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Miami Herald
17-07-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Suriname has its first female president, adding to slate of women leaders in Caribbean
A medical doctor and one-time parliamentary speaker will lead the Caribbean Community's only Dutch-speaking member nation as president, giving the regional its fourth female head of government. Dr. Jennifer Geerlings-Simons was officially sworn-in as president of Suriname on Wednesday in a ceremony attended by diplomats and representatives of neighboring countries including the vice president of Venezuela. The nation, which is located in South America but is part of the Caribbean Community regional bloc, joins Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and tiny Anguilla with females at their helm. It is the first time, observers say, that there have been so many females in leadership positions in the Caribbean where they are also occupying roles as governors, governor generals and ceremonial presidents. In Barbados where Mia Mottley is prime minister, Sandra Mason serves as ceremonial president after the country broke with the British monarchy in November of 2021 to become a republic; and in Trinidad and Tobago where Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar led her party to victory in April, the presidency is led by Christine Kangaloo. In Dominica, the presidency is also held by a woman, Sylvanie Burton, who is also its first indigenous head of state. Geerlings-Simons emerged as president of the former Dutch colony after none of the parties, including that of former president Chan Santokh, won the necessary two-thirds majority in Parliament in the May 25 elections to form the government. She won the second highest individual votes after Santokh, who retained his legislative seat after winning the the most individual votes. Though he was vying to return as president, Sanktoh's Progressive Reform Party could not overcome voters' concerns about high inflation, corruption in the government and austerity measures imposed by the International Monetary Fund program. With the Progressive Reform Party nearly tying with the National Democratic Party, 17 votes to 18 votes, a deal was formed by Geerlings-Simons and her National Democratic with five other parties to install her as president. Geerlings-Simons had served as chairwoman of the party since 2024. Carla Barnett, the secretary general of CARICOM, who attended the swearing-in, noted the historic significance of Geerlings-Simons' indirect election by the National Assembly. Ahead of the swearing-in, Barnett extended congratulations and said the Caribbean Community awaits her input on issues facing the region. 'As we collectively navigate the complex challenges facing our region, including climate change, economic resilience, and sustainable development, your leadership will be crucial,' Barnett said. Independent since 1975, Suriname has had two military coups and in recent years, faced difficult economic challenges. The country, however, is expected to see a surge in revenues, similar to neighboring Guyana, after discovering oil reserves. Oil production is slated to begin in 2028. Geerlings-Simons rise to power hasn't been lost on those who closely follow the region especially given that the military coups were supported by the NDP and its founder, former president Desiré 'Desi' Bouterse who died last year on Christmas Eve while running from justice. The year after leaving office in 2020, Bouterse was convicted in the 1982 murders of 15 government critics, including journalists. In 2023, the conviction was upheld and Bouterse went into hiding. He died at the age of 79., while a fugitive. One of the parties that was part of the coups and had distanced itself from the NDP is now among those in the coalition government. Also, Wednesday's succession of power passed without incident. Geerlings-Simons, 71, whose term runs until 2030, recognized the historical significance in her swearing-in speech. 'Because I am the first woman to hold this position, there will be additional pressure on the work I will do with the government,' she said, as she pledged her government's commitment to recovery. While the country is on the cusp of an oil boom and is expected to begin production in 2028, Geerlings-Simons also spoke of the need to diversity her nation's fragile economy. She concluded her speech with a call for national unity and quoted the words of Surinamese poets Dobru and Shrinivási. 'I would like to unite you as a nation, without this remaining a fairy tale.'
Hans India
04-07-2025
- Politics
- Hans India
PM Modi presents Ram Mandir replica, holy water from Saryu river to Trinidad & Tobago PM
Prime Minister Narendra Modi gifted a replica of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, along with holy water from the Saryu river and the Mahakumbh held in Prayagraj during a dinner hosted by Trinidad and Tobago's Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar underscoring the enduring cultural and spiritual ties between India and the Caribbean nation. 'At the dinner hosted by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, I presented a replica of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya and holy water from the Saryu river as well as from the Mahakumbh held in Prayagraj. They symbolise the deep cultural and spiritual bonds between India and Trinidad & Tobago,' PM Modi posted on X. 'The dinner hosted by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar had food served on a Sohari leaf, which is of great cultural significance to the people of Trinidad & Tobago, especially those with Indian roots. Here, food is often served on this leaf during festivals and other special programmes,' the Prime Minister said in another post At the dinner in Port of Spain, PM Modi met Rana Mohip, who had sung 'Vaishnava Jana To' when India marked the 150th Jayanti of Mahatma Gandhi a few years ago, appreciating his passion towards Indian music and culture. PM Modi, earlier on Thursday, shared glimpses of the cultural and historical ties between Trinidad and Tobago and India upon his landmark two-day visit to the Caribbean nation. 'A cultural connect like no other! Very happy to have witnessed a Bhojpuri Chautaal performance in Port of Spain. The connect between Trinidad & Tobago and India, especially parts of eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar is noteworthy,' PM Modi said in a post on X. Upon his arrival, PM Modi was also given a ceremonial welcome with people enthusiastically dancing to the beat of drums and showcasing traditional music and performances that reflected a blend of local and Indian culture. This is the second visit of Prime Minister Modi to the Caribbean region in 8 months; previously, the PM visited Guyana in November 2024. It shows the immense importance that India accords to the Caribbean countries and reflects India's growing partnership with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
Telegraph
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
MPs to discuss slavery reparations
MPs are set to discuss slavery reparations with a delegation from the Caribbean. A group of activists and academics will travel to Westminster to make their case, which could include demands for Britain to pay trillions of pounds. Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, and David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, have been invited, the Telegraph has been informed. Insiders said there had been plans for Mr Lammy to host a 'Caricom forum' which would hear submissions about reparations. However, sources said this was pushed back. Caricom refers to the Caribbean Community, a supranational body representing nations in the region. It is understood the events are intended to make the case for reparative justice. There had been hopes among campaigners that Mr Lammy, of Guyanese descent, and Labour generally might be sympathetic to their cause. The Tories refused repeatedly to countenance discussing it. Pressure was brought to bear on Sir Keir at the 2024 Commonwealth summit in Samoa where the issue was forced onto the official agenda but No 10 publicly ruled out payments. Mr Lammy, who was there, had suggested that reparations need not be a 'cash transfer' but could include 'other forms of non-financial reparatory justice too'. The UK signed off on the Commonwealth summit statement which set out the need for 'inclusive conversations' about reparations for slavery, and the need to address 'chattel enslavement… dispossession of indigenous people, indentureship, colonialism' in order to move to a 'future based on equity'. The delegation will be hosted in Parliament on July 2 by Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, who heads the all-party parliament group on Afrikan reparations and is a staunch supporter of the cause. Events have been organised and supported by the Repair Campaign, a group which supports Caribbean efforts to secure reparations. The group was founded by Denis O'Brien, the Irish billionaire owner of telecoms giant Digicel. He has overseen the creation of development packages tailored to the needs of Caribbean nations and funded by former colonial powers. Voters of Caribbean descent Baroness Chapman, Minister of State for Development, has also been invited to meet the Caribbean delegation, along with members of the foreign affairs committee. It is understood that invitations have been extended to MPs representing constituencies with a high proportion of voters of Caribbean descent. Events will be held at Portcullis House on the parliamentary estate. Before coming to London, the delegation will travel to Brussels to argue that former slave-trading powers including France and the Netherlands should support paying compensation for the exploitation of enslaved Africans. It includes members of the Reparations Commission for Caricom. The commission has spent more than a decade pushing for Britain to agree to a 10-point plan for reparations, which has been repeatedly rebuffed. Uriel Sabajo will represent the Suriname committee, and Carla Astaphan will be in London to represent St Kitts & Nevis, a former British colony. While they are connected to Caricom, the delegation is not an official group sent by the commission itself. Other delegates expected in London include leading professors from the University of the West Indies, along with Mr O'Brien and his colleagues. British supporters of the movement, including Dr Michael Banner, author and Dean and Fellow of Trinity College, University of Cambridge, will also attend.
The Guardian
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Pioneering London playwright decried gentrification of ‘writer's paradise'
A groundbreaking Trinidadian-British playwright who paved the way for modern Black British theatre makers warned about the dangers of gentrification in Ladbroke Grove, which he believed would ruin the 'writer's paradise'. Mustapha Matura was the first British writer of colour to have work put on in the West End, and used the west London area as an inspiration for many of his plays, which were also staged at the Royal Court and National Theatre. In a letter written in 1992 that is part of the Matura archive acquired by the British Library, he decried the shifts in the west London area, which was home to a strong Caribbean creative community. 'What more could one ask for?' he wrote about the area. 'It's like being in a real-life, long-running soap opera, which I tell myself I'm only researching in order to write about but – not true … I'm a character and a 'writer fella' who prays that the gentrification process that is taking place in the area now does not totally destroy its unique character and characters.' The bohemian area that Matura found in the 60s and 70s has certainly changed, more synonymous now with rising house prices than creative freedom. In 2024, it was reported that residents of Notting Hill received more in capital gains from 2015 to 2019 than the combined populations of Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle. The son of a south Asian man and a creole woman, Matura left Trinidad for the UK in the 1960s. He worked as a hospital porter, frequented the Royal Court and ended up appearing in a B-movie western shot in Rome. It was in Italy where he saw a production of Langston Hughes' Shakespeare in Harlem and thought he 'could do better than that', and began writing. Like other Caribbean playwrights, Matura had a side job while getting his footing, working in a garment factory off Tottenham Court Road. He would jot down ideas and doodles on the back of order sheets, some of which have been retained in the archive. Matura's wife, Ingrid Selberg, said: 'He was supposed to be counting the rolls of material, and he was always skiving off and writing things on the back of the order forms.' Described by one writer as looking like 'a refugee from a 60s band' who wore sunglasses indoors and sported a 'morose walrus moustache', Matura fit into the countercultural world of Ladbroke Grove. He was a key part of a flamboyant group of Caribbean creatives who injected black consciousness into UK culture, along with Horace Ové (who directed the first Black British feature film, Pressure) and Michael Abbensetts (who went on to create Empire Road). Helen Melody, the lead curator of contemporary literary and creative archives at the British Library, said: 'I think he was aware of the political uncertainty and uprisings of the whole movement in the 1960s, which wasn't just in Trinidad but more widely. 'You can see his plays often chart the experience of people who'd traveled to the UK or elsewhere from the Caribbean, but he also still retained kind of an interest in what was happening in the place he left as well.' The archive contains unpublished work including two plays, one called Band of Heroes about Notting Hill carnival and the other about the real-life Trinidadian gangster Boysie Singh. Despite having no formal training, Matura became arguably the most significant playwright from the Caribbean diaspora in the 20th century. He was a founding member of the Black Theatre Co-operative, which was formed by a group of actors who had appeared in his 1979 play Welcome Home Jacko, while his first agent was the formidable Peggy Ramsay. Matura died in 2019 and a funeral was held in Ladbroke Grove, with a steel band sendoff. 'He was such a Trinidadian,' said Selberg. 'But he loved Ladbroke Grove, he loved Portobello Road. He was a kind of Janus with a two-sided head. Interested, equally interested in both Britain and Trinidad, and equally critical of both.'
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - Haiti on the edge of collapse: The US must respond now or it will be too late
Only 10 percent of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, remains under the control of the Haitian government. And even this last stronghold is now on the verge of collapse, putting the entire population at risk. A religious worker there told me about corpses in the streets, decomposing in broad daylight; women and girls are raped in plain view and children are digging through trash for food. 'The smell of burned bodies is unbearable,' he said. 'It's completely devastating.' Over the past few months, criminal groups have conducted attacks — including killings and sexual violence — in areas previously considered safe, as they seek full control of the capital. They have also committed atrocities to tighten their grip on the population in regions already under their control. Thousands have fled with little more than the clothes on their backs. In my visits to Haiti in recent years, I have documented rape, child recruitment and killings by criminal groups. The violence is growing by the day and is likely to get even worse if criminal groups take full control of Port-au-Prince. Police officers have told me they lack the capacity to respond. Residents have organized their own 'security brigades' and have committed crimes to fend off attacks against their communities. Meanwhile, opposition political leaders and criminal groups have organized massive, often violent protests aimed at ousting the transitional government established in 2024 with support from the U.S. and the Caribbean Community. The Multinational Security Support Mission backed by the United Nations and sent to help stabilize Haiti in 2024 has been chronically underfunded. It only numbers around 1,000 of the promised 2,500 personnel. It needs $600 million to ensure its operations until June. With limited resources, the mission cannot challenge the territorial control of criminal groups, which killed more than 5,000 people last year, and raped thousands of women and girls. U.N. Security Council members, including the U.S., need to stop dragging their feet. They should immediately fund and staff the current international mission, ensuring it has more resources to stabilize Haiti. They should promptly adopt the steps that Secretary General António Guterres has recommended to bolster the Multinational Security forces. Yet even if it ever reaches full deployment, it is doubtful those forces are up to the task. Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly said as much in February. Haiti needs a full U.N. mission, authorized by the Security Council, that can restore basic security and support Haitian efforts to protect the population, deliver humanitarian aid and progressively rebuild political institutions. The transitional government has called for the Security Council to urgently consider 'proposals for a significant strengthening of international support for the restoration of security in Haiti.' Since President Trump took office in January, the U.S. has taken little if any meaningful action to improve Haitians' security. Although Europe has increased its support for Haiti, these efforts have also fallen short. Diplomats in Europe told me that American inaction at the Security Council has undermined the international response. The U.S. government excuses its failure to act by anticipating that Russia and China would veto a resolution creating a U.N. mission. But Russia and China may change their position if Guterres supports it, and if the U.S. puts its weight and diplomacy behind the proposal — something the Trump administration has not done. Some American policymakers appear focused on addressing the Haitian crisis by seeking to prevent Haitians from fleeing human rights abuses, interdicting them at sea, blocking them from accessing asylum in the U.S., terminating humanitarian parole and refugee resettlement and moving up the date to end temporary protection for Haitians now in the U.S. This approach is legally problematic, morally bankrupt and ultimately self-defeating. It ignores the plight of people suffering unspeakable pain at the hands of criminal groups. It also fails to recognize that having a country largely controlled by criminal groups only 700 miles away from American shores will inevitably affect U.S. interests and make these groups even harder to dismantle over time. If the criminal groups consolidate power, both Haiti and the region risk becoming an even greater trafficking hub for drugs, weapons and people. This will cause more people to flee, but the Trump administration's dismantling of safe pathways means asylum seekers will be forced into ever more dangerous journeys. The U.S. also bears a responsibility to curb the flow of the weapons fueling Haiti's violence. Most of the guns used by criminal groups are made in America and smuggled through Florida, where most outgoing packages are never run through an X-ray machine. Strengthening inspections would be a critical step to cutting off weapon supplies. 'Haitians are losing hope; they feel the international community has abandoned them to their own fate,' an international humanitarian worker told me. 'Many victims, including children, who come looking for food, ask me, 'Why is this happening to us? What did we do wrong? Why has the world forgotten us?' Without American support to bolster the international response, Port-au-Prince's collapse may be inevitable. The window for an effective international response is rapidly closing — the time for decisive action is now. Nathalye Cotrino is a senior Americas researcher at Human Rights Watch. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
