Overseas Territories Review

Guam seeks release from onerous application of U.S. regulations

2012-01-29T10:20:00.000-04:00

GUAM SEEKS EXEMPTION FROM SHIPPING, AIR REGULATIONS

Gov. Calvo wants competition to reduce costs for residents

By Gaynor Dumat-ol Daleno

Pacific Daily News

www.guampdn.com

HAGATNA, Guam – With the goal of trying to keep the cost of consumer goods on Guam more affordable, and for island residents to have more options for air travel, the governor yesterday said he gave his economic advisers a crucial task.

Gov. Eddie Calvo's Council of Economic Advisers must review how to approach the possibility of seeking exemptions from federal laws regulating ocean shipping and air transportation.

The governor mentioned the U.S. cabotage law for air transportation and the Jones Act as it applies to ocean transport. Foreign airlines are forbidden from transporting passengers and cargo between U.S. ports under U.S. cabotage law, unless the Transportation Department gives specific exemption.

Guam sought an exemption from cabotage law in 2006, to expand Guam residents' options for air travel, but certain U.S. airlines and their workers' unions protested the move. Under the Jones Act, all sea shipping between U.S. domestic ports must be handled by U.S.-flagged vessels.

Two recent developments prompted the governor to give his economic advisers the task of reviewing what steps, if any, to take. One reason was the merger of Continental Airlines with United Airlines -- creating the largest airline in the world, said the governor.

The second development was Horizon Lines' financial troubles, which led to its pullout from the Guam market, leaving Matson the only U.S.-flagged ocean carrier to serve Guam, Calvo said.

Calvo said he has nothing against United or Matson, in fact they're valued contributors to the island economy. But the bottom line, the governor said, is he wants the cost of living on Guam to improve and residents' options for air travel and shipping goods to broaden.

Allowing more airlines and more ocean carriers access to the Guam market will promote competition that will benefit island residents and Guam businesses, he said. "Because of the two major events that just occurred, because Guam is a U.S. territory thousands of miles from the U.S. West Coast, I believe it is important to look into the issue of cabotage and the Jones Act," Calvo said in an interview.

"The reason I requested my council of economic advisers to look into this is because of recent events on Guam, how impactful those events are to the quality of life of our residents and our economy," the governor said.

The council includes Henry Taitano, the governor's special assistant on social and economic affairs. Banker Phil Flores, economist Joseph Bradley and Alfred Lam are part of the council also, according to the Governor's Office.

St. Eustatius Coalition Government Dissolves

2012-01-26T23:03:00.001-04:00

Statia’s Coalition of Hope Govt collapses

Daily Herald

Sint Maarten

ST. EUSTATIUS--The Coalition of Hope Government collapsed Wednesday after coalition member United People's Coalition (UPC) headed by Reginald Zaandam withdrew its support.

There were no indications up to press time of any attempts being made to form a new government.

UPC informed its coalition partners Progressive Labour Party (PLP) and St. Eustatius Empowerment Party (STEP) of its decision in a tersely worded letter Wednesday.

UPC said in its letter sent to Franklin Brown of STEP: "Through this letter, we would like to inform you that effected [sic] today, we of the United People's Coalition are withdrawing our support from the present coalition. This decision is based upon the fact that our organisation is convinced that the people's business is no longer the first priority anymore of this coalition; therefore, we do not feel comfortable anymore in being part of the coalition of hope."

The letter was signed by UPC President D. Simmons, Acting Secretary E. Henriquez and party leader R. Zaandam.

PLP leader Clyde van Putten could not be reached for comment Wednesday. According to STEP's Brown, the UPC decision caught him by surprise.

News about the fall of government broke and spread like wildfire through the island of St. Eustatius around 2:30pm on Wednesday.

Initially Zaandam declined to comment on early reports that the government had fallen, but he confirmed later that UPC had withdrawn its support. He said he had written letters to Commissioner and PLP leader Clyde van Putten, Councilman Franklin Brown of STEP and Governor Gerald Berkel.

Zaandam said it was a very emotional time, but it was something he had to do. He promised to release a detailed statement at a later time.

The Coalition Government started unravelling around the time of the ousting of Glennville Schmidt as Finance Commissioner – a development that drew a negative reaction from the community with persons suggesting that Coalition of Hope heads should pack their bags and go home.

Relations within the coalition worsened around mid-January after Commissioner van Putten's executive assistant Laurens Duiveman tendered his resignation for reasons still not very clear.

Around that time, Zaandam opened negotiations with the Democratic Party about forming a new government, but those talks collapsed, the UPC patched up its differences with its coalition partners and the Coalition of Hope survived.

The DP holds two seats in the Island Council, with UPC, PLP and STEP holding one seat each.

The news of the coalition's demise was greeted with the honking of horns and cheers in the streets by some residents, and with disbelief by others who sought confirmation.

However, generally, residents seemed to have been caught by surprise, especially as Commissioner van Putten had scheduled an important session with farmers that was expected to be held in Vincent Astor Lopes Legislative Hall on Wednesday evening

Some of Zaandam's loyal supporters were at his side after he had submitted the letters.

Some groups were upset about what had transpired during the last Island Council meeting. In particular, there was criticism of Commissioner van Putten for "name-calling"

DP leader Rueben Merkman said the coalition's collapse came as a huge surprise to him and to other DP members.

STEP leader Franklin Brown said UPC's withdrawal of support from the Coalition of Hope was a surprise to him. He said he had been in a board meeting discussing what STEP's next move should be when he had received the news.

Brown also said that based on what had transpired earlier Wednesday, he didn't see enough grounds to throw down a government. Questioned about what exactly had transpired, Brown suggested that that question be put to UPC.

2012-01-26T01:36:00.000-04:00

‘Decolonization Justice’

BY MICHAEL BEVAQUA

Justice in the best sense is not the punishing of someone who has violated or broken a law. It is instead a process to provide some reparation or compensation for something of which there can be no certain equivalence. How does one compensate those who were enslaved for centuries? How does one compensate people who were colonized and their cultures brutalized for centuries? How does one compensate those who were the victims of discrimination, genocide and legalized abuse?

IF WE lived in a world where truth and justice mattered, then the issue of whether a self-determination plebiscite for Guam violates the U.S. Constitution would be irrelevant. As a decolonization plebiscite, it should obviously not be bound by the rules of the colonizer, since that would be a blatantly colonial act. So if someone brought this up, we should ideally stare blankly at that person’s silly question.

But, we don't live in such a world. We live in a world where power dominates and truth and justice generally only come into play when it matches the interests of those with great power. As such, we must have the absurd discussion about whether taking an act of self-determination would violate the U.S. Constitution. On its merits, this is ridiculous; imagine America in their struggle for decolonization accepting The Crown’s framework for how to do it.

It is a tricky conversation and one which is only “fair and balanced” in the Fox News sense. U.S. law is not built around the interests of justice in any way which might challenge the rights of the U.S. itself, today or in the past. Even when things are recognized to have been unjust or wrong, the U.S., like most countries, does not allow for much restitution to take place.

In most societies, the answer is simple. At some point, when it no longer becomes possible or profitable to oppress a people, you let them go and you relax the rules that held them down. Once you do that, you try to do close to nothing to mention what happened before or compensate them for the terrifyingly inhumane ways they might have been treated for long periods of time. In fact, when the issue comes up – which might eventually turn into some claim that those who have been wronged should receive some sort of justice – you have to limit the ways in which they can receive it. You have to use the law to minimize it and to take away any reasonable avenues they might have to demand that something be done about the way they were treated before.

A case in point is the very famous Apology Resolution that the Native Hawaiians received from the U.S. government under President Clinton. Whether the U.S. assisted in overthrowing the Hawaiian Kingdom is not under dispute. It has been proven beyond a doubt that the U.S. assisted in stealing Hawai'i; the U.S. Congress investigated this issue itself and found U.S. private citizens and government employees overthrew a sovereign nation. And rather than working to restore the Hawaiian Kingdom and work for justice, the U.S. conveniently looked the other way and later annexed Hawai’i.

The Apology was a carefully worded "despensa yu'." The U.S. basically came forward and admitted it had done something terrible, unjust, immoral and illegal. You would think that given this revelation of something so obvious and so odious, it might become the basis for Native Hawaiians getting some restitution or justice for what happened to them a little over a century ago.

You would be wrong. In 2009, the Supreme Court decided that the meat of the Apology Resolution – meaning the preamble where the U.S. government admits to doing bad things – has no legal effect and does not provide the basis for anything. The Supreme Court decided this admission of terrible guilt amounted to only a conciliatory gesture, one meant to make someone feel better, but not actually do anything.

This is why justice, for it to mean anything, requires more than what the person who commits the offense or benefits from the offense is willing to give. It has to take more, or else it does nothing. If you don't give more than you are willing, you risk continuing the cycle of abuse and oppression. You enjoy the privileges of the former oppression, and give those who were oppressed no closure or way of getting some reparations for how they were treated. Rather than deal with and attempt to fix the disgusting history of what has taken place in Guam, Hawai’i or elsewhere, it merely buries it deeper and deeper, hoping that at one point, no one will remember the trauma of what was lost beneath the layers of lies.

Northern Marianas Sues U.S. over unilateral application of taxes

2012-01-23T13:29:00.001-04:00

Saipan Tribune

CNMI sues to stop FICA taxes

OAG: FICA translates to $24M in annual illegal taxes

By Ferdie de la Torre

The CNMI (Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands) government is suing the U.S. Department of Treasury and U.S. Internal Revenue Service to stop the imposition of the Federal Insurance Contribution Act on Filipino and Korean workers with Commonwealth-only status.

The CNMI asserts that the extension of FICA taxes on Filipino and Korean nonresident workers could result in the imposition of $24 million annually in illegal taxes on the Commonwealth economy.

“Imposition of the unlawful FICA tax on businesses struggling in the contracting economy will certainly cause a large percentage of businesses to close,” according to assistant attorney general James R. Stump. The CNMI's economy will be further devastated and the government's budget will be further reduced, he added.

FICA covers Social Security and Medicare taxes. Both employers and employees share the cost of paying these taxes.

Stump filed the CNMI government's lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the NMI yesterday afternoon. Also named as co-defendants are Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Internal Revenue Commissioner Douglas Shulman.

The CNMI is suing for breach of the Covenant and violation of the Consolidated Natural Resources Act. It wants the district court to declare that the imposition of FICA taxes on Filipino and Korean workers in the Commonwealth with CW-I status (Commonwealth-only transitional worker) violates the Covenant and the CNRA.

Stump stated in the lawsuit that U.S. law provides an exemption from employer and employee FICA taxation for employment associated with “service performed in Guam by a resident of the Philippines and by a resident of the Republic of Korea while in Guam on a temporary basis as a nonimmigrant alien admitted to Guam.”

Stump said the purpose of such exemptions was to avoid imposing FICA taxation on alien individuals who, due to the limited nature of their visa status, would be unlikely to receive benefits.

Nonimmigrant Philippine and Korean nationals working in the CNMI have never been required to participate in the U.S. Social Security System.

On Oct. 5, 2011, IRS issued a memorandum stating that the adoption of the CNRA eliminates the exemption of Philippine and Korean workers in the Commonwealth from FICA taxation and that these individuals are now subject to this tax.

The current minimum wage in the CNMI is $5.05 per hour. An employee who works 40 hours per week for 52 weeks in a year would have 2,080 hours or $10,504 in gross income.

Stump said a Commonwealth employee earning $10,504 per year who is subject to a FICA tax rate of 7.65 percent would incur an annual liability of $803.

He said an employer paying an employee $10,504 per year who is subject to FICA liability of 7.65 percent would incur $803 in annual tax liability for the wages paid to that employee.

“If 75 percent of the 22,416 CW-1 classification visas that are authorized to be issued in 2012 are provided to Philippine and Korean workers working full-time and earning the minimum wage, the total annual FICA tax liability (employee and employer) would be $27,018,766,” Stump said.

The government lawyer pointed out that the ability of the CNMI to supplement local labor with short-term nonimmigrant aliens provides flexibility to the Commonwealth and avoids imposition of a 15.3-percent tax for which there is little likelihood of benefits and no opportunity for refund.

Stump said the avoidance of an inequitable, inappropriate, and detrimental tax structure was the specific intent of Congress in both the Covenant the CNRA, and the FICA tax liability exemption provided to nonresident aliens.

Stump asserted that the CNRA makes no changes to the Covenant sections authorizing the exemption of Philippine and Korean nonresident workers in the CNMI from FICA tax liability.

“It is unlikely that alien nationals present in the Commonwealth under a CW-I classification paying FICA taxes will quality for any associated benefits and the law does not provide a refund to either the employee or employer,” he pointed out.

This imposition of illegal taxation, Stump added, will cause significant unnecessary harm to the Commonwealth economy and is contrary to the stated intent of Congress that the CNRA be implemented in a manner as to minimize its impact.

Northern Marianas Pension System endangered if measures not taken

2012-01-21T22:04:00.000-04:00

Retirement Fund may be depleted in 2.9 years

by Alexis Villegas Zotomayor

Marianas Variety

If no efforts are made to stanch the Retirement Fund’s financial bleeding, the pension agency would be insolvent in 2.9 years, an official said. In his Dec. 22 letter to Rep. Sylvestre Iguel, Fund Administrator Richard S. Villagomez provided the lawmaker a projection of the Fund’s demise.

He wrote, “If no significant additional contributions are made to support current benefit payouts, the Fund will no longer be able to pay benefits in less than three years.”

Villagomez was commenting on Iguel’s H.B. 17-204 which would continue to allow Class I members of the Fund the option to pay in the difference between Class I and Class II to retire with Class II benefits.

Villagomez pointed out that the Fund had repeatedly alerted the lawmakers on the fiscal condition of the Fund.

He provided Iguel, Covenant-Saipan, with a graph that showed employee contributions for all active member employees, which cannot be paid out as benefits amount to approximately $113 million.Villagomez said, “If the Fund continues to withdraw $53 million per year as it did in fiscal year 2011 to fund benefit payouts, the Fund assets will be completely depleted in approximately 2.9 years.”

He told Iguel that if the Fund was put in a situation where it could no longer pay benefits, the Legislature would need to appropriate $80 million from the annual budget to pay current benefit obligations. He also told Iguel that the amount would balloon to $100 million by 2025 before it would start to decrease.

However, for Villagomez there’s still hope.

If the Fund would withdraw less than $53 million, it would be able to continue paying the benefits longer into the future with all other factors held constant. But if the drawdowns exceed $53 million, Villagomez predicted the Fund would be gone in less than 2.9 years — “with all factors held constant.”

For Villagomez, Iguel’s bill would accelerate the growth of future payouts and the Fund’s demise as the pension agency would be forced to make larger drawdowns to cover for increased benefit payouts.He reminded Iguel of the key factor in a reform measure in 1989 was the closing of the more generous Class II membership which he said was unsustainable.

P.L. 6-17, he said, reduced benefits for each year that the retiree would not be able to meet the retirement age of 62 years old to receive retirement annuity. Another law, P.L. 15-70 mandated that Class I members could still opt for early retirement with no corresponding deduction if they retired under 62.

Iguel’s bill proposes to make this permanent.

Although the bill questions the fairness of the early retirement option under P.L. 15-70 in the same way that H.B. 17-226 also raised concern with fairness that active members continue to contribute to a retirement system that will be dead in less than three years.

“We reason that it is ‘not fair’ to all members — active employees and retirees — that the heart of the matter has not been addressed: how are we going to fund the benefits of current retirees and new retirees (even those who retire under H.B. 17-204 if it becomes law) after the Fund runs out of money in less than three years,” Villagomez said.

Given the precarious condition of the Fund being in dire straits, he asked the suspension of early retirement in its entirety until the pension program has sufficient funding to support reactivation.

Major oil refinery to close in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands

2012-01-20T16:36:00.000-04:00

Joint venture between U.S. and Venezuelan companies was operating at a loss.

Press Release
HOVENSA Announces Closure of St. Croix Petroleum Refinery

Company to Work Closely with the U.S. Virgin Islands Government to Ease Transition

ST. CROIX, U.S. Virgin Islands Jan. 18, 2012 — HOVENSA L.L.C. announced today that it will commence shutdown of its refinery on St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Following the shutdown, the complex will operate as an oil storage terminal.

Losses at the HOVENSA refinery have totaled $1.3 billion in the past three years alone and were projected to continue. These losses have been caused primarily by weakness in demand for refined petroleum products due to the global economic slowdown and the addition of new refining capacity in emerging markets. In the past three years, these factors have caused the closure of approximately 18 refineries in the United States and Europe with capacity totaling more than 2 million barrels of oil per day. In addition, the low price of natural gas in the United States has put HOVENSA, an oil-fueled refinery, at a competitive disadvantage.

“We deeply regret the closure of the HOVENSA refinery and the impact on our dedicated people,” said Brian K. Lever, President and Chief Operating Officer of HOVENSA. “We explored all available options to avoid this outcome, but severe financial losses left us with no other choice. We will provide significantly enhanced benefits for those union and salaried employees who are impacted and will work closely with the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands to ease the transition for the rest of the community.”

After formal shutdown of the refinery, which will occur by the middle of February, most of those employed at HOVENSA will continue working through a transition period. Thereafter, approximately 100 people will remain to work at the oil storage terminal.

*********************

Major oil refinery to close in U.S. Virgin Islands

By DANICA COTO

Associated Press

(Ian James contributed to this report from Caracas, Venezuela. )

ST. CROIX, U.S. Virgin Islands (AP) — One of the world's largest oil refineries will close next month, the company announced Wednesday, stunning nearly 2,000 workers and threatening to upend the reeling economy of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Industry analysts said the closure is unlikely to have a major effect on the global oil market, but Gov. John de Jongh described the loss of the territory's largest private employer as "a complete body blow" for the U.S. territory of about 108,000 people.

He said Hovensa generated a minimum of $60 million a year in revenue for the government, which recently laid of hundreds of public workers due to a budget crisis.

"Given what we're going through right now, this is the last bit of news that I wanted to hear," he said in a teleconference with reporters.

Losses at Hovensa, a joint venture of U.S.-based Hess Corp. and Venezuela's state-owned oil company, have totaled $1.3 billion over the past three years and were projected to continue due to reduced demand caused by the global economic slowdown and increased refining capacity in emerging markets, said Brian K. Lever, president and chief operating officer of Hovensa LLC.

"We deeply regret the closure of the Hovensa refinery and the impact on our dedicated people," Lever said in a statement. "We explored all available options to avoid this outcome, but severe financial losses left us with no other choice."

Hess announced in New York that it will take a $525 million after-tax charge against its fourth-quarter 2011 earnings due to the shutdown.

The refinery employs about 1,200 people in St. Croix in addition to approximately 950 contractors, according to Hovensa spokesman David Roznowski. About 100 people, including contractors, will work at the oil storage terminal, the company said.

The refinery, founded in the 1960s, has been producing about 350,000 barrels per day during the rough economic climate. It relies on oil for fuel while competitors on the U.S. mainland use less expensive natural gas.

Hovensa was the third largest U.S. refinery before it cuts its capacity of 500,000 barrels by 30 percent last year. It is now the eighth largest, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The refinery dominates the southern coast of St. Croix, where hundreds of workers live in company-built neighborhoods.

Speaking in hushed tones during a shift change at Hovensa on Wednesday, dozens of workers wondered where they would go after the refinery is converted to an oil storage terminal.

"This is all I know," said a worker who had been with the plant for more than 30 years. "I don't know what I am going to do now."

Like others, he declined to be identified for fear of angering managers who will allocate the few remaining jobs.

The company's website says it is still one of the 10 largest oil refineries in the world, but the closure is not expected to have a major effect on the oil industry because it had not been operating at full capacity, said Fadel Gheit, senior energy analyst for Oppenheimer & Co.

Hess benefits because it had been hemorrhaging money through the refinery, he said.

The closure reflects a three-year trend across the U.S. of refineries closing because of the global financial crisis, a drop in gasoline consumption and a shift in growth elsewhere, Gheit said.

"They cannot compete with the modern refineries being built in India, China and the Middle East," he said.

Despite the closure, the U.S. remains Venezuela's largest customer, and Venezuela is still among the top four suppliers of crude oil to the U.S., he said.

Alejandra Leon, a Latin America oil analyst for Cambridge, Massachusetts-based IHS CERA, said that in 2010, PDVSA reported the Hovensa refinery processed 389,000 barrels a day, of which 227,000 barrels a day were supplied by Venezuela. She said it wasn't clear where the remainder came from.

She said there is an excess of refining capacity globally, so Hovensa's closure "is helping to rebalance the market."

Hovensa spokesman Alex Moorehead said the refinery equipment will shut down by mid-February, but that the company will continue to provide fuel oil to the island's Water and Power Authority through end of June.

Local Sen. Terrence Nelson said the announcement "is a blow in the gut," and suggested the territory might need assistance from the federal government.

Nelson accused Hovensa of violating a long-term agreement with the government to continue refinery operations on the island. Nelson said it is unclear what Hovensa will need to do to compensate the government for breaching the agreement.

"It's devastating," Senator Sammuel Sanes said. "It was something I suspected was going to happen, but of course it took me by surprise. On a personal level it affects many people in my family. I have many in my family working for Hovensa."

De Jongh said he called an emergency meeting to talk about ways to offset the economic damage.

He warned that local fuel prices will likely rise while the government looks for other suppliers and said officials are asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ease sulfur content restrictions so they can quickly contract a new supplier. The Energy Information Administration reported last year that the refinery accounted for 85 percent of the territory's petroleum products.

De Jongh said he will also ask Hovensa officials if they are interested in selling the facility.

"I cannot afford to have an asset of that size sitting there," he said.

In January, Hovensa entered into a consent decree with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Justice Department in which the company agreed to invest $700 million on pollution controls after a series of chemical releases affected people living downwind from the refinery. Hovensa also agreed to pay a $5.4 million penalty for violating the Clean Air Act.

It is unclear how the agreement will be affected by the closure.

EPA spokeswoman Mary Mears said the agency and the U.S. Department of Justice are still talking with Hovensa officials about how the closure will affect the consent decree. She said the company already paid the penalty.

US Report Focuses on Migration from Pacific Freely Associated States

2012-01-19T15:42:00.001-04:00

"Compacts of Free Association: Improvements Needed to Assess and Address Growing Migration" - US General Accountability Office

Summary

U.S. compacts with the freely associated states (FAS)--the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), the Marshall Islands, and Palau--permit FAS citizens to migrate to the United States and its territories (U.S. areas) without regard to visa and labor certification requirements.

Thousands of FAS citizens have migrated to U.S. areas (compact migrants)--particularly to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), Guam, and Hawaii, which are defined as affected jurisdictions. In fiscal year 2004, Congress appropriated $30 million annually for 20 years to help defray affected jurisdictions' costs for migrant services (compact impact). Though not required, affected jurisdictions can report these costs to the Department of the Interior (Interior), which allocates the $30 million as impact grants in proportion to compact migrant enumerations required every 5 years.

This report (1) describes compact migration, (2) reviews enumeration approaches, (3) evaluates impact reporting, and (4) reviews Interior grants related to compact impact. GAO reviewed U.S. agency data, recent enumerations, impact reports, and grants and it also interviewed officials, employers, and migrants in the affected jurisdictions.

Combined data from the U.S. Census Bureau's (Census) 2005-2009 American Community Survey (ACS) and the required enumeration in 2008 estimate that a total of roughly 56,000 compact migrants from the FSM, the Marshall Islands, and Palau--nearly a quarter of all FAS citizens--were living in U.S. areas. Compact migrants resided throughout U.S. areas, with approximately 58 percent of all compact migrants living in the affected jurisdictions.

According to the 2008 required enumeration, compact migrant populations continued to grow in Guam and Hawaii and were roughly 12 percent of the population of Guam and 1 percent of the population of Hawaii. Working under agreements with Interior, Census used a different approach for the most recent enumeration than for prior enumerations, employing two methods in 2008: (1) a one-time survey in Guam and the CNMI and (2) a tabulation of existing multiyear ACS data for Hawaii.

The affected jurisdictions opposed the change in approach. The 2008 approach allowed for determining the precision of the estimates but did not yield comparable results across jurisdictions or detailed information on compact migrants. Interior and Census officials have a preliminary plan for the required 2013 enumeration but Interior has not determined its cost or assessed its strengths and limitations.

The methods used by affected jurisdictions to collect and report on compact impact have weaknesses that reduce their accuracy. For fiscal years 2004 through 2010, Hawaii, Guam and the CNMI reported more than $1 billion in costs associated with providing education, health, and social services to compact migrants. However, some jurisdictions did not accurately define compact migrants, account for federal funding that supplemented local expenditures, or include revenue received from compact migrants.

Although Interior is required to report to Congress any compact impacts that the affected jurisdictions report to Interior, it has not provided the affected jurisdictions with adequate guidance on estimating compact impact. Compact migrants participate in local economies through employment, taxation and consumption, but data on these effects are limited.

From fiscal years 2004 to 2010, Interior awarded approximately $210 million in compact impact grants to the affected jurisdictions, which used the funds primarily for budget support, projects, and purchases in the areas of education, health, and public safety. In Guam and Hawaii, government officials, service providers, and compact migrants discussed approaches to more directly address challenges related to migration by bridging language barriers, providing job training, and increasing access to services.

The amended compacts also made available $808 million in sector grants for the FSM and the Marshall Islands from fiscal years 2004 to 2010. Sector grants are jointly allocated by the joint U.S.-FSM and U.S.-Marshall Islands management committees and have been used primarily in the FAS for health and education.

Few sector grants directly address issues that concern compact migrants or the affected jurisdictions. The committees had not formally placed compact impact on their annual meeting agendas until 2011 and have not yet allocated any 2012 sector grant funds to directly address compact impact. GAO recommends that Interior assess the 2013 enumeration approach, disseminate adequate guidance on estimating compact impact, and encourage uses of grants that better address compact migrants' impact and needs. Interior generally agreed with the report but did not support the recommendation on grant uses.

Read the full report here.

American Samoa Governor delivers final State of Territory Address

2012-01-19T10:25:00.000-04:00

Governor Togiola Tualfono

before the

Thirty-second Legislature

Third Regular Session

Fono Guest Fale

Fagatogo, American Samoa

January 9, 2012

FOREWORD

Today is a bittersweet day for me. In this brand new year, I am honored to stand before you to discharge my duty in addressing this Legislature on the State of our Territory. It is also the ninth and final time that I shall do so as the Territory's sixth popularly elected Governor of American Samoa.

When I first took the oath as Governor, the Twenty-Eighth Legislature was serving in these hallowed halls. And here we sit now, in the Thirty-Second Legislature, with the eyes of the Territory upon us as we continue to carry out the people's work.

Before I begin, let us take a moment to honor the memories of our leaders who we have lost in this past year, including the late Secretary of Samoan Affairs Tufele Li’amatua, Senator Amituana’i Eteuati, HC Tau’ili’ili Pat Tervola and the and other loved ones who served this Territory with their hard work, service and leadership. We also honor the memories of our loved ones who have fallen in battle, serving our Territory and our country all over this world. May the Good Lord grant their souls eternal peace.

Please pause with me in a moment of silence in remembrance of our fallen leaders and our sons and daughters of our police force and the armed services without whose sacrifice, we would not enjoy the spirit and liberty of today.

It has been a long road that we have walked in order to get here today. Though the road was long and sometimes winding, we have taken that journey together and we have accomplished many things along the way. It remains my sole intent to continue to work together with this Legislature on our journey to a better tomorrow for our future and the future of our children who will inherit our good work.

Read the full text of the Governor's State of the Territory Address here.

Chagossian human rights defender joins the ancestors

2012-01-18T21:56:00.000-04:00

Lisette Aurélie Talate - the departure of a freedom fighter

Chagos International Support

When in the 70's, Talate was dumped in Mauritius along with her children and other Chagossians, she immediately embarked on a relentless struggle to go back home to Diego Garcia. During her lifetime she undertook several hunger strikes to draw attention to the legitimacy of her cause and, in the process, became an icon of the Chagossian diaspora.

She was a frail woman in physical appearance but, like an iron fist in a velvet glove, she constantly told the authorities concerned that her land has been robbed. When finally she was “allowed” to visit Diego Garcia, everyone still cherishes the vivid image of how she kneeled down to kiss the soil and screamed “Diego, my land!” while the military who "occupy" the island, witnessed the scene unfazed. It was, sure, only a short visit, like being on transit -- not to say a humiliating way to be asked to come and look at your home from far and then politely be invited to sleep outdoors !

At the funeral service, Olivier Bancoult paid tribute to Talate in very emotional terms. He recalled how one day he was with Talate in London fighting for their case when she found herself with some British MP who sympathised with her cause, at the Cafetaria of the House of Commons. When invited by the MPs to have a coffee and eat a bite with them, she flatly refused. She would later tell Olivier how could she be eating and drinking in the very institution that had decided to deport her from her island home. For her, the Houses of Parliament represented a dramatic symbol. She was a woman of conviction, who always got her message across forcefully in the creole language.

Read the full article here.

Aboriginal activists speak on Tent Embassy 40-year milestone

2012-01-18T12:57:00.001-04:00

greenleft.org

Aboriginal activists launched the embassy in 1972 in response to then-prime minister Billy McMahon’s refusal to grant Aboriginal land rights.

Few Australian political protests can claim to have made an impact as great or as lasting as the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra. First set up on the lawns of Old Parliament House in January 1972, the embassy has been a focal point for the struggle for Aboriginal rights.

Four Aboriginal men, Michael Anderson, Billie Craigie, Tony Koorie and Bertie Williams, launched the embassy in response to then-prime minister Billy McMahon’s refusal to grant Aboriginal land rights. Instead, McMahon had offered to lease stolen land back to Aboriginal people.

The protest swelled, capturing the imagination of Aboriginal activists and their supporters around the country. The Aboriginal Tent Embassy received wide media coverage in Australia and internationally. It threw the spotlight on the appalling conditions Aboriginal people faced and the refusal of the Australian government to respond to Aboriginal demands for justice.

The activists decided to make the tent embassy a permanent protest, while the government pursued legal avenues to evict the protesters.

Read full article here.

Argentina commemorates anniversary of occupation of Falklands/Malvinas by British forces

2012-01-17T18:24:00.000-04:00

Sixty-sixth session
Agenda item 45
Question of the Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
United Nations Document A/66/653

Letter dated 3 January 2012 from the Chargé d’affaires a.i. of the Permanent Mission

Argentina to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

On instructions from my Government, I have the honour to transmit herewith the press release issued today by the Government of the Argentine Republic on the occasion of the latest anniversary of the illegitimate occupation of the Malvinas Islands by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (see annex).

I should be grateful if you would have this letter and its annex circulated as a document of the General Assembly under agenda item 45 concerning the question of the Malvinas Islands.

(Signed) Mateo Estreme

Deputy Permanent Representative

Chargé d’affaires a.i.

*****

Annex to the letter dated 3 January 2012 from the Chargé d’affaires a.i. of the Permanent Mission of Argentina to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

On 3 January 1833, British forces occupied the Malvinas Islands, expelling their inhabitants and replacing the Argentine authorities that had been legitimately established there with subjects of the occupying Power. The Argentine Republic immediately protested that illegitimate act of force, which continues today and to which it never consented.

The Argentine Government once again reaffirms the Argentine Republic’s imprescriptible rights of sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands, South Georgia Islands and South Sandwich Islands and the surrounding maritime areas, which are an integral part of its national territory.

The unlawful British colonial occupation, which is now in its 179th year, is aggravated by the provocative and continuous disregard for international law displayed by the United Kingdom in its persistent unwillingness to resume negotiations on sovereignty pursuant to the United Nations mandate in force, as established in General Assembly resolution 2065 (XX) and endorsed in nine subsequent resolutions. This illegitimate situation is further exacerbated by the presence of the military base established in the South Atlantic on the pretext of alleged defence requirements and by the constant conduct of unlawful unilateral activities in the disputed area. These activities contravene the relevant resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly; they include the plundering of renewable and non-renewable natural resources in the area, in violation of international law, as well as military exercises, including the firing of missiles from the Malvinas Islands.

The States of the region have unanimously rejected the British military presence in the South Atlantic and have expressed concern about the above-mentioned unilateral activities in various statements issued at the presidential summits of the States members and associate members of the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) and of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the Ibero-American community of nations.

The resumption of negotiations has also been supported by other regions through forums such as the Summit of South American-Arab Countries, the Africa-South America Summit and the Group of 77 and China.

The Argentine Government once again reiterates, on the 179th anniversary of its dispossession, its continued and sincere willingness to resume the process of bilateral negotiations with the United Kingdom, as called for by the international community, in order to find a peaceful and definitive solution to the sovereignty dispute and thus put an end to this anachronistic situation, which is incompatible with developments in the current post-colonial world.

Curacao exempts electric vehicles from import duty

2012-01-17T12:29:00.001-04:00

Exemption of import duties for electro vehicles

Amigoe

WILLEMSTAD — As from today, electro vehicles are duty-free, Minister-President Gerrit Schotte announced this morning during the seminar on eco-vehicles at the Hyatt Hotel. These vehicles that are driven by an electro motor are environment-friendly.

The import duties for hybrid cars will be less than for environment-polluting vehicles. As from January 12^th, Customs will charge 10 percent import duties for these cars. Hybrid cars are driven by a combination of various techniques, both by an electro motor and a combustion engine. The advantages are considerable, for instance a hybrid is less environment-polluting, the energy use is relatively low and now there’s the lower import duty.

This measure fits within the green policy of the cabinet – as mentioned in the policy document Electricity Supply Curaçao 2001-2015. Permanent energy is one of the spearheads of the new energy policy. The government stimulates alternates energy, such as solar energy and wind energy.

Test ride for Premier

The Toyota Prius is the most known hybrid vehicle. At the end of the seminar that was organized by Company’s Platform Environment, the Premier made a test ride in the first hybrid car on the island, the Toyota Prius Hybrid from Garage Cordia.

Several people from companies that have a link with the subject spoke during the seminar. For instance, from the lectern Christopher Cooper of Toyota Tsusho America spoke about implementation strategies for electro vehicles on Curaçao and the worldwide development in the field of ‘Charging Points’ for vehicles with an electro motor. In the future, gas stations will also offer the possibility to charge batteries of such vehicles.

Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" - Rev. Martin Luther King

2012-01-16T12:37:00.001-04:00

4 April 1967

Speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City

Received via the Black Radical News List

I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join with you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. The recent statement of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.

The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.

Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.

Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights don't mix, they say. Aren't you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.

In the light of such tragic misunderstandings, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church -- the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate -- leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight.

I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia.

Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they can play in a successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have justifiable reason to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides.

Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the NLF, but rather to my fellow Americans, who, with me, bear the greatest responsibility in ending a conflict that has exacted a heavy price on both continents.

The Importance of Vietnam

Since I am a preacher by trade, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.

My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettoes of the North over the last three years -- especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.

For those who ask the question, "Aren't you a civil rights leader?" and thereby mean to exclude me from the movement for peace, I have this further answer. In 1957 when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto:

"To save the soul of America." We were convinced that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself unless the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. In a way we were agreeing with Langston Hughes, that black bard of Harlem, who had written earlier:

O, yes,

I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath--

America will be!

Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.

As if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of America were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1964; and I cannot forget that the Nobel Prize for Peace was also a commission -- a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for "the brotherhood of man." This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances, but even if it were not present I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all men -- for Communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What then can I say to the "Vietcong" or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this one? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?

Finally, as I try to delineate for you and for myself the road that leads from Montgomery to this place I would have offered all that was most valid if I simply said that I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood, and because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned especially for his suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them.

This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.

Strange Liberators

And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond to compassion my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the junta in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them too because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries.

They must see Americans as strange liberators. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1945 after a combined French and Japanese occupation, and before the Communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony.

Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not "ready" for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long. With that tragic decision we rejected a revolutionary government seeking self-determination, and a government that had been established not by China (for whom the Vietnamese have no great love) but by clearly indigenous forces that included some Communists. For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives.

For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam.

Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of the reckless action, but we did not. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization.

After the French were defeated it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva agreements. But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators -- our chosen man, Premier Diem. The peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly routed out all opposition, supported their extortionist landlords and refused even to discuss reunification with the north. The peasants watched as all this was presided over by U.S. influence and then by increasing numbers of U.S. troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem's methods had aroused. When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictatorships seemed to offer no real change -- especially in terms of their need for land and peace.

The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy -- and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us -- not their fellow Vietnamese --the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move or be destroyed by our bombs. So they go -- primarily women and children and the aged.

They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the hospitals, with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one "Vietcong"-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them -- mostly children. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children, degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.

What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?

We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation's only non-Communist revolutionary political force -- the unified Buddhist church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men. What liberators?

Now there is little left to build on -- save bitterness. Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call fortified hamlets. The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these? Could we blame them for such thoughts? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These too are our brothers.

Perhaps the more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. What of the National Liberation Front -- that strangely anonymous group we call VC or Communists? What must they think of us in America when they realize that we permitted the repression and cruelty of Diem which helped to bring them into being as a resistance group in the south? What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? How can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of "aggression from the north" as if there were nothing more essential to the war? How can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of Diem and charge them with violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? Surely we must understand their feelings even if we do not condone their actions. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts.

How do they judge us when our officials know that their membership is less than twenty-five percent Communist and yet insist on giving them the blanket name? What must they be thinking when they know that we are aware of their control of major sections of Vietnam and yet we appear ready to allow national elections in which this highly organized political parallel government will have no part? They ask how we can speak of free elections when the Saigon press is censored and controlled by the military junta. And they are surely right to wonder what kind of new government we plan to help form without them -- the only party in real touch with the peasants. They question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded. Their questions are frighteningly relevant. Is our nation planning to build on political myth again and then shore it up with the power of new violence?

Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.

So, too, with Hanoi. In the north, where our bombs now pummel the land, and our mines endanger the waterways, we are met by a deep but understandable mistrust. To speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in Western words, and especially their distrust of American intentions now. In Hanoi are the men who led the nation to independence against the Japanese and the French, the men who sought membership in the French commonwealth and were betrayed by the weakness of Paris and the willfulness of the colonial armies. It was they who led a second struggle against French domination at tremendous costs, and then were persuaded to give up the land they controlled between the thirteenth and seventeenth parallel as a temporary measure at Geneva. After 1954 they watched us conspire with Diem to prevent elections which would have surely brought Ho Chi Minh to power over a united Vietnam, and they realized they had been betrayed again.

When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered. Also it must be clear that the leaders of Hanoi considered the presence of American troops in support of the Diem regime to have been the initial military breach of the Geneva agreements concerning foreign troops, and they remind us that they did not begin to send in any large number of supplies or men until American forces had moved into the tens of thousands.

Hanoi remembers how our leaders refused to tell us the truth about the earlier North Vietnamese overtures for peace, how the president claimed that none existed when they had clearly been made. Ho Chi Minh has watched as America has spoken of peace and built up its forces, and now he has surely heard of the increasing international rumors of American plans for an invasion of the north. He knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. Perhaps only his sense of humor and of irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor weak nation more than eight thousand miles away from its shores.

At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless on Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called enemy, I am as deeply concerned about our troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure while we create hell for the poor.

This Madness Must Cease

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.

This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words:

"Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism."

If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. It will become clear that our minimal expectation is to occupy it as an American colony and men will not refrain from thinking that our maximum hope is to goad China into a war so that we may bomb her nuclear installations. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horribly clumsy and deadly game we have decided to play.

The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways.

In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war. I would like to suggest five concrete things that our government should do immediately to begin the long and difficult process of extricating ourselves from this nightmarish conflict:

End all bombing in North and South Vietnam.
Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation.
Take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in Southeast Asia by curtailing our military buildup in Thailand and our interference in Laos.
Realistically accept the fact that the National Liberation Front has substantial support in South Vietnam and must thereby play a role in any meaningful negotiations and in any future Vietnam government.
Set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva agreement.

Part of our ongoing commitment might well express itself in an offer to grant asylum to any Vietnamese who fears for his life under a new regime which included the Liberation Front. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. We most provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country if necessary.

Protesting The War

Meanwhile we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. We must continue to raise our voices if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative means of protest possible.

As we counsel young men concerning military service we must clarify for them our nation's role in Vietnam and challenge them with the alternative of conscientious objection. I am pleased to say that this is the path now being chosen by more than seventy students at my own alma mater, Morehouse College, and I recommend it to all who find the American course in Vietnam a dishonorable and unjust one. Moreover I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. These are the times for real choices and not false ones. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.

There is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must enter the struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing. The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing clergy- and laymen-concerned committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. Such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God.

In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution.

During the past ten years we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which now has justified the presence of U.S. military "advisors" in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counter-revolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Colombia and why American napalm and green beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru. It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken -- the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. n the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and through their misguided passions urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not call everyone a Communist or an appeaser who advocates the seating of Red China in the United Nations and who recognizes that hate and hysteria are not the final answers to the problem of these turbulent days. We must not engage in a negative anti-communism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove thosse conditions of poverty, insecurity and injustice which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.

The People Are Important

These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression and out of the wombs of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light." We in the West must support these revolutions. It is a sad fact that, because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has the revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgement against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores and thereby speed the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every moutain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain."

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted concept -- so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force -- has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John:

Let us love one another; for love is God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. If we love one another God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate.

As Arnold Toynbee says : "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word."

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The "tide in the affairs of men" does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out deperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on..." We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.

We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world -- a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter -- but beautiful -- struggle for a new world. This is the callling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

As that noble bard of yesterday, James Russell Lowell, eloquently stated:

Once to every man and nation

Comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of truth and falsehood,

For the good or evil side;

Some great cause, God's new Messiah,

Off'ring each the bloom or blight,

And the choice goes by forever

Twixt that darkness and that light.

Though the cause of evil prosper,

Yet 'tis truth alone is strong;

Though her portion be the scaffold,

And upon the throne be wrong:

Yet that scaffold sways the future,

And behind the dim unknown,

Standeth God within the shadow

Keeping watch above his own.

South Americans close ports to Falkland/Malvinas flagged ships

2012-01-16T12:00:00.000-04:00

MERCOSUR Bloc – More Politics, Better Integration
By Raúl Pierri
Inter Press Service (IPS)

Leaders express solidarity with Argentina's historic claim to the Malvinas/Falkland Islands.

Credit: Office of the Uruguayan president

MONTEVIDEO, Dec 21, 2011 (IPS) - The leaders of South America's Mercosur trade bloc decided to set up a committee to facilitate the incorporation of new members, adopt a mechanism to defend democracy in case of a coup, and ban vessels from the Malvinas/Falkland Islands from docking in member countries' ports.

At Tuesday's summit, the presidents of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay also signed a free trade agreement with Palestine, seen as mainly symbolic, and expanded the list of products from outside the bloc that will pay import tariffs.

In their speeches, the Mercosur (Southern Common Market) leaders acknowledged the contradictions and hurdles faced by the region's largest trade bloc, while stressing the need to continue to forge ahead with the process of integration.

At the bloc's headquarters in Montevideo, host President José Mujica met Cristina Fernández of Argentina, Dilma Rousseff of Brazil and Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, as well as Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Rafael Correa of Ecuador, whose countries are in the process of joining as full members.

"Our path is full of contradictions and difficulties," Mujica said. "Woe to us if the contradictions disillusion us and we abandon this project. We would soon become a leaf in the wind, in this world of colossal forces."

The Uruguayan president emphasised that the bloc represents not only economic, but political, integration. "Without politics, there will be no Mercosur in the long run, and there will be no convergence, because this is not only an economic equation.

"Alas for us if we fail to understand that the underlying issue is a question of power, and that this question makes it necessary to move towards convergence," he said.

Mujica also confirmed the creation of a high-level committee to analyse the admission of Venezuela and Ecuador as full members.

Venezuela, whose admission process began in 2006, is only awaiting approval by the Paraguayan Congress, where legislators opposed to the left-leaning Lugo hold a majority. For its part, Ecuador formally requested full membership on Tuesday.

Chávez said the incorporation of his country as a fifth full member has been blocked "by just five lawmakers" in Paraguay.

"These people who have been opposing (Venezuela's admission) for five years, I don't know if they are aware of the harm they are causing, not to Venezuela, but to everyone, to the Paraguayan people themselves," he said. "There are only five people who don't want it. I think that behind them there must be a very powerful hand, moving who knows what mechanisms of pressure," he maintained.

Chávez underlined that Venezuela's incorporation would mean "opening Mercosur to the Pacific.

"We are members of OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Companies), we have gas and energy reserves, we have things to contribute," he added. "We have to expedite this, spurred on by the global crisis that is threatening us."

Lugo also referred to the case of Venezuela and the resistance put up by a handful of legislators in his country.

"This government of Paraguay is respectful of its institutions, but it is making an effort to strengthen integration. The incorporation of Ecuador and Venezuela would work in favour of our bloc," he said.

Rousseff, meanwhile, highlighted the agreement reached at the summit "to expand the list of products included in the common foreign tariff" applied to imports from outside Mercosur, and to adopt various mechanisms to foment intra-bloc trade.

Correa, for his part, stressed the signing of the "Montevideo Protocol", a mechanism providing for a mutual response in defence of democratic institutions in case of a coup d'etat in any of the member countries.

The summit agenda, which was to include public ceremonies, such as the signing of the agreement with Palestine – signed in private in the end – was interrupted by the tragic news of the death of Argentina's deputy trade secretary, 33-year-old Iván Heyn. The newly appointed official was found hanged in his room in the Montevideo hotel where most of the Argentine delegation was staying. The police said his death appeared to be a suicide, but that the investigation continued.

When Fernández was notified, she was so upset that her private doctor was called to attend to her.

Malvinas/Falklands

The summit also approved a resolution to close the bloc's ports to vessels flying the Falkland Islands flag. The islands, known as the Malvinas in Argentina, have been held by Britain since the 1830s, and were the subject of a brief war between the two countries in 1982, when Argentina sought to assert its sovereignty over them.

In a column posted on the Uruguayan president's web site Tuesday, Mujica explained his decision to ban the boats from docking in Uruguay, arguing that his country's foreign policy has always been based on national interests, but also on the principle of solidarity with the region.

Mujica said solidarity with Buenos Aires also benefited Montevideo. "Uruguay's political history shows that every time relations with Argentina have soured, the economy and labour have been enormously impaired," he wrote.

Fernández expressed her appreciation for the member countries' decision to block boats from the Malvinas.

The Malvinas "are not just an Argentine cause, but a global cause, because (the British) are taking oil and fishing resources, and when they need more resources, whoever is the strongest will go to find them whenever and however," she said, as Rousseff nodded.

"When they sign something involving the Malvinas, they are doing so as if the Malvinas belonged to them. There are many countries here with great natural wealth, and this wealth must be defended. Let's be smart enough to understand that, by taking care of each other, we are taking care of ourselves," she added.

At the end of the summit, Mujica handed over the rotating six-month presidency of the bloc to Fernández. (END)

Remembering the Ouvea massacre: New film on New Caledonia stirs up old memories

2012-01-15T20:20:00.000-04:00

Nic Maclellan

Islands Business

Review of new feature film “L’ordre et la morale”, by French filmmaker Mathieu Kassovitz, which dramatises the hostage crisis on the island of Ouvea in April and May 1988 – screening in English as “Rebellion” in 2012.

As New Caledonia moves towards a decision on its political status after 2014, a film on the 1988 Ouvea crisis has sparked controversy, charges of censorship and new debates about the history of the Kanak independence struggle.

“L’ordre et la morale”, by French filmmaker Mathieu Kassovitz, dramatises the hostage crisis and massacre on the island of Ouvea in April and May 1988.

Read the full article here.

Danish, Dutch Autonomous Countries discuss cooperation

2012-01-13T12:39:00.000-04:00

Amigoe

Eman promotes Gateway Aruba in Brussels

ORANJESTAD — During his recent visit to Brussels Premier Mike Eman (AVP) had a meeting with colleague Premier Kuupik Kleist from Greenland. The two discussed the collaboration possibilities between the countries. Greenland is especially interested in the role Aruba will play as gateway for The Netherlands and European countries to Latin and Central America.

The knowledge of the culture and language of the countries in this region, demonstrate that Aruba could be a strong partner for companies wishing to do business in the region, says Premier Eman.

This yields worldwide attention and Greenland has expressed their interest. Aruba and Greenland have several points in common, namely they are both islands with a small population. For instance, Greenland has less than 60,000 residents and as independent country, is part of the Kingdom of Denmark.

* (Greenland is an autonomous country in the Kingdom of Denmark, but is not an independent country - OTR).

Kleist explains that Greenland has a LGO-relation with Denmark. Furthermore, the country is rich in base materials such as gold, ruby, sapphire and quartz. However, the last mines closed in 1990 and since then the economy pillars are the catch of fish, hunting, sheep breeding and tourism. The discovered large oil reserves can possibly be exploited in the future.

Eman for his part spoke of tourism, the public health system, education and of the plans to create a gateway. At the end of the meeting, the Premiers exchanged invitations for a visit to each other’s country. Speaking about a relationship between Greenland and Aruba, Premier Kleist used the metaphorical expression ‘from ice to spice’.

Valero

In Brussels Premier Eman also spoke with Rodrigo Rivera Salazar, the Columbian ambassador in Belgium. They discussed several mutual interests between Aruba and Columbia and the possibilities for further future collaboration. For instance, Eman told of his trip to Columbia where he visited Riohacha and Bogata and spoke with companies in the oil sector on possible collaboration with oil refinery Valero. According to the Premier, Columbia has crude oil which Aruba could use. Eman therefore hopes Aruba and Columbia can work together soon in this field.

Eman also told the ambassador about the Aruban government’s vision on alternative energy. He spoke of expanding the windmill park, doubling the number of windmills, the solar park to be placed on the parking lot roof of the airport and of the TNO branch on Aruba that is to serve as regional research and study center. In conclusion, Eman also spoke of Aruba’s ambitions to serve as stepping stone for Dutch and European companies wishing to do business in Latin and Central America. It was agreed that Eman and Salazar would keep in touch and see how the relationship between the two countries could be strengthened.http://www.amigoe.com/english/93410-eman-promotes-gateway-aruba-in-brussels-

"Greenland became a Danish colony in 1814 after being under the rule of Denmark-Norway for centuries. With the Constitution of Denmark of 1953, Greenland became a part of the Kingdom of Denmark in a relationship known in Danish as Rigsfællesskabet (Commonwealth of the Realm). In 1979 Denmark granted home rule to Greenland, and in 2008 Greenland voted to transfer more power from the Danish royal government to the local Greenlandic government. This became effective the following year, with the Danish royal government in charge of foreign affairs, security (defence-police-justice), and financial policy, and providing a subsidy of DKK 3.4 billion, or approximately $11,300 per Greenlander, annually." -

* Wikipedia-

Anguilla Chief Minister outlines British interference in territory’s budget

2012-01-12T19:02:00.000-04:00

United Anguilla for Transparency

Special to Overseas Territories Review

PRESS STATEMENT

Hubert B Hughes

Chief Minister of Anguilla

January 3, 2012

Fellow Anguillians,

Let me take the opportunity first of all to wish to Anguillians both at home and abroad as well as other visitors to our shores a Happy New Year as we enter 2012. I wish also to publicly convey the sentiments of the Season and best wishes of the New Year to the Father of the Nation, Mr James Ronald Webster and his dear wife Mrs Cleopatra Webster. No one knows the future either on a personal level or indeed on a national level and therefore as a Nation, we enter this New Year in Faith and Trust that God will see us through.

In this New Year, my administration intends to continue to maintain dialogue with the You the People about the various initiatives that we would like to engage in, keep you abreast of matters and issues that face our Nation, and hope that You will be actively participating in offering your views or indeed yourselves, if called upon for service to our beloved country.

It is against that backdrop that regrettably I am forced to tell you that today, the 1^st day of Government business in 2012, the People of Anguilla are once again faced with the situation of not having a Budget.

I say once again - because as you already know from our first term in office, notwithstanding that all the Budgets presented in the House of Assembly have been passed unanimously by both Government and Opposition, the UK Government refused to assent to our Budgets. Again for this 2012 Budget, the UK Government has failed to assent to our Budget.

While seasoned business professionals may understand the impact of not having a Budget, I want the average man in the street and young People to understand the impact of what happens when the country does not have a Budget. Because of Anguilla’s Colonial status as a territory of the UK we require that after our Budget has been presented in the House of Assembly and debated by your Government and the Opposition that even after your Political Representatives considered that the Budget has been agreed, it requires that the Governor who represents the UK sign off on the Budget, that is Assent to it. This process traditionally happens prior to the 31^st of December because by law, from the 1^st working day in a New Year the Budget that you have passed is supposed to be the operating document that guides how you are permitted to spend money or to collect revenues.

Therefore if the Budget which you have passed in the House is not assented to, then the liabilities of Government –such as loans, invoices to be settled, payments to be made to statutory bodies including the hospital, and payments to individuals should not occur and

any revenue generating measures that would have been budgeted for cannot legally occur because they cannot take effect until after the Budget has passed. Essentially the wheels of Government grind to a halt. Essentially, this is exactly where the British Government has now placed us.

I want the People of Anguilla however to understand that the fact that the Governor and the British Government have not assented to the Budget is not by accident. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) set a deadline of 31^st October 2011 for the proposed Budget to be submitted to them by the Finance Department and my Permanent Secretaries in Finance, Mrs Kathleen Rogers and her team and Dr Aidan Harrigan and his team ensured that that deadline was met.

Mrs Rogers travelled with me as a part of my delegation to London in mid-November 2011, and even though we were both initially approached in what I would say was an abrasive and hostile manner on our Budget, we were both able to defend the Budget and in particular stand resolute that we could not and would not intend placing any further taxes on our People.

We also maintained that neither were we in a position to release civil servants because that situation or indeed further taxes would create greater social hardships on the People of Anguilla and which I as the Political Leader would not do.

In those meetings we were verbally assured that we had adequately responded to their concerns and that there would be no problems and indeed that there would be no delay in having the Budget assented. Since that time my Finance Department responded to further queries and requests which either the Foreign and Commonwealth Office or the Department for DFID requested of our Department - all within the timelines that were set by them, so that prior to the time that we went to the House of Assembly, there were no outstanding questions that had not been answered, no concerns that had been raised that had not been settled and all done within the timelines set by the FCO who were fully aware that the Assent needed to have been received by 31^st December 2011.

While I as the Leader of Government Business have not received the courtesy of written communication as to why the Assent has not been received, I observed that the Governor in responding to Permanent Secretaries made mention of the fact that Minister Bellingham and other Ministers with whom he has to consult were going to be [And I quote] “pre-occupied with constituency events” and therefore he the Governor did not anticipate that he would get the instructions to Assent.

Also in the last Executive Council the Governor informed that the Ministers went on holiday and that it would be “a few weeks”before an Assent could be received.

This is of course with the full knowledge that the British Government have held the handle of the knife in setting a deadline of three (3) years for Anguilla to reduce a EC 70 million dollars deficit of which they had oversight and allowed to grow for several years under their watch. This is of course also with full knowledge that this can never be said to be “good governance” - a standard which is always strictly observed as against this Administration but does not have to be observed by the Administering Power. This is also with the full knowledge of the Ministers’ Departments that deadlines were set and that an entire country is now being held hostage to a“pre-occupation with constituency events”; that is to say that Anguilla does not even rank as high as events in their districts. I consider this to be the ultimate disrespect - not to me – but to you the People of this Nation.

I also want you to keep in mind that not only do we not have a Budget on the 1^st day of Government business because of the lack of Assent by the Governor, but we also have a Department of Finance that has been officially handicapped on today’s first day of Government business.

You have heard me speak time and time again for the last few months on the fact that the Governor and Deputy Governor without consulting me proposed to transfer key Permanent Secretaries particularly in the Ministry of Finance.

You have heard me refer to the fact that the only Permanent Secretary with a double major in Finance and Accounting with 30 plus years experience in the departments of the Treasury and Audit was being removed during Anguilla’s toughest economic crunch in its history, to a Department in Public Administration which is a complete misuse of precious human resources which serve the People of this country.

You have also heard me refer to the fact that our solitary Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance who is our Economist with a doctorate in Economics is being transferred from his position as an Economist to take up the position of PS Finance when he is not an Accountant. And you have heard me refer to the fact that the Permanent Secretary who has served the Ministry of Home Affairs and has significant experience in that Department and who does not have Economics as a qualification is now to serve as Anguilla’s Economist in the Ministry of Finance.

You have heard me refer to the fact that these transfers are unjustified not just from the standpoint of misuse of our human resources, but from the position of performance and the fact that it was the synergy of particularly these two Permanent Secretaries who led their teams to produce a Budget which could withstand the scrutiny of the UK appointed team of Experts and which allowed Anguilla to rebound from a 70 million dollar deficit to a surplus position in 2011 in just 2 years of this Administration.

I stand amazed that notwithstanding my own objections that these transfers are not in the best interests of Anguilla, notwithstanding the objections of every single Premiere or Leader of the Overseas Territories expressed at the Overseas Territories Consultative Association Meeting in mid-November 2011 in London and despite the indications of Minster Bellingham that the Governor should review his decision, the Governor maintained that his decision stands and through his office transmitted the Appointment Forms to the Permanent Secretaries effecting the transfers as of 1^st January 2012.

So now that there is no Budget and there is a handicapped Finance Department where does that put us?

Well once a Budget has not passed, the Government is entitled to utilise the option of signing off on a Provisional Budget. The Provisional Budget means that we cannot use the initiatives that we have planned for in our 2012 Budget and have to stick to what was done in 2011. In that case, it means that our proposed revenue generating measures – not taxes – are compromised and it means that every single day that we are unable to put our 2012 Budget into effect we become compromised in meeting our monthly targets and in meeting the overall deadline set by the UK. If you recall last year, as a result of not getting a timely Assent to our Budget we lost over EC 8 million dollars in revenue. Of particular significance for Anguilla however, is that every year we are supposed to receive funds of about EC$9 million from European Development Fund in the form of budgetary support.

We did not get it last year however, because of the fact that our Budget was not assented to and we had to utilise a Provisional Budget. I have been informed by my technocrats that already the European Department has been enquiring as to our state of affairs on the Budget and if again I am forced to sign a Provisional Budget there are strong chances that we would have jeopardised being able to receive those funds.

What I need you the People of Anguilla to understand is that notwithstanding it was the UK that delayed signing of our Budget last year which caused us to lose EC$9 million dollar in aid from the European Union, it was the UK Government that tried to strong-arm us to put taxes in place to make up for the short-fall even though they were the ones that created the situation that led to the short-fall. This year, after presentation of the Budget, it was made clear by Minister Duncan – the Minister for the Department of DFID that they wanted to receive from us a“Contingency Plan” - essentially a menu of measures that they wanted us to put in place in the event that we fall behind in any of our targets. That is why it was so critical for us to start the first working day of 2012 with a Budget. Doubtless, as with last year, even though they have created the situation in which we stand to fall behind – they will be the first ones asking us about further measures.

It is for all these reasons and particularly because if I go ahead and sign off on the Provisional Budget it will signal to the European agencies that once again we do not have a Budget and jeopardise Anguilla receiving funds, that I am taking the decision to delay signing of that Provisional Budget for one week to allow the UK Ministers to give priority to our situation. I am appealing to them to consider the further damage that they can do to Anguilla’s economy by delaying assent to the Budget.

Just as a footnote, I have specifically invited the President of the Civil Service Association to this briefing because I wish to make it clear to civil servants that what they see happening to their fellow civil servants, the Permanent Secretaries is not isolated. While they have chosen to remain silent on the issue, I must remind them that the woes and upheavals that we are constantly having with the British Government is in preserving their jobs. We have received recommendations to cut the civil service by 30%. I also wish to remind them that the British Government is reducing their civil service by 30,000 in two years. We have resisted this option because we recognise that to send civil servants home now is to condemn families to not being able to survive and will also affect our economy at large. While I intend to remain passionate about any action of the British Government that I do not feel is in the best interests of Anguilla, as the Elected Representatives we cannot fight this battle on our own.

Please recognise that General Orders which is subordinate to your Constitution cannot stop you from protecting your constitutional rights to work and to live.

To the People of Anguilla, I ask that you remain vigilant but the days of remaining silent are long gone. In our Past we have been successful in overcoming oppression when we felt that we were mistreated as a People.

We spoke with one Voice then because of our Pride as a People and our strong determination to protect our Home and our History. We need again to speak with one Voice.

I will be in touch with you and keep you abreast of further budgetary developments.

New Worries About Oil Terminal Risks on St. Eustatius Island

2012-01-12T14:32:00.000-04:00

By Betsy Crowfoot

Ecology Global Network

Part IV in a series exploring the potential impact of NuStar Energy’s proposed oil terminal expansion on the Caribbean island of St. Eustatius.

Part I: Tarnish on the Golden Rock: Will the Tiny Caribbean Isle of St. Eustatius Surrender to Oil Multinationals?

Part II: Residents fear the potential impact of NuStar Energy’s proposed oil terminal expansion and work towards stopping the degradation.

Part III: How “Green” is the Golden Rock?

Concerns are mounting about a proposed oil terminalling and processing expansion on the Caribbean island of St. Eustatius (Statia), after reports of yet another oil spill: this one off the coast of Nigeria. That incident saw nearly 40,000 gallons of oil leak during a transfer from a production/storage vessel to a tanker, before the malfunction was detected and stopped.

Read full article here.

Also see:

NUSTAR – A DISASTER ON STATIA:

WHERE IS THE EVACUATION PLAN?

by James Russell

TODAY - The Newspaper for Country

St. Maarten

Dear Editor,

Foresight must be a wonderful gift. A handful of complacent civil servants on St. Eustatius already foresee that the new oil terminal is a supposedly done deal and it is all about when and not about if.

But there is one significant aspect that has not been factored into administrative calculations. Some would say that it has more to do with the hand of God and others with the inexact science of foreseeing natural disasters. It is quite simply the eventuality of a full blown earthquake. Before island job hunters, cynics and island council members shrug off this doomsday scenario, some geological evidence would serve as a reminder that history not only repeats itself but does so when least expected.

The last reported earthquake of significant magnitude took place on St. Eustatius on February 8, 1843. Without any warning, its violent seismic waves demolished countless stone houses on the island and transformed the beautiful Methodist Chapel into a pile of rubble. Large chunks broke away from the Quill and sugar factory chimneys tumbled. Earlier accounts are sketchy but historians agree that major earthquakes occurred in 1755, 1766 and 1785. The cause for such geological and human consternation is not hard to find.

St Eustatius is situated within a few kilometers of an active fault where the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates converge.

Read full article here.

United Nations General Assembly endorses erection of permanent memorial to transatlantic slave trade

2012-01-12T01:29:00.000-04:00

	General Assembly GA/11193

Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York

Sixty-sixth General Assembly
Plenary
83^rd Meeting (AM)

GENERAL ASSEMBLY ENDORSES INITIATIVE OF MEMBER STATES TO ERECT, AT HEADQUARTERS,

PERMANENT MEMORIAL ACKNOWLEDGING VICTIMS OF SLAVERY, TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE

****

The General Assembly today, recommitting itself to honouring the victims of what several delegates called “the most tragic chapter in human history”, adopted a resolution endorsing the construction at United Nations Headquarters of a permanent memorial to those who had suffered under the yoke of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade system.

By the terms of that consensus text, the Assembly stressed the importance of educating and informing current and future generations about the causes, consequences and lessons of slavery, and requested the Secretary-General to continue organizing activities related to the commemoration of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, which is held annually on 25 March.

Speaking earlier during the Assembly’s corresponding debate, several delegates added that adopting the resolution, and in turn completing the permanent memorial, were the “least the United Nations could do” to honour those who forcibly became part of the global African Diaspora.

Moreover, said the representative of Guyana, who introduced the resolution on behalf of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the memorial would offer current and future generations the opportunity to contemplate and reflect on the horrors and indignity of the ignoble system of slavery. It would also serve as a source of inspiration, a symbol of the indomitable spirit of human beings and their capacity to triumph over the worst forms of oppression and bigotry.

The permanent memorial, first called for in General Assembly resolution 62/122, was slated to be completed by the end of 2012, and would be erected in a place of prominence at United Nations Headquarters in New York. An international competition to select its design was launched in September, and a Trust Fund was established to support its construction. Numerous delegations today stressed the importance of contributing to that Fund, which to date had raised over $1 million of the estimated $4.5 million needed to complete the project.

“We are magnanimous enough to forgive, but human enough not to forget,” said the representative of the United Republic of Tanzania, speaking on behalf of the African Group of States. The transatlantic slave trade had torn millions of Africans from their homes, “dragged them in chains to the Americas and sold them as slaves”. Its most salient outcome, he stressed, was the dehumanization of people of African descent, which led to a disturbing legacy of racism and racial discrimination in many countries.

Referring to the annual International Day to commemorate victims of the slave trade, he said that event recognized the dearth of inquiry into the experience of enslaved Africans, as well as a continuing gap in literature regarding their individual and collective experiences. More efforts were needed to promote research, education and outreach programmes to fill that gap, he emphasized, adding that it was “unacceptable” to continue to sweep the identities and contributions of enslaved Africans under the carpet.

The representative of Jamaica, which chairs the Permanent Memorial Committee, said that while some of the gravest historical wrongs against humankind had been addressed, others had not. Slavery and the transatlantic slave trade had not yet met the threshold of acknowledgement and redemption, which served as rationale for continued action at the United Nations. As the theme for the permanent memorial stated, he said, we are “acknowledging the tragedy, considering the legacy, lest we forget”.

The representative of Israel agreed that the memorial was of vital importance, and stressed that today’s resolution recalled the legacy of 30 million human stories - the vast majority of them untold. The need for that memorial was clear, she said: It would complement the work of the Organization’s existing outreach programme and provide a reminder to all delegates and visitors of the slave trade’s history and lessons. Only through education, remembrance and constant vigilance could the tragedies of the past serve as clear lessons for the future, and the United Nations had a duty to take up that cause.

Meanwhile, some speakers pointed out that the unjust legacy of slavery was still alive and well in the social life of many countries. The representative of Cuba, stressing that the people of his country were proud of their heritage - which included both Spanish and African blood – said that Africans would remain exploited as long as the “unsustainable and unjust” consumption patterns continued to exclude the majority of people around the world. Former colonial metropolises must “honour their debt” to slaves; it was impossible for them to “wash their hands of the past” and of their responsibilities in that regard.

Moreover, he said, if the current system was not checked, Africa would continue to finance the “extravagance” of wealthy developed countries, while commitments to development on the African continent were not honoured. Others added that, though slavery had long since been abolished in Latin America and the Caribbean, people of African descent living in that region continued to disproportionately face extreme poverty, unemployment and other challenges.

Background

For its consideration of the first item, the Assembly had before it a report of the Secretary-General (document A/66/162) entitled, “Permanent memorial to and remembrance of the victims of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade: status of the United Nations Trust Fund for Partnerships – Permanent Memorial”. The report states that, as at 30 June 2011, the Fund had recorded a total of $990,700 in income, comprising voluntary contributions from Member States amounting to $944,700, private donations totalling $28,000 and accrued interest in the amount of $18,000.

Also for its consideration of the agenda item relating to the slave trade commemoration follow-up, the Assembly had before it a second report of the Secretary-General (document A/66/382) entitled, “Programme of educational outreach on the transatlantic slave trade and slavery”. Submitted pursuant to General Assembly resolution 65/239 (2010), the report outlined the related activities of the Department of Public Information. In close collaboration with States members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the African Group, the department had organized the fourth annual observance on 25 March 2011 of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

The commemoration’s 2011 theme, “The Living Legacy of 30 Million Untold Stories”, recalled the estimated 30 million Africans who were uprooted by the system of slavery and whose many stories under that system have not been told fully. The theme emphasized the importance of a more constructive portrayal in history and literature of the diverse skills which enslaved Africans brought to the homelands they were forced to adopt, and which were indispensable contributions to the economic foundation of the countries in the Americas and of the world economy of the eighteenth century.

The outreach and awareness strategy of the Department of Public Information utilized its network of information centres to disseminate the message of the observance internationally, and promoted partnership activities with civil society organizations committed to building awareness of the dangers of racism and racial discrimination, as well as the continuing legacy of slavery and the slave trade.

The Assembly was also slated to consider a draft resolution (document A/66/L.25) on the permanent memorial to and remembrance of the victims of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. By that resolution, the Assembly, endorsing the initiative to erect a permanent memorial at a place of prominence at United Nations Headquarters, would request the Secretary-General to organize a series of annual activities related to the commemoration of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. That would include a commemorative meeting of the General Assembly. It would further request the Department of Public Information to continue to take appropriate steps to enhance world public awareness on that issue, and would request both the Secretary-General and the United Nations Office for Partnerships to report on that programme of educational outreach – including on actions taken by Member States – at its sixty-seventh session.

Anniversary of Abolition of Transatlantic Slave Trade

Introducing the draft resolution on the permanent memorial to and remembrance of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade (document A/66/L.25), GEORGE TALBOT (Guyana), speaking on behalf of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), said that the initiative of the Caribbean delegation, along with the African Group, to erect a memorial at Headquarters had responded to the need to honour, at a global level, “the victims of this most tragic chapter in human history.” Once completed, the memorial would offer current and future generations the opportunity to contemplate and reflect on the horrors and indignity of the ignoble system of slavery. It would also serve as a source of inspiration, a symbol of the indomitable spirit of human beings and their capacity to triumph over the worst forms of oppression and bigotry.

“With that in mind, we reaffirm our commitment to the erection of a permanent memorial in a place of prominence at United Nations Headquarters, that is accessible to delegates, United Nations staff and visitors,” he said. It was well established that the inhuman system which had led to the forced removal of millions of people over centuries from Africa to the Caribbean, the Americas and Europe, indeed the largest forced displacement of human beings in history, had contributed today to continued economic underdevelopment, social inequalities, racial discrimination and prejudice. The current resolution before delegations would have the Assembly endorse the initiative to erect the memorial and to take into account new developments, such as the conclusion of the tripartite Memorandum of Understanding, and welcome the recent launch of the international design competition.

OMBENI SEFUE (United Republic of Tanzania), speaking on behalf of the African Group, called for the outstanding physical and spiritual resilience of people of African descent, who for centuries endured and survived all manner of adversity, injustice, oppression, exploitation, discrimination and suffering, to be celebrated. “We are magnanimous enough to forgive, but human enough not to forget,” he said of the transatlantic slave trade, which tore millions of Africans from their homes, dragged them in chains to the Americas and sold them as slaves. Its most salient outcome, he stressed, was the dehumanization of people of African descent, which led to a disturbing legacy of racism and racial discrimination in many countries.

Recalling that the United Nations observed the annual International Day to commemorate victims of the slave trade earlier this year, he said that event recognized the dearth of inquiry into the experience of enslaved Africans and recognized a continuing gap in the literature regarding their individual and collective experiences. While it was bad enough to enslave Africans, it was unacceptable to sweep their identities and contributions under the carpet. More efforts were needed to promote research, education and outreach programmes to fill that gap. He praised the work of the Office of the United Nations Security Coordinator (UNSECOORD) and the Department of Public Information in that regard, while also noting the erection of a permanent memorial and remembrance of the victims of slavery and the slave trade were an important component of raising awareness. He further recognized the importance and necessity of sustained voluntary contributions towards the permanent memorial.

RAYMOND O. WOLFE (Jamaica), aligning with CARICOM and the African Group, said the question continued to be asked – why did the States involved continue to feel the need to remind the world about this tragic past when there was a need to look to the future and contemporary forms of slavery. Yet, in the words of Jamaican singer Bob Marley, “in this great future, we can’t forget the past”. While some of the gravest historical wrongs against humankind had been addressed, others had not. Slavery and the transatlantic slave trade had not yet met the threshold of acknowledgement and redemption. That was the rationale for continued action at the United Nations, including to ensure that a lasting tribute be erected on its grounds. As the theme for the permanent memorial stated, we are “acknowledging the tragedy, considering the legacy, lest we forget…”

He expressed appreciation for the programme of education and outreach on the transatlantic slave trade and slavery for 2011, organized by the Department of Public Information (DPI). He encouraged that Department to ensure that the annual commemorative activities were a fitting and solemn tribute to slavery’s victims. Noting that Belgium, Oman, Finland, Guyana, Costa Rica, Slovenia, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Israel and Trinidad and Tobago had contributed to the Permanent Memorial Trust Fund, he said the total amount given to date was $1.02 million.

As Chair of the Permanent Memorial Committee, he noted the launch this year of a dedicated website for that initiative: www.unslaverymemorial.org. A Facebook presence had also been set up and R&B singer Melba Moore had been appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador. Consultation had led to the signing of a tripartite Memorandum of Understanding allowing UNESCO to undertake phase one of the international design competition that was launched on 30 September. Other efforts focused on its fundraising drive, he added.

OSCAR LEÓN GONZÁLEZ ( Cuba) said that Cubans were proud of their heritage, which included both Spanish and Africans. “The slave trade left a very clear trail,” he said, referring to the Caribbean community. Indeed, that region’s cultural wealth and singularity were the result of the wisdom, languages, culture, music and verbal spirit of the slaves that were brought there, and its spirit was imbued with the courage and valour of those who had struggled against their oppression.

Today, he continued, Africans would remain exploited as long as the “unsustainable and unjust” consumption patterns continued to exclude the majority of people around the world. Former colonial metropolises must “honour their debt” to slaves; it was impossible for them to “wash their hands of the past” and of their responsibilities in that regard. Moreover, if the current system continued, Africa would continue to finance the “extravagance” of wealthy developed countries, while commitments to development on the African continent were not honoured. For its part, Cuba had established the first museum dedicated to the Slave Route in the Americas, he said. It recognized the importance of organizing annual activities under the umbrella of the United Nations and of the construction of the permanent memorial. That was “the least the United Nations could do” to honour the past and those who had suffered, he said.

GARY QUINLAN ( Australia) said the transatlantic slave trade had forcibly removed tens of millions of Africans from their communities and separated them from their families. Millions died while being transported and uncounted others while resisting the slavers. What in Swahili was known as the “Maafa – the great disaster” – was for more than 400 years the institutionalized face of the very worst kind of racism and an almost unimaginable contempt for human life. “We need to recognize the dark side of our own history and bring it into the light,” he said, stressing that the permanent memorial would be a lasting tribute to all those who had died and suffered through the slave trade.

“It will also be a physical symbol of our common obligation to remember; and acknowledge that the fight against such savagery is really never won,” he said, noting that racism always threatened and, through human trafficking, perhaps some 26 million more people were enslaved today. Educating current and future generations about the transatlantic slave trade and its lasting consequences was essential. The resolution stressed that, and Australia, he continued, had placed emphasis on the consequences of racism and prejudice in its school curriculums. Indeed, his country had seen the mistreatment of the first Australians for too long. The historic 2008 Apology to Australia’s Indigenous people had been a dramatic acknowledgement “of the many wrongs our own community has suffered”. Finally, he announced that Australia was providing a further contribution, of some $150,000, to support the permanent memorial.

MARIA LUIZA RIBEIRO VIOTTI ( Brazil) said that, as an early supporter of the permanent memorial initiative and as a repeated co-sponsor of the annual draft before the Assembly, Brazil hoped that the General Assembly would, through those actions, demonstrate its commitment to adequately honour the victims of slavery and the slave trade. As the Brazilian demographic census of 2010 had indicated, more than half of the Brazilian population had identified itself as African descended. Brazil took great pride in that legacy, which marked its society and culture in many different ways. “It is an essential part of our historic formation and of our national identity,” she stressed. That recognition had translated into a number of concrete actions. Since 2003, the Government had opened 19 new embassies in Africa and several more in CARICOM States. Commercial activity with both regions had increased, and Africa was now Brazil’s fourth largest trade partner. Among other activities, the country had also held a Brazil-CARICOM Summit in 2010, and was deeply engaged in the stabilization and development of Haiti, where it led the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH).

Although Brazil had formally abolished slavery 123 years ago, its enduring impact could still be felt in many aspects of its social life. People of African descent continued to disproportionately face extreme poverty, unemployment and other challenges. In that context, Brazil, alongside the Ibero-American General Secretariat, had organized a conference in Salvador, Bahia; the resulting “Declaration of Salvador” had decided to establish a Statistical Data Observatory for People of African Descent, to create a Fund for People of African Descent, and to establish a “Decade for People of African Descent in Latin America and the Caribbean”. “Only by building cultures together and creating a true atmosphere of tolerance and mutual understanding will it be possible for the international community to fight the persistent scourge of racism and racial discrimination,” she concluded.

KENDRICK MEEK ( United States) described a wide number of programmes through which his Government had commemorated the two-hundredth anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. The United States also remained committed to promoting outreach and education to raise awareness about the slave trade and its consequences, as part of its effort to reduce prejudice and inequalities wherever they existed. He said that his Government was also pressing ahead with initiatives to tackle modern forms of racism and slavery. The United States was also honouring the historic and modern-day contributions of African Americans and persons of African descent, those who had fought for freedom during the Civil War, those who had contributed to the enrichment of the country throughout history, and those who were enhancing ordinary life in the United States today. The United States looked forward to expanding its partnerships to tackle all aspects of slavery, including its modern forms, in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

HAIM WAXMAN ( Israel) recalled Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel’s statement that, “If anything can, it is memory that will save humanity… hope without memory is like memory without hope.” Reaffirming memory’s vital importance, he said today’s resolution recalled the legacy of 30 million stories, the vast majority of them untold. It was among the stories of those who suffered unimaginable cruelty and persecution that the world found hope. The Jewish people knew well the joys of freedom and the pain of persecution. This was why Israel today joined hands with the nations of the world in laying the foundation for a permanent memorial at the United Nations to honour the victims of the transatlantic slave trade. It had recently contributed $20,000 to support the memorial’s construction. Indeed, the need for that memorial was clear: It would complement the work of the Organization’s existing outreach programme and provide a reminder to all delegates and visitors of the slave trade’s history and lessons. Only through education, remembrance and constant vigilance could the tragedies of the past serve as clear lessons for the future, and the United Nations had a duty to take up that cause, he emphasized.

OLIVIER MAES ( Luxembourg) paid tribute to all Member States of CARICOM and the African Group for their key role in promoting the permanent memorial. The transatlantic slave trade was undoubtedly one of history’s darkest chapters and it should not be ignored. From a political and moral point of view, that human tragedy, which lasted several centuries, must be duly commemorated. It must also permeate the world’s collective conscience, so the current and future generations could draw the right lesson and ensure it never happened again. For that reason, Luxembourg was cosponsoring the draft resolution and welcomed the consensus the text enjoyed. It had regularly contributed for years to the Trust Fund and encouraged all Member States to demonstrate tangible support to the permanent memorial. His delegation also welcomed the launch of the international design competition. Because it was also imperative that that period of history continued to be studied in depth, adequate resources must be made available to researchers.

HARDEEP SINGH PURI ( India) said the slave trade was one of the most abhorrent chapters in the history of mankind and the work of the United Nations could never be completed until the Organization condemned the transatlantic slave trade “emphatically and without reservation”. It was also necessary that the international community took upon itself to never let such crimes ever take place again. “Education has a critical role in creating awareness amongst present and future generations about the history, causes and impact of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade,” he continued, adding that India supported the various activities and programmes being carried out by the Department of Public Information to commemorate the International Day of Remembrance, annually on 25 March.

While he announced that India, with a contribution of some $260,000, was now the lead contributor to the Trust Fund for the permanent memorial, he said that it had collected just over $1 million of the estimated $4.5 million that was needed and “the international community must come forward and contribute”. “The international community cannot let the idea of this memorial just remain on the drawing board,” he said, underscoring his delegation’s firm belief that there must be a genuine acceptance of the fact that the horrible crimes associated with slavery occurred, along with the sincere repentance for their commission. India, therefore, strongly urged all countries, and especially those that had benefited from the slave trade, to come forward and contribute to the memorial project.

The Assembly then adopted without vote the resolution on the permanent memorial to and remembrance of the victims of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade (document A/66/L.25).

UK responsible for military base clean-up in Bermuda

2012-01-11T15:15:00.000-04:00

Royal Gazette Online

Walton Brown

Walton Brown is a social and political commentator and the Progressive Labour Party candidate for Pembroke Central.

Morgan's Point: Britain should assume responsibility for the environmental clean-up, says Walton Brown

Addressing Bermuda’s House of Assembly on January 15, 1942, on his way home from Washington, Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill spoke of the agreement for the leasing to the United States of bases in Bermuda.

He told the Members of Colonial Parliament that “you in Bermuda happen to be called upon to play a part of especial importance and distinction. Everybody has to do his duty to the cause - first to the British Empire, but above that to the world cause.”

Sir Winston went on to state: “I wish to express to you my strong conviction that these bases are important pillars of the bridge connecting the two great English-speaking democracies. You have cause to be proud that it has fallen to your lot to make this important contribution to a better world.” He concluded his remarks by expressing his “profound gratitude”.

For more than 50 years the special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States was manifested, as far as Bermuda is concerned, in the gift of this lease - not part of the bases for weapons swap that characterised other UK-US base deals.

With the Cold War over and the military need for the bases eroding, the United States made the decision in early 1990s to close the bases and return the land to Bermuda well ahead of the 2040 lease expiration date.

One of the residual issues is the base cleanup, now estimated to cost over $70 million. This should not be a cost borne by the Bermuda Government. In recognition of the UK’s “profound gratitude” for the sacrifices made by Bermudians as well as the fact that Bermuda had no role in the decision to grant the US a base on the island, it cannot logically, morally, even legally, be a Bermuda responsibility.

Minimally, the UK must bear responsibility for this and the Bermuda government needs to revisit the matter and attempt to persuade the UK to act responsibly. If moral suasion proves inadequate, we must consider and pursue other options.

The second residual issue is the matter of a formal apology to the residents of St David’s Island. With the grant of the base lease, about half of St David’s Island was handed over to the Americans and in so doing deeply weakened and deleteriously altered the distinctive culture and life of the residents of this isolated community.

Anyone seeking a detailed description of this culture before the base should have a look at E A McCallan’s Life on Old St David’s, Bermuda. The residents of St David’s paid a higher price than most Bermudians since their entire way of life was affected. For this they are entitled to an apology from the United Kingdom who acted, no doubt, with a firm resolution and focus on defeating the destruction wrought by Fascism and who did not have the luxury of time to reflect on the damage done locally.

The US bases issue is an excellent example of why history matters. We did make a sacrifice to assist the UK, US and other Allied powers to defeat the Axis powers in the Second World War; indeed, we helped the struggle to regain democracy in Europe even though Bermuda remained an oligarchy until 1968. For our contribution we should not be expected to pay for damage left by a guest invited to our home by our head of the household, so to speak; and our head should certainly acknowledge the impact of their decisions.

The Dutch Tradition of Blackface Fuels the Fire of a Movement

2012-01-10T09:14:00.000-04:00

BET Commentary:

The ubiquitous holiday character Zwarte Piet – Black Peter – is an antiquated and offensive reminder of the Netherlands’ colonial past.

By Dana SaxonBET Global News

Throughout November and the first part of December, it’s impossible for anyone living in the Netherlands, as I do, to escape the image of the incredibly popular character Zwarte Piet (Black Peter), the Black servant of Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas). Adults and children, cakes and dolls. For several weeks, as BET.com reported several weeks ago, it seemed that everyone wanted to be Black, while defining and portraying Blackness in some of the most offensive ways possible. The Sinterklaas holiday has passed. But the bitter taste and debate surrounding Zwarte Piet lingers on.

A Debate that Never Ends

It’s a debate that circles around racism, intolerance and increasing diversity in the Netherlands. Not unlike discussions related to race and class in the U.S., the Zwarte Piet debate uncomfortably hovers over some deep and personal topics for almost everyone involved. Which is more important -- honoring the traditions of the past or admitting to the wrongs of that past? No resolution yet. In the meantime, folks feel free to walk around in blackface, becoming angry and abusive toward those who challenge their right to impersonate and mock the history and physical appearance of Black people.

The character is so blatantly racist, literally on its face. From the outside looking in, it seems that even the most slightly diverse (and perhaps civilized) society, would forego the controversy and just do away with the yearly tradition that offends a significant percentage of its population, any percentage, really. Why is this even up for debate? Several people outside of the Netherlands have asked, “Where are the Black people? How have they let this continue for so long?”

The Rihanna Controversy

It’s not so simple. In terms of racial awareness and sensitivity, there are large differences between Dutch and American society. A Dutch fashion magazine, Jackie, recently thought it might be cool to describe Rihanna, somewhat admiringly, as “the ultimate n--gabitch.” (The editor later apologized.)

In the U.S., yes, Black people have gained sufficient power and acknowledgment to influence a number of social norms, creating rules that are taken seriously. When Dutch people make fun of the politically correct American, I’m sure they’re referring to me and the many rules I, as a Black American, apply to them, like, say, don’t call me a Negro. No rules have been established for the comfort and dignity of the Black Dutch population, at least not yet, even though that relationship traces just as far back, historically.

In the U.S., it’s as if we, Black and white, grew up together in the same city, if not neighborhood. We’ve known each other pretty much all of our lives. So we know each other’s secrets and insecurities. The Dutch grew up in different countries and were pen-pals, at best. They’re just getting to know each other as adults, a process that takes time. In real life, in spite of a decent-sized black population, predominately from Suriname and the Dutch Antilles, many who are 2nd and 3rd generation in the Netherlands, Dutch culture demonstrates a stubborn insistence to maintain traditions reminiscent of a colonial past, whether most people are conscious of it or not.

A Gradual Process of Resistance and Change

From what I can tell, the first generation from Suriname took a low-profile approach, quietly assimilating into Dutch culture, some even painting the faces of their children black alongside their white classmates. I’m not in a position to judge the economic and social factors that must have played into virtually every decision made by a Black person in the Netherlands in the 1970s. The racial resistance of that time was likely discreet, ruffling only one feather at a time. It remained for a relatively young movement to bring the masses out of the Dutch post-racial utopia.

Yet, coincidentally in the year Time magazine has named “The Protestor” as its Person of the Year, a social movement in the Netherlands has gained momentum, with protestors using Zwarte Piet as a key target. The blackfaced reminder of the 19th century is a great proxy for so many other questions of equality and acknowledgement for the black Dutch population.

“Zwarte Piet is Racisme”

In January 2011, when Quinsy Gario, a poet and artist, spontaneously spray-painted "Zwarte Piet is Racisme" (Black Peter is Racism) on a T-shirt, the timing was right. A collective of artists, poets, and musicians quickly took shape into the Zwarte Piet is Racisme campaign. Capitalizing on existing grassroots efforts and social networking, using Tumblr and Facebook to promote education and action, the campaign ignited quickly and now crosses all categories of age, race and education. Beyond T-shirts, the campaign sponsors public events, including an art exhibit, debates, and reading groups, raising awareness about Zwarte Piet and the history of blackface imagery. Although the campaign’s message has made many people uncomfortable, every supporter’s unwillingness to compromise makes this feel quite significant.

As with any social movement that personally affects the majority, those who protest Zwarte Piet have not gone without opposition. The video of Gario’s violent, November 12 arrest, in front of children, only for wearing a T-shirt alongside three other protestors, spread virally. It told the rest of us that some sort of battle was underway, no matter which side we may choose. And while many Dutch people have clearly (and sometimes offensively) aligned themselves with the police based on their responses to Gario’s arrest, from my perspective, the masses are now committed to a Dutch society in which all people are respected, heard , and seen. Kno’Ledge Cesare, musician, arrested alongside Gario, appeals to the traditionalists and activists alike: “I believe our country can do better.”

In the meantime, the endless, and occasionally productive, debates continue. But those who defend the celebration of blackface so impolitely, with that sense of aggressive superiority, may have gotten the wrong impression from those years of debate and quiet resistance. No one is asking for their permission to create change. Change is always inevitable.

The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of BET Networks.

New St. Martin Préfet assumes duties in Caribbean Collectivités

2012-01-06T16:51:00.000-04:00

Daily Herald

MARIGOT--New Préfet for St. Martin and St. Barths Philippe Chopin (52) met the press on Friday, and outlined the scope of his posting as successor to Jacques Simonnet. His first ceremonial engagement since starting work on December 12 was to lay a wreath at the war memorial, in the garden of Hotel de La Collectivité.

During the past week, he has met President Frantz Gumbs and Senator Louis-Constant Fleming as well as President of the Economic, Social and Cultural Council Georges Gumbs, Chamber of Commerce President Steve Tackling and other personalities.

He noted that even with a distinguished career behind him, this was his first posting in the Antilles, an area he was unfamiliar with, but he accepted the post "with humility and a desire to learn and be useful."

Chopin described his mission as falling into four categories and he reports directly to the Préfet of Guadeloupe.

His first priority is with public order and protection of citizens that involves a close working relationship with judicial authorities, the Gendarmerie and Territorial Police; and secondly, he is to assist in economic development, in collaboration with elected officials.

His third priority is joint cooperation with the Dutch side and he noted that work had already started in this regard before he had arrived. A meeting with Dutch-side counterparts is planned for this week. And the fourth priority is to emphasise the State's role in guiding the young Collectivité in its objectives.

He said he would take his time to study the various files under discussion before making decisions, while noting that his Chef de Cabinet and Secretary General were also relatively new to their posts and a certain induction period would be necessary.

"I am here to work with elected officials, not in an authoritarian sense, but to collaborate and find solutions," he said. Philippe Chopin has two decorations: Knight of the Legion of Honour and Knight of the National Order of Merit.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Executive Board Concludes 2011 Article IV Consultation Discussions on Montserrat

2012-01-04T09:36:00.000-04:00

Public Information Notice (PIN) No. 11/156

December 13, 2011

On November 28, 2011, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded the first ever Article IV consultation discussions with United Kingdom–Montserrat–British Overseas Territory.

Background

Montserrat has made enormous progress in its recovery from the 1995 eruption of a long dormant volcano, which remains intermittently active. The economy is sustained by grants from the UK. Low growth is expected in 2011 after sharp output contractions in 2009–10. Stress in the financial sector and slower than expected development of the major capital investment projects continue to limit prospects for growth.

The island has made enormous progress in its recovery, with generous support from the UK government, the European Union, and other donors. Nevertheless, the eruption has had a large and lasting demographic, economic and social impact.

Grants from the UK finance around half of expenditure. The ability to mobilize revenue domestically is constrained by the dominant role of government and donor activity which is not taxable. UK grants buffered the impact of the global crisis on Montserrat. The economy contracted in 2009–10 due in part to a small volcanic eruption and the passage of Hurricane Earl in 2010. Inflation remained low at around 2.5 percent in 2009–10. Although UK grants sustained expenditure in 2009, the fiscal stance in 2010 was contractionary. The fiscal stance and weak activity reflect in part implementation delays in key capital projects. The economic outlook hinges upon progress with major public capital projects, improving access to the island, and strengthening the private sector.

Read the full IMF Report here.

Latin American and Caribbean Heads of Government address "anachronistic colonial situation" of Falkland Islands/Malvinas

2012-01-03T09:11:00.003-04:00

Summit of the Community of Latin American an Caribbean States (CELAC)

Special Communiqué on the Malvinas Islands

1. The Heads of State and Government of Latin America and the Caribbean, gathered in Caracas on 3 December 2011 within the framework of the Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, reiterate their strongest support for the legitimate rights of the Argentine Republic in the sovereignty dispute over the Malvinas Islands, South Georgia Islands and South Sandwich Islands and the surrounding maritime areas and the abiding interest of the countries of the region in the resumption of negotiations by the Governments of the Argentine Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in order to find as soon as possible a peaceful and definitive solution to the dispute in accordance with the relevant pronouncements by the United Nations and the Organization of American States, as expressed in previous declarations by the Rio Group and the Latin American and Caribbean Summit, in particular the declaration of the Riviera Maya Summit, Mexico, 23 February 2010, which are part of the Community’s historical heritage.

2. Furthermore, they reiterate the importance of observing the provisions of General Assembly resolution 31/49, which calls on the two parties to refrain from taking decisions that would imply introducing unilateral modifications in the situation while the Islands are going through the process recommended by the Assembly.

3. They highlight the continuous constructive attitude and willingness of the Argentine Government to reach, through negotiations, a peaceful and definitive solution to this anachronistic colonial situation on American soil.

4. In this regard, the Heads of State and Government of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States instruct the Presidency Pro Tempore to request the United Nations Secretary-General to renew his efforts in carrying out the mission of good offices entrusted to him by the General Assembly under successive resolutions for the resumption of negotiations aimed at finding as soon as possible a peaceful solution to the dispute and to inform us of the progress achieved in carrying out his mission.

5. The Heads of State and Government of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States thank the Presidency Pro Tempore for its efforts.

WEST PAPUA ESTABLISHES DECOLONIZATION COMMITTEE

2011-12-30T11:35:00.000-04:00

Radio New Zealand International

The West Papua National Coalition for Liberation has announced the establishment of the West Papua Decolonization Committee.

The coalition says the Committee will petition the United Nations Decolonization Committee for the re-inscription of West Papua in order for it to be granted the due process of decolonization.

Membership of the Committee will consist of the coalition’s leaders and dignitaries of Vanuatu including former Presidents and Prime Ministers.

Membership would be open to people with relevant expertise from other countries.

The coalition’s Vice Chairman, John Ondawame, says the establishment of the Committee is their response to the ongoing violence committed by Indonesian forces in Papua.

Dr. Ondawame says the violence has continued despite years of pleas by Papuans for peaceful dialogue. He has called upon the people of the Pacific and the International community to support the diplomatic effort.