet but insistent pull toward the team with the Black players. Nobody instructed me, the feeling simply arrived, as natural-seeming as thirst. It was not evidence that race is biological destiny, it was solidarity formed inside history. But that a child could inherit such a reflex tells us that skin has been made to perform political work.

Why should the melanin in a striker’s skin, on a pitch thousands of miles away, feel like kinship? Why does colour, mine, yours, seemingly everyone’s, so often present itself as the deepest fact about us?

Biologically, skin colour is among the shallowest of human differences. Our genomes are overwhelmingly alike, and pigmentation is largely an adaptation to ultraviolet radiation. More melanin protects where sunlight is intense while less facilitates vitamin D where it is scarce. Skin colour is, in that sense, a sunscreen setting, and tells us nothing reliable about intelligence, character or human worth.

So how did a minor adaptation become a social destiny?

Europe did not invent slavery, conquest or every prejudice attached to dark skin. But European empires did something historically distinctive, they fused African ancestry, dark skin, hereditary chattel slavery, law, theology, commerce and, later, pseudoscience into a transatlantic system of extraordinary scale. Modern, global anti-Black racism is therefore among the Atlantic West’s most consequential and shameful contributions to the modern world.

This is not to romanticize antiquity. Greeks and Romans enslaved and despised outsiders, but their dividing lines were legal status, citizenship and culture, not a universal caste ranked by colour. A dark-skinned free citizen could outrank a pale captive. Ancient societies were brutal, they simply did not construct our colour line. The medieval world was likewise preoccupied with faith and lineage. The “Curse of Ham”, later invoked to sanctify African slavery, is revealing, Genesis curses Canaan, not Ham, and says nothing about Black skin. The association was added later, then weaponized.

A crucial hardening came in fifteenth-century Iberia. “Purity of blood” rules treated Jewish or Muslim ancestry as an inherited stain that conversion could not erase, even as Portuguese expansion turned the capture of Africans into an Atlantic enterprise. Religious difference began attaching itself to ancestry, body and colour.

But the decisive legal laboratory stood in our own region. In 1661, the Barbados Assembly enacted the first comprehensive English slave code, a regime of coercion around enslaved Africans that became the model for Jamaica, South Carolina and beyond. It was made in the Caribbean, but not by the people it enslaved, it was English colonial law, written by planters for plantation profit.

Virginia then supplied two refinements. In 1662, a child’s status followed the mother, ensuring the children of enslaved women were born into bondage. In 1667, baptism was declared incapable of freeing an enslaved person. The enslaved womb became plantation machinery, Christianity no longer offered an exit, and bondage became visible, hereditary and permanent.

Eric Williams gave us the essential sequence, “Slavery was not born of racism, rather, racism was the consequence of slavery.” The plantation required workers identifiable at a glance, whose children could be claimed, and whose condition neither conversion nor achievement could dissolve. Colour was recruited because it was visible, inheritable and inescapable. Racism became the moral technology of extraction.

The Enlightenment then supplied respectability, Linnaeus attached temperaments to his human varieties, and craniometry, ethnology and eugenics turned prejudice into measurements. The ledger acquired footnotes, and domination dressed itself as discovery. The United States became this order’s most powerful engineer as its 1790 naturalization law restricted citizenship to “free white persons”, while Jim Crow, one-drop rules and racial integrity laws made ancestry a legal fate. Europe built the Atlantic architecture while America reinforced it in law and gave it the megaphone of mass culture.

None of this assigns inherited guilt to every European or American. Europe produced abolitionists, America produced Black resistance, Du Bois and the civil rights movement while African rulers and merchants also participated. But responsibility belongs to institutions, interests and choices, not blood, and acknowledging other participants must not obscure the states and planter regimes that built the system and profited most.

Which brings us to the question no honest reckoning can dodge, what is the responsibility of the inheritors of the nations that built this system?

We must distinguish guilt from obligation. A modern Briton, Frenchman, Spaniard, Portuguese or American is not morally guilty of drafting the Barbados code, but they are inheritors of its compounded wealth. They walk on pavements, attend universities and draw salaries from economies whose foundational capital was extracted from Black bodies legally classified as property, within legal and fiscal infrastructures deliberately engineered to privilege their ancestors and dispossess ours. Only the inheritors of the imperial treasuries can repay what their laws took and take concrete steps to mitigate the trials many experience just because of their skin color.

Yet the Caribbean inherited more than the wound, we inherited the tools for closing it. The Haitian Revolution destroyed Saint-Domingue’s slave regime, and Haiti’s 1805 constitution declared that all Haitians would be known by the “generic appellation of Blacks” a category of oppression seized and remade as one of dignity. Williams, C. L. R. James, Elsa Goveia, Frantz Fanon and Sylvia Wynter explained the machinery of race to the world. Our region was a laboratory of racial domination, but also of emancipation and thought.

That legacy gives us internal work. Teach the Barbados code as Caribbean and world history. Teach Haiti as a revolution in human freedom. Confront colourism in our schools, hiring, advertising, romance and beauty standards. Place the names of maroons, insurgents, teachers and writers beside, or above, the planters commemorated in our public spaces. Use racial categories to expose inequality where necessary, but never mistake categories for nature. And do not stop at cultural reckoning but demand the material restitution that alone can signal the colonial ledger is finally closed.

Skin colour is an adaptation but racial hierarchy is an artefact. It was made by identifiable institutions, in identifiable places, for identifiable purposes. That is not fatalism, it is proof that it can be unmade. The boy rooting for the Black players inherited a wound, but also a tradition of recognition. The Vinícius Júniors of this world, for all their wealth, inherit the same wound, a reminder that no individual success can outrun a systemic failure.

Our task is not to pretend we do not see colour. It is to see it without mistaking it for destiny, to remember who taught the modern world this mistake, to do our own work of cultural and institutional demolition, and to insist that those who built the cage help pay for its dismantling. The monkey chants will not stop with therapy. They will stop when the world decides that the cost of racism is higher than the cost of settling its accounts.

Article First Published , Kiskadee Watch, Guyana 7/19/2026

Politics At Play In World Cup

2026-07-15T05:09:09.402-07:00

One Caribbean Nation.

A THORNY

ISSUE

by Andi Thornhill

Politics at play in World Cup

IT WAS ONLY a matter of time before geopolitics entered the World Cup.

Donald Trump, largely a spectator, found it difficult to keep his mouth quiet when the United States had to play in the last 16. By his own admission, he asked that red-carded Folarin Balogun be given a chance to play just because he was too good a player to miss the match. Whether true or not, all he had to do was to give FIFA president Gianni Infantino a call and the issue was settled.

The injustice of the move, questioned by UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) and others fell on death ears.

Trump had spoken and that was that.

It didn’t start there.

FIFA had also agreed to give Cristiano Ronaldo a free pass before the World Cup, lifting a suspension for the first game in this campaign.

He was suspended for the first game for an elbow on Irishman Dara O’Shea but Trump made another untimely intervention for his friend.

The point is that both decisions seemed unconstitutional but FIFA allowed both and the credibility of the organisation suffered as a result. The question to be asked where football’s biggest body is going after these two blunders? Can it live with the shame it has committed and will FIFA ever be free of these decisions made in the name of international football?

Protest

Jack Warner has said that he will be launching a protest.

The first vote will be mine – notwithstanding Infantino was high on the list of those who wanted Warner out. If you are comfortable with what Trump has done, you can’t be sitting without any pressure because you have the numbers.

Infantino, under normal circumstances, should be swept aside next year when he seeks another mandate but I think he will prevail again. UEFA is only one body that is likely to resist the missteps of Infantino and the Trump agenda which is clear to see, back me and you’ll succeed.

Iran felt all the pressure of the geopolitics and nobody stood up for them.

Another thing is that Infantino wants to bring 64 countries for the next World Cup and he probably will succeed. What chance of Barbados coming good and at what cost?

By the time the next edition is printed, it will all be done. One thing I have seen clearly is that the World Cup is for the big countries. Were it not so, I can see that a couple of the smaller countries would have been in the quarterfinals.

As it stands, they were seemingly deprived by the VAR (Video Assistant Referee) system and a few indecisive referees. That’s how poor the systems are. Did Norway deserve to lose to England? They played better than England and were denied when the ball struck the fire alarm on its way to Jude Bellingham and he scored their first goal.

That’s the break some of the powerhouses are able to get without scrutiny. Was Mo Salah pushed aside when Argentina pressed for the third goal?

These are just two of the misdemeanours that occurred and changed the games. Better must come when there is so much at stake.

Geopolitics is at play and I guess it will loom large for Argentina and France.

Andi Thornhill is an award-winning, experienced freelance sports journalist and broadcaster. Email: andithornhill@live.com

Nation Newspaper, Barbados Wednesday July 15th. 2026

Mahogany Coconut Note :

Jack Warner who says he will be launching a protest , is a former FIFA Vice President.

Mr. Warner is a Trinidadian.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

The Vulgarity of asking the Enslaved to Pay

2026-07-11T04:24:25.153-07:00

One Caribbean Nation.

Sir Ronald Sanders

The vulgarity of asking the enslaved to pay

Sir Roland Sanders

(The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of this publication.)

Suella Braverman is a former Conservative Party British government minister who turned coat and is now a vocal member of the far‐right political party, reform. She is the child of Indian parents from Mauritius and Kenya, yet, like many other ultra‐ambitious British politicians, she has consistently distinguished herself by remarks that are unhelpful to immigrants and to developing countries.

Her latest claim is that Britain's former colonies should pay reparations to Britain. It is a claim that is historically illiterate, morally offensive and politically revealing.

It takes some nerve, in the year 2026, for a British politician to look at the Caribbean's renewed call for reparations for slavery and conclude that the obligation runs in reverse. Yet Braverman has argued that, if the British government is seriously thinking about reparations, then former colonies should pay Britain back for the "investment, effort and contribution" that laid the foundations for "many flourishing democracies today", and that expecting twenty‐first century Britons to pay for eighteenth‐century actions has no legal basis. It is a neat inversion that will flatter an audience which prefers imperial nostalgia to historical truth, but it collapses once we look honestly at the legacy of empire in the Caribbean.

As far back as 2013, in a debate with the late Lord Carrington, organised by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, I described that legacy as mixed - some aspects good, many bad, and one in particular ugly. There are indeed "good" legacies. English has become the language of international commerce, and the English‐speaking Caribbean has benefitted from that in global transactions. The institutional inheritance of legal and judicial systems, and of written constitutions based on the rule of law, has also had value, even though those institutions were originally designed to serve Britain's interests rather than our own.

Education is another positive element. Missionary‐led basic education ensured early literacy in English, and in 1948 the University College of the West Indies was established in Jamaica, widening opportunities for Caribbean nationals to take over from British colonial civil servants and preparing them for the challenges of independence.

That narrow but solid education has helped a region of some five million people to produce Nobel laureates and to send its citizens into senior roles in international organisations entirely out of proportion to its size. These are genuine gains, even if they arrived late and were not matched by comparable investment in industry and infrastructure.

Yet it is when we turn to the "bad" and "ugly" legacies that Braverman's talk of British "investment" begins to sound like a grim joke. For three hundred years Britain organised Caribbean economies around one crop - sugar - and later bananas, for the benefit of British conglomerates. Production was based on low wages and poor conditions, and while British companies enjoyed preferences in the United Kingdom and later Europe, Caribbean workers remained trapped in poverty. In all that time, Britain did not bring development to the Caribbean; it brought wealth extraction.

Caribbean efforts after independence to diversify their economies have been hobbled by missing infrastructure and poor transportation links. There are still no direct links between the Caribbean and Africa, and few to neighbouring Latin America, because the colonial model routed everything through Britain, with added costs that made trade difficult and expensive. Today's shortages of productive capital, structural unemployment, trade and balance‐of‐payments deficits, and high levels of debt across the region are not accidents of geography but products of a historical pattern of exploitation. To rebrand this record as "investment" is to confuse the plantation ledger with a development plan.

The abandonment of the West Indies Federation and the offer of independence to individual territories locked in place a fragmented Caribbean of small, vulnerable states, each struggling without economies of scale and with little bargaining capacity. That, too, is part of the "effort and contribution" which Braverman now wishes us to repay.

The truly ugly legacy lies in slavery and indentured labour.

African slavery and East Indian indentured labour provided the cheap production that fed Britain's growth for centuries. When slavery was abolished in the English‐speaking Caribbean in 1838, British slave owners were compensated lavishly for the emancipation of their "property" - some 655 780 human beings of African descent.

In today's terms, that compensation runs into billions of pounds.

The freed slaves received nothing for their dehumanisation, their cruel treatment, their stolen labour and the plain injustice of their enslavement.

Those payments are woven into the foundations of major banks such as Barclays, Lloyds and the Royal Bank of Scotland, and into the fortunes of prominent British families. This was not "investment" in Caribbean development. It was investment in British power and British wealth.

Most remarkably, the British state decided that slave owners deserved compensation while the enslaved deserved nothing. The government borrowed £20 million - about 40 per cent of national income at the time - to finance those payments, and the debt was only finally paid off in 2015. Generations of British taxpayers, including those of the twenty‐first century, have honoured the obligation to slave owners, yet Braverman insists that there is no legal basis for modern Britons to meet any obligation to the descendants of the enslaved. That is not a serious legal argument. It is a political choice to recognise one kind of historical claim and to deny another.

The ugliness did not begin or end with African slavery. Indentured servitude in places such as Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago bound Indian labourers to estates, deprived them of normal liberties and subjected them to treatment that Hugh Tinker described as "another kind of slavery". When slavery ended, Africans received no land grants, no cash reparations, no promissory notes. They were left destitute, deprived and disadvantaged, while former owners drew down their compensation and Britain drew on the fruits of their labour.

If even half of the compensation paid to slave owners had been directed to slavery's victims and their societies, the Caribbean would today be much further along the road of social and economic development. For a British politician to answer that the victims' descendants ought instead to compensate the beneficiaries is to mock history and stand it on its head.

It is impossible to separate Braverman's statement from her political trajectory. She championed a harsh anti‐immigration agenda, including a plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda. Now, as a member of Reform UK, she aligns herself with a party that has promised to stop issuing visas to nationals of any country that seeks reparations for the transatlantic trafficking and enslavement of Africans.

Her intervention signals a project to re‐centre Britain as victim and benefactor in the story of empire, and to cast Caribbean demands for justice as impertinence. The Caribbean cannot accept that script.

Reparations are not about "punishing" modern Britons; they are about acknowledging that history created structural disadvantages that persist and about designing measures to repair them. Until that truth is faced, talk of "investment, effort and contribution" is not history; it is evasion.

Sir Ronald Sanders is Antigua and Barbuda's Ambassador to the US and the OAS. He is also Chancellor of the University of Guyana.

Barbados Today Friday 10th. July 2026

CARICOM : NO HALF MEASURES

2026-07-09T06:18:11.435-07:00

Professor Tennyson Joseph

One Caribbean Nation.

ALL AH WE IS ONE

THURSDAY, JULY 9, 2026. DAILY NATION BARBADOS

AS THE CHAIRMANSHIP OF CARICOM moves to the Prime Minister of St Lucia, Philip J. Pierre, it does so in a moment where the most open and direct threats to secede are being made by certain sections of Caribbean leadership. These threats should not be brushed aside as a temporary descent into anti-diplomacy on the part of a loose-tongued generation of Caribbean leadership, but should be understood as part of broader global structural shifts of which the “rethinking” of CARICOM is only a small part. The collapse of the post-World War II order, and the United States’ intent on reshaping its role in the Western Hemisphere even while it strategically withdraws from “global leadership”, are at the centre of these anti-CARICOM noises. Put bluntly, had there been no “Trumpism”, there would have been no Kamla Persaud-Bissessar quarrel with CARICOM. Given the seriousness of the moment, the current CARICOM phase being ushered in by the St Lucia deliberations should be treated as an extraordinary moment demanding extraordinary responses.

Good opportunity

While the positive energy which has pervaded the assumption of Pierre represents a good opportunity to “reset CARICOM”, as argued recently by veteran journalist Julian Rogers, it would be a mistake to assume that the way forward for CARICOM is the pursuit of “small deeds” minus bold aspirations.

However, despite the potentially ground-shifting nature of the current moment, there appears to be two dominant responses from the main actors in CARICOM.

First, there is a pretence at “nothing to see here” normalcy. Those in this tendency exhibit strong doses of “false consciousness”, since their actions do not match reality.

The second approach is from those claiming to be “pragmatic”. They insist that CARICOM should pursue a “minimal programme”, since the situation is too delicate for any big gestures.

They take comfort in completing elusive basic tasks like “regional travel”. They see themselves as “saving CARICOM” by “working on the issues that have been ignored”. This seems to be the dominant narrative being prepared for what is likely to be the main feature of the St Lucia chairmanship.

However, none of these approaches fully addresses the deep structural issues that have brought us to the current moment. The way forward for CARICOM is for the emergence of an uncompromising, radical, committed core willing to articulate and organise for a deeper programme of integration never experienced in the region. It requires the presence of a vanguard organisation committed to the pursuit of a federal sovereign state as its sole purpose.

The Caribbean people need a new sovereign political arrangement beyond the limited, single state independence inherited at Independence. This cannot be achieved by the familiar “small technical detail”, bureaucratic approach. A new sovereign nation state of the West Indian people arising out of the dust of the currently collapsing world order is the only solution.

Tennyson Joseph is associate professor of political science at North Carolina Central University.

Email tjoe2008@live.com

Martinique now in CARICOM

2026-07-06T08:24:07.642-07:00

One Caribbean Nation.

CARICOM’s Associate Membership has now increased to seven countries with France’s overseas territory of Martinique joining.

Following the signing of the pact granting Associate Membership of CARICOM to Martinique in February 2025, CARICOM received the Instrument of Accession in June 2026 from the Government of the French Republic, facilitating the entry into force of the Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of CARICOM.

A release from CARICOM yesterday said that this paved the way for Martinique to formally become an Associate Member effective 16 June 2026 and its participation in the Fifty-first Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM, from 5-8 July in Saint Lucia.

Please note the current Associate Members of CARICOM are:

Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Curacao, Martinique , and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The Mahogany Coconut Group welcomes Martinique to CARICOM.

In the Time of Monsters: The Global Interregnum , Seen from the Caribbean

2026-07-01T06:51:33.629-07:00

One Caribbean Nation.

In the Time of Monsters: The Global Interregnum, Seen from the Caribbean

ByStaff EditorSun, June 21 2026, 2:05 AM GMT-4

Justin Robinson

By Prof C. Justin Robinson,

Lord, we live in a topsy turvy world. Our heads are spinning as we try to make sense of local, regional and global events. Antonio Gramsci, writing from one of Mussolini’s prison cells in the 1930s, gave us this perspective: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born, in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” The popular paraphrase, “the old order is dying, the new order struggles to be born, now is the time of monsters,” is not quite what he wrote. But it is exactly what he meant. When one order collapses and another has not yet arrived, politics fills with monsters. Look around, the monsters are not coming, they are here.

The old order, the post-Cold War, American-led, market-knows-best consensus, is visibly expiring. Its funeral is not a single event but a daily ritual. The trade rules are broken by the powers that wrote them. The international courts are defied by the nations that drafted their statutes. The “end of history” has given way to the return of land grabs, spheres of influence, and the casual redrawing of borders. Global military spending now approaches three trillion US dollars a year, its eleventh consecutive year of growth, while the United Nations Secretary-General laments that at the moment we need international cooperation most, we seem least inclined to use it.

Meanwhile, the new struggles to be born. No power, not China, not a fragmented Europe, not a distracted United States, not an aspiring BRICS, has stepped forward with legitimacy, coherence, or a vision beyond its own survival. What we have instead are fragments, a “multipolar” world that looks less like balance and more like a brawl with no referee.

The symptoms of this interregnum are familiar to anyone reading the news. War has returned as the grammar of politics, from Ukraine to Gaza, to Sudan, to Venezuela, to Cuba to a grab for Guyana land. Democracy seems exhausted, by most credible counts, global freedom has now declined for two consecutive decades, and authoritarianism no longer markets itself as repression, it markets itself as efficiency, order, sovereignty, and revenge. The climate emergency, after the hottest decade in recorded history, is still treated as a policy sector rather than the condition under which all politics now occurs. Artificial intelligence is arriving not as a collectively governed transformation but as a private arms race. And human displacement has been normalized, roughly one in every seventy human beings on Earth is now forcibly displaced, in a world where capital, weapons, carbon, and data cross borders freely, but compassion is stopped at the frontier.

This is Gramsci’s diagnosis in global form but I want to ask a different question. What does the interregnum look like from the Caribbean?

Here is the uncomfortable truth, we never owned the old order. We were its periphery, its plantation, its offshore ledger, its tourist brochure. The dying consensus promised integration without justice, growth without ecological limits, and rules that bound the small while exempting the strong. Lloyd Best taught us to see the plantation economy not as history but as structure and the old order was, in many respects, the plantation gone global. We should shed no sentimental tears at its funeral.

But neither should we romanticize collapse, as a vacuum is not liberation. When the rules dissolve, the strong do not become generous; the weak do not inherit freedom, they inherit exposure. For small open economies dependent on trade, tourism, remittances, correspondent banking, and imported food and fuel, an ungoverned world is not a liberated world, it is a more dangerous one. When the referee leaves the field, it is not the heavyweight who should be worried.

And the monsters do not respect our size. The hurricane intensified by a warming we did not cause does not check our carbon footprint before landfall. The de-risking decision taken in a New York boardroom does not pause to consider what it does to a Caribbean bank, a Caribbean diaspora, a Caribbean grandmother waiting on a remittance. The algorithm that decides who gets credit, insurance, or a visa was not trained on our realities and answers to no parliament we elect. These are the morbid symptoms, arriving on our shores ahead of any new order to govern them.

So what is to be done in the time of monsters? Three things, I would argue.

First, abandon the waiting posture. I have said it before and the interregnum makes it more urgent: No one is coming to save us. There is no restored Washington consensus, no benevolent new hegemon, no global conference that will write rules in our favour while we watch from the gallery. The interregnum is precisely the period in which the furniture of the next order is being arranged and those absent from the room will be on the menu rather than at the table.

Second, build regional architecture as if our lives depend on it, because they do. The institutions we already possess: CARICOM, the OECS, the ECCB, the CCJ, the University of the West Indies, these are not ornaments of flag independence. They are the scaffolding of survival in a fragmenting world. Deeper capital markets, regional food systems, pooled negotiating capacity, indigenous research and data, a single domestic space in fact and not merely in treaty: this is not idealism. In an interregnum, it is insurance.

Third, claim authorship of the new technologies rather than merely consuming them. Trinidadian philosopher C.L.R. James reminded us that ordinary people, organized, have repeatedly outrun the categories assigned to them. Artificial intelligence will reorganize labour, education, finance, and governance whether we participate or not. The choice before small states is not whether AI arrives but whether it arrives as something done to us or built with us trained on our data, governed by our values, serving our development.

Gramsci’s warning is often read as fatalism. It is the opposite. An interregnum is dangerous precisely because it is undecided. The monsters appear when history stalls, but they do not have to rule it. The new world will not be delivered by optimism, nor by a saviour. It will be built, slowly and imperfectly, by institutions, movements, laws, and choices strong enough to make despair less persuasive.

The old world is dying and the new one is struggling to be born. The Caribbean has spent five centuries on the receiving end of other people’s world orders. The only question that matters now is whether, this time, we will be spectators to the monsters, or midwives of something better. The interregnum is asking, and it is asking us by name.

This Article First Appeared in the Kiskadee Watch ( Diaspora Voices) Sunday, June 21st 2026.

UN slavery resolution hailed as reparations campaign watershed

2026-03-30T05:44:00.000-07:00

One Caribbean Nation.

UN slavery resolution hailed as reparations campaign watershed

By Ricardo Roberts

Ambassador to CARICOM David Comissiong has hailed a United Nations resolution describing the transatlantic slave trade as a "grievous crime against humanity" as a landmark victory for the global quest for reparatory justice, saying it cements the Caribbean's case for reparations on firm legal and historical ground.

The resolution, passed by 123 member nations on Wednesday, calls for the return of stolen cultural artefacts, the establishment of a global reparations fund, and increased public education through agencies such as UNESCO.

The United States joined with Israel and Argentina to vote against the resolution while 52 other countries, including all of Europe's former colonial powers that captured and enslaved millions of Africans, abstained.

In an exclusive interview with Barbados TODAY, Amb Comissiong emphasised that while the journey began in earnest at the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, this latest development carries more weight.

He said: "What made yesterday's resolution perhaps even more significant than the 2001 Durban Declaration... is that those slavery and reparations notions were part of a very wide and comprehensive declaration, whereas yesterday the United Nations General Assembly focused on this specific issue."

He described the text as "very compelling", stating that it "lays out in detail the legal and historical basis for designating racialised chattel slavery as the gravest crime against humanity in the history of the world".

Ambassador Comissiong acknowledged that he was "disappointed but not surprised" that the vote was marked by a coordinated wave of abstentions from 27 European Union nations, including former colonial powers France, Spain and the United Kingdom.

When asked if this "wall of silence" suggested a need for a new strategy, he said: "I'm disappointed that these European governments seemingly find it unable to muster up and to rise up to the moral conscience and the moral clarity and the sense of responsibility that is required of them."

He dismissed the long-standing European legal defence— that slavery was legal at the time it was practised—as a "totally bogus" and "morally bankrupt".

But Ambassador Comissiong pointed out that while governments remain the "stubborn holdouts", progress is being made with European civil society, including universities, banks and the Church of England.

He specifically highlighted that the "government is the institutional link between the present and the past", noting that it was the state that organised and profited from the system.

"The government has access to the kind of resources and development programmes that are required to do justice to our reparations demands," he added.

A central theme of the ambassador's response was the burgeoning alliance between the African Union (AU) and CARICOM. The resolution was championed by Ghana, with the backing of both regional bodies, signalling a shift towards a more "sophisticated" and unified global front.

"What Ghana did... really lays a very good foundation for the Africa-Caribbean partnership in taking forward our reparations campaign to a successful conclusion that will be a major substantial reparations settlement," Comissiong explained.

He revealed that he has been invited to join an AU committee of legal experts tasked with exploring litigation and international law strategies.

Despite the diplomatic friction, Ambassador Comissiong stressed that Barbados does not intend to dismantle current trade or bilateral agreements with nations such as the UK or France. Instead, the strategy is one of persistent confrontation and "national embarrassment" for those on the wrong side of history.

"We are not going to, in any way, dismantle or subvert our current trade and economic relations," Ambassador Comissiong said. "But by the same token, we are going to continue to confront them with this reparations claim. It is ultimately going to become more and more untenable."

The ambassador pointed to the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Antigua and Barbuda in November as the next major battlefield. He noted that even King Charles III has previously acknowledged that reparations is "an idea whose time has come".

For Ambassador Comissiong, the message to Europe is clear: the momentum is irreversible. "Power concedes nothing without a demand and a struggle," he said, invoking the words of Frederick Douglass. "We are confident that ultimately we will prevail."

ricardoroberts@barbadostoday.bb

Barbados Today, Friday, March 27th,, 2026

Hands Off Cuba - It Deserves our Support

2026-03-24T06:46:00.000-07:00

One Caribbean Nation.

Guest Editorial

Godfrey Martin

We owe a debt of gratitude to the government and people of Cuba who have been consistent in their unflinching support for our Caribbean region and all oppressed peoples throughout the globe.

Cuba has opened its doors to many, even though it is a developing country savaged by the inhumane economic blockade implemented by the United States of America for 65 years. Added to this is the increased oil embargo recently imposed on Cuba over the past weeks. This has deprived Cuba of receiving much-needed oil necessary for energy and everyday living. These actions have been condemned by international lawyers as a crime against humanity.

Cuba’s crime was to throw off the yoke of Yankee imperialism and seek a socialist path for the development of its people and resources. Cuba’s crime was also to reject the path of becoming a vassal and neocolonial state of the USA and Western imperialism. It chose the path of defending its sovereignty.

Trade and economic relations with other states is necessary for most countries. Cuba, like other Caribbean economies, needs trading relations with others for its development.

Cuba has endured much pain over these last 65 years, yet, it has developed a society and culture that rises to the challenges and endures with an independent mindset. It has developed its human resources and has given its support to many other states in the Caribbean and elsewhere. Their record is exemplary and is of the finest human traditions: integrity, selflessness, honour, commitment, love for others and the sharing of its resources with others.

Cuba has shed blood, sweat and tears in its commitments to help others. The name of the great visionary anti-imperialist leader, Fidel Castro, reverberates and is admired around the globe.

We must not forget the tangible contributions to many developing countries. This was also most evident during the Covid-19 pandemic when it provided its locally developed vaccine to many countries, including its neighbours in the Caribbean.

Cuba’s reach was not limited to developing countries. It provided medical assistance to many in North America and Italy during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Cuba understood its history of slavery and conquest and the fact that many of its African forbears came from Angola and southern parts of Africa. It was therefore no surprise that Cuba willingly assisted Southern African states in fighting for their liberation against apartheid and settler colonialism. It played a decisive role in supporting Angola, Namibia, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique in their wars to gain independence. Cuba lost around 2,000 soldiers in the liberation struggle in Angola. It also provided much development assistance in the form of doctors, other medical professionals, teachers, engineers, etc. Cuba trained many African students in medicine and other professions in the Isle of Youth.

Cuba provided assistance to the South Africans fighting apartheid. When Nelson Mandela was released from prison and emerged as the first democratically elected president of South Africa, one of the first overseas countries he visited was Cuba. He came to say thank you to Fidel and the people of Cuba who stood with them as friends, throughout the long years, providing genuine support to the ANC in the fight against the racist apartheid regime.

Cuba has provided assistance to Haiti, sending health professionals to assist the country since 1998. It has been hands-on with emergency response teams in 2010 after the earthquake. Cuba has trained over 500 Haitian doctors while seeking to help build a self-sustaining health system.

Lest we forget, Cuba also provided assistance to the Bolivarian State of Venezuela. This includes medical assistance and security/military advice. Cuba lost 32 soldiers who were on the security detail of President Nicolas Maduro, who was kidnapped by the USA, no doubt with the collusion of a few bribed traitors within the regime who were willing to sell out their country for a few pieces of silver.

In the Caribbean region, Cuba has provided assistance to Grenada from the period of Maurice Bishop and the New Jewel Movement (NJM) in 1979. Cuba effectively built the international airport at Point Salines, now called the Maurice Bishop International Airport. Cuba also lost ordinary airport workers during the illegal American invasion of Grenada in October 1983.

Closer to home, it has provided medical assistance to two of Trinidad and Tobago’s prime ministers, now deceased. For example, former prime ministers Patrick Manning and Basdeo Panday received medical treatment in Cuba. The late Kwame Ture, formerly Stokely Carmichael, also had treatment in Cuba.

It is noteworthy that several hundred black and minority students from the USA have studied medicine for free in Cuba under an initiative supported by the Congressional Black Caucus. Were it not for such solidarity with those who witness discrimination, the cadre of black doctors in the USA would have been less.

Cuba has assisted all the members of Caricom, providing scholarships in medicine and other fields. There were Cuban doctors, nurses and other health professionals working through bilateral agreements. Cuban-trained doctors form a large and critical component for many Caribbean states, especially in specialised areas of medicine. They are now being threatened by the Trump administration to abandon their relationships and links with Cuba and to effectively accept recolonisation by United States imperialism.

Caricom must speak with one voice and say “No” to US threats at subordination. Our ancestors fought against slavery and showed strong resistance. We owe it to their memory to fight for our sovereignty and tell the United States—hands off Cuba!

There are solidarity flotillas from several countries and organisations representing working-class people, trade unionists and progressives, arriving in Cuba with humanitarian aid.

We call on all our Caribbean leaders to do likewise and mobilise our people to support Cuba in this, their time of need. This must be our way to say: thank you, Cuba.

We call on our people to resist US imperialism and come together and mobilise tangible support for Cuba. We call on our diaspora in the USA and Europe to raise their voices in support of the sovereignty of Cuba and of Caricom.

Trinidad Express Monday 23rd., March 2026

The Mahogany Coconut Group strongly endorses the above editorial .

War In Iran, Pain In The Caribbean

2026-03-22T05:24:20.907-07:00

One Caribbean Nation.

by Sir Ronald Sanders

The war in Iran is already at Caribbean doors. The attacks in Iran and the Gulf are being justified by some on the grounds that Iran's record on terrorism, nuclear ambition, and regional meddling leaves the "free world" with no choice but to act militarily. The Caribbean has every reason to take that record seriously. But for small, import‐dependent states in this hemisphere, an additional set of questions demands urgent attention: who is paying the economic and social price for this war, and what is it doing to the rules that are meant to protect small states?

A war fought there, a bill paid here

The conflict has already pushed up oil prices, freight rates, and insurance premiums for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most critical corridors for oil and liquefied natural gas. For Caribbean countries that import most of what they consume, every additional dollar on a barrel of oil, and every extra cent on a container or tanker, quickly appears on electricity bills, food prices, and public‐transport fares.

Many states in this hemisphere import a large share of their goods from the United States. As American producers face higher fuel, fertiliser, logistics, and financing costs, those increases are passed on in the prices of exports to the Caribbean. Our region is therefore not only directly exposed to world oil and freight markets; it is also importing US‐embedded costs in the form of more expensive food, manufactured goods, and inputs.

For most countries in the Western Hemisphere, including the US itself, the war has meant tighter supply chains, higher shipping and war‐risk insurance costs. Only a narrow group of oil and gas exporters have enjoyed a short‐term windfall from elevated prices. In our own region, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago are among the few that see higher hydrocarbon revenues, but even they remain exposed to volatility, shipping risk, and the broader slowdown that higher energy prices can bring.

Security narratives and international law

Public argument over this war has been dominated by two types of narratives. One focuses on sovereignty and international law: whether one or two powerful nations may bomb another sovereign state on the basis that it might develop nuclear weapons that could one day be used against them, even without an imminent attack or a mandate from the UN Security Council. The other is increasingly cast in ethnic and religious terms, with social media flooded by Islamophobic and sectarian rhetoric that reduces complex realities to a clash of civilisations and obscures sober discussion of law and proportionality.

The Caribbean should not turn a blind eye to Iran's conduct. The regime's longstanding repression at home, including the grave violations of the rights of women and dissenters, and its support for armed groups and destabilising activities abroad, are matters of legitimate concern to all states, including ours.

Nor should any country's aggression against its neighbours be excused or ignored. At the same time, arguments in some quarters, which catalogue Iran's support for Hezbollah, Hamas and other networks in the Middle East and Latin America and then treat this as sufficient justification for open‐ended military action, raise profound concerns.

Similarly, Israel's declared aims require scrutiny. By his own account, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not seek only to neutralise discrete threats. He has spoken of "crushing" and "weakening" Iran's regime, of delivering "crushing blows" to its security apparatus, and of creating "optimal conditions" for a future toppling of the regime, even as he acknowledges that actual regime change would depend on the Iranian people. These statements point not just to self defence, but toward an effort to leave Iran a substantially weakened state, with long‐term implications for regional balance and for the principle that one or two powers should not decide, by force, the political future of others.

Accepting the seriousness of Iran's record, and recognising the genuine security concerns of other states, does not mean accepting that powerful states may unilaterally wage preventive war outside clear self‐defence or Security Council authorisation. For small countries, the restraints in the UN Charter on the use of force are vital; they are the first line of protection.

Fractured global and regional leadership

Institutions that should help guide global opinion have done so only partially. The UN Security Council has managed to condemn specific Iranian attacks in the Gulf and to call for an immediate halt to hostilities and the protection of civilians. But deep divisions among its permanent members exist. Some are simultaneously profiting from higher oil prices and from easing of sanctions related to their own past violations of international law.

Regional organisations in the Americas have likewise fallen short. The Organisation of American States (OAS) has not even discussed a member‐state‐negotiated position on this war. There is no collective view of the Organisation. Likewise, although CARICOM had issued earlier statements on Middle East escalation and some governments have spoken nationally on the latest developments, there is no unified Caribbean position on the present conflict equivalent to a clear, common line adopted by Heads of Government.

In practice, public opinion in the Caribbean is being shaped less by regional guidance than by global cable news and polarised social media feeds.

Where does this leave the Caribbean?

Caribbean countries, individually and collectively, have virtually no military leverage and limited economic power, yet they are deeply exposed to the conflict's fallout.

Tourism‐dependent economies face higher jet‐fuel costs, potential softening of travel demand, and tighter airline margins. Import‐dependent economies confront rising energy and food prices, more expensive US‐sourced goods, and growing fiscal pressure as governments try to protect households from inflation while servicing already heavy debt burdens. For many, the war has arrived as higher bills, fragile supply chains, and renewed threats to growth and social stability.

Ideally, CARICOM should respond by speaking clearly and collectively. A unified Caribbean stance could defend de‐escalation and immediate ceasefire; insist on respect for the UN Charter's rules on sovereignty and the use of force; call for the protection and reopening of critical sea lanes; and draw attention to the disproportionate economic burden the war places on small, vulnerable states that had no say in the decision to fight.

In practice, such unity is unlikely. Recent developments have exposed divisions within CARICOM. Some member states see the United States as their principal security partner and a crucial economic lifeline in trade, investment, remittances, and tourism. Smaller states are acutely aware of how shifts in US visa policy, travel restrictions, and migration enforcement can affect their societies, and recent episodes of visa and travel pressure have reinforced the perception that foreign‐policy choices can carry real costs. In this environment, many governments will hesitate to support any collective position.

A measured Caribbean stance

But, even without full regional consensus, Caribbean states can still exercise leadership by articulating a firm stance grounded in their own interests and values. Such a stance would rest on a clear defence of international law and sovereignty, opposing unlawful uses of force by any country, and insisting that concerns about security, nuclear proliferation, or terrorism be addressed, as far as possible, within the framework of the UN Charter. It would maintain a consistent call for de‐escalation and diplomacy, prioritising ceasefire, restraint, and the resumption of negotiations on nuclear issues and regional security, while underlining the urgent need to keep vital shipping lanes open and safe. It would insist on economic justice for vulnerable economies, showing how the war's consequences — such as energy price spikes, freight costs, imported inflation, and potential recessions in tourism origin markets — are hurting societies that had no voice in the decision to fight, and pressing for tailored financial support and shock‐absorbing mechanisms. And it would reject ethnic and religious polarisation, acknowledging human‐rights abuses and security threats without embracing narratives that stigmatise entire peoples or faiths, drawing on the Caribbean's own history to advocate for a discourse rooted in rights, law, and shared humanity.

For small states in this hemisphere, the path forward lies in principled, measured diplomacy: engaging all major actors, avoiding gratuitous offence, but speaking clearly about the need for de‐escalation, respect for the Charter, and protection of societies that are otherwise left to bear the war's distant but very real costs. To say nothing protects no one.

Sir Ronald Sanders is the Ambassador of Antigua and Barbuda to the United States and the OAS, and Chancellor of the University of Guyana. The views expressed are entirely his own. Responses and previous commentaries: www.sirronaldsanders.com

Barbados Today, Friday 20th March 2026

Caribbean Facing Serious Challenges

2026-03-20T07:24:38.696-07:00

One Caribbean Nation.

By William Skinner

The Caribbean is facing both regional and Global challenges that threaten all the gains made as the perpetual struggle to totally free itself from an inhumane past , engineered by the debilitating slave trade and colonial domination.

Having struggled successfully to forge the unique Caribbean civilization by becoming independent nations and abandoning the British empire , the region now stands almost flat footed because of the erratic machinations of the United States of America as it seeks to influence the region and place demands as to what friends and allegiances it should have. The message from Washington is blunt and clear : support us or you would face vicious and serious challenges.

The quick capitulation of some regional leaders in matters relation to Venezuela and the capture of President Maduro and its desire to use Caribbean islands as surveillance tools for the American military expeditions are causing frustrating fractures, in the absence of a united foreign affairs policy. Additionally, Caribbean states are being forced by Washington to refuse or abandon bilateral agreements with Cuba , whose long and impressive assistance in assisting regional governments in areas of health and education, has been welcomed and critical to the region .

The regional grouping CARICOM ( Caribbean Community ) , finds itself in strained circumstances because of the failure to design a united response to these threats.

This attempt by the USA to establish global domination by using the regions weak economic base and in many cases, the lack of resources along with no real military capabilities , as disadvantages to exploit, must be faced with a strong refusal regardless of the price that it may be forced to pay.

Turning our region into some toy to be used in the interest of America’s or any other country’s ambitions , is not what our forefathers fought for or dreamed. The Caribbean must not be used and then abandoned when those now trying to appear invincible , are no longer present , and we are left to clean up the mess they foolishly created.

We did not come this far, to once more fall under the dictates of any country. We remain open to foreign investment that builds our economies and creates benefits for our people .

Our leaders will not be so stupid to be manipulated by those who see us as docile inhabitants, who are waiting or selling our sovereignty, to anybody or any country.

William Skinner is a frequent commentator on Caribbean affairs

The Caribbean Region Must Import More

2025-12-14T07:15:00.000-08:00

One Caribbean Nation.

‘TWO-PRONG ATTACK’

‘INCREASE IMPORTS, BOOST ECONOMIC GROWTH THROUGH STABLE EXCHANGE RATES’ — WORRELL

By Emmanuel Joseph

In a move that upends decades of thought in economics on managing developing countries like Barbados, the former governor of the Central Bank of Barbados has proposed that the region import more.

Dr Delisle Worrell suggested increased imports as part of bold policy reforms focused on currency stability, arguing that only these measures will unlock sustained foreign investment and lift the Caribbean out of decades-long economic stagnation.

Economists in the region have long argued against increasing imports, fearing consumer demand would invariably drain foreign reserves and weaken a country's capacity — or will — to grow GDP through domestic industrial development and exports.

But in his latest monthly newsletter, Imports Sustain the Quality of Life in the Caribbean, Dr Worrell, who also consulted for the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, said: "The patriotic sentiment that Caribbean countries import too much is at odds with the reality that our standard of living in this region is made possible by imports. The fact is, the greater the level of imports, the higher the standard of living.

"In order to increase the GDP of Caribbean economies, we must therefore increase our capacity to import. That means investing in tourist accommodation and services, exploiting oil, renewable energy and mineral resources, hosting more international business, financial and educational services, and investing in rum and other manufacturing facilities, all with a view to securing more foreign currency for imports."

Dr Worrell contended that foreign earnings depend entirely on the Caribbean's capacity to produce. He asserted that the export markets served by the region are so large that they can easily absorb whatever volume of goods and services Caribbean countries can offer.

"In order to increase capacity to earn foreign currency," said the author of several economic publications, "the Caribbean needs investment, the largest share of which must be financed in US dollars to pay for imported construction materials, equipment, supplies, fuel, vehicles, and other requirements.

Countries can attract this needed foreign finance insofar as they provide a competitive environment for investment."

Breaking down his assessment, Dr Worrell stressed that maintaining Caribbean standards of living demands reliable supplies of imports.

"Caribbean nations' sense of independence confronts the reality that everything supporting our modern lifestyle is either imported or produced using imports. It is impossible to sustain the standard of living of even the least well-off without the full range of imported items," he argued.

He noted that, in economic terms, import dependence is a structural characteristic of small economies like those found in the Caribbean. Dr Worrell said this should not be viewed as a weakness, but rather as an inherent feature of the economy, similar to the country's time zone.

Dr Worrell stated that in an importdependent economy, an increase in the rate of growth will be matched by a proportionate rise in imports. He added: "An increase in imports is usually a good sign, indicating that investment is rising and the economy is on a sustainable growth path. The inverse also holds true: a decline in imports is usually a sign that the purchasing power of national income has diminished."

The economist recommended that new capacity be developed through investments and financing in foreign currency to cover import costs.

"The most important policies our governments can pursue to promote investment are: 1) maintaining a stable and predictable exchange rate for the domestic currency; and 2) prudent management of public finances to ensure the country remains creditworthy in the financial markets of New York and London.

"With a stable exchange rate and an investment-grade rating for government foreign debt, countries are assured of foreign investor interest in the internationally competitive sectors of the economy. The final hurdle for potential foreign investors is often the efficiency of the public sector."

He argued that public policy failures are the main obstacle to economic growth across the Caribbean.

"The Caribbean suffers no shortage of foreign investor interest in new projects in proven internationally competitive sectors such as tourism, oil, offshore medical schools, rum production, and international business and finance."

He continued: "What stands in the way of expansion in these activities are exchange rates that are persistently threatened by devaluation, chronic deficits on the public sector current account, and government bureaucracy that fails to deliver public services effectively and with acceptable productivity. The solution to the Caribbean's problem of anaemic growth lies in addressing these domestic issues."

Pointing to robust increases in foreign direct investment as the barometer of a country's progress, Dr Worrell said: "An increase in foreign direct investment across the region would be the surest indicator that Caribbean countries are lifting themselves out of the economic doldrums in which they have been stuck for many years."

He suggested that small, rapidly growing economies require increased imports and the foreign exchange needed to purchase them.

"To increase foreign earnings, the economies must expand their capacity to supply goods and services in which they demonstrate international competitiveness."

emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb

Tuesday, November 25th.,2025

The New Pirates Of The Caribbean

2025-12-14T07:09:00.000-08:00

One Caribbean Nation.

The new pirates of the Caribbean

Today’s Editorial

The seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker by US President Donald Trump’s administration and the accompanying threats of ground attacks, are ominous signs of a return to a dark era of the Caribbean and Latin America thought long behind us.

This latest act of intimidation and outright piracy revives the heavy hand of the United States’ late 19th- and early 20th-century foreign policy, the age of gunboat diplomacy, military occupations, and the casual violation of sovereignty in the name of hemispheric “stability.”

This escalation bears chilling resemblance to the early 20th century’s Caribbean interventions, when Marines landed in Haiti, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic under the flimsy banner of protecting US interests.

Then as now, high-minded talk of “security” masked simpler motives: the control of trade routes, natural resources (this time, oil and gas in the world’s largest reserve), and regime change.

Today, that same impulse is repackaged in the rhetoric of combating “rogue states” and “narco-dictatorships”. Seizing an oil tanker is merely the latest phase in what increasingly resembles a de facto blockade — one that mirrors the long, punishing embargo imposed on Cuba. Both are acts of coercion rather than diplomacy, driven by political theatre rather than principle.

What we discern as a Trump Doctrine now takes brazen shape in the recent US national strategic plan: a bully’s charter masquerading as statecraft. It scorns multilateralism for the raw calculus of transactional power plays: America as global enforcer, not partner; submission extracted through sanctions, sabre-rattling, and spectacular displays of force against peaceful, if troubled nations. Gone are the fig leaves of democracy promotion or human rights; this is naked imperial entitlement, a 21st-century resurrection of gunboat thuggery that treats the Global South as a playground for American whims. Manifest Destiny has finally been stripped of its pious veneer; it demands that sovereign states bend the knee to American interests or be crushed.

These actions reveal the endurance of a deeper American myth: Manifest Destiny reborn in strategic planning documents as “hemispheric security” or “Western alignment.” The names change, but the assumption remains that the United States possesses the sole right to dictate the future of its southern neighbours. It is a view steeped in its original 19th-century arrogance, unfit for an era that aspires to regional fairness, partnership, and multilateral rule of law.

Speaking of multilateral rule of law, what makes the current episode more disturbing is its threadbare legal pretext. The blowing up of Venezuelan and Colombian fishing boats, purportedly tied to narcotics trafficking but absent of any verified interdictions or judicial process, stretch the logic of unilateral policing into the realm of brazen piracy.

Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) — which was opened for signature in Jamaica in 1982 and came into force in 1994 with its ratification by Guyana as the 60th state — blowing up and seizing vessels has no standing. The irony is sharp: the very framework of modern maritime law, shaped by small Caribbean states in pursuit of fairness and equity on the high seas, is now being flouted by a major power that once claimed to champion international order.

CARICOM must speak with one voice in unambiguous protest. Today it is Venezuela under blockade; tomorrow, perhaps, some island state that chooses a path independent of Washington’s design. We in the Caribbean have fought too long and hard to defeat colonialism and secure our sovereignty to now accept a restoration of imperial habits disguised as policy.

To condone these acts — or worse, to remain silent — is to invite the erosion of the very norms that protect small nations everywhere. It is not 21st-century diplomacy, or indeed is it basic civilised conduct of international relations. It is a regression to an age of might over right. The Law of the Sea, born in Kingston, answered such hubris in 1982: that even the smallest nations can craft a just order for the oceans that bind us. We fear our lives and safety will depend directly upon our insistence that this order be respected.

Barbados Today Editorial 12th., December 2025

The Mahogany Coconut Group is in full solidarity with this Editorial. The continued aggression of the United States in our region, must cease immediately . Caribbean governments and peoples have to stand in unity at this time. We did not survive slavery and centuries of colonialism to allow our region to be afflicted by the dastardly machinations of any super power and that includes the United States of America !

Trinidadians Calling for Prime Minister to Address the Nation

2025-11-03T04:57:00.000-08:00

One Caribbean Nation.

Trinidad Guardian Editorial

The population of Trinidad and Tobago is now into a period in which every T&TEC generator that blows can give citizens close to the explosion a feeling “that the war has started.” And who can blame such a possible reaction in the circumstances of complete uncertainty about what is likely to unfold out of the happenings of the last couple weeks.

The big issue driving the fear to heightened levels is the absence of information on whether or not the United States is planning to take military action against Venezuela and what are the circumstances which can precipitate it.

Moreover, the reality is that the consequences of military conflict between the US and Venezuela can have serious repercussions for the safety of Trinidad and Tobago, its citizens and infrastructure. The rhetoric from a few spokespersons of the Venezuelan government has been increasing and disturbing, leading to a sense that there can be retaliatory action against T&T by Caracas if the US decides to attack the South American mainland.

The stand taken by the Government of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar to have T&T be a pawn for the warlike operations of the US in the Caribbean Sea, has led to the feeling that T&T can become a target in the crossfire between Washington and Caracas.

Accompanying the pro-American stance of this country’s Government, inclusive of being overwhelmingly in support of the deadly strikes against the alleged drug vessels in the waters of the Caribbean Sea, the T&T Government has said nothing of consequence to give citizens a measure of assurance of their safety if a war breaks out. In reality, it could not be expected that the Government in Washington will inform Port-of-Spain of when, how and where it will strike Venezuela, if that be the case.

The result of all of the above and more is that the people of this country are living in a wonderland of ignorance as to what can happen between the US and Venezuela, especially since T&T can become victims of a spillover of the conflict. In the vacuum of a lack of definitive information, no wonder the expressions of concerns individually by citizens and portions of the population that violence of a kind that has never been experienced here in “Sweet T&T” may be possible.

No doubt, the information of soldiers here being in “a state of preparedness and ongoing regional security preparedness,” and the very direct warning of Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Venezuelan Yván Gil that any foreign military aggression against Venezuela will have considerable repercussions on T&T and the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean, must be stoking fears amongst the population about a dynamic that it knows nothing about.

What is surely required is for Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar to address the nation, as far as she is able to, with a comprehensive statement to quell well-founded or imagined fears about the security of citizens and residents. And this is notwithstanding, as stated earlier, that the US is not likely to be going around sharing what must surely qualify as national security matters of that country. The fact is that leadership has certain responsibilities which cannot be dodged, as in the present.

Trinidad Guardian Editorial

Monday, November 3rd., 2025

PM: Trinidad and Tobago will not be blackmailed

2025-11-02T15:05:00.000-08:00

One Caribbean Nation.

PM: Trinidad and Tobago will not be blackmailed

TRINIDAD

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar does not plan to bow to any pressure from Venezuela as she stressed that Trinidad and Tobago will not be blackmailed and is not dependent on any Venezuelan gas.

She declared that no one - be it the Venezuelan government, the People's National Movement (PNM), CARICOM, or any other entity - will "pressure or blackmail" her Government into retreating from the fight against the drug cartels.

In response to questions from the Express yesterday, the Prime Minister shrugged off Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez's proposal to be made by the board of the Venezuelan state-owned company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) for President Nicolás Maduro to suspend all gas agreements with T&T.

Persad-Bissessar said reports of Venezuela's proposed gas suspension with T&T are not a cause for any grave concern. "Our future does not depend on Venezuela and never has. We have our plans and projects to grow our economy both within the energy and non-energy sectors," she said.

The PM criticised the former PNM administration for focusing solely on energy ties with Venezuela.

"The last PNM government mistakenly placed all their hopes in the Dragon project. We have not done so; therefore, we are not susceptible to any blackmail from the Venezuelans for political support," she said.

Persad-Bissessar further dismissed calls for dialogue as she reiterated there is no tension.

"There are no tensions. We continue to maintain peaceful relations with the Venezuelan people," she said.

The Prime Minister reiterated the position taken by the Ministry of Foreign and CARICOM Affairs in its statement on Sunday in response to these claims, saying that the visit of the US warship aims to bolster the fight against transnational crime and build resilience through training, humanitarian activities, and security cooperation.

Persad-Bissessar emphasised again that this country has been severely impacted by transnational crime, evident in the record murder rates and trafficking through the borders, which the former government failed to address.

"NO ONE, be it the Venezuelan government, the PNM, CARICOM or any other entity, will pressure or blackmail my government into retreating from the fight against the drug cartels," she said.

"I am tired of seeing our citizens murdered and terrorised because of gang violence driven by illegal drugs and arms trafficking. Trinidad and Tobago citizens' safety and happiness is my main concern," she added.

(Trinidad Express)

Caribbean Still Zone of Peace

2025-11-02T01:38:00.000-08:00

One Caribbean Nation.

The Caribbean Is One Nation.

First published Monday, May 29th., 2017

In recent months, there has been a notable increase in crime in the region. Media reports suggest, that many of these crimes are committed against our children and women folk. Mahogany Coconut’s policy looks at crime as a regional problem thereby avoiding branding any country as the main source.

While many may genuinely consider this approach to be somewhat idealistic, we believe that in the global scheme of things, the Caribbean is usually seen as a monolithic entity. As with all human endeavor, citizens from each country tend to seek bragging rights. We are aware that this is true whether we are discussing cricket or the state of individual economies. We see it as nothing more than healthy sibling rivalry.

Unfortunately, while the global view of us may be monolithic, we are quite aware that our French and Spanish speaking countries are sometimes excluded for the simple reason, that our education system, has not been very progressive in inculcating our citizens with the importance of mastering foreign languages. This however has not hindered our relations with countries such as Cuba and Venezuela.

We have called for and have offered sensible ideas and solutions designed to assist with the crime problem. Unfortunately, many if not all, of them have apparently fallen on deaf ears. We will continue to impress upon the authorities the importance of fighting crime on a regional basis. The region is severely handicapped and afflicted by the implementation deficit. Regional governments need to carry out a crime audit and consider sharing and spreading resources to assist each other rather than continue to allow scarce resources to be poorly utilized or inadvertently squandered.

Fortunately for the region, there are no wars or” rumors” of wars that will cause us extended human suffering. In most cases, our children still have access to free primary and secondary education. In countries, where they are required to pay for their university education, the fees are reduced considerably. While many of our women suffer spousal abuse; we believe that it is at a stage that can be effectively reduced or eradicated if certain measures are firmly put in place. In terms of crimes against children, we fear that if our countries do not move swiftly to combat this monster, it will destroy the lives of too many of our children.

The above problems notwithstanding, we can still safely state that while increase crime continues to challenge us, we are still a Zone of Peace. Only progressive corrective measures will ensure that this status remains.

This was first published by Mahogany Coconut on Monday , May 29th., 2017. We will not be intimidated by external or internal forces and we once more repeat our position that the Caribbean must remain a Zone of Peace , and not be used or exploited by external or internal forces , as they pursue their dangerous ambitions and opportunistic self interests.

HURRICANE MELISSA LEAVES BEHIND DEATH, DESTRUCTION IN JAMAICA, HAITI AND CUBA

2025-11-02T01:24:00.000-08:00

One Caribbean Nation.

MONSTROUS MELISSA

HURRICANE MELISSA LEAVES BEHIND DEATH, WIDESPREAD DESTRUCTION

Hurricane Melissa left dozens dead and widespread destruction across Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica, where roofless homes, toppled utility poles and water-logged furniture dominated the landscape Wednesday.

A landslide blocked the main roads of Santa Cruz in Jamaica’s St Elizabeth parish, where the streets were reduced to mud pits. Residents swept water from homes as they tried to salvage belongings. Winds ripped off part of the roof at a high school, a designated public shelter.

Melissa made landfall Tuesday in Jamaica as a catastrophic Category 5 storm with top winds of 185 mph , one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record, before weakening and moving on to Cuba, but even countries outside the direct path of the massive storm felt its devastating effects.

At least 40 people have died across Haiti, Steven Aristil with Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency told The Associated Press. He said 20 of those deaths were reported in the southern coastal town of Petit-Goâve, where another 10 remain missing. Earlier Wednesday, the mayor of Petit-Goâve told the AP that at least 25 people were killed in that community, where flooding collapsed dozens of homes. The number of dead and missing in Haiti often fluctuate in the early days after major natural disasters.

In Cuba, officials reported collapsed houses, blocked mountain roads and roofs blown off Wednesday, with the heaviest destruction concentrated in the southwest and northwest.

Authorities said about 735 000 people remained in shelters.

(Associated Press)

Maduro halts energy deals with Trinidad

2025-11-02T01:21:00.000-08:00

One Caribbean Nation.

Maduro halts energy deals with Trinidad

VENEZUELA

Venezuela on Monday suspended energy agreements with Trinidad and Tobago, over what officials have described as "hostile" actions by the island nation.

Trinidad is now hosting one of the US warships involved in a controversial campaign to destroy Venezuelan speedboats allegedly carrying drugs to the United States.

During his weekly television show on Monday night, President Nicolas Maduro accused Trinidad of acting as the "aircraft carrier of the US empire" and said that he was left with no choice but to pull out of treaties signed with Trinidad ten years ago.

The announcement came hours after the nation's vice president, who is also Venezuela's minister of hydrocarbons, had suggested the agreements should be cancelled.

On Sunday, the USS Gravely, a destroyer fitted with guided missiles, arrived in Trinidad to conduct joint exercises with Trinidad's navy.

Venezuelan authorities described Trinidad's decision to host the ship as a provocation, while Trinidad's government has said that joint exercises with the United States happen regularly.

"The prime minister of Trinidad has decided to join the war-mongering agenda of the United States," Venezuela's Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said on national television.

In text messages to The Associated Press, Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said she was not concerned over the potential cancellation of the energy agreements, adding that the military training exercises were exclusively for "internal security" purposes.

"Our future does not depend on Venezuela and never has," Persad-Bissessar wrote. "We have our plans and projects to grow our economy both within the energy and non-energy sectors."

(Associated Press)