The suspension of the constitutional arrangements – the ministerial system and the House of Assembly – of the Turks and Caicos Islands, promised by the British government earlier in March this year, is upon the islands, and is to last two years. The Governor of the territory has attempted to soften the blow by seeking to assure the population that the civil service, constituted in its majority by natives of the Turks and Caicos, will remain an important part of the administration of the country, implying that the people of T&C will still have an input into the running of their country. The situation is, however, no different from historical suspensions of colonial constitutions by the British. And of course there will be some in the territory itself who probably agree that locals cannot be trusted to block the openings to corruption identified by the report of the Commission of Inquiry established by the British government.
The British government has paid no heed to the pleas of the successor Turks government of Premier Galmo Williams, that a new political administration could and should be trusted to undertake the job of cleaning up and practising proper governance. Nor has it taken notice of the objections of Caricom which had advised in March that it did not “believe that good governance, the rule of law and representative democracy can be ensured or strengthened by the constitution suspension… and a return to direct rule by the colonial power through its governor.”
After all these years of colonial rule, the British government has not felt itself able to accept the view that the proper response to political mismanagement of its territories is the calling of an election and getting the judgement of the populace on who they think is best to rule. One wonders what would be the British response if after it lifts the suspension, former Premier Missick’s party, which had already responded to his alleged malpractices by replacing him as leader of the majority in the House and premier, is returned to power. Will they feel it necessary to impose the suspension again, or will they then accept the will of the people? There is no evidence that this formula of suspension, which British governments have been using since the 1950s, notably in Guyana but also in places like Cyprus, has had any identifiable positive effect on the nature of governance in its colonial territories. Indeed, it could be argued that the suspension of the constitutional process has given a certain legitimacy to governments and their opponents in the post-colonial states – governments which have proceeded to suspended bits, or the whole, of their constitutions in the guise of “emergency rule’; or by oppositions, either civil or military which have played the game of coup d’état, on grounds of misuse or abuse of power by those holding it.
Within the region, Caricom governments have tended to resist the notion that forceful intervention in the political process is necessary when proper governance seems not to be the order of the day. They have been inclined to a process of mediation, even though this might seem to have been painstaking, or in some instances quite unsuccessful. This was the Caricom attitude to the period of rule of President Burnham, in spite of many entreaties made by the then PPP opposition to Caricom governments, until the latter found an opening with the arrival of a more “willing to listen” administration of President Hoyte. Then a relatively quiet period of internal and external influence and intermediation brought a process of acceptable election-setting and a change of government.
Prior to this, of course, Caricom governments had had the experience of what to do with the increasingly intemperate government of Prime Minister Eric Gairy’s government in Grenada, especially after Gairy established diplomatic relations with the notorious Pinochet of Chile. The British had no hesitation in handing over power to Gairy in 1974, even though they had suspended his administration earlier, a suspension which had no influence on the willingness of the people of the country to vote for him, or, subsequently, on Gairy’s way of conducting the administration of the state.
It was on the overthrow of Gairy by coup d’état by the New Jewel Movement (NJM), that Caricom began to seek a way of persuading the coupists to find their way back to legitimate government through elections. A factor militating against any immediate forceful regional or external counter-action was, indeed, the fact that though a military coup had taken place, it seemed in some measure to be supported by sections of the middle and upper (business) classes who by then had become thoroughly fearful of Gairy. This gave the coup the aura of a legitimate “appeal to heaven,” to use the British liberal philosopher John Locke’s code words for forceful overthrow as a last resort. And the governments of the OECS and Caricom subsequently gave a certain legitimacy to the NJM’s People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG), by allowing their continued presence in those institutions
But on the other hand it could be said that it was a similar looming domestic and regional fear of the direction in which the PRG was proceeding as time went on, that prevented the success of any probable Caricom internal mediation, particularly after Maurice Bishop was overthrown, and the OECS quickly went the way of supporting an American military intervention.
The possibilities of coup or counter-coup, or military intervention do not exist in the case of the Turks and Caicos, or the small remaining British dependencies in the Caribbean. As experience in the Dutch West Indies has been showing, no matter what the Netherlands government does, financial profligacy and drug-induced criminal activities continue. The latter are being more and more acknowledged as regional, or even Caricom-Caribbean-Northern South American collaboration issues, than issues resolvable by a single metropolitan power’s removal of recalcitrant governments. And it should be well understood by now that the Caribbean Community has as deep an interest as metropolitan governments in drug induced criminal activity and the money-laundering and offshore financial services issues which the British and other governments have currently been expressing substantial concern about.
From these perspectives it seems to us that the Caribbean Community was quite right to insist in its statement of March 24 this year that they “do not believe that good governance, the rule of law and representative democracy can be ensured or strengthened by constitutional suspension in the TCI and a return to direct rule by the colonial power through its governor.” Suspension cures nothing, given the fact especially that those who would have to practise good governance in the future are completely excluded from the “tutelage” of the period of suspension. Instead experience tells us that it is more likely that during this period, they simply lick their wounds and harbour their grievances, real and imagined.
We believe that in this modern era, the British government should have consulted with Caricom governments on ways acceptable, not simply to the British and North Atlantic governments, but also to the citizens and governments of the region itself, small as we are. The Caricom statement suggested the way, in asserting that the publication of the final Report of the Commission of Inquiry provided “a window of opportunity for the Governing and Opposition parties to come together in the national interest as well as for deeper reflection by all involved in order to come up with a solution that… [would] minimize constitutional safeguards”; and that this could be done “even while providing some immediate safeguards against the abuses related in the Interim Report.”
There is an implication here, to our mind, of a coalition or government of national unity in which the parties, and therefore those whom they represent, would have maintained a capacity to involve themselves in the process of government, and to participate in, and therefore legitimate for the future, the corrective measures that are required to be put in place.
Something of this nature would seem to us to have been preeminently more reasonable than the traditional merry-go-round of suspension today, and again tomorrow and tomorrow. We hope that the UK government will not feel it in any way humbling to consult with the community in the future on this matter of the governance of the last remnants of British colonialism in our parts.
