Asha Javeed

Lead Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

The Caribbean can count on the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca to be at its side “as a neigh­bour, as a part­ner, as a friend”, says that coun­try’s Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken.

In a bid to strength­en its re­la­tion­ships with the re­gion, Blinken pledged the fol­low­ing:

The ap­point­ment of a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor—Michael Ben’Ary—to serve as the Unit­ed States’ very first co­or­di­na­tor for Caribbean Firearms Pros­e­cu­tions; $5.5 mil­lion to the re­gion to deal with food in­se­cu­ri­ty; a com­mit­ment to deal with Haiti; a com­mit­ment to ad­dress cli­mate change in the re­gion; and a com­mit­ment to look at de-risk­ing which the Caribbean faces by in­ter­na­tion­al banks.

In a state­ment to Cari­com lead­ers yes­ter­day at the 45th gen­er­al meet­ing, which al­so marked Cari­com’s 50th-an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions, Blinken af­firmed that the US had heard is­sues raised in the re­gion, through Con­gress’s Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee and the diplo­mat­ic posts through­out the re­gion.

“And I think what we’ve heard un­der­scored that to solve some of the biggest chal­lenges fac­ing our peo­ple, we sim­ply have to work to­geth­er—and work to­geth­er more ef­fec­tive­ly in gen­uine part­ner­ship. And I know that our Con­gress shares that view. That’s why this ex­tra­or­di­nary del­e­ga­tion of Con­gress is here at the same time, led by our leader, Ha­keem Jef­fries, to demon­strate Amer­i­ca’s sup­port for deep­en­ing our long-stand­ing ties across the re­gion. And that in­cludes strength­en­ing our co­op­er­a­tion at the re­gion­al and al­so at the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el,” he said.

“And the rea­son that I’m here and the rea­son that my col­leagues are here to­day on this very pow­er­ful oc­ca­sion is to tell you, to share with you that you can count on Amer­i­ca be­ing by your side–as a neigh­bour, as a part­ner, as a friend ... and to­geth­er as we work to gen­uine­ly build uni­ty and forge the fu­ture of our com­mu­ni­ty, this com­mu­ni­ty that we share, and do it to­geth­er.”

Guns in the re­gion

At the re­gion­al crime sym­po­sium held in April, re­gion­al lead­ers de­clared war on guns and called on the Unit­ed States to take ac­tion to stop the il­le­gal ex­por­ta­tion of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion in­to the Caribbean.

“We de­clare a war on guns to com­bat the il­le­gal trade which pro­vides the weapons that con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to crime and vi­o­lence in our re­gion caus­ing death, dis­abil­i­ties and com­pro­mis­ing the safe­ty of our cit­i­zens,” the com­mu­nique had stat­ed.

“We call on the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca to join the Caribbean in our war on guns and ur­gent­ly adopt and take ac­tion to stop the il­le­gal ex­por­ta­tion of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion in­to the Caribbean.”

Blinken said the US was work­ing to stem the ris­ing tide of vi­o­lent crime tak­ing a dev­as­tat­ing toll on com­mu­ni­ties across the re­gion.

He said the US sup­port­ed the cre­ation of Cari­com’s new Crime Gun In­tel­li­gence Unit, “which is im­prov­ing in­for­ma­tion shar­ing among our law en­force­ment agen­cies and strength­en­ing the ca­pac­i­ty of coun­tries to in­ves­ti­gate gun-re­lat­ed crimes”.

He said that last month the US cre­at­ed a new po­si­tion at the De­part­ment of Jus­tice to deep­en col­lab­o­ra­tion among us on gun pros­e­cu­tions. “To­day I’m pleased to an­nounce that Michael Ben’Ary—a very ex­pe­ri­enced DOJ pros­e­cu­tor—will serve as the Unit­ed States’ very first co­or­di­na­tor for Caribbean Firearms Pros­e­cu­tions.”

He not­ed that in Ju­ly 2020, Con­gress passed the Bi­par­ti­san Safer Com­mu­ni­ties Act.

“This in­clud­ed new fed­er­al pro­vi­sions that in­crease crim­i­nal penal­ties to up to 15 years in jail for traf­fick­ers, straw pur­chasers. This is a tool that’s vi­tal for hold­ing ac­count­able those who smug­gle US arms to the Caribbean,” Blinken said.

Mean­while, US Con­gress­man Ha­keem Jef­feries, the House Mi­nor­i­ty Leader, told re­gion­al lead­ers, “We must dis­rupt the gun traf­fick­ing and vi­o­lent crime plagu­ing the re­gion by stop­ping the ship­ments of arms and hold­ing gun traf­fick­ers ac­count­able to the full ex­tent of the law.”

Food in­se­cu­ri­ty

Blinken not­ed that food in­se­cu­ri­ty has in­ten­si­fied across the re­gion from a com­bi­na­tion of cli­mate change, COVID and the Ukraine/Rus­sia war.

He said that since Feb­ru­ary of 2022, the US has con­tributed an ad­di­tion­al $13.5 bil­lion to fight hunger around the world and the US re­mains the World Food Pro­gramme’s largest donor, pro­vid­ing more than 50 per cent of its bud­get.

“But at the same time, one of the things I’ve heard very clear­ly from talk­ing to so many of our part­ners is a de­sire to be able to grow suf­fi­cient food to pro­vide for your own peo­ple. We’re bring­ing to bear our ex­per­tise from across the en­tire gov­ern­ment to help achieve that goal–from the De­part­ment of Agri­cul­ture to the En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency to US­AID.

“To­day I’m pleased to an­nounce that we’ll ded­i­cate an ad­di­tion­al near­ly $5.5 mil­lion to help small farm­ers in the Caribbean boost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, in­crease ac­cess to tech­nol­o­gy and mar­kets, and adopt cli­mate smart prac­tices,” he said.

In re­sponse, Guyana’s pres­i­dent Mo­hammed Ir­faan Ali said that the com­mit­ment was good for the re­gion as they have been lob­by­ing for sup­port.

Ali is the lead head of Gov­ern­ment for agri­cul­ture in Cari­com and is in charge of food se­cu­ri­ty for the re­gion.

He told Guardian Me­dia that the re­gion has to move to­wards dis­burse­ment and en­sure that it does not be­come tied up in bu­reau­cra­cy.

Cli­mate is­sues

On the is­sue of cli­mate change, Blinken ac­knowl­edged that most of the com­mu­ni­ties be­ing hard­est hit have done the least to con­tribute to it. “We recog­nise that as the world’s sec­ond-biggest emit­ter, and the num­ber one emit­ter his­tor­i­cal­ly–cur­rent­ly the sec­ond biggest emit­ter–we have a unique re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, the Unit­ed States, to ad­dress this prob­lem,” he said.

He said the US was work­ing re­lent­less­ly to avoid a cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe and iden­ti­fied the re­turn of the US to the Paris Agree­ment as one of the very first things Pres­i­dent Joe Biden did when he took of­fice.

“He en­hanced our na­tion­al pledges, and he’s ded­i­cat­ing un­prece­dent­ed re­sources to meet the tar­gets through the In­fla­tion Re­duc­tion Act. This is by far, as I think you all know, the largest com­mit­ment to tack­ling the cli­mate cri­sis in his­to­ry by any coun­try any­where,” he said.

He said that all G7 coun­tries have adopt­ed plans that, if im­ple­ment­ed, will ac­tu­al­ly help keep glob­al warm­ing to 1.5 de­grees Cel­sius.

“We need oth­er ma­jor economies out­side of the G7 to do the same. Your part­ner­ship, your lead­er­ship in press­ing the biggest emit­ters to make the nec­es­sary com­mit­ments–and then hold­ing us to those com­mit­ments–is in­dis­pens­able. And we re­al­ly deeply val­ue the work that you’re do­ing on that score,” he said.

He said the US was look­ing to build greater re­silience and adap­ta­tion to cli­mate change while ac­cel­er­at­ing the re­gion’s tran­si­tion to clean en­er­gy.

In ad­di­tion, he said, the US was work­ing to strength­en dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness.

This would in­clude im­prov­ing ear­ly warn­ing sys­tems, de­vel­op­ing risk maps that pre­dict the ar­eas that are most like­ly to be hit by storms, and help­ing coun­tries de­vel­op new tools to adapt to emerg­ing chal­lenges.

They are re­spond­ing to our calls—PM Row­ley

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says that the re­gion has been press­ing the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment for com­mit­ments.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing state­ments made by US Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken, Dr Row­ley said that the US was re­spond­ing to calls by the re­gion.

“We’ve been press­ing for this roll­out. The sym­po­sium on crime as a pub­lic health is­sue has at­tract­ed their at­ten­tion, and they’re re­spond­ing to it, and that is very im­por­tant. Things are hap­pen­ing,” he said.

He cred­it­ed con­ver­sa­tions with de­ci­sion-mak­ers in Con­gress as help­ing to raise aware­ness on re­gion­al is­sues.

Row­ley not­ed that be­fore, the re­gion had lim­it­ed ac­cess but his Gov­ern­ment has been trav­el­ling to Wash­ing­ton to have con­ver­sa­tions with de­ci­sion-mak­ers.

“And we’re go­ing to keep go­ing. Last year, Pres­i­dent (Joe) Biden put in place the stand­ing com­mit­tees, and they’ve been work­ing quite well. A lot is com­ing to­geth­er,” he said.