June 30th, 2009
CGID President Rickford Burke
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK: The Guyanese-American President of the New York based Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID), Rickford Burke, has said that Barbados’s new immigration policy is “divisive” and “supercilious,” and undermines the Caribbean Community.”
“The extant immigration practices in Barbados lack careful thought, have been fundamentally discriminatory and are antithetical to the values of the integration movement,” Burke asserted.
His comments come weeks after Prime Minister of Barbados, David Thompson, announced a new policy that allow undocumented Caribbean nationals who began residing in Barbados prior to 2005 to be given Barbadian government identification and work permits, but subject those who entered thereafter and remain undocumented to deportation.
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June 8th, 2009
South Jersey murder victim Guyanese-American Sven Hinds
The family of a Guyanese American man, Sven Hinds, who was murdered execution style and dumped in the woods near the Delaware Memorial Bridge is speaking out. “We are shocked and horrified at his heinous murder,” the Hinds family said in a statement issued by the Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID).
Sven was born on June 28, 1979 in Guyana, South America, and immigrated to the United States with his family in 1987.
“Sven was a good son, father and brother; a loving, courteous, intelligent human being, and an industrious entrepreneur. He owned the clothing lines - Brooklyn Fly, Money Making Men and AGEIZM. His My Space page is http://www.myspace.com/moneymakinmen.”
The statement said the young man’s family was concerned that Sven had not been in communication with them for a number of weeks, but did not raise an alarm as Sven resided on his own in Queens, New York, and frequently traveled to promote his clothing.
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May 29th, 2009
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly talks at a news briefing about the fatal shooting of Officer Omar Edwards.
President of the Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID), Rickford Burke, is blasting the NYPD over the shooting to death of African-American Police Officer Omar Edwards, by a white officer who mistook Edwards for a criminal.
“The NYPD officer who intentionally shot and killed officer Omar Edwards must be charged with murder. I am sick and weary of white rough cops roaming the streets of New York City, shooting at black young men, with intention to kill, with impunity” Burke said in a statement Friday.
“Many New Yorkers feel that such heinous crimes continue unabated because neither the NYPD top brass nor the criminal justice system, hold perpetrators sufficiently accountable. “
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May 16th, 2009
By Oscar Ramjeet
Caribbean Net News Special Correspondent
St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves receiving CGID's Prestigious Democracy Prize
KINGSTOWN, St Vincent — Five days after Caribbean Net News carried a commentary criticising Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson for announcing a new immigration policy and stating that no Caribbean leader had come forward to challenge the move, St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves came out with a blistering attack on his Barbadian counterpart.
Gonsalves even went so far to say that he was considering withdrawing his country from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Single Market and Economy (CSME).
The Barbados Nation reported that Gonsalves, delivering a ministerial statement in Parliament on Thursday, said policies enacted like those in Barbados could cause the collapse of CARICOM.
He said that Thompson has announced a new policy whereby CARICOM nationals who are illegal immigrants are being given until December 1, 2009, to apply for immigrant status or face deportation after the end of the amnesty.
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May 15th, 2009
West Indies Cricket super-star and world record holder Brian Lara demonstrates his batting skills to US President Barack Obama during President Obama’s attendance of the 5th Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago
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May 15th, 2009
By Stabroek staff | May 12, 2009
Caricom Police Commissioners at Guyana Confab
In a thinly-veiled critique of conditions under which members of the Guyana Police Force serve and those in which detainees are held, Caricom’s Assistant Secretary-General Dr Edward Greene yesterday called for security to move away from brute force tactics, while President Bharrat Jagdeo insisted that such methods were sometimes justified in the fight against violent crime.
The 18 commissioners of police attending the 24th conference of the Association of Caribbean Commissions of Police stand in front of the Pegasus Hotel where the conference is being held. (Photo by Jules Gibson)
Addressing the opening of the annual conference of the Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police (ACCP) at the Pegasus Hotel, Greene said that while many regional governments have made investments in upgrading the infrastructure to facilitate the work of the police services, much more need to be done to improve the enabling environment in which officers function.
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May 15th, 2009
By Gladiator
Torture victims Victor Jones and Patrick Sumner
The US and the rest of the world are determined to investigate the harsh interrogation measures, otherwise known as “torture,” which the Bush administration authorized for interrogation of terror suspects. Specifically, the US Senate and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are investigating these acts of torture, including water-boarding.
Former DOJ Lawyers, who some believe deliberately twisted interpretation as well as intent and application of various US and international laws in order to justified the use of torture as well as rationalize neo-conservatives’ philosophy of the Bush-Cheney war on “terror,” are also liable and could face criminal prosecution and other sanctions.
In Guyana there is incontrovertible evidence that President Jagdeo, Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee, Police Commissioner Henry Green and Army Chief of Staff Commandore Gary Bess, authorized and/or countenanced the systemic torture of Guyanese citizens.
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May 15th, 2009
BY JENNIFER LEBOVICH AND JACQUELINE CHARLES -MIAMI HERALD
jcharles@MiamiHerald.com
The U.S. Coast Guard has rescued a boatload of Haitian and Bahamian immigrants who were tossed out at sea after their boat capsized.
The boat captain, a Haitian-Bahamian, promised safe passage to the United States for the woman’s daughters. It was a big boat, he assured, not a flimsy wooden vessel. So with the $3,000 she had saved, Madeline Desir bid farewell to her 19-year-old twins.
That was Sunday.
Then came the dramatic television footage Wednesday of the U.S. Coast Guard trying to rescue more than two dozen Haitian migrants who had been tossed into the Atlantic from a sunken vessel off the Florida coast. Nine dead. Sixteen survivors.
”When I saw the news and saw all of those people, my heart sank. I didn’t know,” Desir said. “He told me only five people were going [on the boat].”
Now Desir can only watch, wait — and worry. The U.S. Coast Guard ended its search for survivors Thursday night.
The identities of the dead and the survivors of the ill-fated overseas smuggling trip were not known Thursday. All the victims are believed to be Haitian migrants who left on an overcrowded vessel from Bimini.
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May 14th, 2009
Haitian-born New York City Council Member Mathieu Eugene
NEW YORK, CMC - The New York City Council has unanimous passed a resolution calling on the United States Government to grant Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians living in the country illegally.
The resolution supports the US House of Representatives’ Haitian Protection Act of 2009, or HR 144, which urges the Barack Obama administration to designate TPS to Haitians under Section 244 of the US Immigration and Nationality Act.
“By voting in this resolution, we are sending a strong message to Washington that we, who serve in the New York City Council, believe that all men are created equal and should be treated with equal justice and fairness,” said Councilman Mathieu Eugene, the first Haitian to be elected in the City Council and the prime sponsor of the resolution.
“It is impossible to describe the devastation wreaked upon the entire country, reaching every city, town and village,” he added.
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May 14th, 2009
Allen Stanford
Allen Stanford, the Texan financier and cricket promoter accused of a US$8 billion bank fraud, is at the centre of allegations that he worked as an American government informer, according to the BBC.
A Panorama investigation has suggested that Sir Allen was shielded from an earlier inquiry into his activities because he cooperated with a United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) attempt to track money laundering by Latin American drug cartels.
American officials closed down his banking activities in February, alleging a vast fraud centred on his Antiguan-based offshore bank. Sir Allen, 59, previously most famous as the sponsor of the Twenty20 cricket tournament, has vowed to clear his name.
No criminal charges have yet been filed but the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) described his activities as a “massive Ponzi scheme”.
A former law enforcement official said in February that the FBI and other agencies started looking into Sir Allen’s possible involvement in money-laundering in the 1990s but could not find sufficient evidence to charge him.
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