Black Immigrant Daily News

A powerful gang has taken over numerous communities in central Haiti in recent weeks, killing at least 69 people and forcing authorities to abandon several police stations, the United Nations said Friday.

An additional 83 people have been injured amid a surge in violence reported in the Artibonite Valley that officials blame on a local gang called “Baz Gran Grif,” which roughly translates into “Big Claw.”

The United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti known as BINUH said the gang has “established a climate of terror, characterized by looting, assassinations, kidnappings, destruction, extortion, hijacking of goods and trucks and acts of rape on young girls and women.”

BINUH said it is “alarmed by the speed with which the gang has extended its activities to new areas, and by the fleeing of police in multiple communities.”

The gang is accused of killing seven officers with Haiti’s National Police in a single day in late January as part of continuing attacks that have forced one hospital that serves some 700,000 people in the region to suspend all services a week ago. Schools also remain closed, while commercial activity and public transportation have slowed, the U.N. said.

Gang activity had been largely confined to Port-au-Prince, with gangs controlling an estimated 60% of the capital, but they have become increasingly powerful and violent elsewhere.

U.N. officials said that thousands of people in the central communities of Liancourt, Verrettes, Petite Rivi?re de l ‘Artibonite and Est?re have fled to other neighborhoods to escape the ongoing violence.

“This cycle of violence absolutely must be stopped,” BINUH said. “We urge the authorities to do everything to protect the inhabitants of the region as well as their property.”

The increase in violence in Haiti’s central region comes as Prime Minister Ariel Henry continues to plead for the deployment of foreign troops, a request first made in October. The international community has instead opted to impose sanctions and send military equipment and other resources.

Last month, U.N. officials reiterated that gang violence in Haiti has reached a level not seen in decades, and that gangs have grown more powerful since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Mo?se.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

The St. Kitts Tourism Authority has negotiated a settlement with InterCaribbean Airways (ICA) to initiate a same-day travel option from Barbados and San Juan to St. Kitts and one-stop service to the wider Caribbean, thereby assisting with international airlift challenges and strengthening regional integration.

This is a significant development for St. Kitts and Nevis and the entire region, particularly in the face of the challenges posed by the ongoing pandemic and external threats.

Minister of Tourism Marsha Henderson, in her address on February 23, stated that the service from the Grantley Adams International Airport in Barbados is scheduled to commence on Sunday, March 12, 2023, with an Embraer-120 aircraft with a seating capacity of 30 servicing St. Kitts from Barbados three times weekly on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays with “one-stop connectivity via Barbados to Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Dominica, Georgetown, Guyana, and soon-to-come Port of Spain.” The San Juan service will be announced shortly.

Minister Henderson further added, “This development is undoubtedly significant for St. Kitts and Nevis and the entire region.”

“The St. Kitts Nevis Labour-led administration will continue to work with our regional and international partners to ensure that we deliver for you, the people of St. Kitts and Nevis,” she said. “The future of the tourism industry in St. Kitts and Nevis is bright, and I am optimistic that together we can take the industry to even greater levels.”

Prior to the pandemic, the Caribbean was the second largest source market for travel to St. Kitts and Nevis where it was driven by business, visits from friends and relatives and events such as CPL (Caribbean Premier League), Carnival and the St. Kitts Music Festival.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

A Haitian man believed to be a member of the gang involved in the recent killings of six Haitian police officers was arrested in the neighboring Dominican Republic and deported, authorities said Wednesday.

The man was arrested along with five other Haitians who were by his side during a police operation in the southwestern Dominican town of Duverge, police said. The town is located near the border that Haiti and the Dominican Republic share on the island of Hispaniola.

The six officers with Haiti’s National Police were killed in late January after authorities say a gang attacked a police station in the central town of Liancourt. Another nine police officers were killed elsewhere during that time.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

By Dr Richard Amenyah

Socio-cultural and religious norms and archaic policies and laws that criminalise and don’t protect the rights of vulnerable populations contribute significantly to the HIV epidemic in the Caribbean. These societal barriers are fault lines which allow inequalities to widen and fester as a canker.

The Caribbean is the second highest region globally, outside sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV is prevalent. A little under half of people in the region do not show acceptable attitudes to people living with HIV. This is happening within the context of significant progress the region is making in reducing new HIV infections by 28% between 2010 and 2021. AIDS-related deaths reduced by over half in the same period.

Can you imagine how this region would have performed without an environment with punitive laws, stigma and discrimination and gender-based violence?

It is important to identify and address the inequalities that exist in the region by promoting inclusion and respect for diversity. Building a just society involves understanding socio-cultural and gender norms and how they are changing and shaping how we interact to advance our civic, political, and economic rights. These norms, policies and practices affect how people access the services they need to safeguard their health, livelihood, and well-being and, importantly, enjoy their rights.

The Caribbean region cannot end the AIDS epidemic as a public health threat by 2030 without dealing with these societal barriers preventing the region from fulfilling the promise made by its leaders in the 2021 Political Declaration. This is how we build equal and just societies.

The focus of this year’s Zero Discrimination Day, which is observed annually on March 1, is on decriminalization and how it saves the lives of vulnerable and marginalized populations and people living with HIV (PLHIV).

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) believes criminal laws targeting key populations and people living with HIV violate their human rights, make them vulnerable, increase their risk to HIV transmission and exacerbate the stigma people face. This put people in danger by creating barriers to the support and services they need to protect their health. These are the key elements of structural inequalities which are unfortunately driving the HIV epidemic globally and therefore preventing people from realizing improvement in their health and wellbeing. The Caribbean is no exception. However, political leaders in the region can lead and show the world how being inclusive is a strength and not a weakness or threat to building an equal and just society committed to ending AIDS as a public health threat.

UNAIDS data show that 134 countries, including six in the Caribbean, still explicitly criminalize or otherwise prosecute HIV exposure, non-disclosure, or transmission. Twenty countries criminalize and/or prosecute transgender persons. Data show as well that 153 countries, including 14 countries from the Caribbean, criminalize at least one aspect of sex work and sixty-seven countries, including eight in the region, that criminalize consensual same-sex sexual activity. Furthermore, forty-eight countries, including five countries in the Caribbean, still place restrictions on entry into their territory for people living with HIV while 53 countries report that they require mandatory HIV testing, for example for marriage certificates or for performing certain professions. Finally, 106 countries require parental consent for adolescents to access HIV testing. All Caribbean countries apart from Guyana require parental consent for HIV testing. These legal and policy barriers are making it difficult for the world to close the chapter on the AIDS epidemic.

World leaders made a promise to address these difficult issues by agreeing for the first time to achieving the “10-10-10 targets.” They made a commitment that by 2025 less than 10% of countries would have punitive legal and policy environments that affect the HIV response; less than 10% of countries reporting stigma and discrimination against key populations and persons living with HIV and finally less than 10% of countries report gender-based violence against women and girls.

As we celebrate Zero Discrimination Day under the theme ”Save lives: Decriminalize”, we are reminded of these commitments. Punitive and discriminatory laws across the region are harmful, they help to strip people living with HIV and key populations of their rights and are inimical to accelerating the end of AIDS as a public health threat in the region. UNAIDS therefore calls on all Caribbean governments to re-commit to the principles of rights and take steps to fulfil their obligations to protect and promote human rights for all.

The Caribbean region can end the AIDS epidemic by improving the human rights environment through legal and policy reforms to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of vulnerable key populations and persons living with HIV to enhance access to critical health services they need. This is the pathway to building an equal and just society and to leave no one behind.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

By Sir Ronald Sanders

The people of Ukraine are the principal victims of the unjustified and unprovoked war, launched against them by Russia on February 24, 2022. But in the year since then, it has become clear that other victims – on a different scale – have been all the nations of the world, particularly the small, poor and powerless.

When the Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, the global economy was still struggling from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic that had battered economies around the world, especially those of developing countries. The supply of food and other goods had been severely affected by border closures, ships trapped in ports, airplanes grounded, and the resultant high costs of scarce goods. One year later the global economy is in much worse shape as a consequence of Russia’s war. Inflation rates are soaring and the cost of living everywhere has increased dramatically. These rising costs of finance, energy and food, and a debt burden that has expanded, have pushed some countries to the edge of bankruptcy.

In a real sense, therefore, the Russian war is a war against the world, and while the people of Ukraine are the main sufferers, the peoples of other countries have not been spared. This war is no longer a “European war”, nor is it only a contest for supremacy between Russia and the member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, it is a war that engulfs every nation with grave consequences.

When Russia embarked on its war against Ukraine, it violated sacred principles that are enshrined in the United Nations Charter. Those principles, which are highly valued by small and powerless states, are sovereignty, political independence and territorial integrity.

As one of the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council, which has responsibility for collective security, the Russian government was well aware of these principles. Yet, with no justification for its aggression and no provocation, it launched its war on Ukraine. Today, it stands responsible for the humanitarian crisis that its actions have caused in Ukraine, including rape and murder of civilians, and destruction of civilian objects and the natural environment.

The world community depends upon a rules-based system for collective international security, and to ensure that order prevails in a predictable way to avoid wars and economic chaos. It is in the interest of every country in the international community, including those that are powerful in military and economic terms, to adhere always to a system of rules. For, while short-term national objectives might be achieved by breaking the rules, eventually such actions are not sustainable.

By its aggression in Ukraine, Russia has significantly weakened the rules-based system upon which the world depends, particularly the small, the poor who are the least resilient.

The war is having an enormous impact on the global supply chain, impeding the flow of goods, fuelling huge increases in the cost of food creating catastrophic food shortages. There are now protests and riots in many parts of the world over the rising cost of living and the immense difficult people face in trying to make ends meet. These protests and riots are directed at their own governments, even though none of these conditions were a result of any policy decision taken or implemented by them.

Many governments, around the world, are now hapless victims of Russia’s decision to wage a war against Ukraine. Further, having already accumulated a heavy debt burden, resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise in interest rates in global commercial market, have rendered debt unpayable, except by diverting money from domestic social welfare and capital projects. These governments now find themselves having to pay high interests on new loans. Many are spending as much as 45 per cent of their export earnings to service existing debt obligations. Some will fail, and the world might be confronted with yet another debt crisis.

Let it be said, however, that the greatest victims in terms of loss of lives and livelihoods, and the decimation of their country are the Ukrainians. They are fighting for their identity, their territory and their survival. They deserve the admiration and support of the world for their courage, their strength and their resistance.

Right now, the world needs peace to overcome the immediate harmful effects of this war; lasting peace is what the world will need to recover from the impact of the war on their economies and their people. More than anything else, the world needs renewed commitment by every nation to end the scourge of war, and to renew inclusionary engagement on supporting peace, including economic stability and predictability, and an end to dealing with territorial claims peacefully and within international law.

Russia needs that peace as much as Ukraine and the rest of the world. A great deal of Russian treasure is being spent on this war, which, after a year, has not given Russia the swift victory its government expected. The lives of Russian soldiers are being lost, and Russians are fleeing their country, depriving it of needed skills and talent. Russia, like Ukraine, will also suffer a prolonged period of agony, whenever the war ends, before it can recover from this unprovoked war.

Ending the war swiftly and returning to the principles of the UN Charter, are in every country’s interest.

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