Caribbean & Central America - September 2018 (ISSN 1741-4458)
CARIBBEAN POINTERS
*** NEW SECURITY MINISTER FOR TRINIDAD & TOBAGO. On 7 August, Prime Minister Keith Rowley moved his national security minister, Edmund Dillon, to the housing ministry. Dillon has been replaced by Stuart Young, formerly the communication minister. Dillon had held the security post since the People’s National Movement (PNM) came to power in 2015.
There has been some speculation that the shifting of Dillon was a response to the appointment of Gary Griffith as police commissioner. The two were formerly colleagues in the army, and some have said there was friction between the two.
In any event, the opposition has attacked Dillon’s replacement as lacking experience. United National Congress (UNC) parliamentarian Rodney Charles described Young as an “on the job trainee” and said: “Young lacks known experience in security and managing multi-faceted bureaucracy…. His only qualifications are that he’s a talker in parliament, a ‘smooth talker’. For that he may be suited to communications to hoodwink the population into believing crime’s down.”
*** JAMAICA GROWTH ACCELERATES. According to the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), the 1.8% year-on-year growth recorded for the April-June 2018 quarter was the fastest since the July-September 2016 quarter. It was also the 14th consecutive quarter of positive growth.
Announcing the figures in mid-August, Dr Wayne Henry, the director-general of the PIOJ, said: “Indications are that the pace of economic growth will continue to strengthen during the remainder of 2018 and 2019. The forecast for calendar 2018 is that growth will be in the range of 1.5%-2.5%, and for fiscal year 2018/19 growth is projected to be within the range of 2%-3%.” The PIOJ is forecasting year-on-year growth of 1.5%-2.5% for July-September.
*** GUYANA RISING UP US AGENDA. Guyana has been clear that its granting of exploration rights to US oil giant Exxon-Mobil in its oil-rich territorial waters was in part motivated by the need to secure a tacit US guarantee to support Guyana’s territorial integrity in the face of a long-standing dispute with Venezuela. Exxon-Mobil has been duly rewarded with significant oil discoveries – and a production-sharing agreement that is considered by some to be generous.
Against this background, it is not surprising to see US politicians taking a greater interest in Guyana than previously, and in the third week of August, a delegation of nine US congressmen accompanied, significantly, by some senior military personnel visited Guyana to learn more. At the start of the visit, on 22 August, Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Greenidge explained: “They are coming to have discussions of a general political nature”.
The visit has not been without its critics, largely due to past difficulties between Guyana and the US. This was acknowledged by Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, who said: “There have been previous episodic decades that could give justification for this negative nationalism, going back to the late 1950s when the-then British colony became a pawn in the Cold War. She was subsequently converted into a laboratory for every conceivable stratagem of American imperialism, which has since been well-documented.”
However, the prime minister went on to explain the importance of the US support for Guyana in its dispute with Venezuela, saying: “With the expected oil bonanza came renewed but overt diplomatic support for Guyana’s territorial sovereignty against a spurious claim by Venezuela.”