Parents in southern Mexico say they are being threatened by a gang after their children’s nursery won 20m pesos ($950,000; £710,0000) in a lottery.
The nursery has just over two dozen pupils and their parents were put in charge of administering the prize.
Soon after their win was made public, they received threats from an armed group, which demanded that they use the money to buy weapons for the gang.
The families say they had to flee their village and have been living rough.
Gang violence is rife in Mexico and armed groups often try to recruit locals in their fight with rivals for control of territory.
A number of the 500-peso tickets in Mexico’s much-publicised “plane lottery” were bought by anonymous benefactors and donated to poor schools and nurseries across the country.
A list of the 100 winners was announced in September 2020 and published in Mexican newspapers.
The tiny nursery in the indigenous village of Ocosingo was among the winners.
While the windfall was cause for celebration at first, the problems started soon after news of it spread.
Members of the parents’ association say that they started receiving threats from an armed group called Los Petules which demanded that the prize money be used to buy guns for the gang, which reportedly planned to attack a rival group in a neighbouring village.
The parents refused and instead spent part of the money on a new roof for the nursery.
The threats increased this year when the parents decided to use the remaining 14m pesos for works to improve their village.
In March, one father was shot at by gang members who demanded he hand over the prize money.
Last month, the situation escalated further when the gang reportedly attacked women and children in the village, causing 28 families to flee.
One member of the parents’ association said the community had lost “cattle, our homes, refrigerators, our corn and bean harvests, our chickens”.
A spokesman for the families said that they had alerted the local authorities to their plight but that unless the gang was disarmed and dissolved, they would not be able to return to their homes.
A statue of Royal Navy Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson stands with its plinth vandalised a day after the government of the Caribbean island of Barbados said it wished to remove Britain’s Queen Elizabeth as its head of state and become a republic, in Bridgetown, Barbados September 16, 2020. REUTERS/Nigel R. Browne
LONDON, Nov 24 (Reuters) – Barbados, a former British colony, will next week ditch Queen Elizabeth as head of state, breaking its last remaining imperial bonds with Britain nearly 400 years since the first English ship arrived at the Caribbean island.
Barbados casts the removal of Elizabeth II, who is queen of Barbados and 15 other realms including the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Jamaica, as a sign of confidence and a way to finally break with the demons of its colonial history.
“This is the end of the story of colonial exploitation of the mind and body,” said Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, a Barbadian historian. He said this was a historic moment for Barbados, the Caribbean and all post-colonial societies.
“The people of this island have struggled, not only for freedom and justice, but to remove themselves from the tyranny of imperial and colonial authority,” said Beckles, vice-chancellor of The University of the West Indies.
The birth of the republic, 55 years to the day since Barbados declared independence, finally unclasps almost all the colonial bonds that have kept the tiny island in the Lesser Antilles tied to England since an English ship claimed it for King James I in 1625.
It may also be a harbinger of a broader attempt by other former colonies to cut ties to the British monarchy as it braces for the end of Elizabeth’s nearly 70-year-old reign and the future accession of Charles, who will attend the republican celebrations in Bridgetown.
Barbados’s move is the first time a realm has removed the queen as head of state in nearly 30 years: Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean, proclaimed itself a republic but remained in the Commonwealth, an association of mostly former British colonies which is home to 2.5 billion people.
Buckingham Palace says the issue is a matter for the people of Barbados.
SUGAR AND SLAVES
Originally populated by waves of Saladoid-Barrancoid and Kalinago migrants, Spanish slaver raids forced Amerindians to flee. Barbados was unpopulated when the English first arrived.
The English initially used white British indentured servants to toil on the plantations of tobacco, cotton, indigo and sugar, but Barbados in just a few decades would become England’s first truly profitable slave society.
Barbados received 600,000 enslaved Africans between 1627 and 1833, who were put to work in the sugar plantations, earning fortunes for the English owners.
“Barbados under English colonial rules became the laboratory for plantation societies in the Caribbean,” said Richard Drayton, a professor of imperial and global history at Kings College, London who lived in Barbados as a child.
“It becomes the laboratory for slave society, which is then exported to Jamaica and the Carolinas and Georgia after that.”
More than 10 million Africans were shackled into the Atlantic slave trade by European nations between the 15th and 19th centuries. Those who survived the often brutal voyage, ended up toiling on plantations.
While full freedom was finally granted in 1838, the plantation owners preserved considerable economic and political power might into the 20th Century. The island gained full independence in 1966.
REPUBLICAN SEEDS
Prince Charles, the 73-year-old heir to the British throne, will travel to Barbados for the ceremonies marking the removal of his 95-year-old mother as head of state.
Barbados will remain a republic within the Commonwealth, a grouping of 54 countries across Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe and the Pacific that has always been a priority for Elizabeth, who heads it.
Though its name will remain simply Barbados, its removal of the queen may well sow the seeds of republicanism further across the Caribbean, according to Drayton.
“This will have consequences particularly within the English-speaking Caribbean,” said Drayton, who pointed to talk of a republic in both Jamaica and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
“The queen has had an enormous personal relationship to many of these countries and has shown her own commitment to the Commonwealth vision which she inherited from that imperial moment of the 1940s and 1950s, so I do think that in the wake of the queen’s passing that some of these questions would become more urgent in places like Canada and Australia.”
The queen has made many visits to Barbados and, according to Buckingham Palace, has had “a unique relationship with this, the most easterly of the Caribbean islands”.
The republic of Barbados will be declared at a ceremony which begins late in the evening on Monday, Nov. 29 at the National Heroes Square in Bridgetown.
“The time has come to fully leave our colonial past behind,” Prime Minister Mia Mottley said in a 2020 speech prepared for Governor General Sandra Mason, who will replace Elizabeth as Barbados’ head of state after being elected president.
“This is the ultimate statement of confidence in who we are and what we are capable of achieving.”
Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Alex Richardson
NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS — Residents of the Flamboyant Nursing Home in Nevis were presented with a donation from the St. Kitts and Nevis Bar Association as part of the organisation’s annual Law Week activities.
In presenting the gift to Registered nurse Kella Didier, who at the time is in charge of the facility, and nursing assistant Cecilia Stanley; Ms. Anmarieta Staines, on behalf of the association, noted that the donation is not the first of its kind to the nursing home.
“Today we are here doing our presentation to the Flamboyant Nursing Home which is something we would have been doing for several years now and this is our little token. Because of the pandemic we were not able to fellowship with the residents of the Flamboyant Home so today we are doing our part in giving back to the community…
“We hope that they appreciate the little gesture from the St. Kitts and Nevis Bar Association. Some of the items that we have today: – standing fan, we have wipes, tumblers, toiletries and this is just a portion. We do intend to continue throughout the week but today is just the first day for our presentation,” she said.
Ms. Staines also used the opportunity to encourage members of the public to participate in the final activity which will herald the end of Law Week 2021.
“Law Week ends this Saturday, November 27, where in St. Kitts we will be going on a Hash at the Romney Manor and that starts at 3:30.
“In Nevis we will be going on a hike to the lighthouse. The cost is just $30 so we encourage persons to come and get fit with us in our ‘Fit to Practise’ activity in Law Week,” she said.
Meantime, in response to the gift nurse Didier thanked the association.
“On behalf of the residents and the staff of the Flamboyant Nursing Home, we would like to thank you for your donations over the years. We really do appreciate your kind gesture and we thank you for thinking about the residents,” she said.
Also present were Ms. Shemica Maloney and Ms. Janicia Hodge both members of the association.
A worker at the U.S. auto parts maker Lear Corporation receives a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine during a mass vaccination program for its employees in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico August 24, 2021. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez/File Photo
MEXICO CITY, Nov 23 (Reuters) – Mexico will analyze administering booster vaccine doses against COVID-19, especially for older people, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Tuesday, softening his previous stance on the need for a third shot.
Less than two months ago, Lopez Obrador had rejected suggestions that Mexico should administer a third vaccine shot, saying experts deemed it to be unnecessary.
But his government has gradually opened the door to giving more people shots, including teenagers.
“The booster vaccine will be analyzed in some cases, especially for older adults, but that still has to be decided by the doctors, the specialists,” he told a news conference.
Several countries, including the United States, are already administering booster shots given data showing that protection from the original inoculations wanes over time, and with rising breakthrough infections among the fully vaccinated driven by the easily transmitted Delta variant of the virus.
Nearly 76 million of Mexico’s 126 million inhabitants have had at least one vaccine dose, according to government data.
The Pan American Health Organization earlier this month recommended booster shots for people who received vaccines by China’s Sinovac Biotech (SVA.O) and Sinopharm (1099.HK), which have been used in Mexico.
Mexico has recorded 3,864,278 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 292,524 related deaths, according to government data.
Reporting by Raul Cortes; Writing by Cassandra Garrison; Editing by Bill Berkrot
The Biden administration on Tuesday asked a federal court to reinstate a workplace vaccine mandate that was put on hold earlier in November, as officials seek to boost vaccination numbers heading into the winter months.
In court papers filed overnight, the administration urged a Cincinnati-based federal appeals court to lift a court order blocking the public health rule, which requires larger businesses to have employees receive the COVID-19 vaccine or undergo regular testing and mask-wearing.
“Delaying this standard would endanger many thousands of people and would likely cost many lives per day,” government lawyers argued. “With the reopening of workplaces and the emergence of the highly transmissible Delta variant, the threat to workers is ongoing and overwhelming.”
The move comes amid an uptick of COVID-19 cases nationwide as the U.S. heads into its second holiday season during the pandemic, with many families that may have skipped gatherings last year now planning to gather this Thanksgiving.
The Tuesday filing is the most significant legal move the administration has made since the vaccine mandate case was moved earlier this month to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, where numerous legal challenges have been combined into a single lawsuit.
President Biden announced in September that the administration was rolling out a new rule that would require all private employers with 100 or more employees to mandate vaccines or weekly testing for all personnel, a guideline that has the potential to impact nearly 80 million workers.
The administration, through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), issued its six-month emergency vaccinate-or-test requirement in early November, sparking immediate legal challenges from states, employers and religious groups.
The extensive Tuesday court submission filed by OSHA, which came in a lengthy 55-page brief, underscored just how important this round of litigation is to the mandate’s long-term prospects, legal experts said.
“Because the emergency standard can only be in effect for six months, its fate rests mostly on the outcome of this stay motion,” said Sean M. Marotta, a partner at the law firm Hogan Lovells.
Although the workplace mandate for the private sector has been ensnared in court fights almost since its inception, a similar mandate for the federal workforce has been seen as largely successful. More than 90 percent of federal workers had received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine as of the Monday deadline, according to White House figures.
In an earlier stage of litigation over the private-sector mandate, the New Orleans-based U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit temporarily blocked, or stayed, the rule in an order that is now the subject of the government’s latest filing.
The 5th Circuit ruling called the mandate “fatally flawed” and ordered that OSHA not enforce the requirement “pending adequate judicial review” of a motion for a permanent injunction.
The case has since been moved to the 6th Circuit after a Washington, D.C., judicial panel selected the Cincinnati-based court from the nation’s 12 regional federal appeals courts and merged the litigation into one lawsuit.
OSHA said in a statement last week that while it is confident in its power to protect workers amid the pandemic, it is suspending activities related to the mandate, citing the pending legal challenge.
Biden administration officials have argued that the mandate is necessary to boost vaccination rates. To date, the pandemic has killed more than 770,000 people in the U.S.
Chief medical officers who oversee community hospitals in Michigan urged the public to do its part to stop the surge of coronavirus infections amid near-record hospitalizations and staff shortages in the state.
As of Nov. 21, the release stated, Michigan has seen 3,785 people hospitalized for COVID-19, including 784 in community hospitals’ intensive care units. The majority of those hospitalized are unvaccinated, the medical officers said.
“In addition to these high numbers of COVID-19 patients requiring emergency care and hospitalization, we are seeing high numbers of patients with other medical conditions requiring care,” the statement said.
Between the COVID-19 infections and other, non-coronavirus related ailments, officials warn, hospitals are at capacity.
“We cannot wait any longer for Michigan to correct course; we need your help now to end this surge and ensure our hospitals can care for everyone who needs it.”
A congressional subcommittee investigating financial fraud during the pandemic widened the scope of its investigation on Tuesday to include two of the leading processors of COVID-19-related financial assistance.
Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), who chairs the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, expanded the committee’s investigation into fraud in the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to include Blue Acorn PPP, LLC and Womply, Inc., two online startups that processed a third of all PPP loans this year.
“I am deeply troubled by reports alleging that financial technology (FinTech) lenders and their bank partners failed to adequately screen PPP loan applications for fraud,” Clyburn said in a letter to each company. “This failure may have led to millions of dollars worth of FinTech-facilitated PPP loans being made to fraudulent, non-existent, or otherwise ineligible businesses.”
Backstory: The Small Business Administration allowed non-bank and non-insured depository institution lenders, including FinTechs, to provide loans to eligible recipients. But, some FinTechs and their bank and non-bank partners may have insufficiently screened applicants for indicators of financial crime and fraud. At the same time, those same companies, including Blue Acorn and Womply, were each paid over a billion dollars in taxpayer funds to process these potentially fraudulent loans.
Clyburn’s expansion of the probe followed information from the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business that indicated possible widespread fraud from the companies.
Researchers at the school found fintechs are almost five times more likely than traditional banks to have made “highly suspicious” loans through the PPP.
NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS — The procurement of a new Wӓrtsilӓ generator being installed at the Nevis Electricity Company Limited (NEVLEC) Power Station at Prospect is expected to result in savings for the company and its customers.
Mr. Earl Springette, Generation Manager at NEVLEC, told the Department of Information on November 19, 2021, that the addition of a third Wӓrtsilӓ unit is part of a process which began in 2000, to provide a more reliable supply of electricity to residents of Nevis.
“There was a new extension built on to the plant in 2000 to accommodate three Wӓrtsilӓ units. In the year 2000 we got our first Wӓrtsilӓ unit and then we got the second one in the year 2017, and now we are in 2021, we have our third unit so that unit has completed that goal of adding three reliable units to the existing plant…
“With the addition of this unit, that amount of cost that we have for operating will be significantly reduced and I think that will also pass on to the customer as a reduction in their fuel bill. It’s quite significant for us, for the people of Nevis, and we are grateful that we could have that unit at this point and we hope that we could continue to supply reliable and available electricity to the people of Nevis,” he said.
Mr. Springette explained that the new Wӓrtsilӓ generator is a costly but significant venture for the company.
“The cost of the whole project which includes the generator and all its auxiliary systems is about US$6.3 million. It’s a 3.8 megawatt unit which is similar to the one that we obtained in 2017, except there might be some additional auxiliary system attached to it but mechanically and power wise it’s the same size of unit that we obtained in 2017…
“It’s now a significant milestone for us. The contract was signed in December 2020 with Wӓrtsilӓ and the Nevis Electricity Company Limited. Site mobilization started in April 2021 with the civil works for the auxiliary system like the fuel system, the flow by system, the cooling system, the combustion, air and exhaust system. After the arrival of the generator last Friday the 12th of November, the mechanical and electrical processes started to have the unit in operation or commission, I would say, by the second week of January in 2022,” he said.
The new generation unit is also expected to improve the environmental conditions for the workers at the power station.
“One of the areas that is sometimes overlooked is the environmental conditions that the workers undergo on a daily basis. So the completion of this new section will significantly change the conditions that the workers work under. It’s been very stressful for a number of years, and the condition will certainly do justice to their health and wellbeing,” he said.
Meantime, Mr. Jevon Eaton, Generation Superintendent, noted that NEVLEC is also in the process of upgrading its Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), simply described as the “brains of the engine.”
“I would like to let the public know that with this purchase of a new generator we’re also upgrading the communications and PLC system of the entire plant. So with this upgrade there will be a few short outages that are necessary in order to complete this upgrade but in due time we will announce these outages,” he said.
The scheme meant to compensate members of the Windrush generation wrongly classed as illegal immigrants has compounded the injustice, MPs say.
Four years after the scandal first emerged, the vast majority of people who applied for compensation have yet to receive a penny, a report by the Home Affairs Committee concluded.
The inquiry found “a litany of flaws” in the scheme’s design and operation.
“We continue to make improvements,” the Home Office responded in a statement.
The Home Office’s Windrush Compensation Scheme was launched in 2018 to “right the wrongs” of a scandal that had seen many thousands of British residents denied healthcare, housing or the right to work.
And some of those ended up being held detained or deported by immigration officials because the government wrongly classed them as illegal immigrants.
However, the experience of applying for compensation has now itself become a further trauma, the report found.
There are excessive burdens on claimants, inadequate staffing and long delays – and many of those affected “are still too fearful of the Home Office to apply,” the committee – a cross party group of MPs which examines government policy in areas including immigration and security – said in its report.
Four years on from the Windrush scandal, the committee concluded, vital lessons have still not been learned.
The scheme contains many of the same bureaucratic insensitivities that led to the Windrush scandal in the first place, the report said.
The Home Office took too long to engage at grassroots level to build trust in the scheme, it added.
Such delays mean that by September 2021, only one in five of an estimated 15,000 eligible claimants had applied to the scheme and only a quarter of these had received compensation.
The MPs highlighted the fact that 23 individuals died before receiving any compensation.
The politicians welcomed changes made to the scheme in December 2020 to speed up payments – but said these “were long overdue” and did not go far enough.
“It is truly shocking how few people have received any compensation for the hardship they endured at the hands of the Home Office,” said Yvette Cooper, who is chairwoman of the committee.
Campaigners took their case to Downing Street
“Urgent action is needed to get compensation to those who have been so badly wronged.
“It is staggering, given the failures of the Windrush scandal, that the Home Office has allowed some of the same problems to affect the Windrush Compensation Scheme too,” she added.
The report urges the Home Office to:
encourage more of the Windrush generation to apply for compensation
ensure everyone affected is granted some compensation quickly
increase the amount paid
guarantee legal assistance for all claimants
give greater support to grassroots campaigns
Responding to the report, a Home Office official said: “The home secretary and the department remain steadfast in our commitment to ensure that members of the Windrush generation receive every penny of compensation that they are entitled to.
“We continue to make improvements, such as simplifying the application process, hiring more caseworkers and removing the end date.”
Saddlers spill Guinness in Constituency #7 Domino League Best of the Rest eliminations
BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS, November 23, 2021 (MMS-SKN) — In hotly contested games at the elimination stage in the 26th edition of Constituency Number Seven Dr the Hon Timothy Harris Domino League on Monday November 22, two teams fell through the cracks and have lost the race for the top position in the Best of the Rest competition.
In the games that were played at the new Lodge-Ottley’s Community Centre, one of the two teams from Constituency Number Six taking part in the 14-team tournament, Saddlers Domino Club captained by Keith Eddy, return the best results by beating Guinness Domino Club 13-9.
The feat has given the team a bye in the next round of Best of the Rest competition playoffs which will continue tomorrow evening, Wednesday November 24.
In the second game of the evening, Unstoppable Domino Club captained by Samuel ‘Nokie’ Wilson lived up to its name by managing to stop Small Corner Bar Domino Club with a 13-11 beating.
According to the Constituency Number Seven Domino League’s PRO, Allington ‘Leggy’ Berridge, who is also the Captain of Phillips Domino Club, his team will play Unstoppable Domino Club tomorrow, November Wednesday 24. The winning team will meet Saddlers Domino Club, which received a bye, either on Thursday November 25 or on Monday November 29.
Constituency Number Seven Dr the Hon Timothy Harris Domino League, which is the longest running such league in the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis, is sponsored by Prime Minister and Area Parliamentary Representative for St. Christopher Seven (Bellevue to Ottley’s), Dr the Hon Timothy Harris.
Second round in a best-of-three games semi-finals of the 26th edition of the league will take place tonight, Tuesday November 23, starting at 7:00 p.m. at the same venue. Former champion team Unity Domino Club will come up against Sylvers Domino Club, and defending champion team Tabernacle Domino Club will face Mansion Domino Club.
Unity Domino Club and Mansion Domino Club will come to the tables with an added advantage having won their first best-of-three games encounters. If they win, they will sail into the finals, but should either Tabernacle Domino Club and/or Sylvers Domino Club win tonight, it will call for a third game tiebreaker that will come into play on Thursday, November 25.
Stopping an opponent: Loinston Fahie of Unstoppable Domino Club in action as his team stopped Small Corner Bar Domino Club with a 13-11 beating.
Turkey’s liranose-dived nearly 9% after President Tayyip Erdogan defended recent sharp rate cuts and vowed to win his “economic war of independence” despite widespread criticism and pleas to reverse course.
Italy’s antitrust authority fined U.S. tech giants Amazon.com and Apple a total of more than $225 million for alleged anti-competitive cooperation in the sale of Apple and Beats products.
Facing scarce year-end inventories and a shortage of workers, retailers are turning ‘Black Friday’ into a month-long event. Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, said it had already started discounts, such as $30 off AirPods and KidKraft dollhouses.
A view shows the site where a bus caught fire on a highway, near the village of Bosnek, Bulgaria, November 23, 2021. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov
WORLD
A bus carrying North Macedonian tourists crashed in flames on a highway in western Bulgaria before daybreak, killing at least 45 people, including 12 children. The cause of the accident was unclear but the bus appeared to have hit a highway barrier either before or after it caught fire, officials said.
Germany’s health minister called for further restrictions to contain a “dramatic” surge in coronavirus cases as the country’s infection rate hit a record high and the United States advised against travel there.
The Myanmar shadow government said it raised $6.3 million on the opening day of its inaugural bonds sale, its biggest move yet to generate funds for its “revolution” to topple the ruling military junta.
Former South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan, whose iron-fisted rule of the country following a 1979 military coup sparked massive protests, died at the age of 90. A former military commander, Chun presided over the 1980 Gwangju army massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators.
The man accused of deliberately driving his car into a Christmas parade near Milwaukee, killing five people and injuring dozens, was out on bail from a domestic abuse case and was suspected in another violent altercation earlier that day, officials said.
President Joe Biden intends to run for re-election in 2024, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters. Biden, 79, has suffered a dip in his job- approval ratings in recent months, leading some Democrats to wonder whether he might not seek another four-year term.
The House of Representatives committee probing the deadly January 6 riot at the Capitol has issued subpoenas to Alex Jones, founder of the right-wing website Infowars, and Roger Stone, an ally of former President Donald Trump.
Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo engaged in “multiple instances of sexual harassment,” used state resources for a book and was “not fully transparent” on the number of COVID-19 deaths at nursing homes, state lawmakers said, summarizing the results of an investigation.
Assistant Secretary of State Todd Robinson has the daunting task of helping Haitians restore their collapsed security — so they can restore their collapsed country.
Sixty-three Haitian migrants arrived in the Florida Keys last week in a ramshackle sailboat after three weeks at sea. More will likely be coming — because on top of Haiti’s other grave crises, violent street gangs have now overrun much of the country.
This month, veteran U.S. diplomat Todd Robinson visited Haiti’s capital. On his way back to Washington, in Miami, he told WLRN that he saw that Haitian reality for himself in Port-au-Prince.
“There are large areas of the city that are frankly under different levels of gang influence,” said Robinson. “I think it’s going to be a real challenge [for] the Haitian National Police to reverse that trend.”
Gangs have been amassing power for years as the Haitian government has all but disappeared amid the chaos that followed the catastrophic 2010 earthquake.
Today gangs control an estimated half of Port-au-Prince, hijacking fuel and kidnapping people for ransom at will. One of them, known as 400 Mawozo, is still holding 15 of the 17 U.S. and Canadian missionaries it abducted last month. Gang violence has forced thousands of Haitians from their homes this past year.
“Haiti is frankly in an unprecedented position,” Robinson said, pointing to the country’s economic implosion, a major earthquake on its southwest peninsula in August and the brutal, still unsolved assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July.
“We have to bring our ‘A’ game on this.”
Robinson — who recently became the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs — bears much of the daunting task of helping Haiti, and its national police, restore public security.
Over the past decade, the U.S. has sent more than $300 million to strengthen Haiti’s feeble law enforcement. On his trip this month, Robinson began delivering $15 million in new aid, including armored vehicles. But Haitian cops will need a lot more than that before they can, as Robinson put it, “take back their country.”
“Absolutely,” he said. “These are things we can achieve with the Haitian National Police, [but] it’s going to take a significant investment on the part of the United States and the international community.”
“We know political, economic, social elites are behind the scenes supporting these gangs. They should be on notice we’ll make it possible for the Haitian justice system to find out who they are,” Todd Robinson
How significant the Biden Administration hasn’t yet said. But the needs are urgent. For one, the U.N. reports gangs are now forcefully recruiting younger Haitians who, thanks to a dearth of economic opportunity, are especially vulnerable.
“Several of the young people we work with might tell you, ‘Oh, yeah, my [family’s] rent I have to pay,’” said Julio Warner Loiseau, who heads a youth assistance nonprofit in Port-au-Prince called Nouvelle Perspective.
“And if [my program] can’t find a job for them, the gangs can just give that money to them — and now they are in the gang!”
Haitian gang leader Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Cherizier in a Port-au-Prince slum last month.
Robinson says providing Haitian young people alternatives to gangs will be a key part of his mission — as it was for the U.S. when he was recently Ambassador to Guatemala, one of the countries in Central America where youths fleeing murderous gang recruitment migrate in droves to the U.S.
But Loiseau points out Robinson faces a serious dilemma — one security experts who know Haiti have warned about for years. That is, the gangs — including an alliance of criminal groups run by former Haitian cop Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, who is widely considered the most powerful person in Haiti right now — allegedly have ties to a lot of influential political and business leaders in Haiti.
“The system is so corrupt that a lot of the businessmen and the politicians need those gangs to protect their interests,” said Loiseau. “So a lot of the people Ambassador Robinson’s meeting in Haiti, they don’t want to fix the problem.”
That’s such an open secret in Haiti that Robinson just as openly acknowledged it in his conversation with WLRN.
“We know political, economic, social elites are behind the scenes supporting these gangs,” Robinson said.
“And they should be on notice that we’re going to make it possible for the Haitian justice system to find out who’s supporting them … and there will consequences.”
GUN RUNNING
But many Haitians believe working with Haiti’s current, weak justice system is a dead end.
When Robinson held a meeting with Haitian diaspora community leaders in Miami after his visit to Haiti, a key question they had was: Why doesn’t the U.S. itself identify and sanction, if not indict, corrupt elites in Haiti as aggressively as it has in Cuba, Venezuela or Nicaragua?
“The United States has at its disposal a lot of tools to stop the people who are driving this situation,” said diaspora leader Ariel Dominique, who was at the meeting.
“Whether it’s through the Justice Department, blocking visas, freezing assets, or to stop the flow of arms.”
There has indeed been a lot more smuggling of guns and bullets into Haiti recently — and that’s a big reason the gangs are thriving as monstrously as ever. Haitians like Loiseau insist ramped up arms interdiction has to be the U.S. and international priority right now.
Haitian National Police training in Port-au-Prince
Meanwhile, other Haitians — and some U.S. officials — fear it will take Washington far too long to help Haitian police restore order there. They suggest the only way Haiti can hold vital elections next year, or even the year after, is if U.S. and international troops provide voter protection.
Last month, Haitian Foreign Minister Claude Joseph told the U.N. the “new realities” of gang dominance may require it to return some of the international peacekeeping presence that had been in Haiti until recently.
But a lot of hemispheric security experts warn against putting boots on the ground.
“We have a horrible history with doing that,” said Brian Fonseca, who heads the Gordon Institute for Public Policy at Florida International University.
“Foreign intervention has undermined the evolution of the Haitian state. It’s held back true transition to democratic governance in Haiti.”
Robinson, the diplomat now heading the State Department’s mission to help Haiti rebuild its public security, shares that concern.
“We’ve tried interventions in the past,” he said, “and we are where we are.
“It’s up to the Haitians to take responsibility for their future.”
Even so, the U.S. is finding, once again, it can’t avoid its own responsibility to help Haiti reach that future.
POINTE-A-PITRE, Guadeloupe (Reuters) -French President Emmanuel Macron said violence in Guadeloupe over COVID-19 restrictions had created a “very explosive” situation, as a general strike entered a second week on Monday and many stores remained shuttered after nighttime looting.
Hours before Macron’s prime minister and lawmakers from the Caribbean archipelago were to hold crisis talks in Paris, there were signs of protests spreading to Martinique, another French overseas territory 190 km (120 miles) south of Guadeloupe.
Compulsory vaccination has touched a nerve in a population that is descended from slaves who worked on French sugar plantations and that during the 20th century was systematically exposed to toxic pesticides used in banana plantations.
“We are descendants of slaves, and for us, control over our bodies is really important,” said Pamela Obertan, 40, a political scientist in Guadeloupe who helped organize protests against vaccine requirements. “The government wants to impose a medical experiment. We are still medical experiments.”
Agriculture workers in Guadeloupe and Martinique were for decades exposed to a chemical pesticide called chlordecone. Macron has called it an “environmental scandal”, French media reported in 2018.
The toxic exposure has since then been linked to unusually high rates of prostate cancer on both islands.
Guadeloupe health workers had since July been protesting coronavirus vaccines mandates and writing letters to government officials without getting a response, said Obertan. By Nov. 15, some could no longer work because they had refused the vaccine.
Guadeloupe’s main city, Pointe-a-Pitre, was quiet on Monday, with burned out cars and debris still littering streets. Some shops remained shuttered, and schools closed due to the unrest.
Obertan said she and others had led peaceful protests, and did not support the acts of violence that had taken place.
France has deployed 200 extra police officers, including elite police commandos, to Guadeloupe to quell the unrest.
“We must explain, explain, explain and convince, convince, convince, because one must not play around with the peoples’ health,” Macron told reporters in northern France.
French Prime Minister Jean Castex on Monday described the situation in Guadeloupe as “worrying” and called for calm while also urging solidarity with the island’s people.
Local police have arrested several dozen people and food stores and pharmacies have been looted. French media reported on Sunday that rioters had broken into an arms depot in Pointe-a-Pitre and taken rifles.
“We just don’t know how far this will still go,” the mayor of Pointe-a-Pitre told France Info radio. He said there were “big worries” on the island now because rioters had guns.
In Martinique, roads around some of the main commercial and industrial zones were blocked by trucks at sunrise as unionised workers responded to a strike call, local media reported.
(Reporting by Ricardo Arduengo in Point-a-Pitre, Kate Chappell in Kingston, Tassilo Hummel and Richard Lough in Paris; Editing by Christian Lowe, Giles Elgood and Toby Chopra)
French police reinforcements monitor unrest over COVID restrictions in Guadeloupe
French police reinforcements monitor unrest over COVID restrictions in Guadeloupe
French police reinforcements monitor unrest over COVID restrictions in Guadeloupe
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