#Caribbean politics

[allthegeopolitics]

Trinidad and Tobago is redrawing the island’s coat of arms for the first time since its creation in 1962 to remove references to European colonisation – a move lauded by many in the eastern Caribbean nation.

Explorer Christopher Columbus’s three ships – the Pinta, the Nina and the Santa Maria – will be replaced with the steelpan, a popular percussion instrument that originated on the island.

Prime Minister Keith Rowley first made the announcement on Sunday at a party convention for his governing People’s National Movement to a standing ovation, saying the changes will be made by late September.

“That should signal that we are on our way to removing the colonial vestiges that we have in our constitution,” he said. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @vague-humanoid

[bijoumikhawal]

seen a lot of comments on my latest Haiti post with "I haven't seen any news about this on here" and such and yeah... that's why I'm posting it. Mostly it's only Haitians who are talking about what's going on, and whatever posts they're making on Tumblr haven't really been showing up in the search function for me and aren't getting reblogged to my circles. Most Haitians have also requested that their words be boosted instead of outsiders speaking for them, which is also why I mostly compile relevant tweets with only a little commentary of my own.

I humbly request that other people start actively paying attention and making similar posts too, and to do so for other countries such as Sudan and the DRC. I also see relatively little information circulating here about them and news round ups actually take a fair amount of time to make. A good starting point is going on Twitter to the accounts I've boosted and paying attention to what they're saying. I can also recommend further accounts to follow for info.

[accessible-tumbling]

ID: A screenshot of a Twitter post by [shining heart emoji] [disco emoji] Hot & Unbothered [disco emoji] [shining heart emoji] @ Ahleeahnah with text reading: "Everyone wants to come to the Caribbean for vacation but who is there to help when hurricanes destroy the islands?!

I need y'all to act like you love the Caribbean for real and [caps] Share, Donate [caps end], offer your time, support, expertise in whatever ways you can."

End ID.

THIS

[thedailyvibe01]

Haiti's Prime Minister Garry Conille Ousted After Six Months

Haiti’s Prime Minister Garry Conille has been removed from office after just six months, following a decision by the country’s transitional ruling council. The council, composed of eight of its nine members, appointed businessman and former Senate candidate Alix Didier Fils-Aimé as Conille’s successor.

Conille, a former United Nations official, had been brought in to guide Haiti through a deepening security crisis caused by gang violence and to pave the way for the first presidential elections since 2016. He described his dismissal as "illegal," stating in a letter that it raised serious concerns about the country’s future stability. According to Haiti’s constitution, only the parliament has the authority to dismiss a sitting prime minister, and Haiti currently has no functioning parliament.

The decision comes amid escalating violence in the country, with over 3,600 people killed since January, and more than 500,000 displaced due to ongoing gang wars. The UN has warned that Haiti is facing extreme hunger, with nearly half of its population lacking enough food.

The transitional presidential council was formed in April after Conille’s predecessor, Ariel Henry, was forced from office following a violent gang takeover of Port-au-Prince. The country has been without a president since the assassination of Jovenel Moïse in 2021. Gangs have taken advantage of the power vacuum, extending their control over large parts of Haiti.

Amid this chaos, Haiti has received international assistance, including the deployment of Kenyan police forces to help stabilize the situation. However, the country remains deeply divided and faces a challenging path toward restoring order and democratic governance.

[havatabanca]

[k-wame]

this twt being about current events escaping ppl in the replies WE'RE NEVER GOING TO BE FREE

[troythecatfish]

[blackbrownfamily]

Ayiti 1805

[sanyu-thewitch05]

Black Diaspora, if King Charles dies on Black History Month we need to…

TURN IT UP!!!

[bimdraws]

Cubans for Palestinian Liberation 🇨🇺🇵🇸

[kcarve]

"patriotism kills!" (KcARve) 07/24

mixed media piece

[fatehbaz]

[T]he infamous Diable (Devil’s Island) [French prison in Guiana, South America] [...]. Seventy thousand convicts were sent to French Guiana between 1852 and 1938. [...] Alongside deportation of political prisoners [...], a [...] convict population [...] was sent to the bagne (common parlance for the penal colony) [...] as a utopian colonial project [...] via the contribution convict labour would make towards colonial development in French Guaina. However, [...] French Guiana [...] was predominantly used as a depository for the unwanted citizens of France and its colonies. The last remaining French and North African convicts were repatriated in 1953, whereas the last Vietnamese prisoners were not given passage home until 1954 [...].

[T]he same form of built environment and carceral technology [...] structures found on Con Dao [French prison in Vietnam] and [the French prison in Guiana] [were] built at almost the same time [...] to house the same convict populations (Vietnamese implicated in anticolonial struggles) [...]. Old world colonialism is thus displaced by new world imperialism. Both rely on the prison island and its cellblocks. [...]

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The carceral continuities [...] throughout France’s penal colonies are supplemented by legal exceptionalism which works to redefine colonial subjects within shifting political contexts. [...] Many of the Indochinois convicts transported to the forest camps of French Guiana in 1931, including the Bagne des annamites, had originally been classed as political prisoners. The transfer was intended in part [...] to remove a number of anticolonial actors from Indochina. [...]

As political deportees sent to French Guiana were usually exempt from labour according to the political decree of 1850, this status had to be revoked to ensure the maximum labour force possible.

Consequently, those arrested on suspicion of specific acts of violence or property damage were reclassed as common criminals. Described by Dedebant and Frémaux (2012, 7) as “little arrangements between governors,” this was not simply a sleight of hand but written into legal codes. [...]

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[M]any of the Vietnamese sent to French Guiana had to wait until the 1960s to be repatriated. [...] After their sentences were completed, convicts were not simply repatriated to France or other colonies.

A system of “doublage” intended to shore up colonial development meant they had to serve the same length of their sentence again on the colony. For those condemned to eight years or more, this became life. Opportunities for sustainable livelihood were limited in a territory possessing swathes of free convict labour. Worn out and sick from their time in the bagne, most of these men were unfit to work and relied on charity to survive. [...]

[T]he last living convict [of the Guiana penal colony] [...] died in Algeria in 2007 after being repatriated to Annaba. In an interview given in 2005, he claims that every night he dreams he is back in Cayenne: “when I think about it, I get vertigo, I spent my life there” [...].

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All text above by: Sophie Fuggle. "From Green Hell to Grey Heritage: Ecologies of Colour in the Penal Colony". Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Volume 24 (2022), Issue 6, pages 897-916. Published online 8 April 2021. At: doi dot org slash 10.1080/1369801X.2021.1892507 [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[newhistorybooks]

“This book presents a brilliant analysis of the neoliberal policies imposed on Haiti by international institutions. Dupuy skillfully connects decades of extractive foreign interventions in Haiti, from the US occupation to the aftermath of Jovenel Moïse’s assassination. Haiti since 1804 points the way toward a future in which Haitians might finally regain sovereignty over their own economy and government."

[lgbtpopcult]

Caribbean: Same-sex marriage likely in Sint-Maarten, Aruba, Curaçao

[thebellekeys]

one of the absolute worst unironic takes i've seen on the instawebs is "only people from x background can write main characters from x background" like holy shit how can you possibly politicize literature to this extent?

it's genuinely shocking to me that some people's personal motto when it comes to art and media creation is "only write what you are". with this mindset, writing inherently becomes about social and political identity when it should be about "let's do justice to this character and their background the best we can".