Editorial

For those of us who live elsewhere, the frequency with which mature democracies make questionable, ambiguous or downright foolish choices can either  be read as an encouragement – that every country has  bouts of political myopia – or as proof that democracy teaches by trial and error and that mistakes are a necessary part of the electorate’s education.

The past week or so has not been good for at least three Caricom prime ministers, for different reasons.

The ‘global economic crisis’ was the top buzz phrase for most of last year and only began to be overtaken somewhat by ‘climate change’ towards the end of the year, when some economies began to turn around and it was clear that despite the global predicament of a warming planet there would be no clear consensus at the United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Copenhagen in December – if ever there is total agreement; but that’s another story.

Over the last two decades or so, various Caricom, and indeed Caribbean governments generally, have come under pressure from the United States authorities to extradite individuals deemed by the US to be involved in the trans-Caribbean drug trade.

Last week’s forum – “In Harm’s Way: Girls in Settings of Endemic Armed Violence” – that was organized to observe the ‘Global Week of Action Against Gun Violence’ by the International Action Network against Small Arms was cause for both controversy and concern.

There would likely have been many cake shop owners and patrons who would have been bemused and taken some offence at President Jagdeo’s recent description of reportage on the controversial Amaila Falls deal as cake shop journalism.

Public adulation, extravagant receptions, congratulatory advertisements, laudatory billboards – what head of state could ask for more?

A clutch of voters registered to a small flat inhabited by a single lady (and her cat)?

As more than one observer in the UK dryly put it, following the May 6 election that resulted in a hung parliament, the people had spoken, but it wasn’t too clear what exactly they were saying.

We might as well face it. The Domestic Violence Act of 1996, hailed back then as being a progressive piece of legislation, has failed.

Particularly during the last year or so, as we have noted in recent editorials, there has been widespread attention paid to the grouping referred to as the BRICs, and not least of all to our Caricom neighbour Brazil.

Last month’s battery and robbery of Avasa Jagan, President Cheddi Jagan’s granddaughter, was an outrage. 

In many ways the outcry over BK International’s despoliation of the Barakara Falls parallels the furore generated over miners cutting down trees, now that Guyana has entered into a forestry protection deal with the Kingdom of Norway.

If this were Somalia or some other war-torn corner of the planet, perhaps one could understand Le Repentir being in the state it is.

In its 2010 Regional Economic Outlook published earlier this week, the IMF notes that “[t]he collapse of the Trinidad and Tobago-based CL Financial Group sent shock waves throughout the Caribbean that are continuing to reverberate.”

Predicting election results is a notoriously difficult task, therefore as this column was being written it was prudent not to hazard a guess as to who would emerge the winner in the UK’s general election.

On its Facebook page this week, the World Bank announced the publication of a new book which explores a new method of monitoring the quality of urban life.

Not since 1976, when Britain, finding no other means of coping with a severe financial crisis, succumbed to the requirements of the International Monetary Fund, and made deep cuts in public expenditure in exchange for massive assistance, has there been so much controversy about the IMF on the European continent as that surrounding Greece’s capitulation to the Fund last week.

Expectations were high but explanations were scant after President Barack Obama announced the launch of the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative at the 5th Summit of the Americas in April last year.

That it has taken nearly six months for a decision to be made on what penalty should be applied to Dr Mahendra Chand for his shocking conduct in relation to the teenager who was tortured at the Leonora Police Station exposes the determination of key decision-makers to protect certain persons and to avoid as far as possible the charge of torture or complicity with it.