An article published in last Monday’s edition of the Barbados Business Monday is reporting progress in the diplomatic exchanges between Guyana and Barbados over the vexed issue of the mistreatment of Guyanese traveling to Barbados by immigration officials at the Grantley Adams Airport. “There has been a marked decrease in complaints by Guyanese of mistreatment by Barbados immigration officials,” the article says though it urges President Donald Ramotar “to address this issue with his Barbadian counterpart to ensure that it does not resurface.”
Meanwhile the article says that Guyanese traveling to Barbados can take comfort from the recent appointment of Robert Morris, who is described as “a staunch regionalist as Barbados’ new High Commissioner to CARICOM. Morris has reportedly given the assurance that complaints about less than professional behaviour by the immigration authorities in Barbados will be fully investigated. Morris, a veteran trade unionist is quoted in the article as describing Guyanese as “extraordinarily hospitable people.” Barbadian immigration officials, the diplomat is quoted as saying, have specific operational guidelines breaches of which will result on investigations and appropriate action based on the merits of the complaints.
Claims of harsh treatment including humiliating searches and immediate deportation of some Guyanese seeking to enter Barbados have long been a source on controversy between the authorities in the two CARICOM countries.
In 2009 when the late Barbadian Prime Minister David Thompson arrived in Georgetown for a meeting of CARICOM Heads against the backdrop of fresh incidents of ill treatment and deportation of Guyanese, his encounter with the media was dominated with questions regarding what he described as efforts by the Barbadian authorities to regularize the status of undocumented persons living illegally in Barbados through the mechanism of a new immigration policy that allowed for the summary deportation of delinquents. While at one point the issue threatened to dominate the proceedings of the meeting of CARICOM Heads the issue was eventually discussed between Thompson and the then Guyanese President Bharrat Jagdeo.
While Thompson faced criticism for refusing to back away from its policy of regularizing undocumented CARICOM nationals residing in Barbados though he declared that his government was prepared to look at a possible guest worker programme where the labour market might justify such an approach.
A number of Guyanese currently live and work in Barbados in the construction and other sectors and travel between the two countries has increased the cases of guest workers significantly since last year’s arrival of the RedJet low fare service.
It was in the wake of the announcement of the “regularization” policy that reports resurfaced of harassment of Guyanese by the Barbadian authorities including the raiding of homes in which Guyanese were residing and their immediate deportation in cases where they were deemed to not to be properly documented.
