Jun 30
Professor Reddock’s presentation to the 2010 Conference of the Caribbean Studies Association outlines the current neoliberal context of Caribbean political economy; the many-sided problematic of 21st century violence in the Caribbean; the pitfalls of the militarist response; the interrelationship between gender, violence and militarism; and concludes with challenges for Civil Society. It has far-reaching significance to the curent preoccupation with criminal violence, drug and arms trafficking in the region and the range of possible responses by society and state.
Jun 28
Keynote address at States of Freedom: Freedom of States Symposium, held at UWI, Mona, June 16-18, 2010. Rupert Lewis is Professor in Poltical Thought in the Department of Government, UWI
There has been an unprecedented national discussion in and out of parliament, in the Jamaica diaspora, in the Caribbean and international media over the past 10 months since the U.S. issued the extradition request for Christopher Dudus Coke. I have been forced, with the rest of society, to think about the ongoing crises on the socio-racial, economic, cultural and political levels..
Jun 26
From Pambazuka News
The arrest of Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke in a road block in Jamaica on Tuesday 22 June 2010 opens the possibility once and for all to reveal the full extent of the corruption of the politics of Jamaica and the Caribbean by the rulers in collaboration with the intelligence, commercial and banking infrastructures of the United States..
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Jun 24
The extraordinary events surrounding the proposed extradition of Jamaica’s Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke have served to highlight the pernicious consequences of transnational organised crime in the Caribbean region. These consequences extend to the spheres of politics, governance, sovereignty, social organization and the economy. They call into question the entire model of development followed by the region in recent times as well as the model of governance which was at the heart of the post-colonial dispensation in the English-speaking Caribbean…
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The World Drug Report 2010, published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) addresses recent trends in illicit drug production, trafficking and consumption. It gives an analysis of three key transnational drug markets (heroine, cocaine and amphetamine-type stimulants), followed by a presentation of statistical trends for all major drug categories and a discussion of the relationship between drug trafficking and instability.
Jun 22
Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT His most recent book, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, won the Muzaffar Ahmad Book Prize for 2009
When the Finance Ministers of the Advanced States set up the G7 in 1974-75, their tongues quivered with the taste of centuries of power. No rivals stood in the way of the G7. ..In late June, the G7 (with Russia, the G8) will meet in Toronto, Canada. This is its 33rd official gathering; it might be its final one. Alongside the G8, Canada will also host the G20…
Jun 22
WHILE Jamaica’s security forces intensify their hunt for most wanted reputed dealer in illicit drugs and guns, Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, for extradition to the USA, Venezuela has chosen to increase its pressure for Washington to extradite to Caracas a most wanted terrorist….
Jun 14
From the New York Carib News. Ivelaw Lloyd Griffith, a political scientist from the Caribbean, is Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs of York College, The City University of New York.
Discussions about sovereignty often focus on its international dimension; freedom from outside interference; that no authority is legally above a state except that which a state’s leaders voluntarily confer on international bodies. This is the formal-legal aspect of sovereignty, and it’s a cardinal feature of international relations. But there’s another key aspect of sovereignty, one related to a nation’s internal dynamics…
Jun 14
Meryl James-Sebro interprets the rise of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissesar
Well, we reach. Early in the evening of May 24, 2010, Hazel Brown’s everlasting ‘Put a Woman’ campaign bore its first full fruit. Trinidad and Tobago declared Kamla Persad-Bissessar its first woman Prime Minister. And despite the expected questions, concerns about coalitions and acknowledged challenges about managing a testosterone-laden side, feminists, gender advocates and activists can’t help but sing victory songs…
Jun 14
Richard Drayton, who is of Caribbean origin, is Rhodes Professor of Imperial History at King’s College, University of London. This article appeared in The Guardian on June 14, 2010
The many allegations of human rights abuses committed by the Jamaican security forces - including extrajudicial killings and the disposal of bodies - have received almost no international attention. Nor have the linkages between the Jamaican crisis, the security establishments in the US, Britain and Canada, and the mutations of the “war on terror”…
You can also view comments on the Guardian website by clicking here
Jun 13
In this commentary on Orlando Patterson’s article Jamaica’s Bloody Democracy, in which the recent violence in Kingston is used to draw a link between democracy and violence, Mervyn Claxton argues that Patterson’s thesis is seriously flawed because, inter alia, it accepts Freedom House’s concept of democracy which is wrongly assumed to be universally valid. The principles and concepts of Western political theory are incapable of explaining the political dynamics in countries of the South, which is the principal reason why institutional forms of western democracy have proven so ineffective in promoting genuinely democratic governance in these countries, including the Caribbean. Different modes of governance are needed, as shown, inter alia, by the recent demand by Jamaican civil society groups.
