Dear Editor,

  The headline is not misleading. For far too long, developing countries in particular have mulled over and teased the idea of campaign finance reform to their respective electorates. It’s a problem when unknown magnates pump money into an election campaign, and then reap tenfold when their parties get into power. Governments want to assure their publics that the money they collect is blood- and drug-free and that their campaign machinery isn’t washing cash for warlords and drug dealers.

  On the other hand, honest and decent people are simply not able to generate the countless millions of dollars required for campaigning. But those who sow the seed of cash must reap the benefits. These unknown persons hide in the shadows and constantly pull and twizzle the strings of the elected leaders, forcing them to dance to their tune of choice.

  After listening to the revelations of Labour’s political leader Dr. Denzil Douglas, I – and thousands of my countrymen, surely – was shocked by the ease at which our little country was being fitted into the Barbadian puppeteer’s gloves.

  Bottom line upfront:

  - Anthony Da Silva is the chief financier of Timothy Harris’ 2020 campaign.

  - The rationale for pumping so much money into this campaign is personal enrichment for Tim Harris and the Bajan businessman.

  - Team Unity administration is selling out to a privately-owned Barbadian company. Fact or fiction?

  - The economic consequences of St. Kitts and Nevis being indebted to a private company are many.

  The Barbadian financier, Anthony Da Silva, is a bit of an enigma. His father Frank is much more well-known, and was a strong supporter and financier of the Barbados Democratic Labour Party for many years. His investment paid off with an ambassadorial appointment.

  Innotech was founded in 1999 and its Board consists of Chairman Anthony and a number of the Da Silva clan. Da Silva has had run-ins with the Government of Barbados over a rural water project, where it is alleged that he modified the tender and supplied bigger water tanks for which he billed the government beyond its budget. The impasse lasted for months.

  Da Silva was also said to have been the only bidder for the construction of the Barbados Water Authority headquarters. A number of unverified reports claim that the project was being funded by a private entity from the Turks and Caicos; but that the representative for this company had the same registered address as Innotech.

  When Timothy Harris threw his tantrum and walked away from Labour, Da Silva rushed to his side with the offer to fund his fledgling People’s Labour Party. Players like Sam Condor and Dwyer Astaphan may have been able to woo voters, but they were not as successful in attracting the Labour Party’s financiers. It created a perfect storm of both confusion and necessity for Da Silva. As he pumped cash into the toddling PLP, Team Unity insiders say that the plan was to keep one major financier, so that should the party gain governance, there would be no need for a complicated kickback mechanism to reward too many players. Less than two years later, the Team Unity government announced that Innotech Services was a key contractor in the controversial, scandal-ridden new Basseterre High School Project.

  Harris also knows that he ascended to the throne by a freak accident. All the conditions were right. And like the dog who gets a bone, he did not know what to do with his new prize. Enter Da Silva – a cunningly shrewd businessman. Harris quickly announced a slew of infrastructural work in all sectors; renovating public buildings, roadworks, drainage, housing and the new high school. Harris had no clue how to repay – and pay – Da Silva for his kindness, and so used unorthodox tendering and procurement procedures in order to bring Da Silva to the front of the line. But Da Silva threw his very small hat in a rather large ring, for despite being touted as a regional construction company, there had been much furore in his homeland over what was said to be very poor engineering work on the Ocean Reef project. When approached for a comment on the issue, Da Silva dryly told a local reporter that he wasn’t going to comment on a private issue between himself and his client.

  There is no reason to doubt the veracity of the recording that Labour has aired. Investigation of two anti-Labour Facebook pages (Team Unity USA and The People’s Federation) show they were registered on the same date, and that one is administered in Barbados, while the other is managed from Florida. Coincidence? I think not. In fact, the only doubts that surface pertain to the judgement of the Prime Minister in managing the economy. It’s true that he said the Federation is in good financial standing, but we are yet to see the actual balance sheets. After all, people can say what they want. Also, simply repaying debt means little, if it is at the cost of education, healthcare and livelihoods.

  But more worrisome and precarious for St. Kitts and Nevis is the contractual arrangement Timothy Harris entered into with a private company from Barbados. It means that the hard-working people of St. Kitts and Nevis have become beholden to Harris’ campaign financier from Barbados. Massa day is back. And a Black leader is selling out his people and country to a White man.

  We know that the Federation is saturated with skilled workers and more than its fair share of engineers. Why weren’t they given a share in Tim’s national pie? How is it that in five years Tim was unable to secure mutually beneficial government-to-government arrangements to assist with these massive projects? Is it because private companies are better back-office chefs? How much cream has been skimmed off the top? The price tag for the new Basseterre High School, for example, has gone from an initial estimate of $60 million to $140 million. Who is going to end up with the difference? Tim and the Harris family? Da Silva? Or some other foreign vampire who we are yet to uncover?

  Team Unity came to power in 2015 and inherited a strong economy and a surplus of EC $900 million left by the Douglas government. That is a huge sum for a small country by any measure. It spoke volumes of the prudent financial management of the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party government. But in less than five years, Timothy Harris single-handedly squandered and frittered away this reserve. Today, SKN is in a precarious economic state. And Tim, the bean-counting accountant and friend of the Bajan Businessman, along with his family have benefited. Have you? Another five years of this choke-and-rob gang would mean the economic and financial demise of our country.

Joel B. Liburd

Communications Consultant

Basseterre/Quebec

Dear Editor,

  Past weekend the inmates were placed on total lockdown.

  On Monday, it was a hassle to gain access to my clients as the director of the prison does not seem to have the prison under control and was/is not reacting to emails from attorneys requesting to see their clients. After being able to talk to the inmates association I was informed about the total lockdown.

  On Friday, May 29, the complete prison was placed on a lockdown.

  On Saturday, May 30, the inmates received their breakfast, lunch and dinner all together at 1:00pm. Bear in mind that the inmates do not have a microwave to warm their food.

  Based on article 30 of the internal regulations (huishoudelijk reglement ) of the prison the inmates are entitled to enjoy space in the open air for at least one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon.

  This has not taken place on Saturday, nor Sunday. And at this moment it’s still not happening according to the law.

  It seems like the director of the prison/Ministry of Justice or the Government want to end the current strike by putting unauthorized pressure on the prisoners. This pressure is expressed in the following: All prisoners are locked up 24 hours a day; all detainees have been deprived of the right to visits; meals are made available very late.

  The decision to lock all detainees 24 hours a day and to withhold their right to air, visits violates the right to respect for family life, family life and correspondence, as well as the right to freedom of assembly and association.

  There is therefore not only a violation of the ECHR, but also a violation of the National Ordinance Principles Prison Service, the prison measure and the internal regulations of correctional institutions.

  After all, on the basis of Article 36 of the National Ordinance Principles of Prisons, only imprisonment or withholding of visitors for committing acts that are incompatible with good order and discipline and after the individual offender has been heard by him, the director.

  The laws are being ignored and no explanation is given. The ones in charge of the prison have been contacted for answers, but nobody could inform me what was going on. The ministry is referring us to the director and the director is ignoring our emails. Several times we have tried to seek contact with the director via email or by telephone but no reaction up to this date. Even with the inmates association he will not have a sit-down.

  The inmates are executing their striking rights in a peaceful matter. They cannot be punished for that. On behalf of the inmates we are requesting answers.

  Is or was an orderly measure applicable and if so, on what legal basis?

  Why has access to the lawyers to prison not yet been honored and when will it be allowed again?

  When are prisoners allowed to receive regular visits (family, friends) again?

  The inmates have the rights to know this.

  We are requesting answers. Who is going to answer? Government? Parliament?

  There are rules and regulations that need to be followed.

On behalf of the inmates,

Sjamira Roseburg

Attorney at Law

Dear Friends on Curaçao, Aruba, St. Maarten, Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba,

  “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that” – M.L. King. These are troubling times for America and the world. Reports on the protests on American streets are confusing and painful. So, we need to be clear: Americans support peoples’ freedom to peacefully express themselves.

  Protests represent genuine and legitimate concerns about improving the country. But violence is not the solution to injustice.

  Freedom of speech and the right to peaceful assembly are fundamental rights of all people, and those of us fortunate to live in democratic societies need to respect and protect those rights if we are to keep them. But upholding our rights and the cause of justice needs to be done in a way that attacks the evil of injustice itself, and not one another.

  Terrence Floyd, the brother of the late George Floyd, is calling on people to protest without violence. “We’ve been down this road already,” he said. “(George) would want to seek justice the way we are, the way we’re trying to do. The anger, damaging your hometown, it’s not the way he’d want.”

  It’s inspiring to see the rise of the “Walk with Us” movement, where police join peaceful protesters condemning racism, police brutality and calling for an end to violence on all sides. We can learn from these expressions of unity and solidarity with the cause of justice.

  In the 1960s, violent protest rocked many places in the world. Curaçao has just commemorated its 1969 “30 di mei” events with ceremonies emphasising the need for inclusiveness in a multi-ethnic society. We Americans can learn from these lessons – Please share them with us.

  In the United States in the 1960s, riots and looting were widespread in cities across the country. In a context of overt racism and brutality, Dr. Martin Luther King, the champion of social justice and Nobel Peace Prize winner, wrote a book called Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community. In that book, he captured America’s conscience, setting forth a prescription for attaining the lasting justice he so fervently sought.

  Dr. King wrote: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. The beauty of nonviolence is that in its own way and in its own time it seeks to break the chain reaction of evil.”

  As we strive to form a more perfect union, these are words we all need to reflect upon.

U.S. Consul General

Allen Greenberg

By Alex Rosaria

Like many, I’m still taking in the images of the tragic death of George Floyd, an unarmed black U.S. man, in the custody of the police who knelt on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes. As a man of color, this enrages me.

  But this is bigger than the color of my skin. We all have the right to be treated equally, regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, class, religion, belief, gender, language, sexual orientation or other status. Yet all too often we hear heart-breaking stories of people who suffer cruelty simply for belonging to a “different” group, and we do nothing about it.

  Last year Christian religious leaders came together in Willemstad to denigrate LGBTQ people because they want the same rights as heterosexual couples. We pretty much stayed quiet and continued to go to their houses of worship. Daily we silently see and hear fellow citizens discriminate against people (especially women) from the Dominican Republic, Colombia and Venezuela. We get enraged when another race discriminates against us, yet discrimination among people of color based on the shade of blackness – the light-skin preference – is common practice in our community.

  Racism and discrimination against people who belong to a different group is not a “uniquely” U.S. phenomenon. Discrimination against homosexuals is ingrained in Russia and no matter how much Europe tries to hide it, the way it treats the Roma people (gypsies) is inhuman. Neither is it a matter of black and white or white and non-white. Just consider the Rohingya (Myanmar), the Tutsis (Rwanda), the black albinos (Sub-Saharan Africa), the Burakumin (Japan) or the Hmong (Laos).

  What to do? Certainly not keeping quiet or just airing our disgust on Facebook. We need to realize that we are not innocent bystanders. We should call out racism and discrimination not only when our group is the victim, but whenever someone is not given equal treatment or opportunity based on race, ethnicity, nationality, class, religion, belief, gender, language, sexual orientation or other status. If we don’t stop this evil we are guilty, we are accomplices.

  ~ Alex David Rosaria (53) is a freelance consultant active in Asia and the Pacific. He is a former Member of Parliament, Minister of Economic Affairs, State Secretary of Finance and UN Implementation Officer in Africa and Central America. He is from Curaçao and has an MBA from University of Iowa (USA). ~