Caribbean & Central America - May 2012 (ISSN 1741-4458)

*** JAMAICA: BETTER NEWS ON CRIME. Jamaica’s National Security Minister Peter Bunting revealed figures on 28 April which showed a 30% reduction in the country’s murder rate since the beginning of the year. The number of murders on a per day basis has dropped from 3.1 to 2.0 since January.

Bunting emphasized the economic significance of any sustained downturn in crime, saying that without the “extraordinary high levels of crime” per capita earnings in Jamaica would be “somewhere between three times and 10 times current levels”.

*** TRINIDAD TO ADOPT CCJ. On 25 April, Trinidad & Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar told parliament that the government would abolish appeals to the UK’s Privy Council in criminal cases this year. The move is strongly supported by the opposition, but her own ruling United National Congress has traditionally been less committed to any move towards the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). However, the prime minister emphasized that the move would only be for criminal cases. She said that the country “would be slow to cut off all ties”, noting that the Privy Council “has an international reputation as being one of the finest commercial and civil law courts in the world”.

This caveat means that Trinidad is not moving as far as Barbados, Belize, and Guyana in embracing the CCJ for all legal appeals, and the reason seems to be concern about frightening off international investors. This has led to some criticism, not least because it is thought that a full move to the CCJ would have encouraged other laggards to make the same move, particularly Jamaica. There also seemed to be some equivocation in the government’s commitment. The prime minister said: “We will continue to monitor the developments taking place in both the [Privy Council] and CCJ including the quality of their decisions in deciding the future course of our judicial system”.

*** BOUTERSE SECURES AMNESTY. On 4 April Suriname’s President Desi Bouterse secured an amendment to the 1992 amnesty law that will ensure that he escapes investigation for alleged human rights violations committed under his 1980-91 military rule. The amendment extends the period of immunity from the years 1985-1991 to cover the years 1980-1992, thereby now excluding the further investigation of extrajudicial executions of 15 opponents of the military regime allegedly committed by Bouterse and 24 accomplices in December 1982.

The move sparked protests in the capital, Paramaribo, where more than 5,000 people took to the streets on 10 April. It also attracted strong criticism from international organisations as well as from the Netherlands, which convicted Bouterse in 1999 for trafficking cocaine from Suriname to Holland. Following the approval of the amendment to the amnesty law, the Dutch government recalled its ambassador indefinitely, suspended development, and has begun lobbying for sanctions to be imposed on Suriname.

Under international law, amnesties are not permissible if they prevent the prosecution of individuals who may be criminally responsible for international crimes, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and gross violations of human rights.

• UN response

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, responded to the amendment to Suriname’s amnesty law on 13 April with the following statement: “The high commissioner sincerely hopes that steps are taken to reverse this legislation as soon as possible, since it clearly conflicts with Suriname’s international obligations and very much runs against the positive trend in many other Latin American countries of prosecuting and, in many cases convicting, individuals responsible for serious crimes that took place during military dictatorships.”