Caribbean & Central America - May 2023

*** PLEDGES ON CRIME. A two-day Caricom (Caribbean Community) symposium on crime, held in Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad & Tobago, on 17-18 April, ended with, inter alia, an agreement to introduce bans on assault weapons, many of which are imported from the US. The symposium was told that in Jamaica, which has a murder rate of 52.9 per 100,000 in habitants compared with a global average of 7.5, some 67% of illegal firearms come from the US.

Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness said that pressure needed to be put on the US to stop the flow of illegal weapons. He said: “We must also consolidate our efforts to lobby, particularly the US, to assist us as we have assisted them in the war on drugs. They must assist us in the war on guns. There seems to be no interest in stopping the other part of the trade, which are the guns. The guns fuel crime, they are an accelerant, they are needed to protect drugs that are trans-shipped to our borders. They are then turned to deal with other forms of criminal activity. So, collectively as the leaders of Caricom, we must raise our voice on this. We must appeal to our friends in the North to increase their efforts to prevent the flow of guns into the region.”

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley called for much greater regional collaboration on crime. She said: “We need the Caricom arrest warrant, we need to have the exchange and rotation of judges…we need to have an enlargement of the jurisdiction of magistrates, we need cooperation on forensics and we need to…deconstruct all the rules in our police service and reconstruct them,”

Mottley also called for an end to the granting of bail to accused murderers, a call that was echoed by a number of other leaders. One of the reasons for murderers being granted bail is the long time it takes to bring a case to court. As Mottley put it: “If we can get people to court within nine to 12 months, you have a good chance of a person not being given bail. Beyond 12 months, any number [of things] can start to play.”

*** IMPROVING MARITIME CARGO SERVICES. The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has announced that it is to finance a study into the options for establishing a Maritime Cargo Service connecting Barbados, Grenada, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago. The service will be geared towards the transport of agricultural products and to supporting the goal of reducing the region’s food import bill by 25% by 2025 (the ‘25 by 25’ goal).

The CDB’s Director of Projects, Daniel Best, was quoted on 5 April as saying “Policymakers in Caricom [the Caribbean Community] have established that intra-regional agricultural trade can balance food deficits and surpluses, contribute to price stability, and increase the diversity of food supply, all of which can achieve greater food and nutrition security for the Caribbean, CDB is aware that improving intra-regional trade in agriculture will require interventions across the ecosystem, however the provision of efficient and sustainable transportation to move agricultural goods will go a far way in achieving 25 by 25.”

*** BOOST FOR GUYANA IN TERRITORIAL DISPUTE WITH VENEZUELA. On 6 April, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rejected Venezuela’s argument that in its dispute with Guyana over the sovereignty of the Essequibo Region, the United Kingdom, as the colonial power, should be a party to the proceedings. The ruling means that the court can now move to address the substantive issues, with a final ruling expected in 2024 or 2025. There is no expectation that the court will rule against Guyana and the status quo, but there is a fear in Guyana and elsewhere that Venezuela will not accept an adverse ruling. With that in mind, Guyana’s diplomatic efforts are likely to be focused on bolstering Latin American, and especially Brazilian, support for its position.