Stage set for tense immigration debate at Caricom summit

Saturday, November 07, 2009 6:02 PM

News

BY RICKEY SINGH, Observer Caribbean correspondent

Thursday, July 02, 2009

THE stage seems set for a lively debate and, hopefully, mature Caribbean Community (Caricom) approach in seeking a practical resolution to the current public emotional sparring involving Barbados' "removal" of illegal nationals of the Community - the majority of whom happen to be Guyanese - under a new immigration policy.

To judge from a recent response from President Bharrat Jagdeo, host and chairman of the four-day 30th Summit of the 15-member Community, heads of government could begin the "debate" today in a special caucus that is also to approve a crowded agenda of critical matters, including finance, trade and economic development, and the approval of five new 'declarations' designed to deepen regional commitment. The summit could prove the occasion to bite the bullet on an increasingly controversial issue

Amid a virtual 'shouting match' from various capitals, but primarily involving Bridgetown, Georgetown and Kingstown, Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson has felt compelled to stress his government's "sovereign right" to shape and implement its own domestic immigration policy.

In the process, some conflicting statistics have emerged on the numbers of those "forcibly sent out" of Barbados or "deported". For example, to Prime Minister Thompson's statement at the weekend that four of the eight Caricom nationals "deported" last month were Guyanese, the foreign minister of Guyana, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, said that information so far received by her revealed that 53 Guyanese nationals were deported during that period.

Sharp responses to the treatment of Caricom nationals came first from Vincentian Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, subsequently President Jagdeo, and later from St Lucia's Prime Minister Stephen King and ex-Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Lester Bird.

They separately contended that it was not Barbados' right to determine its domestic immigration policy that was being questioned. Rather, in their zeal to implement a new policy to deal with illegal Caricom nationals, there have been numerous reported incidents in the local and regional media of gross abuses of fundamental rights of persons being arbitrarily "detained" and "removed" from Barbados.

Faced with pressures resulting from such reports, the Guyanese President said that he had first discussed the problems with Prime Minister Thompson. Later, he spoke out against claimed cases of "inhumane" and "degrading" treatment meted out to Guyanese before they were "forcibly removed" from Barbados, and requested his Foreign Minister to gather all relevant information..

For his part, Prime Minister Thompson, having announced a six-month amnesty that came into force on June 1 to allow illegal Caricom nationals to regularise their status or face expulsion, was to subsequently warn publicly his Caricom colleagues to "stay out" of Barbados' domestic immigration business.

However, in the face of more than three weeks of reported abuses by immigration and police authorities in their hunt to "detain and remove" undocumented Caricom nationals, there was still no categorical official condemnation of the alleged hostile and degrading treatment occurring within the first month of the declared amnesty.

Last Saturday Thompson, in responding at a press conference to his critics - some of whom have questioned violations of the letter and spirit of the announced amnesty programme -engaged himself in a head-count of "illegals" and instances of "deportation".

The prime minister provided statistics of "visits" for the period June 1-26 by the Immigration Department in contrast to claims by victims and critics to cases of "knocking on doors and night; forced entry into dwelling houses and humiliating arrests at public places, including bus stops before being rushed off to "detention" in preparation for "removal" from the country.

Thompson explained that those "visits" led to "the detention and removal of 47 non-nationals, 34 of whom were Guyanese who were in the country illegally".

The comments and disclosures at the prime minister's press conference have sparked some vigorous exchanges, including on the Internet, with questions regarding the forced removals.

Prime Minister Thompson, who was scheduled to leave for Guyana yesterday, said he felt "let down" by regional leaders' responses to his government's immigration policy.

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