on ‘ethnic cleansing’ talk
TALK OF ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘genocide’, used occasionally by reckless or frustrated political elements in our Caribbean Community, belong to the lexicon of a diseased political culture that has had horrible manifestations in what was once Yugoslavia and in a few African states. In our region, we are accustomed to learning, or worse, experiencing, cases of discrimination based on ethnicity and, to a lesser extent, nationality. However strong the claims of such discrimination, the familiar refrain from officialdom has been: “Not true.” Wherever and whenever discrimination, based either on race, religion, nationality or gender occurs, it makes a mockery of provisions in national constitutions that ensure us of our fundamental rights, and of national mottos that salute our unity in diversity, our ‘oneness’ as a people.  

Regionally, the ‘founding fathers’ of our Caribbean Community (CARICOM), now in its 37th year, had the vision and commonsense to record among the first words of the Treaty of Chaguaramas their determination “to consolidate and strengthen the bonds which have historically existed among their people…” 

Among the very outstanding West Indian nationals to provide valuable assistance to the region’s political directorate to make a reality of CARICOM, were the likes of William Demas, Sir Shridath Ramphal, and Allister McIntyre.

Sir Shridath was subsequently chosen to lead The West Indian Commission that comprised some of the finest intellectuals and scholars of CARICOM, and did so while serving as Chancellor of the University of the West Indies. 

Those acquainted with his numerous writings and public discourses, the various roles he has fulfilled on behalf this multi-ethnic, culturally diverse region to which his dedication is legendary, would have been quite surprised to learn that Sir Shridath was being accused of having engaged in “ethnic cleansing” talk when, in reality, he has made no such accusation against any government, any organisation or group.

Yet, without providing text or context, he has been damned with such an utterance in sections of the region’s media, and even called upon “to take back those words.” He remains steadfast in his public silence, privately revealing a mix of amusement and disappointment with his accusers.

Immigrants’ backdrop  
The backdrop to this development was the controversial treatment of ‘illegal’ CARICOM immigrants in Barbados, where a six-month amnesty is in place for them to regularise their status by yearend.  

I have been personally misrepresented by one media contributor for an “allusion to apartheid,” which he claimed I had made in criticising the treatment to which some of those “illegal immigrants” were subjected. The contributor subsequently responded in the media to say “sorry” for that error.

But I continue to be surprised by the anxiety of some to publicly malign, or simply engage the attention of Sir Shridath about comments being attributed to him in sections of the regional media about “ethnic cleansing,” in the wake of a controversial phase in the crackdown by Barbados immigration authorities against illegal immigrants.

If I know anything about the public life of Sir Shridath, one of the most pre-eminent of our West Indian icons, it is his reluctance to be drawn into public controversies over personal statements or positions adopted by him.

I am, therefore, not holding my breath that Sir Shridath will any time soon, if ever, reply to media reports associating him with “ethnic cleansing” talk and, consequently, “disqualifying” himself as “a voice of reason” on the immigration impasse between Barbados and Guyana.

Nor do I expect a response from him to the more recent call by former Barbados Central Bank Governor, Sir Courtney Blackman — as reported by journalist Tony Best on July 31 — to “consider withdrawing the ‘ethnic cleansing words’” in relation to the immigration impasse, as if he did make such a specific accusation against any country or government. 

It would be even more surprising if the author of ‘Inseparable Humanity’ (an anthology of reflections to mark the ‘150th Anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery’ and the ‘Beginning of Indian Indenture’) responds to an ‘open letter’ in the Barbados Nation of August 4 from the Guyanese trade unionist and political activist, Lincoln Lewis, urging him to “intervene” in allegations of human rights abuses in Guyana. I suspect Sir Shridath knows Lewis even better than I do. 

However, during this past week, I sought to interest Sir Shridath in a response to his critics over the reported “ethnic cleansing” remark. He restricted himself to pointing me to his address of June 26 at the Inaugural Conference of the Caribbean Association of Judicial Officers, held under the auspices of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). He also drew my attention to an editorial in the Barbados ‘Midweek Nation’ of last June 17 on the immigration controversy.          

Context/message
The topic of Sir Shridath’s address was ‘Caribbean Judiciaries in an Era of Globalisation –Meeting the Challenges’. In it, he had also referred, with “sadness”, as he said, to the reported treatment of CARICOM immigrants in Barbados without any mention to either their ethnicity or nationality.

He quoted the Barbadian visual artist, Annalee Davis (currently involved in a regional project on problems of CARICOM immigrants), who had lamented in a media article how West Indians were at times cast as “outsiders” and become “locked into nationalist crevices and exclusive cultural legitimacy…”

Sir Shridath then noted that “we are at such a time; and both policies and practices are deepening Caribbean divides…’The knock on the door’ at night is not within our regional culture; still less are intimations of ‘ethnic cleansing’.

“No Caribbean leader,” he stressed, “would countenance such departure from our norms and values; but all must not only believe, but also act as if they believe, that we forget our oneness at our peril; whether the ‘otherness’ that displaces it is an accidental place of our regional birth, or otherness of any kind…” 

So why, I asked, was he questioned by a journalist in Georgetown during last month’s 30th CARICOM Summit, about his reference to “intimations” (the operative word) of ‘ethnic cleansing’?

Sir Shridath replied by pointing to the Nation’s editorial of June 17, in which was located a surprised warning against “a disturbance of the existing equilibrium among races, a hallmark of Barbadian life.” 

Perhaps, said Sir Shridath, rather than “becoming very emotional and judgmental” about his reference to “intimations of ethnic cleansing,” those really interested may wish to inquire of the Nation what led to its editorial comment about “a disturbance of the existing equilibrium among races in Barbados.”  

In that address in June before leading jurists and others of the region, Sir Shridath, currently engaged in mediating a resolution to the dispute between the West Indies Cricket Board and the West Indies Players Association, was to quote the late Barbadian Prime Minister, Errol Barrow, to emphasise “our regional togetherness” as citizens of CARICOM.

“My great-great grandfather on my mother’s side,” he recalled, “came to Guyana from Barbados looking for land and settlement and found them; and so it has been, up and down the chain of island societies that free movement fused into one; freedom curbed, ironically, with the arrival of our separate ‘national’ freedoms….

“But the roots of those family trees,” he added, “are now spread out in the sub-soil of the Caribbean. Social antipathy and divisiveness deny them; but DNAs defy even Constitutions…”