(The following appeared as the author’s column in yesterday’s Barbados “Weekend Nation”)
“I DO NOT accept that it could possibly be part of official Barbados Government policy for personnel of the immigration and police services to be engaged in a demeaning “scare-them-away” campaign against CARICOM migrants–a campaign that violates their basic rights and mock their dignity.

True, Prime Minister David Thompson and Attorney General Freundel Stuart are on record as having separately made, over recent months, some rather surprising statements–to say it politely–that may have unintentionally contributed to the reported shameful behaviour and inhumane treatment of CARICOM immigrants at public places as well as in private homes.

Both have been maintaining public silence for weeks prior and since the enforcement from June 2 of a six-month amnesty for the “illegals” to regularise their status or, face “removal”–that loaded official choice of warning in a civilised society committed to the rule of law.

Now perhaps, there should be an objective reappraisal of the methods and circumstances of “removal”–before and since the start of the amnesty–as being carried out against claimed “illegals”.

Incidentally, NO intelligent estimate can be officially obtained about the number of “illegal’ immigrants.

Nevertheless, speculations run the gamut, the sort fanned by alarming levels of ignorance and prejudices in the absence of ANY informed official statement to help guide public opinion and avoid the inhumane acts that must surely violate the sensibilities of the mass of Barbadians, known for their civility and respect for human dignity..

This past Wednesday, the political scientist, columnist and independent pollster, Peter Wickham, in a follow-up analysis in the ‘Midweek Nation” on current “immigration issues”, counselled objectivity and pointed the government to available options, before noting, and I quote:

“We (Barbadians) demonstrate our support for the presence of illegal immigrants by employing them; renting properties to them, and also partnering with them in all manner of domestic arrangements; but then argue that these persons should ‘disappear’ when the day’s work has ended or, alternatively, when the personal relationship ends…”

Significantly, in that same edition, there was a well articulated argument from a letter writer, Charles Whittaker who, writing under the title “Time to speak up, Bajans”, lamented:

“Unless you happen to be blind or deaf, you will have to be aware of the kind of treatment being meted out to our Caribbean brothers and sisters on a daily basis…the removal of people from buses; the collection of pregnant women and women with children from their homes in the middle of the night and the overall manhandling of these people in a manner that would only be used by the police on dangerous criminals…”

I happen to be aware of the growing concerns over these “immigration issues” that some CARICOM leaders intend to raise at next month’s Heads of Government Conference in Guyana. But that is still three weeks away.

The question is: Will there be a halt now, or after that conference, to the offensive treatment against the CARICOM nationals here, or elsewhere in the Community? CARICOM’s future is being seriously jeopardised on other fronts as well, amid cynical remarks about who is “driving” the CSME process”.