St Vincent PM lashes out at Barbados immigration policy
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| Published on Saturday, May 16, 2009 |
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By Oscar Ramjeet
Caribbean Net News Special Correspondent
Email: oscar@caribbeannetnews.com
KINGSTOWN, St Vincent -- Five days after Caribbean Net News carried a commentary criticising Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson for announcing a new immigration policy and stating that no Caribbean leader had come forward to challenge the move, St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves came out with a blistering attack on his Barbadian counterpart.
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| St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves |
Gonsalves even went so far to say that he was considering withdrawing his country from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Single Market and Economy (CSME).
The Barbados Nation reported that Gonsalves, delivering a ministerial statement in Parliament on Thursday, said policies enacted like those in Barbados could cause the collapse of CARICOM.
He said that Thompson has announced a new policy whereby CARICOM nationals who are illegal immigrants are being given until December 1, 2009, to apply for immigrant status or face deportation after the end of the amnesty.
But in an emotional speech on Thursday, Gonsalves told the House that Vincentians, Guyanese, Grenadians, St Lucians and Jamaicans are facing discrimination from their Caribbean neighbours and that CARICOM member states are not living up to the spirit of the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.
"My office receives heart-rending stories of Vincentian nationals who have been subjected to unfair, unconscionable and discriminatory treatment by some immigration authorities within member states of CARICOM,” Gonsalves said.
"It is sad to note that in the 21st century, some responsible persons, including some political leaders, are stoking chauvinistic fires that are latent in our Caribbean societies. This has led here and there to an outpouring of a malignant xenophobia particularly against Guyanese, Jamaicans, Vincentians, St Lucians and Grenadians," he said.
The St Vincent prime minister, who is known as a radical, outspoken leader, also drew an example of discrimination whereby a Vincentian woman, who is married to a Barbadian, was denied a student visa for her five-year-old niece who was attending school in Barbados and her 18 year-old-niece who was writing exams last September.
Gonsalves said both had to leave Barbados within a seven day period on instructions of the Immigration Department.
In response to Gonsalves comments, the Barbados prime minister told the Daily Nation that it has "never been and will not now be" his practice to shout across the Caribbean Sea as a means of speaking to or with fellow Caribbean leaders.
Thompson told the Daily Nation that the matter might be better dealt with at a meeting of leaders of the OECS next week to which he had been invited.
But, according to Gonsalves, it was historically tempting for him (Thompson) to bash immigrants at times of domestic economic difficulties. "But to do so against one's CARICOM brothers and sisters is surely unacceptable,” he said.
"My government is being patient with CARICOM and we will never lightly abandon the CSME. But the discriminatory antics against our nationals by some immigration authorities must stop," the Vincentian PM said, adding that his government had gone way beyond the treaty and had accommodated CARICOM nationals who were not yet entitled to the right of employment. | | | | Reads : 2294 | | | |
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