A Discussion Site for Good Governance and Corruption in Public Life Issues in the British Overseas Territory of Anguilla in the West Indies, moderated by Don Mitchell CBE QC, of PO Box 83, Anguilla, British West Indies. Email me with your comments and contributions at: idmitch@anguillanet.com.
So far as I know, I have never met Colin Roberts.He is the successor to Leigh Turner as Director of the BritishOverseasTerritories, the FCO officer responsible for Anguilla. He has just been on a tour of the BritishOverseasTerritories in the West Indies, most of them, that is, except Anguilla.
He has just been on his first official visit to the British Virgin Islands January 27-30.
From there, he went to the Turks & Caicos Islands, reviewing the progress of the Interim Government. The TCI Journal reports that, in the coming months, there will be a full review of the constitutional arrangements, the electoral system, and the political system of the TCI. They are going to get a brand new Constitution before August 2011. The British are not going to allow the TCI to go back to the old, winner-takes-all, Westminster-system of exploitative government that the people endured there under the present Constitution. Bear in mind that the TCI got its brand new Constitution only last year.
So, I wondered, who is this Colin Roberts? Where else do you go with such a question but to Debretts? There, I discovered that besides being a career diplomat he has been a lecturer at KyotoUniversity 1983-84, was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1986, and entered the diplomatic service in 1989. That was twenty years ago. The bright young lawyer and diplomat has moved up to the top of the service.
He has served as First Secretary (political/military) at the Paris embassy 1997-98, head of the Commonwealth Foreign and Security Policy Department at the FCO 1998-00, political counselor at the Tokyo embassy 2001-04, ambassador to Lithuania 2004-08, and now, since 2008, Director of Overseas Territories at the FCO and UK Commissioner for the British Antartic Territory and the British Indian Ocean Territory (yes, that’s Chagos).
So, a high-flyer in British intelligence and security is now in charge of the BOTs. Make no mistake about it, they have aimed the big guns on Anguilla and the other OverseasTerritories. Consider our current Governor, Alistair Harrison. None of the recent non-entity, clerical types we have had can boast a similar career to his. They really have upgraded the rank of Governor of Anguilla! No more treating us like the friendly, harmless natives we are. Why the nerves, you ask. Is it perhaps that we are the gaps in the armour on the soft underbelly of the cousins on the other side of the pond? Could it be that a jittery USA is demanding a higher level of reassurance?
We will never know what goes on at that level. We can only speculate.
What is clear is that Colin Roberts was well advised that he should not come to visit Anguilla at this time when we are in the middle of a vicious, drag-down, cut-throat, political campaign. We can expect him in Anguilla within a week or two of the publication of the results of the 15 February 2010. Mark my words.
And then, can we hope that whatever constitutional reforms are implemented in TCI will next be implemented in Anguilla? We live in hope that that is the message he will be bringing.
Did Anguilla really need to make this borrowing?There is an interesting question and answer exchange in the House of Lordsconcerning Anguilla in this morning’s sitting. Lord Jones of Cheltenham, a Liberal Democrat peer, had posed the following written question to the British Labour Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government why the Government of Anguilla have not received their European Development Fund tranche 3 payment, due by 31 December 2009; and what steps they are taking to ensure it is paid.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead, a Labour peer, responded:
The European Commission has authorised the disbursement of funds for Anguilla's third tranche of budget support under European Development Fund (EDF) 9 for €2.31 million. Anguilla should receive the funds shortly. There is no set timetable for the disbursement of EDF. Overseas Territories can request disbursement of each tranche of funding once they have implemented the conditions set out in the financing agreement between the European Commission and the territory. Although Anguilla's original request was sent in April 2009, the Commission did not receive all the associated paperwork from Anguilla until early January 2010.
The Minister for the OverseasTerritories wrote to the Commission in July 2009 noting the delays in the disbursement of funds under EDF and urging the Commission to expedite their assessment of funding requests. Officials remain in regular touch with the Commission about the disbursement of funds.
Personally, I find this response very revealing. It would appear that we had applied for this third tranche of €2.31 million in April 2009. That is nearly a year ago. It then appears that we failed to complete the associated paperwork until early January of this year!
That extraordinary delay suggests to me that there is perhaps nothing urgent about this borrowing. However, I did a search of The Anguillian to see if there was a recent reference to an EDF loan. I came across an article in the issue of 14 September last. It appears to explain what this loan is all about. It reads in part:
Perin Bradley, Trade and Investment Officer, who spoke on the Government’s financial options on Friday, said the loan of 49 million dollars which was being sought, was intended to pay the Government’s overdraft of 20 million dollars, take care of some other debts, top up the reserve fund and pay outstanding loans owed to CCB and NBA to the tune of 7.4 million. He said a 20 million dollar loan from the Eastern Caribbean Financial Holdings would be used to finance the required safety end at the airport and the balance of 24 million, from the European Development Fund, would go towards the Government’s reserves.
The article does not explain which institution is granting us a loan of EC$49 million. However, it is clear that the EDF loan is intended to go towards the Government’s reserves. That is very vague, so vague as to be meaningless to a mere layman like me.
There is an interesting little side play here. A British Liberal Democrat peer living in England is not likely to have such familiarity with Anguilla’s financial affairs to be able to ask such a question on his own initiative. I surmise that some Anguillian politician who has become acquainted with Lord Jones prevailed on him to ask the question in an attempt to embarrass the Europeans into hurrying up the funding. The reply of the Labour Peeress ensured, ever so politely, that the embarrassment fell squarely where it belonged: on the Anguilla Ministry of Finance which had apparently failed to send off the required paperwork to comply with the EDF requirements for disbursement.
What did Osborne and Victor think they were doing?I was living in Anguilla in 1976. I was the Magistrate. I know, that makes me old. More than that, it means I was present in 1978 when Emile Gumbs’ government adopted Anguilla’s first tourism policy. With expert guidance, Anguilla studied the various models of tourism development in the region. We came to the conclusion that the secret to success was to hold to a low-density, up-market product. This policy was enthusiastically adopted by Emile’s government, Ronald’s subsequent 1980 government, and Hubert’s. So, what happened to make us lose sight of the aim?
On 5 June 2007, Dr Aidan Harrigan issued a cautionary address when delivering the 7th Walter G Hodge Memorial Anguilla Day Lecture. Everything was going well then, but he saw the danger. That was six months before the present recession hit us. He warned us at the time that the ten hotel projects recently approved by the Government were a disaster waiting to happen. Do we remember the nature of the catastrophe that he warned awaited us?
Anguilla in the year 2007 was a tiny island with a population of some 10,000 souls. We enjoyed full employment. Our tourism plant then consisted of some 700 hotel rooms. The rule of thumb is that approximately three employees are required to service one up-market hotel room. All available Anguillian hotel staff were fully employed. Hundreds of men were employed in the construction industry. Thousands of men and women were employed in ancillary services, such as construction, drug distribution, massage parlours, music production, car rentals, agriculture, and fishing. We thought we were doing well.
Executive Council next proceeded to consider approval of the construction of over 4,000 additional rooms. They dealt with over a dozen major new hotel/condominium projects. No independent Environmental Impact Studies were required. These new projects were intended all to have been on stream by the year 2020.
I actually get more than his ten projects, I get fourteen. In alphabetical order, the ones I know about are:
How many Anguillian hotel development projects in the period 2006-2010 do you know about?
It is difficult to estimate the number of hotel rooms involved in these 14 projects that I know about. Villas, units, and suites are multi-room accommodation units. They involve any number of rooms. Dr Harrigan’s best estimate was that, by the year 2020, Anguilla would be attempting to fill a total of 5,000 rooms. Do remember that US visitors on average only come for a week at a time. We would have to fill each of these rooms each week or two at the most. These are double rooms, which means that 5,000 rooms could on average hold 10,000 visitors. It does not take a lot to work out that we would have needed to find 15,000 hotel staff to accommodate them comfortably. The pressure this number would mean on our schools, hospitals, roads, electricity, water, waste disposal, mortuaries, is unimaginable.
The unsustainability of this approach is overwhelming. Let us be honest. We could not have managed it. There would have been island-wide melt-down. We simply could not have got 10,000 visitors into Anguilla, and out, every weekend. American Eagle, LIAT and the Access Tsarina’s Anguilla Express would have to be working around the clock. The present one-lady post at Customs at BlowingPointPort would have had to be multiplied ten times to deal with the traffic.
The impossibility eventually impacted even our leaders. They put in place a moratorium on future hotel licences. It did not last for long. They then promptly proceeded to make exceptions. For their friends only, of course! All done with God’s blessing!
It is not correct to say that the recession rescued us. The recession compounded the problem. There was no accommodation for the needed extra 15,000 hotel staff. Osborne and Victor hit on a solution. They encouraged poor Anguillians to borrow heavily from the banks. We were supposed to invest in building apartment complexes. We would make our money from accommodating the foreign, imported staff needed to work at these hotels. Then the recession hit. There are no renters for the existing or planned apartments. The apartment complexes lie empty. Meanwhile, the bank loans had to be repaid. With no income to make it possible. The s*** had hit the fan.
Haiti.On 13 January 2010, Rev Pat Robertson famously explained that the previous day’s earthquake that had devastated the capital city of Haiti, and caused some 200,000 deaths, had been the result of a 1791 ‘pact with the devil’. You can hear it here for yourself:
According to US fundamentalist Christian history, this satanic pact allegedly took place at Bois Caiman near Cap Haitien on 14 August 1791 during a meeting organised by several slave leaders, under the leadership of Dutty Boukman, before launching what would become Haiti’s Independence War.
On 17 January 2010, Sir Hilary Beckles, Pro-vice-chancellor and Principal of the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies, reminded us of what really happened. This is what he wrote:
THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES is in the process of conceiving how best to deliver a major conference on the theme Rethinking and Rebuilding Haiti.
I am very keen to provide an input into this exercise because for too long there has been a popular perception that somehow the Haitian nation-building project, launched on January 1, 1804, has failed on account of mismanagement, ineptitude, corruption.
Buried beneath the rubble of imperial propaganda, out of both Western Europe and the United States, is the evidence which shows that Haiti's independence was defeated by an aggressive North-Atlantic alliance that could not imagine their world inhabited by a free regime of Africans as representatives of the newly emerging democracy.
The evidence is striking, especially in the context of France.
The Haitians fought for their freedom and won, as did the Americans fifty years earlier. The Americans declared their independence and crafted an extraordinary constitution that set out a clear message about the value of humanity and the right to freedom, justice, and liberty.
In the midst of this brilliant discourse, they chose to retain slavery as the basis of the new nation state. The founding fathers therefore could not see beyond race, as the free state was built on a slavery foundation.
The water was poisoned in the well; the Americans went back to the battlefield a century later to resolve the fact that slavery and freedom could not comfortably co-exist in the same place.
The French, also, declared freedom, fraternity and equality as the new philosophies of their national transformation and gave the modern world a tremendous progressive boost by so doing.
They abolished slavery, but Napoleon Bonaparte could not imagine the republic without slavery and targeted the Haitians for a new, more intense regime of slavery. The British agreed, as did the Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese.
All were linked in communion over the 500 000 Blacks in Haiti, the most populous and prosperous Caribbean colony.
As the jewel of the Caribbean, they all wanted to get their hands on it. With a massive slave base, the English, French and Dutch salivated over owning it - and the people.
The people won a ten-year war, the bloodiest in modern history, and declared their independence. Every other country in the Americas was based on slavery.
Haiti was freedom, and proceeded to place in its 1805 Independence Constitution that any person of African descent who arrived on its shores would be declared free, and a citizen of the republic.
For the first time since slavery had commenced, Blacks were the subjects of mass freedom and citizenship in a nation.
The French refused to recognise Haiti's independence and declared it an illegal pariah state. The Americans, whom the Haitians looked to in solidarity as their mentor in independence, refused to recognise them, and offered solidarity instead to the French. The British, who were negotiating with the French to obtain the ownership title to Haiti, also moved in solidarity, as did every other nation-state the Western world.
Haiti was isolated at birth - ostracised and denied access to world trade, finance, and institutional development. It was the most vicious example of national strangulation recorded in modern history.
The Cubans, at least, have had Russia, China, and Vietnam. The Haitians were alone from inception. The crumbling began.
Then came 1825; the moment of full truth. The republic is celebrating its 21st anniversary. There is national euphoria in the streets of Port-au-Prince.
The economy is bankrupt; the political leadership isolated. The cabinet took the decision that the state of affairs could not continue.
The country had to find a way to be inserted back into the world economy. The French government was invited to a summit.
Officials arrived and told the Haitian government that they were willing to recognise the country as a sovereign nation but it would have to pay compensation and reparation in exchange. The Haitians, with backs to the wall, agreed to pay the French.
The French government sent a team of accountants and actuaries into Haiti in order to place a value on all lands, all physical assets, the 500 000 citizens were who formerly enslaved, animals, and all other commercial properties and services.
The sums amounted to 150 million gold francs. Haiti was told to pay this reparation to France in return for national recognition.
The Haitian government agreed; payments began immediately. Members of the Cabinet were also valued because they had been enslaved people before independence.
Thus began the systematic destruction of the Republic of Haiti. The French government bled the nation and rendered it a failed state. It was a merciless exploitation that was designed and guaranteed to collapse the Haitian economy and society.
Haiti was forced to pay this sum until 1922 when the last instalment was made. During the long 19th century, the payment to France amounted to up to 70 per cent of the country's foreign exchange earnings.
Jamaica today pays up to 70 per cent in order to service its international and domestic debt. Haiti was crushed by this debt payment. It descended into financial and social chaos.
The republic did not stand a chance. France was enriched and it took pleasure from the fact that having been defeated by Haitians on the battlefield, it had won on the field of finance. In the years when the coffee crops failed, or the sugar yield was down, the Haitian government borrowed on the French money market at double the going interest rate in order to repay the French government.
When the Americans invaded the country in the early 20th century, one of the reasons offered was to assist the French in collecting its reparations.
The collapse of the Haitian nation resides at the feet of France and America, especially. These two nations betrayed, failed, and destroyed the dream that was Haiti; crushed to dust in an effort to destroy the flower of freedom and the seed of justice.
Haiti did not fail. It was destroyed by two of the most powerful nations on earth, both of which continue to have a primary interest in its current condition.
The sudden quake has come in the aftermath of summers of hate. In many ways the quake has been less destructive than the hate.
Human life was snuffed out by the quake, while the hate has been a long and inhumane suffocation - a crime against humanity.
During the 2001 UN Conference on Race in Durban, South Africa, strong representation was made to the French government to repay the 150 million francs.
The value of this amount was estimated by financial actuaries as US$21 billion. This sum of capital could rebuild Haiti and place it in a position to re-engage the modern world. It was illegally extracted from the Haitian people and should be repaid.
It is stolen wealth. In so doing, France could discharge its moral obligation to the Haitian people.
For a nation that prides itself in the celebration of modern diplomacy, France, in order to exist with the moral authority of this diplomacy in this post-modern world, should do the just and legal thing.
Such an act at the outset of this century would open the door for a sophisticated interface of past and present, and set the Haitian nation free at last.
I would like to think that Pat Robertson’s homicidal god is not one that many Christians would recognise. I would that these murderous TV extortionists would leave West Indian history severely alone.
What is the proper response of a Justice of the Peace in Anguilla who is asked to issue a search warrant? We all heard recently about a search warrant executed by the police. The warrant had been issued by a Justice of the Peace, or JP. The JP in question is no ordinary one. He is the Rt Rev Errol Brooks OBE Bishop of the Diocese of the Northeastern Caribbean and Aruba. The warrant had been sought by the police to search the offices of a young attorney. They said she had appeared in court representing a person charged with fraud. She is no ordinary young attorney. She is one with a spotless record. More to the point, she is a candidate in the upcoming general elections. These are all issues that cried out for the application in question to be treated with strict regard to the law governing the issuing of search warrants.
The issuing of a warrant to search someone’s home or office is not a task lightly to be executed. It is not a mere administrative task, to be routinely performed. The issuing of a search warrant is a quasi-judicial function, to be performed based on the evidence presented to the Magistrate or other judicial officer. Such a warrant includes power to enter the premises, by force, and breaking doors, if necessary, and to search the same for files, correspondence, computers, cellular telephones, flash drives, fixed and external hard drives, and to seize such items and bring them in due course before the Magistrate. Such an application in relation to any professional such as a certified accountant, a physician or a lawyer, becomes a particularly sensitive matter. The private and confidential affairs of possibly hundreds of innocent clients will be exposed to unauthorized eyes, and no one knows what use will be made of the information. Such a step is clearly open to abuse.
The real reason why the police are not permitted to search a home or office without a warrant is to interpose the protection of a judicial decision between the citizen and the police. All jurisdictions with the rule of law put constraints on the powers of police investigators. They may not invade a home or office unless they obtain a search warrant, save where the officer is in ‘hot pursuit’. It is a basic line of defence of the citizen against arbitrary search and seizure that such a warrant be first obtained. Otherwise, we should all be subject to home invasion by the armed wing of the State on the slightest suspicion.
As every first year law student learns, such a quasi-judicial function is to be performed only on the judicial officer being satisfied that the prescribed circumstances exist. Our liberty depends on the independent scrutiny of the judiciary to protect the citizen against the excesses which would inevitably flow from allowing an executive officer to decide for himself whether the conditions under which he is permitted to enter upon private property have been met. That is why an application for a search warrant must be accompanied by an affidavit setting out the evidence available and the grounds for the officer’s belief that further evidence is likely to be obtained as a result of the search. Only a trained lawyer, familiar with the laws of evidence and the intricacies of criminal procedure, is likely to be able properly to perform this serious function. No lay JP, even one as eminent as a Bishop, is qualified to issue such a warrant. Such a warrant would only be granted by a qualified Magistrate if he or she was first satisfied that there was adequate evidence and grounds for suspicion. This basic protection of the citizen must not be permitted to be trampled by the unnecessary use of a lay JP to avoid the investigator having to go before a qualified Magistrate and to satisfy him that the test has been met.
So, the question becomes, how is a non-legal Justice of the Peace in Anguilla properly supposed to react when a police officer comes to him or her, in the middle of a political campaign, just before general elections, when there are two qualified acting Magistrates who could easily have been approached, and the lay JP is requested to issue a search warrant to search a professional person’s office and/or home, especially when that person is a candidate for election to the House of Assembly?
In my submission, the only proper thing for him to respond is, “There are two qualified Magistrates in Anguilla at this time. You are asking me to do something that is going to have very serious consequences for the reputation and future career of a young professional. There will be serious implications for the political campaign of this candidate for election to the House of Assembly. You must be crazy if you think I am going to just sign and issue the Warrant without knowing what I am doing. Leave my office immediately!”
For the future guidance of all non-lawyer JPs in Anguilla, that would be the only proper reaction to such a request.
The United Front? I received a cartoon today in the mail that I thought I would share with you. It shows the members of the United Front in the best light that I know. Here it is:
I believe it is called "a nest of vipers". Do you recognise the snakes in the grass? Will they succeed in seducing the voters of Anguilla in the upcoming elections? Only time will tell.
What is an acceptable tourism industry for Anguilla? Those of us who read the blogs involving visitors’ experiences read some strange things from time to time. Sometimes, you have to wonder where we are going. I do not hold any brief for any visitors. Nor have I been hired by any department of government or tourist service. That gives me free reign to attack toute munde bagaille. I propose to do just that in relation to the following recent post on Trip Adviser. The writer is exuberant about Anguilla. She enjoyed the experience. Other than the taxi driver ripping her off, she seems to have enjoyed going through Immigration at Blowing Point on 20 December 2009. She records the reason for her pleasure in these words:
“Very nice young lady stamped us in, and this always makes us laugh – “Is this your first visit?” “No, we have been coming since 1981”. - “That was before I was born!” Nice little touch when she also slipped us a little slip of paper with a couple of restaurant recommendations, and a big smile when I told her had several bookings at Picante already”.
You might think the slip of paper with a couple of restaurant recommendations offered to a visitor was a nice little friendly touch on behalf of an Immigration Officer. However, to me it stinks to high heaven. To what extent should we permit our Immigration Officers to engage in the marketing of restaurants? They do not do it for nothing. They are paid to do so. This is private enterprise. The rules that govern the private enterprise of public servants are clear. They are found at General Orders. In particular, Rule 3.15 and .16:
“PRIVATE WORK
3.15 Prior permission to engage in private work must be sought from the Governor. Full details of private work or any other work which may create a conflict of interest for which permission is sought, together with particulars of the remuneration offered and of when the work is to be performed, must accompany the application. Failure to obtain prior approval will render officers liable to disciplinary proceedings.
3.16 For the purpose of this General Order, where public officers possess a direct or indirect interest in a commercial undertaking or are directly or indirectly involved in private work, there shall be deemed to be a conflict of interest if such interest or work clashes with or is incompatible with the official duties. Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, a conflict of interest includes interest or work which:
(i) impairs or is likely to impair officers’ efficiency;
(ii) brings or likely to bring the government, the public service or the officer into disrepute;
(iii) impinges or is likely to impinge on their official work or responsibility;
(iv) makes them unavailable for reasonable official duties outside normal working hours; and
(v) puts them or gives the appearance of putting them in a position where they are or would be able to use the official position for private gain.”
When I read this “trip report” all that ran through my mind was the question, “Did this Immigration Officer obtain permission before she promoted these two restaurants?” How much money was she paid? Or, was it a family member’s restaurant she was promoting, so she did not need payment in cash? Is this fair to all the other tourism outlets on Anguilla? What about the much better restaurants that she was not related to? Should the restaurants of Anguillla that do not pay Immigration Officers to promote them get shafted?
And, finally, what will Stanley do when he reads about this abortion of an Immigration Officer’s performance of her duties? Cute and desirable as she appears to be, will she be permitted to continue in her polluting of the tourism package of Anguilla?
Or, will she, as usual, be spoken to privately, and the whole matter swept under the already very dusty carpet of Anguillian public service corruption?
