Guns fuel Caribbean homicides
May 2, 20
“The Caribbean region suffers from some of the world’s highest rates of violent deaths, at almost three times the global average, as well as one of the world’s highest rates of violent deaths among women. Firearms are used in more than half of all homicides, with this proportion reaching 90 per cent in some countries. While much emphasis has been placed on firearms control at both the political and operational levels, illicit firearms, and the dynamics of illicit arms markets in this region have received little research attention. The multiple impacts of these realities on the region can be seen via human consequences, socio-economic implications, and security challenges.”
Weapons Compass: The Caribbean Firearms Study—a joint report from the Small Arms Survey and the CARICOM Implementation Agency for Crime and Security —examines firearm holdings, illicit arms and ammunition, trafficking patterns and methods, and the socio-economic costs of firearm-related violence in the region.
The report indicates that firearm-related violence imposes significant public health and economic burdens on Caribbean communities and societies.
The U.S. domestic market is a major source of illicit firearms and ammunition in the Caribbean, and is likely the largest source in some states and territories, according to the study.
The new report comes on the heels of a wave of concern regarding illicit flows of guns from the U.S. to the Caribbean. U.S. officials told the Miami Herald that since 2020 about half of all firearms-export investigations have been concentrated in the Caribbean region — a top smuggling destination fueled by the demand of drug traffickers and huge black-market markups on U.S.-made guns.
A group of Caribbean countries — the Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago — backed a Mexican lawsuit against U.S. gun manufacturers, in March. (Miami Herald)
And, last month a group of U.S. lawmakers called for a federal investigation into the illicit trafficking of firearms coming from the United States into the Caribbean. They said that they are particularly concerned about the effects of illicit U.S. firearms on the security situation in Haiti, reports the Miami Herald.
Public Security
Lynch mobs that attacked suspected gangsters last week in Port-au-Prince “have sparked a strange and disturbing mix of horror, fear and optimism in Haitian communities fed up with being terrorised by the gangs,” reports the Guardian.
Experts and analysts deplored the bloodshed, even as they said it was unsurprising in light of the sheer brutality of gang territorial control in Haiti, police failure to control the violence against residents, and general institutional collapse.
Migration
Countries in the Americas should suspend forced returns of Haitians on the move and adopt measures to protect them instead, according to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which sounded the alarm after 36,000 people of Haitian origin were deported during the first three months of the year. The vast majority were deported from the Dominican Republic.
Decolonisation
French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to Haitian Revolution hero Toussaint L’Ouverture, last week, saying he embodied the true values of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. It was the first time a French leader paid official tribute to Louverture at the prison where he died, reports the New York Times.
Britain’s ongoing refusal to pay slavery reparations to former colonies only adds to the many arguments that the Commonwealth’s time is done — and that the organisation does little to favor poor member countries, argues Caribbean analyst Kenneth Mohammed in the Guardian.
Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement (JABBEM) has called on British tourists to boycott hotels and resorts that deny Jamaicans access to beaches across the island. “I think it is time, that when you vacation in Jamaica you ask your resort ‘can a Jamaican walk over your property to get to the beach?’ and if they say ‘no’ then you say ‘well I can’t stay here’”, JABBEM president Devon Taylor told the Voice. (See April 12’s Just Caribbean Updates)
For decades, the U.S. military fired explosives on the island of Vieques, part of Puerto Rico — the residents, U.S. citizens, are still living with the toll, reports the Guardian.
History
A new analysis of the oldest human remains found in Puerto Rico sheds light on the lives and rituals of the island’s early inhabitants. "Although typically thought of as roaming, nomadic fishers, the study suggests these people buried multiple generations of their dead in a single place and ate a more varied diet than previously believed, reports Science. (Via Repeating Islands)
Labour Rights
The Caribbean Domestic Workers Network called on Caribbean nations to ratify and implement the International Labour Organization Convention that recognises and protects the rights of domestic workers. (Jamaica Gleaner)
Climate Justice and Energy
“Since mid-March, the world’s oceans have been hotter than at anytime since at least 1982, raising concerns among some climate experts about accelerated warming”. — Axios
Calls for a commercial deep-sea mining moratorium reflect a growing appreciation of how little we know about the life that exists in the deep sea and the potential impacts of the extraction of these minerals, argues Jamaica Environmental Trust CEO Theresa Rodriguez-Moodie in the Jamaica Gleaner.
“This month, makes eight years since Guyana is without an updated legislative and regulatory framework that is essential for the protection of the oil industry against mismanagement and corruption”, reports Kaieteur News. “One of the key regulatory architectures that remains in limbo is the Petroleum Commission Bill that would pave the way for the appointment of an independent regulator.”
Recording: “Different Boats, Same Sea: Gender & Climate Advocacy in the Caribbean” — Panel at Caribbean Women for Climate Justice, moderated by Equality Bahamas Director Alicia Wallace
Gender
Under the Sycamore Tree is a limited series Caribbean, feminist, archival podcast that documents women and LGBTQI+ led organizations across eight Caribbean countries. The conversations are insightful, intimate, and multigenerational, with each episode focusing on topics ranging from eldership to legislative changes to queer families.
Finance and Economics
The Tax Justice Network called on the United Kingdom’s King Charles to call for the breakup of the “UK’s network of satellite tax havens” through which an estimated £152 billion worth of tax is avoided every year, reports the Guardian.
Justice
The Organization of Commonwealth Caribbean Bar Associations criticized recent statements by the Prime Ministers of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Barbados, regarding criminal justice. Prime Ministers Dr Ralph Gonsalves and Mia Mottley “… On the issue of the judiciary…too many of our judges and magistrates are too soft. Sometimes you get the impression that some magistrates, depending on who is the lawyer , their client seems to get better treatment…”. (Asberth News Network)
Events
4 May — The Save Cockpit Country movement and fight against extraction in Jamaica — Jamaica Environment Trust
5 May — Girmitiyas: shaping new lives in new lands — Moray House Trust