Black Immigrant Daily News

Cabinet spokesperson Melford Nicholas said the government may have to repatriate visitors from West Africa as they announce a major stumbling block in their pursuit of airline connectivity between the African continent and the Caribbean.

In its first post-Cabinet briefing since being re-elected to office, the government said it had decided to temporarily halt all chartered flights emanating from West Africa.

With reported cases of African visitors struggling to find accommodations and some claiming they are only in the country en route elsewhere, Minister Nicholas said the government was looking to organise flights for their return.

“It is recognised that there are a number of persons who had come on earlier flights who are still in Antigua and may need to be returned to their respective jurisdictions.

“We will obviously have to arrange for an aircraft to arrive to take those persons who are here back home in the coming days and weeks,” Nicholas said.

On December 28, Observer media reported that chartered flights organised by Abuja-based FastFlyLinks Travel & Tours were transporting persons including Cameroonians here for US$5,000 per person–the average Cameroonian earns 460,000 Central African CAF francs a month, equating to around US$750.

Some have said they are escaping a harrowing situation in Cameroon where a civil war has been raging for the last six years.

The minister conceded that some of the West Africans may have genuine reason for leaving their homeland.

When asked if the government had concerns about their safety if repatriated, Nicholas replied, “If there are Cameroonians who have found themselves here and are in distress and have need for consideration of what you just mentioned, then I am sure we have mechanisms in place to deal with those.”

He confirmed that none had so far approached the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for consideration of asylum.

The Information Minister went on to further explain the government’s decision to suspend the charter flights.

“Antigua Airways, in order to establish the commercial viability of the route, arranged a few [chartered flights] and that came with clamour.

“What had transpired since was that their efforts was imitated by another operator who would have arranged another charter outside of the knowledge of the government,” Minister Nicholas said.

He said that some charter operators were using Antigua and Barbuda as a “stepping-stone” and, therefore, the government had to suspend the routes from Africa to Antigua.

Minister Nicholas called this situation an abuse of the government’s intention.

“If that opportunity has now lent itself to abuse, we certainly have to do the responsible thing and to curtail the use of the chartered flights to be able to ensure that, once we have established the routes properly,” he said.

Antigua Airways, which was a partnership between the Antiguan government and Nigerian investor, Marvellous Mike, has been under much scrutiny since its initial announcement in July 2022 and the first flight landing in November 2022.

The airline company once touted by the government as a boost for regional connectivity to the African continent had not been in compliance with Eastern Caribbean Civil Aviation Authority (ECCAA) rules, according to Cabinet notes.

However, Information Minister Melford Nicholas said that it was not the case that Antigua Airways had contravened ECCAA rules.

“It’s still not known to us that Antigua Airways has done any violation but…below the radar, another entity would have organised a charter with the intent of using Antigua as a trans-migration pathway into South America…and so that is the reason we have closed the option for any chartered flights like that,” he added.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

The Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) has announced the appointment of a new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). He is Ryan Forde, who will officially take up the post on February 13.

With over 12 years of experience in the industry, Forde has held various management positions during that time including Sales and Marketing Manager, Group Sales Manager and Marketing Officer at local, regional and International brands.

Forde holds a Master’s Degree in Tourism and Hospitality from EADA Business School (Barcelona, Spain) and a Bachelor’s Degree with honours from the Barcelona Business School (UIBS) in International Business with a minor in Tourism Management.

The new CEO is honoured to be the first Barbadian to be accepted and graduate from the Elevator Management Trainee programme for Hilton Worldwide, where he trained as a Manager across multiple brand hotels and departments within Hilton throughout the Caribbean and Latin America.

With a proven track record of successfully delivering on significant marketing projects and sales initiatives, Forde explained that he is up for the challenge of being one of, if not, the youngest CEOs to join the BHTA team and noted that his main mission is to work towards the continuous improvement, growth and success of the Barbados tourism industry.

Chairman of the BHTA, Ren?e Coppin, said the Association was thrilled and delighted to welcome Ryan as its newest CEO, “Our Board of Directors and members have expressed unanimous delight at his selection. In our 70th year of existence as an association, as a mature tourism destination coming out of a pandemic, we feel it is time for our industry to take fresh guard.

“Ryan represents the new face of the organisation while incorporating the best of our traditional values of excellence, which we hold dear as an association. He is a young, intelligent, well-educated, and trained industry professional and totally symbolizes our commitment to bring the best and brightest into this, our island’s leading industry.”

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Black Immigrant Daily News

By Sir Ronald Sanders

“Being homosexual is not a crime. We are all children of God, and God loves us as we are and for the strength that each of us fights for our dignity.” Those words were spoken by Pope Francis, easily the most radical pontiff that the Roman Catholic Church has ever had.

The Pope was speaking in an interview with the Associated Press that was published on January 25, ahead of a planned tour of two African countries, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The African continent ranks among the most homophobic regions of the world. Apart from South Africa, Mozambique and Angola, which are countries whose governments and peoples are most tolerant of homosexual rights, the majority of African nations rate equally with the intolerant governments of Russia, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq.

Throughout his papacy, Pope Francis has advocated a less doctrinal policy approach for modern Catholicism. Francis is a man of his time, determined not to harden the Church’s anachronistic positions in times, which have changed, with a greater emphasis on human rights, including gay rights. In the interview with the Associated Press, he emphasised the Holy See’s position that laws that criminalize homosexuality outright are “unjust” and that the Church must work to put an end to them.

He did not spare Bishops of the Church who support laws that criminalize homosexuality. He said that they need to “have a process of conversion” and should apply “tenderness, please, as God has for each one of us.” Whether he has opened the eyes, ears and hearts of the controlling hierarchy of the Church is left to be seen.

What is certain is that Francis has succeeded in humanising the face of the Church which, for centuries, imposed repressive rules on its followers that, politically, supported colonialism, imperialism and racism. In a socio-economic context, its rules on abortion, caused suffering and hardship for poor communities around the world, particularly in Ireland and Latin America where Catholicism dominated.

The impact that his approach has achieved is evident in the leadership of Ireland and in parts of Africa. The current Taoiseach, or the head of government, of Ireland is Leo Eric Varadka who is the child of an Indian father and an Irish mother, and is a declared homosexual. Many prejudices – both racial and religious – were overcome with his election, in a remarkable tribute to the openness of the Irish people to change. But, the influence of Pope Francis, now completing a decade as a change-agent of the Church, contributed immensely to the freedom of thinking and attitudes in Ireland.

Similarly, his papacy has had a beneficial effect in Africa where recent statistics show 2.1 per cent growth in Catholic followers between 2019 and 2020. Out of a global population of 1.36 billion Catholics, 236 million are African or 20% of the total. Reports indicate that Catholicism is witnessing a “youth bulge” in Africa. This follows the effective transmission of Pope Francis’ message that churches, religious groups and governments show solidarity with young people. He calls them “the church of now.”

In November 2022, during a synodal consultation with African youth, he denounced the exploitation of Africa by external forces and its destruction by wars, ideologies of violence and policies that rob young people of their future. That message by the Head of a Church, which conspired with many authoritarian regimes in Latin America, Europe and in parts of Africa and Asia, to exploit and repress their people, has a powerful appeal.

Nonetheless, his visit to South Sudan and the DRC will not be without its problems. In the interview with the Associated Press, Pope Francis acknowledged that in Africa and other parts of the world, there needs to be change in relation to anti-homosexual laws. Responding to the question, “Can the Church contribute to repealing these laws?”, he was unequivocal, saying: “They have to do it. What happens is that they are cultures in a state and the bishops of that place, although they are good bishops, [they] are part of the culture and some still have their minds in that culture. The bishops also have [to undergo] a process of conversion.”

Some of these reluctant Bishops exist in South Sudan and DRC as they do in other parts of Africa and the Caribbean. Having been nurtured in a culture of intolerance, they find adjustment to a new dispensation difficult. Although, as Pope Francis pointed out, “In the catechism of the Catholic Church it says that people of homosexual tendency have to be welcomed, they do not have to be marginalized”. He makes it clear that “Every man and woman has to have a window into his life where he can pour his hope and where he can see the dignity of God. And being gay is not a crime. It’s a human condition.”

Throughout most of the world, societies and governments have accepted that “being gay is a human condition.” The result is that members of the LGBTQIA community have attained high positions in all sectors of society. While there may be little hope in authoritarian countries, such as Russia, Afghanistan and Iran, it is past time for more progressive societies to heed the counsel and wisdom of Pope Francis, who has emerged as an enlightened, caring example of the best of humanity.

I had the privilege of working with a former Justice of the High Court of Australia, Michael Kirby, when we were members of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group, which was commissioned by Heads of Government to propose ways of reforming the Commonwealth in 2010. Justice Kirby urged all members of the Group to recommend abolition of the homosexual laws, which were imposed on its colonies by the colonial British government – laws which Britain itself repealed but are retained to this day by some Commonwealth countries in Africa and the Caribbean.

He made this telling point to the group – if governments and civil societies had not taken a strong and determined stand against Apartheid in South Africa, and before that in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), institutional racism would still exist in Africa, robbing the majority black populations of their right to equality, fairness and justice.

Kirby’s irresistible argument resonates in the words of Pope Francis.

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Today, through an open letter, 425 civil society groups and representatives of UNFCCC observer groups have expressed widespread condemnation to news from earlier this month that Sultan Al Jaber, an oil executive of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), would be overseeing this year’s UN climate talks happening in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in November.

These signatories, representing millions of people from across the globe, are calling not only for a COP28 president that is free and independent of fossil fuel influence, but for an end to the undue influence that allowed his appointment in the first place.

In the letter to the Parties of the UNFCCC, Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the body, and United Nations Secretary General Ant?nio Guterres–who has not minced words about the fossil fuel industry’s deceit and its catastrophic expansion plans–the constituencies and groups detail ADNOC’s outsized role in fueling the climate crisis, as well as the negligence of world governments in allowing polluters to steer the agenda of global talks.

“Polluters have a role to play: stop polluting. They cannot be placed on a leadership pedestal and certainly not in a position to undermine and weaken policy. That is basically nonsense. The UNFCCC is not only reluctant to accept a straightforward conflict of interest policy, but it is undermining its already weak international trust year after year,” said Gadir Lavadenz of the global campaign to Demand Climate Justice, a member of the global Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO) network behind today’s letter.

The 450+ organization network is calling for the UNFCCC to adopt an Accountability Framework that prevents the world’s largest polluters from steering global climate policymaking.

Absent controls on industry interference, legions of lobbyists converge on annual climate talks each year. They even attend as members of country delegations, such as was the case with the UAE’s 1000-person delegation, which featured more fossil fuel lobbyists than any other country delegation.

What’s more, corporations like the world’s largest plastics polluter, Coca-Cola, were allowed to literally sponsor last year’s climate talks. 18 out of 20 COP27 sponsors either directly partner with or are otherwise linked to the fossil fuel industry. And at COP27, a PR firm with long ties to the fossil fuel and other pariah industries was retained to manage communications.

“The list of political interference and cooptation of the UNFCCC goes on and on. They make a mockery of the space and the critical work it needs to accomplish. The appointment of an oil executive is the tipping point and must now be the impetus at long last to retrieve the UNFCCC from a long descent into Big Polluters pockets,” said Coraina de la Plaza of Global Forest Coalition, another KBPO member organization.

Making Al Jaber’s appointment particularly insidious is that he helms a corporation that is among the top 15 corporations most responsible for carbon emissions. ADNOC’s expansion plans are second only to Qatar Energy globally. And these plans, not surprisingly, are entirely incompatible with International Energy Agency scenarios, among others, to avert even more catastrophic harms from climate change. ADNOC is even pledging to produce more than 5 million barrels of oil a day.

Further affirming the KBPO network’s call for enduring safeguards against polluting interests, world leaders like the United States government’s special envoy John Kerry and the EU’s Frans Timmermans have actually lauded Al Jaber’s appointment, with Kerry coining it a “terrific choice.” Kerry has argued the fact that he has also done some business in renewables somehow makes him a “balanced” pick, not a puppet of polluters.

Climate Action Network, a signatory to the letter, had voiced condemnation for this conflict of interest as soon as the news on Al Jaber’s appointment broke with a reaction from the CAN Executive Director Tasneem Essop.

Speaking more broadly today on the need for an accountability framework and conflict of interest policy by the UN, Tasneem Essop said:“For years, civil society groups have asked the UNFCCC to implement a conflict of interest policy and an accountability framework to stop big polluters and fossil fuel vested interests from hijacking the climate talks. It is no surprise that decisions to take actions against the main culprits of climate change was never on the agenda of the COP’s up until recently. And now we are at this outrageous point where the fossil fuel industry has one of its captains at the helm. There is no place for polluters at a UN climate conference, least of all in presiding over one. We have called on COP28 President Al Jaber to step down as CEO of ADNOC and also strongly call on the UNFCCC to put in place a robust conflict of interest policy now.”

The World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), had the foresight to address industry interference from the outset to strong effect. Other UN bodies such as the nascent pandemic and plastics treaty negotiating bodies are also facing similar calls to govern the engagement of vested commercial interests. And a binding treaty on business and human rights is nearing a decade of negotiation to deliver some modicum of accountability globally for corporations like those engaging most actively in the UNFCCC and other UN fora.

Signatories of the letter, as with peers in these aligned spaces, see corporate accountability mechanisms as fundamental to the success of the UNFCCC, not to mention climate action more broadly.As a starting point, organizations are demanding a COP28 president free of fossil fuel influence and for the interests of all COP28 participants to be proactively declared.

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