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Dominica:
The Caribbean's Next 'Terror Island'?
AFP-Getty
Images/Juan
Barreto
Dominica
has signed up for ALBA (or Bolivarian Alternative to the Americas),
a scheme designed by Venezuela to promote reciprocal trade
and solidarity amongst poor Latin American nations. Specifically,
the initiative is designed to counteract Washington's push
for corporate free trade through bilateral mechanisms.
By
Nikolas Kozloff
In
1983, while aboard a New York subway, I noticed someone reading
that day's issue of the New York
Post. The front page
headline screamed, "YANKS INVADE TERROR ISLAND." It
was early on in the Reagan administration and the United States
had just militarily intervened in the Caribbean nation of Grenada,
ending the island's short-lived socialist experiment. The landing
was based on the pretext that the Reagan administration had
suspected that the new commercial airport—which Cuban
laborers were aiding Grenada to construct on the island—actually
would be used to transport Cuban troops to fight alongside
African revolutionaries. Today, another Caribbean nation, Dominica,
has been forging links with leftist Cuba and Venezuela. Authorities
on that small Caribbean island had better watch out, or they
may be presiding over this generation's "Terror Island," but
this time the name of the island is Dominica.
A tiny nation of 133 square miles whose population could barely
fill the Rose Bowl, Grenada had posed no strategic threat to
the United States. But Maurice Bishop of the leftist New Jewel
Movement, which had ruled Grenada since 1979, had become positively
irksome to Washington. Inspired at least as much by Bob Marley
as by Karl Marx, Bishop, a young London School of Economics
graduate and an island intellectual and visionary, had embarked
on an ambitious social and economic program aimed at diversifying
agriculture, developing cooperatives, and creating an agro-industrial
base that was leading to a reduction in food imports. Bishop
also established a free health service and secondary education
system, resulting in a markedly higher literacy rate on the
island.
The Reagan administration sought to halt the New Jewel Movement
in its tracks: economic assistance through the World Bank and
the Caribbean Development Bank was mysteriously blocked, aid
from the International Monetary Fund was restricted, and any
participation in the Caribbean Basin Initiative was dismissed
out of hand. Reagan even refused to meet with Bishop when the
Grenadian prime minister visited Washington in June 1983. According
to the Washington Post, the C.I.A. had been engaged all along
in a campaign to destabilize Grenada both politically and economically.
Grenada: Bitter History
Grenada's controversial domestic and foreign policies would
soon give the White House the pretext to intervene. Bishop
had sought to align Grenada with Cuba and had welcomed hundreds
of skilled airport construction laborers, medical personnel,
and military advisers from the Communist island to translate
their skills to their Grenadian counterparts. After a hard
core Marxist-Leninist island official named Bernard Coard
led a military coup placing Bishop and other moderates under
arrest, Bishop's supporters were at first able to liberate
their prime minister. However, events deteriorated rapidly
after army troops massacred dozens of protesters, as well
as murdering Bishop along with two of his cabinet members.
Reagan immediately invented the scenario that the Cubans were
behind the anti-Bishop coup and his assassination. In reality
however, Fidel Castro was outraged by events on the island
and quickly condemned Coard's actions. Angry Cuban officials
threatened Grenada with a cutoff of assistance and declared
that its forces would only fire in self-defense. On Oct. 25,
several thousand United States troops invaded the island, ousted
the government, and took full control of Grenada within two
hours.
In seeking to justify its actions, the Reagan administration
had invented the claim that the Cubans were undertaking a military
buildup on Grenada even though less than 100 of the 750 Cubans
on the island were military personnel. Washington also claimed
that its troop deployment was aimed at protecting American
lives and safeguarding United States students at a local medical
school. However, scores of Americans had left the island prior
to the invasion without incident and their lives were never
in danger. In addition, United States officials had instructed
a cooperating Prime Minister Tom Adams of the nearby island
of Barbados to close down its airport so United States students
couldn't flee Grenada. This gave United States authorities
the cover to invade the island, insisting all the time that
the United States students were in mortal danger.
The Return of Progressive Politics Through PetroCaribe
Though the Reagan administration was successful at extirpating
Cuban influence from Grenada and defeating prospects for
the further development of progressive political change there,
the United States now faces a new ideological challenge in
the Caribbean. Twenty-five years after the fall of the New
Jewel Movement, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez has
been able to recruit critical political leverage throughout
the region through the skillful use of diplomatic petropower.
Venezuela is today the biggest oil exporter in the Americas,
and under the so-called PetroCaribe agreement, heavily indebted
countries throughout the Caribbean basin may trade agricultural
goods for concessionary oil prices. Launched in 2005, PetroCaribe
has been able to alleviate many Caribbean nations' energy woes
and lessen their dependence on United States financial aid.
Chávez has benefited in turn by expanding his regional
profile and broadening the appeal of his socialist agenda.
In recent years, the greatest beneficiaries of PetroCaribe
have been Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Nicaragua.
During a PetroCaribe summit in August 2007, Chávez remarked, "the
Caribbean shouldn't have problems this century and beyond."
The most recent Caribbean country to have joined
Chávez's
alliance is the small island nation of Dominica, which may
well become "Terror Island" for the State Department.
That institution could soon publicly vent its displeasure over
the island's growing ties with Caracas. Dominica has signed
up for ALBA (or Bolivarian Alternative to the Americas), a
scheme designed by Venezuela to promote reciprocal trade and
solidarity amongst poor Latin American nations. Specifically,
the initiative is designed to counteract Washington's push
for corporate free trade through bilateral mechanisms (Dominica
is also a member of PetroCaribe and receives subsidized Venezuelan
oil as part of the initiative).
"ALBA continues to grow as a new geopolitical, geoeconomic
area and seeks the construction of a better world for those
of us in the Caribbean and Latin America," Chávez
has remarked. Always the artful provocateur, Chávez
warns of the looming economic crisis in the United States and
has urged his closest Latin American and Caribbean allies to
begin withdrawing billions of dollars in their international
reserves from United States banks.
Dominica's Grinding Poverty
Dominica, which is more than twice as large as Grenada, is
characterized by mountains and tropical rainforest. It was
the last of the Caribbean islands to be colonized by Europeans,
largely due to fierce resistance by the native Caribs. France
ceded possession of its former colony to Great Britain in
1763, which declared Dominica a British colony in 1805. Almost
all Dominicans are descendants of African slaves brought
in by colonial planters in the 18th century. Of particular
interest, Dominica is the only island in the eastern Caribbean
to retain some of its pre-Columbian population—the
Carib Indians—about 3,000 of whom live today on the
island's east coast.
In 1978, the Commonwealth of Dominica was granted independence
by the United Kingdom. However, self-rule did little to solve
the many problems stemming from centuries of economic underdevelopment.
Chronic economic malaise was compounded by the severe impact
of the hurricanes in 1979 and 1980. With relatively few natural
resources, Dominica's 70,000 people have faced grinding poverty
and many have left for some of the more prosperous nearby islands,
the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada.
The Banana Island
By the end of the 1980's, Dominica's economy had somewhat recovered,
but weakened again in the 1990's, owing to a decrease in
banana prices. Bananas and other tropical products still
dominate Dominica's economy, and almost one-third of the
labor force depends on cultivating the fruit on family parcels.
Unfortunately, this sector is highly vulnerable to weather
conditions such as hurricanes and to external global economic
movement affecting commodity prices.
The banana sector has been on the decline since 1990, falling
from 25 percent of gross domestic product in 1990 to 18 percent
in 2005. As a result of adverse World Trade Organization rulings,
the European Union phased out preferential prices for producers
in its former colonies. Therefore, Dominica has tried to reduce
its reliance on bananas, its traditional and main export earner.
In an attempt to boost the economy, Dominica is increasingly
looking to create niche markets in eco-agriculture and eco-tourism.
The island is also diversifying its agricultural sector by
introducing coffee, patchouli, aloe vera, cut flowers, and
exotic fruits such as mangoes, guavas, and papayas.
Dominica has a fledgling tourist industry but poor infrastructure
and the absence of a commercial-sized airport has impeded the
sector's growth. The island is mostly volcanic and has few
beaches. As a result, tourism has developed more slowly than
on neighboring islands. In November 2004, Dominica suffered
an earthquake that damaged structures throughout the island.
Even worse, landslides were brought on by heavy rains. Dominica
has several areas of volcanic activity, with an estimated 25
percent chance of a large eruption occurring in the next 25
years. This increases the uncertainty and risk factors for
potential investors on the island.
The Rise of Roosevelt Skerrit
When Prime Minister Pierre Charles died in 2004, Roosevelt
Skerrit took over the reins of government. A former education
minister, Skerrit studied English and psychology in the United
States before becoming a teacher and lecturer on Dominica.
Skerrit was Dominica's youngest Prime Minister—upon
assuming office he was a mere 31 years old. The political
neophyte was chosen by Skerrit's Dominica Labor Party to
succeed Charles.
Skerrit assumed the reins of power at a troubled time. Two
years prior to his ascension, Dominica had requested a loan
from the International Monetary Fund. Although the financial
institution ostensibly agreed (extending $4.3 million in a
standby accord), the island was obliged to implement an I.M.F.-mandated
adjustment program. Under I.M.F. stipulations, Dominica had
to reduce its fiscal deficit by nearly half to 5 percent of
G.D.P. In order to comply with the agency's prescription, the
government was forced to undertake painful revenue measures
through a new round of taxes while reducing expenditure.
Programs that would introduce cuts in public service led to
a weeklong strike in February 2003. After concluding its mid-term
review in March 2003, the I.M.F. announced that Dominica, as
of yet, had not been able to reduce its fiscal deficit and
emphasized the need for the government to undertake substantial
new measures to cool down the economy. In 2003, the government
agreed to cut public service salaries by 5 percent. The next
year, the authorities agreed to comply with yet more painful
measures such as reducing the size of public expenditures,
reducing wages and increasing the retirement age to 60 from
55.
Not surprisingly, the I.M.F. and its user-unfriendly role
on the island rapidly proved to be politically controversial.
In 2005, Skerrit's party won the general elections; the campaign
focused on the tough I.M.F. austerity program that had boosted
growth but at the cost of increased taxes along with job cuts.
Skerrit Forges Alliances
Facing a sluggish economy, Skerrit, looking for a way out,
has forged a close relationship with regional leftist leaders
such as Castro and Chávez. Responding to a shortage
of health professionals, Cuba has sent dozens of medical
personnel to train nurses on Dominica. In addition, Cuba
has agreed to establish an intensive care unit at Dominica's
major hospital. In 2006, Skerrit remarked, "I wish to
thank the people of Cuba. It is through their hard work for
humanity that they are able to assist persons all over the
world."
Furthermore, as Chávez flexes his diplomatic skills
in the Caribbean in opposition to the United States' traditional
regional goals and aspirations, there are signs that some small
nations are expectantly entering into Venezuela's geopolitical
orbit. Indeed, there's been a flurry of diplomatic exchanges
between Skerrit and Chávez. Recently, the Venezuelan
leader donated several millions of dollars to Skerrit to help
him build housing on the island and upgrade the agricultural
sector. Additionally, Chávez has offered to increase
the number of university scholarships available to Dominican
students from 50 to 100. Jumping to the aid of a friend, in
2007 Venezuela provided crucial aid to the small island to
help pave its roads.
Generously, Chávez was the first leader
to offer assistance to Dominica after Hurricane Dean, which
slammed into the island
in August of 2007, causing particularly widespread damage to
the agricultural sector and infrastructure. The destruction
caused by Dean was estimated at 20 percent of Dominica's G.D.P.
($162 million), and destroyed much of what was left of the
island's banana industry. Economic growth slowed to 1 percent
in 2007, largely as a result of the hurricane.
One of Chávez's more interesting initiatives on the
island is a program to help Dominica's Carib Indians. Caracas
is offering $4.5 million to construct housing and a school
on Indian lands. The Venezuelan leader also has agreed to set
up a special credit bureau, which shall extend $3.2 million
in loans to local members. According to Dominican officials,
70 percent of the Indians live in poverty. It's not surprising
that Chávez has singled out the Caribs for help: for
years, the Venezuelan leader has sought to assist his own country's
indigenous peoples by providing land grants and economic assistance
programs.
More Petro Diplomacy
Even more importantly perhaps, for some time Chávez
has nursed plans to build an oil refinery on the island as
part of PetroCaribe. Chávez has said that Dominica's
refinery would be a jumping-off point for distributing Venezuelan
oil to other eastern Caribbean islands. Venezuela is seeking
to build a string of refineries capable of handling its oil
shipments to the area so that they will be less dependent on
fuel stock coming from third countries or using United States
facilities.
Valued at some $76 million, the Dominican refinery was scheduled
to produce close to 10,000 barrels of oil per day. Venezuela
was poised to finish the operational studies for the refinery
when Skerrit called for a halt to the plan. The Dominican prime
minister said that his country needs more time to analyze the
project, which has been locally criticized as being incompatible
with plans to promote eco-tourism.
Peanuts in Economic Aid
Regardless of whether the refinery plans eventually go through,
however, it is undeniable that a number of small countries
such as Dominica have embraced Chávez's initiatives
almost out of economic survival, which poses thorny geopolitical
questions for a Washington that is notoriously opposed to
any type of political experimentation, pluralism, or in dealing
with what it considers to be a rouge relationship. How might
the United States view growing economic and energy integration
involving Venezuela and other needy Caribbean nations? Could
one envisage a tragic return of the Big Stick policies of
the Reagan era and the use of the need to "rescue" United
States nationals on the island as a pretext for a military
intervention, as was the case with Grenada in 1983? This
action proved costly when it came to cultivating constructive
and respectful United States relations with the rest of the
region.
For the moment, such a prospect may seem far
off, and even open to ridicule, but the possibility of Dominica
being perceived
as a "Terror Island" by a pumped up and radicalized
United States regional policy is very real if Washington decides
to flex its muscles in the region. But the matter is very complex.
For one thing, an estimated 4,500 Americans reside in Dominica
and the White House would not wish to endanger their status
by making some provocative move or invent a contrived scenario
for that island. The Peace Corps also provides technical assistance
to the island, and its volunteers have been posted to work
on education, youth development, and health projects; what
worries pro-democracy circles in the United States is that
a hard-right McCain presidency might see Dominica as another
Grenada and Venezuela as another Soviet Union thus requiring
United States nationals to be rescued from there by United
States forces.
Dominica remains a beneficiary of the Caribbean
Basin Initiative, a Reagan-era trade vehicle that grants
duty-free entry into
the United States for a number of local produced goods. For
the time being, relations between the United States and Dominica
are friendly, and the island receives a modest amount of economic
assistance channeled through the World Bank and the Caribbean
Development Bank, as well as via the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID). In 2005, Prime Minister
Skerrit signed an agreement with USAID under which the agency
agreed to provide $2 million to the public and private sector.
During the signing ceremony, the prime minister remarked that
he hoped the agreement would represent "a deepening, a
strengthening of relations between Dominica and the United
States."
Two million dollars is hardly the kind of cash that can reverse
grinding poverty on the island. Two years later, a frustrated
Skerrit had the personal courage to argue that the United States
should be more engaged in the Caribbean region. He told the
United States ambassador to the Eastern Caribbean that Washington
should help finance small community-based projects to complement
the work of Peace Corps volunteers on the island.
Skerrit
is nowhere near to implementing the kind of socialist agenda
that Maurice Bishop had in mind when he moved into
Grenada's Government House. But as long as Dominica pursues
an independent foreign policy and insists on maintaining
cordial relations with Caracas, this might sorely test the
tolerance of a putative McCain administration. Of course,
it is extremely unlikely if a Clinton or Obama gains office
that such an adversarial relationship will occur. Dominica
has now joined ALBA, an organization that is very close to
Chavez's heart but very distant from Washington's.
Back to the 'Terror Island'?
Although it would appear to be far-fetch, even in the event
that John McCain is elected president, one can imagine that
the stage could be set for a hasty confrontation with a Dominica
leadership that insists on doing what is necessary to rescue
its own people from their economic duress. The Arizona Senator
has chaired the International Republican Institute since
1993. Ostensibly a non-partisan outfit, in reality the I.R.I.
serves as an instrument to advance and promote a far right
Republican foreign policy agenda. More a cloak-and-dagger
operation than a conventional democratic-promoting research
group, I.R.I. has aligned itself with some of the most anti-democratic
movements in the Third World. It is not too much to say that
for the I.R.I., a moderate, highly regarded government like
that of Dominica may be transformed into another Cuba.
In Haiti, I.R.I. aggressively funded virulent
anti-Aristide groups and in Venezuela, I.R.I. generously
financed anti-Chávez
civil society operations. When Venezuelan opposition politicians,
union and community leaders went to Washington on a private
mission to meet with and advise United States officials of
the approaching April 2002 coup, the I.R.I. picked up the bill.
The I.R.I. also helped to fund the corrupt Confederation of
Venezuelan Workers (which played a major role in the anti-Chávez
destabilization campaign leading up to the coup) and Súmate,
whose director was at the presidential palace in Caracas with
the other coup backers just before the anti-Chávez effort
had failed.
McCain at the Helm
For more than a decade, I.R.I. chairman McCain has taken a
personal interest in I.R.I.'s hostile efforts against Cuba
and has vigorously praised the I.R.I. covertly funded anti-Castro
opposition. The Arizona Senator has called Cuba "a national
security threat," adding that "as president, I
will not passively await the long overdue demise of the Castro
dictatorship.… The Cuban people have waited long enough." Meanwhile,
among McCain's most influential advisers on Latin American
affairs are Cuban Americans from Florida, including far right
Congressional figures such as Representatives Lincoln Diaz-Balart
and Ileana Ros Lehtinen.
McCain seeks to confront countries such as
Venezuela and Cuba by encouraging a United States partnership
with some conservative
governments that support American-style economies as well as
despise Havana because of incidents from the distant past,
which includes the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland. Concerned
over growing ties between Cuba and Venezuela, McCain said "He
[Chávez] aspires to be this generation's [Fidel] Castro.
I think the people of Venezuela ought to look at the standard
of living in Cuba before they would embrace such a thing."
To make matters worse, the chair of the I.R.I.
has sought to promote high-visibility neo-conservative figures
from the
Bush regime such as John Bolton, who has staked out an exceedingly
hard-line position on United States -Latin America relations.
During the latter's Senate confirmation hearings, McCain urged
his Democratic colleagues to approve Bolton's nomination as
United Nations ambassador quickly. Bolton has been a super
hawk not only on Iran but also on Venezuela. At the time, McCain,
who has referred to Chávez as a "wacko," said
it was important to confirm Bolton, and with him at the United
Nations, the United States would be able to talk back to "two-bit
dictators" like the Venezuelan leader.
With his long history of taking a combative
stance against the Latin American left, McCain might seek
to isolate or put
pressure on the otherwise entirely moderate Skerrit government
to convince it to sever its ties to Venezuela. Just as Reagan
sought to make an example out of Grenada back in 1983, demonstrating
that the United States would not brook an independent government
whose left-leaning foreign and economic policies were being
hatched so close to United States shores, McCain might seek
to launch a diplomatic offensive against such Chávez
initiatives as ALBA and PetroCaribe. The prospect of a tough
operator like McCain taking command in Washington has to be
genuinely worrisome to those who, like Skerrit, are committed
to an emphasis on new models of regional development and self-determination.
With the grim fate of Grenada and Chile under Salvador Allende
in mind, tiny Dominica has good reason to be apprehensive over
its approaching possible destiny, if McCain wins the White
House. In that case, the aspirations of a friendly island and
its responsible leadership could be entirely misunderstood.
Nikolas
Kozloff, a the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. (COHA) Senior
Research fellow, is the author of Revolution! South America
and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave-Macmillan,
April 2008). Petroleumworld
does not necessarily share these views.
Editor's
Note:This commentary was originally published by COHA, March
10, 2008. Petroleumworld reprint this article in the
interest of our readers.
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Petroleumworld
03/10/08
Copyright ©2006
Nikolas
Kozloff. All Rights Reserved
