EDITORIAL
Out of touch with reality
Wednesday, June 2, 2004
The recent events in Grenada, notably the
personal threats reportedly made against Leroy Noel, a local journalist and a
frequent contributor to Caribbean Net News, by no less a person than
the Prime Minister of Grenada himself, and Noel’s subsequent detention by
police “for questioning,” further illustrate the totality to which some regional
governments are out of touch with reality when it comes to the media.
The event that triggered the current confrontation in Grenada between the
government and the local media was the publication by the Miami-based
Offshore Alert newsletter of a story concerning an alleged cash payment of
US$500,000 to Dr Keith Mitchell, the Prime Minister of Grenada, by one Eric
Resteiner, a one-time General Ambassador for Grenada.
Mr Resteiner, who obtained a Grenada passport under its now-defunct economic
citizenship program, has since been indicted on 33 counts of wire fraud, 9
counts of mail fraud, and 18 counts of money laundering in the US District
Court in Massachusetts. As we have come to
expect from Offshore Alert, its story is supported by comprehensive
documentation, copies of which are also made available online. Nevertheless,
even in the face of such compelling substantiation, the Grenada government
appears to have chosen to try to suppress republication of the story
domestically by intimidation of the local media.
What they fail to understand, however, is that the world has changed
dramatically in recent years, in that news and information that might have
been regarded as purely “local” and thus capable of suppression, is now global
and therefore available to anyone with access to the Internet.
The time-honoured methods of media suppression and intimidation, so beloved by
third-world governments everywhere, just do not work anymore, and the sooner
those in power wake up to this fact, the better.
Very often, as appears to be the case in Grenada, embarrassed politicians seek
to use the outdated principle of criminal libel as a convenient means of
silencing the media but, as one of Caribbean Net News’ correspondents
puts it, this needs to be replaced by a new law, one of criminal stupidity,
for overreaching politicians. Politicians and
government employees throughout the region would be wise to take note of the
storm brewing in Grenada, and of the futility of trying to suppress the media
in a democracy in this day and age.
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