Dear Editor,
The 46th Regular Meeting of the CARICOM Heads of Government opened on Sunday in Georgetown, Guyana; surprisingly, the Parliamentary Opposition was invited and so I attended, I am glad I did.
I had the opportunity to hear first-hand, the address by President Irfaan Ali who waxed lyrical about the importance of the people of Haiti, stating, “Anything that impedes the interests of the people of Haiti is of immense concern for the leadership of this region. We are committed as a region to ensuring that the people of Haiti can also realize their full potential… we owe this to the people of Haiti”.
What hypocrisy!
My incredulity did not however preclude me from recalling the treatment of our Haitian brothers and sisters at the hands of Irfaan Ali and his Administration.
All Guyanese remember that on June 22nd, 2021, President Ali, by way of executive fiat, revoked the Immigration Order passed in 2019 by then President David Granger and re-imposed a visa requirement on Haitian Nationals.
President Granger acting in accordance with the decision of the Heads of Govern-ment taken at the 39th CARICOM Heads of Government Meeting in Montego Bay, Jamaica, in July 2018, which “recognized that Haitian nationals are entitled to an automatic stay of six months upon arrival in CARICOM member states subject to the rights of CARICOM member states to refuse entry to undesirable persons and to prevent persons from becoming a charge on public funds” , in January 2019, had signed an Executive Order allowing Haitian nationals to travel to Guyana without requiring a visa and allowing an automatic six months stay upon arrival in Guyana.
In trying to justify what was a glaringly retrogressive step for regional integration, President Ali, through his Attorney General Anil Nandlall and his Minister of Home Affairs, Robeson Benn framed the issue as one of preventing human trafficking and smuggling.
But Guyanese will recall that prior to the order issued by President Ali, 26 Haitian nationals, after being held in State custody in grossly inhumane conditions, were unceremoniously dumped on the streets of Georgetown in the wee hours of the night on December 9th, 2020. Guyanese also remember that on the 27th January 2021 the Chief Justice of Guyana quashed the deportation order secured by the government against those same 26 Haitian nationals. The court found that the Ali government breached the rules of natural justice, as well as constitutional protections enshrined in Article 139, which provides protection of the right to personal liberty, and Article 148, which provides protection of freedom of movement.
But it is perhaps the juxtaposition of the treatment of Haitian nationals against the accommodation of Venezuelan (non-CARICOM) nationals that provides the best evidence of the rank hypocrisy of Ali and his government.
It is strange, to say the least, that the Ali administration can readily provide statistical data on Haitian migration patterns but is hard-pressed and delinquent in providing credible information regarding the more than 60,000 Venezuelan migrants who are currently residing here in Guyana, and the thousands more who use Guyana as a jump-off point for onward migration. They are unable to provide credible statistics on Venezuelan gangs who now operate within our interior regions and who have apparently made their way to the urban centres, a fear which was confirmed by the Minister of Home Affairs in his end-of-year briefing for 2023, in which he reported that Venezuelan men were the fastest-growing segment of the Guyana prison population.
There is little doubt that these migrants are a charge on the public funds as the government has been most vociferous on the need to be hospitable and accommodating to our Venezuelan brothers and sisters who are fleeing a profound economic and political crisis in their homeland, and I agree.
However, the Ali Administration must explain how this is different from what our Haitian brothers and sisters are currently facing and fleeing and explain why his Government has singled Haitians out for such unfavourable, retrogressive treatment.
Former Foreign Affairs Minister of Guyana, Carl Greenidge drew attention to the fact that Guyana has been cited before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for the arbitrary stripping of Haitians of their right to hassle-free travel and an automatic six-month stay in keeping with our obligations under the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas (Stabroek News March 22, 2022). He reminded that apart from the embarrassment of being cited before the IACHR, there are other implications for Guyana, particularly in the context of its fidelity to its treaty obligations. He notes too, and I concur, that there are far more Venezuelans and Brazilians visible on the streets of the capital city of Georgetown and that most are being trafficked or are employed without ever acquiring work permits. I would add that there is not a village or town in Guyana without the notable presence of Venezuelan migrants. The threat to our national security posed by this unchecked migration is beyond dispute.
The Communique issued at the conclusion of the Forty-Fifth Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community, 3-5 July 2023, sets out that “the Conference agreed to work towards the free movement of all CARICOM Nationals within the Community by 31 March 2024. The acknowledged that there are certain basic guarantees that should be afforded to all CARICOM nationals exercising their right to freely move and remain indefinitely in another Member State of the Community. In this regard, they agreed that any appropriate amendments to the Revised Treaty to Provide for the attendant rights of CARICOM nationals exercising their right to free movement within the community and accommodate the concerns of all Member States would be completed in the intervening period”.
Caribbean regional integration had as one of its chief architects and visionaries Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham. His admonition, that “either we integrate or perish,” remains as relevant today as it was in 1967 when he warned that “Either we weld ourselves into a regional grouping, serving primarily Caribbean needs, or lacking a common positive policy, have our various territories and nations drawn hither and thither into, and by, other large groupings, where the peculiar problems of the Caribbean are lost or where we become the objects of neo-colonist exploitation and achieve the pitiable status of international mendicants.” As we commemorate his 101st birth Anniversary all this month of February, it only fitting that we recall his contribution to the regional integration movement.
There is no doubt that there has been important progress in the movement towards regional integration, but we all agree that there is significant work still to be done. The free movement of Haitians within CARICOM continues to be a challenge. Despite being a full member of CARICOM since 2002 and a signatory to the CSME since 2006, Haitians still do not qualify for free movement within CARICOM.
It remains to be seen whether there will be any positive progress in this direction coming out of the meeting currently underway here in Georgetown, or whether our refrain will continue to be “Haiti, we are sorry”.
As for President Ali, the admonition “ dance a yard, before you dance abroad” remains appropriate.
Yours faithfully,
Amanza Walton Desir
