|
ST. LUCIA--Where power unites foes
-doubts over survival of UWP govt
By Rickey Singh
WRITING IN this column last Sunday on "tough options" facing the Prime Ministers of Jamaica (Bruce Golding) and St. Lucia (Stephenson King) to avoid an early return to their electorate, I had indicated that it is the St. Lucian leader's problems that appear more daunting since there is the strong possibility of defeat at fresh election for his United Workers Party (UWP)
Well, it was this fear of losing state power after just 17 months in office, following 10 years in opposition that resulted in King and his rebellious colleagues, in and out of cabinet, to strike a deal for survival of the UWP administration last week by a desperate cover-up of their strong disagreements, to pull back from the brink.
He wanted to avoid more public washing of the dirty political linen of UWP ministers and MPs while his fellow Prime Ministers of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) were in Castries for a two-day regular summit, and alerted the St. Lucian public to a broadcast he planned to make on Tuesday (May 27) evening when a reshuffled cabinet was expected to be announced.
The visiting OECS leaders left at the weekend and King did make his promised broadcast but instead of the expected announcement of a reshuffled cabinet, he could not get beyond declaring to St. Lucians that the running conflicts in which he and some of his 10 UWP parliamentarians in the 17-member House of Assembly have been involved over some four months, had been "resolved".
Now, he said then, he needed a little more time to announce the new composition of his cabinet to include two of his better known fierce critics--Rufus Bousquet (who yearns for re-appointment as Foreign Minister), and Marcus Nicholas, ex-Deputy Speaker. Both had officially informed the Governor General last month of their withdrawal of support of King as Prime Minister.
As this column was being written, there were unconfirmed reports that King may either announce the composition of his reshuffled cabinet on Friday night or early this week.
Bousquet's warning
This in the face of deepening cynicism about the government's moral authority to continue in office in the face of what's viewed, across party lines, as basically an administration of three factions united only by the common factor of the ruling party avoiding, at all cost, a snap general election which, as King's perceived primary challenger for leadership, Rufus Bousquet, has warned could result in a crushing defeat of 15-2 "at best".
Once King announced that they had "resolved the impasse" that so deeply affected the functioning of the government for the better part of this year to date, leader of the parliamentary opposition St Lucia Labour Party and former Prime Minister Kenny Anthony, lost no time in scoffing at what he has described as "merely a big plaster over an incurable sore..."
Anthony feels there is no need for his SLP to "pressurise King" to call fresh general election since, as he said, "this now seems inevitable; and whenever such an election takes place, the verdict of the St.Lucian voters will undoubtedly be decisive in rejecting this charade that offers itself as a government..."
Publicly, both King and chief sparring partner Bousquet, may disagree with Anthony's forecast, but privately they are telling each other very much the same thing at so-called "reconciliation meetings" of UWP parliamentarians.
It is fear of losing power and the benefits and facilities that go with holding the reins of government that drove King and the factions within the UWP to pull back last weekend from the precipice to work out yet another in a series of back-scratching deals to dash, for as long as possible, the hopes of a return to power by Anthony's SLP.
When the UWP and the SLP clashed at the December 11, 2006 general election, the former defeated the two-term incumbent by a 11-6 parliamentary majority but with a plurality of merely 2,378 more votes across the 17 constituencies.
Rough ride
It has been a rough ride in government ever since, complicated more by worsening personality squabbles than over policies and programmes to ensure good governance.
It was in the face of being left with a shaky one-seat majority, at best, in the House, after two of his UWP disgruntled colleagues--Bousquet and Nicholas--officially withdrew their support from him as Prime Minister, that King buckled down to strike yet another compromise to stay as Head of Government.
The compromise worked out to keep the UWP administration afloat could prove quite challenging to sustain depending on how portfolios are redistributed to accommodate the factions identified with the Prime Minister, Bousquet (still to be confirmed as Foreign Minister) and Leonard Montoute (the party's deputy leader who has been holding the portfolio as Minister of Public Service and Sports).
Whatever the shape of the expected reshuffled cabinet, the St Lucian Prime Minister has already been exposed for showing weakness to dismiss, as repeatedly demanded by his opponents in cabinet and party, senator Ausbert D'Auvergne as Economic and Planning Minister, one of the major issues of the prolonged internal conflicts.
Instead, what's unraveling from current survival manoeuvres, is that D'Auvergne, said to have enormous influence on the Prime Minister, has been facilitated by King to announce his "resignation" from the cabinet, to take effect from yesterday (May 31) And there are already reports that D'Auvergne is to be invited by King to serve in a new capacity as "adviser" to the government.
If so, talk of the UWP's "impasse" being "resolved" could prove quite premature. Yet, with what passes for government today in Castries, could defy the odds, by virtue of the single factor that binds King and his UWP parliamentary colleagues together at this time--deep fear of losing power at a snap general election.
Question is, for how long can Prime Minister King maintain the status quo of a shaky UWP regime? Constitutionally, new general election is still a long way off--some three and half years away. The pressures from within will not disappear any time soon.
PERSPECTIVES
Why worry about brain drain, when there can be ‘brain circulation’?
By Prem Misir
SOME pen pushers seem to have a divine right of bringing sorry tidings to the people daily; would it not be good if we can have this everyday errand interspersed with a goodie, at least intermittently?
People are beginning to see through these stringers’ outpourings, fast redefining them as irrelevant through imbalance and fundamental unfairness in their messages.
Not too long ago, the report that 86% of graduates are emigrants has become an important pastime and exudes considerable excitement for some. This 86% was perhaps the ‘brain drain’ exclusive story intended to shock the pants and panties out of this nation.
Well, it did not. And I will be surprised if it did. The brain drain phenomenon has been a recurring decimal throughout the 20th century in different parts of the globe. In fact, the 20th century is described as the century of refugees, the century of migration.
The rate of Guyanese emigration has always shown a steady rise since the early 1950s. Official statistics show that 32,000 persons emigrated between 1960 and 1970; and about 10,000 persons per year emigrated within the 1975-79 period. Between 1969 and 1976, 48,639 Guyanese migrated overseas, with 40.8% to the U.S., 30.7% to Canada, and 11.3% to the United Kingdom.
We know about costs and benefits of immigration labour for the host countries, and costs and benefits of emigration to the countries of origin. One view suggests that the loss of skilled talent from developing countries exacts a great cost to those countries, prompting Bhagwati to propose a tax on skilled emigrants, referred to as the Bhagwati tax. Another perspective shows that emigration from developing to developed economies can produce a win-win situation. Skilled people living in the Diaspora can make a big difference to their countries of origin; we need to make this win-win happen.
The emigration rates of skilled workers of Guyana, Suriname, Jamaica, and Haiti were in excess of 80% in 2000; the Philippines, India, and China have 1,260,879, 1,012,613, and 906,337, respectively, the largest pool of overseas talent, huge Diasporas.
The World Bank notes that 8 out of 10 Haitians and Jamaicans with college degrees live overseas; and in excess of 50% of university-educated professionals from Central America and the Caribbean live overseas.
The Global Economic Prospects 2006, a World Bank publication, indicates that about 200 million people live outside of their home countries; their remittances totalling about US$225 billion in 2005 -- a tremendous booster for poverty alleviation.
Anyway, it’s good that we have Balasubramanyam and Wei of the University of Lancaster, bearers of good tidings, amid the shocking news of 86% of our graduates fleeing Guyana. They propose that the rate of return to a unit of investment by the Diaspora may be greater than that of the traditional foreign direct investment (FDI).
Therefore, we now have to locate the Non-Resident Guyanese (NRGs), especially those in the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom, if we are to economically transform Guyana. India and China thrive on their Diasporas. Why can’t Guyana? How can NRGs help?
It’s more than remittances; Guyana could develop policies that transform ‘brain drain’ into ‘brain circulation’. Brain circulation networks are possible where overseas Guyanese can facilitate Guyana with scientists and Research and Development personnel; business start-ups; and a network of professionals attached to multinational corporations. Some of these types of brain circulation already may be a reality; already producing some benefits to Guyana. Of what good would NRGs be to Guyana?
NRGs can make technology and know-how available to Guyana. In the same way that Indian software firms outsource with Diaspora firms in the U.S., Guyanese companies could strive to effect business arrangements with Guyanese Diaspora firms.
NRGs can make direct investments to Guyana; again, the Ides of March may not know, but some Diaspora packaging investments have arrived; perhaps, the beginnings of Diaspora joint ventures or acquisitions.
NRGs’ involvement in Guyana may be guided not only by the profit motive, but by a genuine desire for establishing and sustaining a base in their country of origin.
NRGs through a sustained engagement in their country of origin may in the end reduce permanent migration.
But NRGs have to be mobilised.
The talent that emigrates is not completely lost to the sending country; we need to intensify the creation of brain circulation networks and stop brooding over brain drain.
Cluster-Bomb Ban
By Gwynne Dyer
THE British armed forces clung to their cluster bombs like a baby to its rattle, and some suspected that they were trying to sabotage the treaty on behalf of their American friends (who were not there, of course).
But Prime Minister Gordon Brown overruled them, in the end, and Britain
was among the hundred countries that agreed to a treaty banning cluster
bombs in Dublin on Friday.
Well, it doesn't actually ban all cluster bombs; just the current designs that leave large areas littered with unexploded bomblets that go on killing civilians for years after they were dropped. Israel dropped some four million bomblets on Lebanon war, for example, and more than thirty people have been killed by them since the war ended.
If someone designed a cluster bomb whose bomblets all exploded reliably on impact, or at least within 48 hours of landing, then it would presumably be legal since it mostly killed soldiers. The major producers of cluster bombs -- the US, Russia, Israel, China, India and Pakistan – were not even at the Dublin conference, and have no intention of signing the treaty. But it's a start.
This sort of treaty does not really work by legal compulsion. The countries that sign the treaty are legally bound by it, but even for them there is no enforcement mechanism. For those that don't sign the treaty, there are no formal constraints of any sort. But by "banning" a particular weapon, the smaller and less militarised countries can exert a real moral pressure on those nations that insist on retaining it.
It wouldn't work if one of those countries felt that its very survival was threatened, but that hardly ever happens. In lesser emergencies, when a country is choosing which weapons to use from a broad range of options in its arsenal, the fact that cluster bombs are now seen as illegal by a majority of the world's states could have a major influence on which weapons get chosen.
They won't admit it, of course. The Pentagon issued a statement saying that "While the United States shares the humanitarian concerns of those in Dublin, cluster munitions have demonstrated military utility, and their elimination from US stockpiles would put the lives of our soldiers...at risk." But this statement would be even truer of nuclear weapons, which have excellent military utility against troops but also kill everybody else in the vicinity.
Cluster bombs would have been quite useful in the environment they were originally designed for, which was industrial-scale warfare in central Europe or on the Korean peninsula. If they exploded high enough to let the bomblets scatter properly, a few well-placed cluster bombs or shells could destroy dozens of soft-skinned military vehicles and blunt the attack of an entire mechanised infantry battalion. A few hundred could stop an army corps.
But that kind of war never happened, and where cluster bombs have actually been used is in little wars against low-tech opponents: by the US in Cambodia, by Russia in Afghanistan, by the US again in Kosovo and Iraq, and by Israel in Lebanon. They are not particularly effective against the sort of targets that are on offer in that kind of war, but what the hell, we have them, let's use them.
Unfortunately, whether by accident or by design, the bomblets have
this curious propensity not to go off right away. Between 10 percent and 40 percent of the hundreds of bomblets released by the average cluster bomb or shell fail to detonate on hitting the ground, and lie there until – weeks or months or years later -- a farmer drives over it in his tractor, or a kid comes along and picks it up. It is estimated that 40 percent of the casualties of cluster bombs are not soldiers but children.
So why do some countries cling to these things, while others are willing to let them go? If you look at the list of the hold-outs, it is mainly the countries that just might, in some remote but dreadful contingency, have to face a mass assault by motorised forces: US forces in Korea, Indian or Pakistani forces in the Punjab, the Israelis against Syria (although the Syrians would have to rebuild their forces first), and Russia and China mainly against each other.
None of these contingencies is at all likely to occur, but the rule in military affairs (as in much else) is better safe than sorry. None of these countries signed the 1997 treaty banning anti-personnel land-mines either, and they are not going to give up their cluster bombs. So of what use is the treaty?
More than you might think. Cluster bombs are now stigmatised as immoral and (for most countries) illegal weapons, and governments that do use them will have to pay a high public relations price. That certainly wouldn't deter those countries if they would make a real difference militarily, but that has not been the case in most instances where they have been used in the past.
What the treaty really does is to shift assumptions so that international public opinion will see a country that uses cluster bombs as being in the wrong. As a result, there will be instances where a country that possesses them decides not to use them. The treaty is not a waste of time.
UNASUR constituent treaty propels South American integration
By Odeen Ishmael
AT a special summit in Brasilia on May 23, leaders of the 12 South American nations signed the constituent treaty setting out the legal framework of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). The treaty also establishes juridical mechanisms to propel active political coordination within the continental bloc.
Signing the constituent treaty were Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina; Evo Morales of Bolivia; Lula da Silva of Brazil; Michelle Bachelet of Chile; Alvaro Uribe from Colombia; Rafael Correa of Ecuador; Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana; Nicanor Duarte Frutos of Paraguay; Alan Garcia from Peru; Ronald Venetiaan of Suriname; and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Vice-President Rodolfo Nin Novoa signed for Uruguay.
The special summit was originally scheduled for Colombia in March, but had to be postponed in the light of the Colombian cross-border raid on Ecuadorian territory on March 1, which killed a top guerrilla leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and 26 other persons.
Accession to the treaty is, according to the preamble of the document, “a decisive step towards the strengthening of multilateralism and the rule of law in international relations to achieve a diversified, balanced and fair world.”
The draft of the treaty was finalised at meetings of the UNASUR Council of Delegates in Cartagena (Colombia), Rio de Janeiro and Caracas earlier this year. It defines the organisation’s administrative bodies as the Council of Heads of State and Government (the highest organ) to convene annually; the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs to meet twice a year; the Council of Delegates, (representatives of ambassadorial rank, to meet more frequently throughout the year); a rotating presidency; and a general secretariat manned by international civil servants drawn from the member nations, and headed by a Secretary-General elected for not more than two biennial terms. The official working languages of the body will be Dutch, English, Portuguese and Spanish.
The document also stipulates the setting up of a South American parliament based in Cochabamba, Bolivia, but a special protocol will have to be promulgated to enable its establishment.
The constituent treaty, which will come into force after it is ratified by nine states, emphasises the general objective of UNASUR as “building, in a participative and consensual manner, an integration and union process among its peoples in the cultural, social, economic and political dimensions, prioritising political dialogue, social policies, education, energy, infrastructure, financing and the environment, among others, with a view of eliminating socio-economic inequality, to achieving social inclusion and citizen participation, to strengthening democracy, and reducing the asymmetries in the background of strengthening the sovereignty of States.”
But since all the member states may not be ready to accede to all the commitments of the Union immediately, the treaty gives consideration to the principle of “gradualism”, proposed by Suriname and Guyana, among others, during the negotiations. Thus, the preamble specifies that since South American integration is “flexible and gradual in its implementation . . . each State may assume the commitments according to their reality.”
The treaty also notes that after the fifth year of its entry into force, other Latin American and Caribbean states can apply to be admitted as Associated States of UNASUR.
The genesis of UNASUR goes back to December 2004 when the 12 South American Presidents met in Cuzco, Peru, to establish the South American Community of Nations. But even before Cuzco, the Presidents held summits (from 2000) and set up various mechanisms aimed at continental integration. One significant mechanism is the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA) which has already formulated an ambitious project list to boost infrastructural integration throughout the continent.
Then in April 2007, at the South American Energy Summit held in Margarita, Venezuela, the leaders decided to change the Community’s name to the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and to establish a general secretariat based in Ecuador. Rodrigo Borja, a former Ecuadorian president, was also named as the first Secretary General.
The organisation’s institutional framework expanded in 2007 with the setting up of the South American Energy Council and a major financial mechanism, the Banco del Sur (Bank of the South), even though the latter is still not yet fully on-stream.
But the momentum suffered a setback with the resignation on the eve of the special summit of Rodrigo Borja, the appointed secretary-general. Media reports claimed he had earlier complained that some leaders did not support his vision of putting other regional trade blocs, including Mercosur and the Andean Community, under the UNASUR umbrella. But his resignation might have resulted because the constituent treaty did not provide the post with as much autonomy and power as he wanted. In addition, he was unhappy with the “gradualistic” approach to the integration process as stipulated in the treaty.
UNASUR brings together the 12 nations with a joint population of about 390 million and an annual GDP nearing 2 trillion dollars. The continent’s intra-regional trade amounted to more than US$72 billion in 2006, while its economy grew by 5.7 percent in 2007, mainly due to foreign direct investment which reached a record US$106 billion. And according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the bloc’s economy will grow a further 4.7 percent this year.
After the signing ceremony, Chile took over the pro-tempore presidency of UNASUR from Bolivia, since first-choice Colombia, citing differences with Ecuador and Venezuela, refused the position.
In assuming the position, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet was firm on the unifying role of the organisation. “We want to show that Latin America is capable of speaking with a firm and strong voice and of building effective integration,” she said during the discussions.
She stressed the importance of concrete integration measures, especially in infrastructure, and reaffirmed the commitment of Presidents Lula da Silva and Morales to complete by the end of 2009 the highway linking the Brazilian port of Santos on the Atlantic with Arica and Iquique on the Pacific coast of northern Chile after crossing Bolivia.
Bachelet added that UNASUR must quickly embark into social programmes for poverty reduction which could see the enhancement of financial and energy integration, the improvement of regional infrastructure, and cooperation in social policies, especially in the area of education.
Another matter discussed at the special summit was the Brazilian proposal for a South American Defence Council aimed at resolving conflicts and promoting military cooperation. While the proposal won wide support from the others, Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe expressed his opposition and emphasised his trust on the existing OAS defence mechanism. He said the “terrorist threat” facing his country did not allow for military cooperation at present, and explained that his opposition to such a Defence Council was due to the resistance of some South American countries to define the leftist FARC as a terrorist organisation.
Nev | 
