Dear Editor,
When the citizens of Antigua and Barbuda go to the polls on 6 November 2018 to vote in a referendum to determine whether they will permit their nation to remain under the judicial jurisdiction of the British Privy Council or whether they will embrace a judicial jurisdiction that is exclusively Antiguan/Barbudan and Caribbean, I hope that they make a choice that takes both Antigua and Barbuda and the Caribbean Community in the direction of fulfilling their historical journeys towards the goals of full national sovereignty and civilizational independence.
This is my fervent hope – and it is a hope based on an understanding of just how long and deeply rooted those journeys to national sovereignty and civilizational independence are, and how much blood, sweat, tears, struggle and hope have been invested in those journeys!
You see, if we are to fully appreciate the rootedness and sacredness of the Antiguan and Barbudan struggle for national sovereignty, we have to go way back to the middle of the 17th Century and to the heroic efforts of our enslaved African ancestors to escape the jurisdiction of the British slave plantations of Antigua and to establish free maroon-type communities in the primeval woods of the Shekerley range with its imposing Boggy Peak.
We would also need to recall that so determined were the British slave masters to reassert their plantocratic jurisdiction that most of those early Antiguan freedom fighters were brutally hunted down and executed! But, tellingly, this did not deter those heroic Antiguan ancestors from joining a growing tide of regional slave rebellions and developing even more advanced aspirations for the achievement of a free independent and sovereign black nation.
In fact, the year of destiny for Antigua was 1736! By that time, fellow enslaved Africans in such neighbouring British colonies as Barbados, St. Kitts and Jamaica had already demonstrated through slave plots, rebellions and maroon resistance that they intended to achieve black freedom and sovereignty. Furthermore, in the Danish colony of St. John – a mere 200 miles from Antigua – fellow enslaved Africans had risen up in 1733 and taken control of the entire island.
It was against this background that, in October of 1736, the British plantocracy of Antigua discovered – to their great consternation – that the leaders of the enslaved African people of Antigua had developed a master-plan to destroy the system of slavery; to take control of the island; and to establish an independent sovereign Asante-type kingdom. This, of course, was the famous King Court rebellion of 1736.
Tragically, the revolutionary plan was discovered by the British plantocratic authorities; the rebellion was crushed; and such heroes of Antigua and Barbuda as King Court (Tacky), Tomboy, Scipio, Hercules, Ned, Fortune and Secundi were brutally executed and made into national martyrs.
However, it is one thing to kill revolutionary leaders, but it is another thing altogether to kill revolutionary ideas of freedom, nationhood and sovereignty.
Needless to say, those aspirations towards freedom and nationhood remained very much alive among the black people of Antigua, Barbuda, Barbados, Jamaica, St. Kitts and all the other European colonies of the Caribbean, and, some two hundred years later – in the year 1945 – coalesced in the demands of Vere Bird and the other leaders of the Caribbean Labour Congress (CLC) for the transformation of the socially and racially oppressive West Indian colonies of the day into democratic, socially and economically just self-governing nations within the over-arching structure of a West Indian Federation.
Without a doubt, the most potent formulation of these historic demands took place at the founding conference of the CLC in Barbados between the 17th and 27th of September 1945. Antigua was represented not only by Vere Bird, but also by Harold T. Wilson and J. Oliver Davis. Also in attendance were such political giants as Richard Hart (Jamaica), George McIntosh (St. Vincent), Grantley Adams, Hugh Springer and Frank Walcott (Barbados), T. A. Marryshow (Grenada), Hurbert Crichlow and A. A. Thorne (Guyana), Albert Gomes (Trinidad and Tobago) and W. J. Lesperan (Suriname).
And when these historic demands were ultimately betrayed and subverted-- largely through the combined duplicity of the British Colonial Office and the folly of Alexander Bustamante -- culminating in the 1962 collapse of the West Indian Federation, it was the veteran leader, Vere Bird, who joined forces with the younger Errol Barrow of Barbados and Forbes Burnham of Guyana to retrieve the vision and re-engineer our people’s historic journey to full nationhood and sovereignty with the signing of the Caribbean Free Trade Association Agreement (CARIFTA) at Dickenson Bay, Antigua, on 15 December 1965.
CARIFTA was formally launched on 1 May 1968 – making this year of 2018 the 50th anniversary year of CARIFTA – and by 1973 had evolved into the more comprehensive and substantial Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
And it is CARICOM which – through functional co-operation – has supported and maintained such critical edifices of our national sovereignty and civilizational independence as the University of the West Indies and the Caribbean Development Bank, and that has established the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
Of the three visionary architect nations of CARIFTA, two have removed themselves from the judicial jurisdiction of the British Privy Council and have established the CCJ as their highest and final appellate court – Barbados and Guyana. But what of Antigua? How will Antigua decide?
Perhaps this 50th anniversary year of the effective launching of CARIFTA is symbolically and spititually the right time for the people of Antigua and Barbuda to – in this most tangible and meaningful of ways – reiterate their commitment to the completion of our people’s historic journey towards full national sovereignty and Caribbean civilizational independence.
I humbly ask the people of Antigua and Barbuda to reflect deeply on the sacrifices made by the King Courts and Tomboys of sacred memory, and on the outstanding lessons of self-respect and self-determination taught to us all by such outstanding Antiguan and Barbudan sons and daughters of our Caribbean Civilization as George Weston, Vere Bird, Tim Hector, Sir Vivian Richards, Jamaica Kincaid, Sir Andy Roberts, King Shortshirt, Paget Henry and so many others before casting their vote on the 6th of November.
David Comissiong
Dear Editor,
I got full confidence our parliamentarians and ministers should not attend joint Dutch and French St. Maarten/St. Martin Day 2018.
This Treaty of Concordia needs to be rewritten and if you see what I saw, the French people have more privilege on the Dutch side than the Dutch people have on the French side.
Both Dutch and French need to put a committee together for a new treaty for 2020.
Cuthbert Bannis
Dear Editor,
It should be a matter of concern to all Anguillians when persons feel that it is within their liberty and right to go beyond our borders, using foreign media outlets and airwaves to disseminate uncharacteristic and misleading information, uncorroborated, and unclear, pure distortion of the country’s complex issues. Persons uninformed and unaware, having no understanding of the issues they speak to; using the country’s status to settling political scores and personal grievances, simple because they are “free to speak.”
In a well-governed society, the people are free to speak where personal freedoms and rights are upheld “the voice of the people is the voice of the nation.” This stands true in the philosophy of politics when the power of the legitimate government is empowered by the consent of the people. Through this means, political power is exercised. The authority of government depends on that consent as expressed by votes in elections.
The people have no right to speak for the government, otherwise ungoverned. In Anguilla our people talk out their frustration in defiance of government, and lay blame directly on those in the seats of power, as in any balanced democracy where often public policy is the target for the ills we face, whereas such is often of our very own making.
Too often the public media access is misused to settle personal scores, under the guise of “the people’s interest”. You cannot assist the public if you are not well informed or unaware. You otherwise become a malicious arm of disorder and discontent. This is often the case where hosts of such programs use malicious content to dishonour and disrespect honourable people.
During the past week we listened to a very popular radio program on St. Martin, which host is very popular for what he does. He informed his listeners that his guest would be an Anguillian who has a lot to say about what’s going on Anguilla. At the nine o’clock the guest was introduced, the first disappointment was the tone of speech, Anguillians are quick to be identified by the way they speak, likewise most of the region. We knew this person was a Kittitian by his tone and speech.
Calls began circulating through the Anguillian community because this person is well known for incidents of this kind of disorder. Much of what was said was unclear, confusing, issues raised were not well spoken to, hiccups of lies and misinformation. The guest claimed to have been an executive of the ruling party, and by that he was able to speak of the issue first hand. In contact with the chairman and president of said party, who declared the gentleman never occupied an executive position in that party, but indeed was a foot soldier of one of the candidates.
On this program it was clear that the host listened carefully and interacted with his guest. Much of the rant was about honourable Chief Minister, Victor Banks, and other ministers of Government and details of government policy which he muddled so badly and was unable to be clear on anything he spoke about, leaving many of the listeners confused.
His tone was disrespectful and chaotic, with a vicious tone of discontent and malice. Many of the details he talked about were confusing and incomplete. It was clear that this person was using the airways for malicious intent, causing the program host to express dismay of what he was hearing and said, he must speak to Victor Banks on these matters.
He spoke of the banking crisis of 2008, offering nothing new, while he jungle-talked the government with wild insinuations, dishonouring and insulting those he cannot communicate with directly, or who just care less to listen to him. The banking crisis the country faced since
2008 is not a matter of simple minds understanding deposits and withdrawals; this was a national crisis that was carefully analysed and reviewed by the British government, with its worldwide analytic observers and expert resources, including the World Bank, the IMF and the ECCB providing the government of Anguilla with valuable reviews and analysis of how to bring correction to a crisis the country faced, to move into the future on a sound footing.
There are those who still believe that Chief Minister Victor Banks should have taken their advice. Advice cooked up as so often heard on radio, not understanding the veracity of the crisis. The government was given expert advice through the best resources the world had to offer consented with and by the British government. Governments solve problems by acquiring the best possible advice and acting on it, not by chatter.
We who are Anguillian know our frame of mind, each of us is an island unto our very own opinions and it matters not whether one is a magistrate or a governor; the fisherman or farmer without even a school certificate feel they have the right to instruct and correct everyone through their justified rhetoric. It does not matter which level of authority one speaks from or the position they hold. It does not matter the scope or degree of importance of complex issues of the country. Seemingly, they have the answers, while the elected and those tasked with such responsibility are subjected to the volume of nonsense disseminated.
Our people must speak against such disrespect and demand better. One must be worthy of the trust of the people to speak for the people or seek that status through the election process. Governments are instituted among men, by the consent of the governed. When governments are formed, these rights are secured by consent of the people; government lays its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form. It takes only the rights of the people to abolish or alter such powers as instituted.
Be “Free to Speak. Be governed accordingly!”
Elliot J. Harrigan
Dear Editor,
A national referendum on the issue of whether a Caribbean nation should disengage from the British Privy Council and accede to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as the nation’s highest appellate Court is more than just a vote about a court of law! Rather, it is a vote that presents the national population with an opportunity to assert their inherent human right to self-determination and personal dignity, and to make a major advance in their historical journey towards the interlinked goals of full national sovereignty and Caribbean civilizational independence.
It is with this understanding in mind that I therefore look forward with great anticipation to see how the people of Grenada – the citizens of my late father’s native land – will vote in the 6 November 2018 Referendum on the CCJ.
Grenada, for me, has always been an “island of heroes”! Aside from the fact that my late Grenadian father – Rev. Vivian Comissiong – is one of my own personal heroes, I am of the view that, for its size, Grenada has produced more heroic historical figures than perhaps any other nation in the world – heroes that have valiantly resisted European imposed enslavement and colonial domination as they sought to bring their people into a promised land of full autonomy and self-determination.
It is this struggle/journey that the Grenadian people should have at the back of their minds when they make their way to the various polling stations on 6 November.
Spare a thought for the original owners of the island of Grenada – the Carib or Kalinago people – who were so determined to resist the European colonisers and to maintain their autonomous nationhood that in 1651 (at Sauteurs in the north of the island) they chose death rather than to live in a state of European-imposed servitude and national dishonour.
Recall that as early as 1765 our enslaved African ancestors – faced with the onslaught of an influx of rapacious British slave plantation owners who had descended upon Grenada – revolted against the British plantocratic regime and tried their best to escape the jurisdiction of the British slave plantation by setting up their own maroon communities.
Reflect on the tremendous example of the so-called “free-coloured” revolutionary leader, Julien Fedon, and his lieutenants – Stanislaus Besson, Etienne Ventour and Joachin Phillip – who, in the 1790s fought the British colonisers to a standstill and almost succeeded in destroying the British colonial and slavery regime.
And then contemplate the fact that from the very beginning of the 20th century a succession of heroic Grenadians have been in the vanguard of the Caribbean struggle to extricate our region from the tentacles of British colonisation and to establish not only an independent Grenadian nation, but also an autonomous, integrated Caribbean Civilization.
This latter period of Grenadian nationalist struggle encompasses the turn-of-the century activism of the great black patriotic newspaper editor William Galway Donovan; the decades long Pan-Caribbean political, journalistic, and industrial activism and institution building of Theophilus A. Marryshow; Eric Gairy’s 1950s radical, grassroots mobilization of the Grenadian peasantry and working class against the British colonial authorities and the social elite of Grenada; and – of course – the mighty “Grenada Revolution” of 1979 to 1983 and the efforts of Maurice Bishop, Unison Whiteman, Jacqueline Creft and others to demonstrate that Grenada would never be content to remain in anybody’s colonialist backyard.
The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) that the Grenadian people will be voting for (or against) on 6 November 2018 is our very own Grenadian and Caribbean institution and is part of a
structure of freedom and nationhood that we Caribbean people started to build for ourselves way back during the early struggles of our indigenous and African ancestors.
The CCJ is the outgrowth of a centuries long process, but its more contemporary roots are to be found in our 1965 establishment of a Caribbean Free Trade Area (CARIFTA); our 1973 transformation of CARIFTA into the more developed Caribbean Community (CARICOM); our 1981 establishment of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS); and the goals that we set for ourselves in 1989 with our Grand Anse Declaration and its aspirations towards a Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME).
As we set about building for ourselves a regional nation or civilization it became clear that a natural and necessary component of that process must be that we take ownership of our entire national judicial system, inclusive of our highest national Court of Appeal.
And so, in 2001, Grenada joined together with nine other CARICOM nations – Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago – to sign the Agreement Establishing the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as both an “international court” vested with jurisdiction in respect of the interpretation and application of our Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, and as the highest “municipal or national” Court of Appeal for our CARICOM region.
Grenada also acted with great vision and a sense of responsibility by contributing its portion of the US $100 million trust fund that our CARICOM states established to finance our CCJ on a permanent and secure basis, and by playing a role in establishing our independent and well-structured Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission to oversee the running of our CCJ.
But in spite of the highly commendable role that Grenada played in constructing and investing in the CCJ, Grenada has – up to today – only ever utilized the CCJ in its original “international court” jurisdiction, but never in its “municipal or national” jurisdiction as Grenada’s highest Court of Appeal. That honour and critical function has – up to today – been reserved for the foreign-based British Privy Council!
The CCJ was inaugurated on 16 August 2005 in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, and has therefore been in operation for some 13½ years now. And during that extensive period of time it has served all of our CARICOM nations as our “international court” vested with jurisdiction in respect of the interpretation and application of our Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, and as the highest municipal or national Court of Appeal – but only for the nations of Barbados, Guyana, Belize and Dominica.
Needless to say, over the 13½ years of its existence our CCJ has performed excellently well in its role as a final Court of Appeal, and, along with the University of the West Indies, has proven to be an institution of our Caribbean Community of which we can be justly proud – an institution of our Caribbean Civilization that does justice to our fore-parents’ historic struggle for dignity, self respect, autonomy and nationhood.
Why then should Grenada or any other Caribbean country for that matter have any reservations about extricating itself from the inherently “colonialist” situation of having a foreign, European court that is located thousands of miles away from the Caribbean as its highest supposedly “national” Court of Appeal ?
If we reject the CCJ – one of our greatest indigenous Caribbean constructions – we are in danger of rejecting both ourselves and our ancestors and their heroic struggles.
David A. Comissiong
Dear Editor,
In today's world, many people are looking for clarity which god is the only true God. We have Buddha, Krishna and Mohammed, and I guess many more that I never heard about. But the only true God that Christians and Jews serve is the God of the Bible. The key is that none of the other gods have a son. And the Christians and Jews God has a son that is true and has existed from the beginning of time with his Father in heaven.
Notice that the world accepts all gods, in order not to offend any religion, but as soon as you speak about Jesus, all hell breaks loose. That is because the Bible is the only book with proven facts from the past and the present, and which facts will very soon come to pass.
There is no other book like the Bible, and no other religion has doctrines that have been proven as the bible. There is no other religion that a God has a son named Jesus who died for mankind to be saved. The name Jesus is offensive to many people, because it is the only fact and reality that counterfeit Christianity and false doctrines cannot copy and hate because it is undeniable and cannot be defeated or copied.
Which other god ever send a son physically into this world who was seen and who spoke to mankind, performed miracles, died and was raised from the dead. Only Jesus can do that. Buddha cannot do that, Krishna cannot do that, Mohammed cannot do that. The only God who has been, still is and will always be is the God that has a son named, Jesus.
Hebrews 11
1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
2 For by it the people of old received their commendation.
3 By faith, we understand that the universe was created by the word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
Hebrews 13.9: Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them. Romans 6.23: For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. This is proof that the only God that exists of the Bible son name Jesus established grace that we can be saved. No other God has a son that did that for mankind. John 14.6: Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. The conclusion is that the God of the Bible is the only true God. Continue to praise and obey the only true God, who has a son named Jesus.
The Patriot Miguel Arrindel
