Articles - News

   Day, amid an atmosphere highly charged with crime, was painted red for all the wrong reasons. The weekend was anything but romantic for families who lost loved ones in some of the most violent ways possible. Five people lost their lives over the weekend including Mario Butcher, a form four student of the Gros Islet Secondary School.
According to police reports 16-year-old Mario Butcher was in Leslie Land on Sunday, February 13 at about 12:10pm along with 19-year-old Donavan Lovence also known as “Fat Leaf” when they were shot, drive by style. Both were taken to the Victoria Hospital where Butcher was pronounced dead while Lovence, a Grass Street resident remained admitted until Monday, February 14 when he succumbed to his injuries.
According to a police report, after the Leslie Land shooting police went in pursuit of suspects at Wilton’s Yard popularly known as “Grave Yard” where 22-year-old, Ashley Bernard also known as “Skunk” of Victoria Street, Castries, was shot by police in the process. He was later pronounced dead at the Victoria Hospital.
This week the STAR paid a visit to the Gros Islet Secondary School where teachers and students were still struggling to come to grips with their loss. Teachers had a shrine set up in memory of Mario Butcher who’d lost his life the day before Valentines Day. Mario’s violent death was unlike anything the Gros Islet Secondary School, or any other school on the island has had to deal with in recent times.
While classes went on as normal for most students, Mario’s homeroom was out of sorts. The form four homeroom teacher Tessa Pierre expressed there was really no point rushing students back to regular school mode as it was clear many of them very too traumatized to focus on their lessons. The students spent Valentines Day in tears when they arrived on Monday only to find that one of their classmates was dead.
“He was a good classmate,” Michelle Phillip told the STAR once their homeroom teacher got them to open up and express their feelings. “We talked but not all the time. I never had a problem with Mario. He could be a little troublesome, but nothing to talk about. I miss him because we won’t ever see him walk through the door again. It hurt me to know my classmate died just like that. We found out about it over the weekend and we found it strange. Everyone was shocked. On Monday everybody was crying and counselors came in to speak to us. They told us it’s okay to say what we feel and cry. They told us we should listen to our parents—maybe Mario should have listened to his mother.”
Students expressed a mixture of emotions, most were sad, angry and most of all overwhelmed. They described Mario as “a good person who was funny and not really troublesome.” Despite his irregular school attendance, Mario’s homeroom teacher had been shaken by his sudden passing and revealed he’d been a promising student.
“Mario was with me for two years and it was evident he was one of the top performing students in the class,” Pierre said. “Unfortunately he did not attend school regularly, but when he did he’d pick up really quickly. He’d get new concepts right away while the other students were struggling, despite the fact that he was not very regular. I taught him Mathematics and he did well but because of his irregularity, his performance suffered quite a bit.”
Mario’s homeroom teacher spoke about factors that may have influenced the changes teachers and even Mario’s mother couldn’t help but noticed as he transitioned from form one to four.
“Unfortunately Mario, the area he’s from, the environment and the circumstances that he was raised in, I think that really contributed to who Mario had become just before his passing,” she said. “From form one to form four he became a different student and we saw the gradual change in him. Unfortunately it was as a result of the environment he was in. He came to school and we tried to expose him to positive things but when he goes back home he’s back into the ghetto.”
Pierre added: “A lot of our students are in that situation where they come to school, we try our best with them but when they go back home they go back into negative influences that have a greater impact on them than what we teach them. They spend more time there and they see these people as their role models. No longer do students see teachers as their role models—not even their parents. These people out there in the ghettos and gangs are their role models. These are the people who have a greater influence on them than we would.”
Teachers say the 16-year-old’s mother came to the school constantly to check up on her son.
“She’s taking it very hard,” the teen’s homeroom teacher said. “His mother was very concerned about him. She knew of the circumstances and tried to pull him away from that, despite the fact that they’re in there. She would ask the teachers and the vice principal to intervene, to talk to him, because she really had an interest in him. She was interested and she tried to make a difference. She tried to keep him off the block; you know what’s going on these days, it’s block against block. She was trying to keep him at home and at school. We’ve been speaking to his mother, finding out how we can help. He wasn’t a disrespectful child; it’s just that he was frequently absent. He had some bad influences.”
School’s counselor Dormillia Henry had her hands full with distressed students and when asked she could not say for sure how much impact the debriefing sessions were having. Some students couldn’t even manage to stop crying long enough to express how they felt. Henry tried asking five of Mario’s closest friends to use one word to describe him and all five broke down in tears.
“I’m trying to understand the emotions the children are going through and help them deal with it,” she said. “Some of them are still very traumatized and it’s very difficult for them to express what they’re feeling. I will be touching base with them until the time of the funeral. I think it will be necessary.”
On Tuesday Mario’s homeroom was busy working on slogans and making posters for their March Against Violence on Friday, February 18. The march is being organized by the school’s Social Studies department and students are expected to make the rounds in the community all in the name of peace.

   Prime Minister Stephenson King announced yesterday that the government is seeking help from the New York Police Department in dealing with the crime situation here. In a statement aired on RCI’s NewsSpin program the prime minister said the New York police have expressed their willingness to help.
Said King in the statement that emanated originally from the Government Information Service: “We made an initial approach to the NYPD Precinct 67 and follow up is taking place now through out Mission in New York. We have already approached the US Embassy and we have indicated to them our interaction with the NYPD Precinct 67 and they have now formally communicated to us, requesting a further proposal in writing formally for them to make the necessary approaches to the NYPD. Of course you must understand the structure of the United States government. You have the federal government and you have the state government and within the state you then have the city government under which the NYPD Precinct 67 falls. What we have done basically is to go to the Precinct and we have been speaking to the Commissioner and others who have indicated initially that they are willing to participate; they have got men who are eager to do the exchanges and to come and assist us here in St Lucia. Now, we have gone to the top, to the federal government and they will channel the request to the Precinct to make the necessary arrangements for their men to come to St Lucia.”
The prime minister said they had requested more from the United States including assistance “in the area of hardware and in the area of human resource development—training our police officers in crime scene management, intelligence and in other areas that can strengthen their ability and capacity in dealing with the problems we have here in St Lucia.”
PM King also stated that the government has made a formal approach to the Israeli government who have responded positively. He mentioned three areas in which the Israelis would assist.
Said King: “We have also at the regional level presented to the OECS a proposal for the consideration of making crime and security within the region a priority. As a consequence St Lucia has called for the establishment of a security desk at the Secretariat and the formulation of programs that we can institutionalize in helping the respective governments of the OECS in fighting crime at the local level.”
The PM said it was decided that the OECS proceed with such programs. He added that St Lucia was also collaborating with Trinidad on the issue of protecting our borders. The PM said two radar systems have been secured to help detect vessels coming in with illegal supplies.
“The government is the one to lead the way, we must do what is necessary,” said King.

   As of Friday St Lucia has already recorded 11 murders for the year, two of which are police killings.

We received news late yesterday that an elderly woman was found in her Arundel Hill home already dead. Police are still on the scene trying to ascertain what happened but the woman is said to have had an incision in her torso and her home was ransacked. Eighty-seven-year-old Agatha Bryant was said to have been a quiet woman who lived alone.

The STAR further received news that Friday evening Denroy Joseph was shot and killed while walking up Lastic Hill in Castries. Joseph is said to reside in Wilton’s Yard but is originally from Basse Joseph area.

Police also received reports yesterday morning of shots fired in the Grass Street area but no one was hurt.

Crime in St Lucia has been on the rise for several years and last year St Lucia reached a record 48 murders. Police believe the latest shootings are linked to gang violence. The STAR will give more information on the crime situation as news comes to hand. We will also take an in depth look next week at the current situation in our Saturday issue.

   Jeannine Compton-Antoine’s conference on Friday was hardly an occasion just for the press. Even before the 11am start time, curious residents stood outside the Micoud Multi Purpose Centre anxiously awaiting the arrival of their parliamentary representative. Like everyone else in St Lucia, news of Compton’s resignation had taken them all by surprise.

Residents flooded into the centre along with the press as a lone Jeannine Compton-Antoine made her way to the makeshift podium that was set up in front of the room. They all wanted to hear what the constituency representative had to say about her seemingly out of the blue resignation.

When Compton finally spoke she explained why she was finally breaking her media silence. It was time to stop the speculation and rumours that had been going around from Sunday, February 6 when she officially submitted her resignation letter to the prime minister of St Lucia.

“I must say this was not an easy decision and I prayed for days over this matter,” she said. “In the end the guidance from God was that I would better represent the people of the constituency and St Lucia if I leave the party.”

Compton said it had been made clear to her from the time she was elected that she was not wanted in the party.

“Yet I have stayed,” she said. “Maybe the way I operate my politics is different. St Lucians need to stand up for what is true and right. Maybe because when I stand up in Parliament, I account for what I do. Maybe it’s a different form of politics. Maybe because I’m a women I operate differently, but that is how politics and governance is supposed to happen.”

Before anyone had a chance to raise the “yellow blanket” comment, the Micoud North parliamentary representative stated: “Yes, I was wrapped in a yellow blanket, my navel string is buried in the United Workers Party. If you choose to serve your country, you must at all times stand for what is right and just and fight at all times for the rights of the people.”

Did her resignation mean that she would go up as an Independent candidate or even more shockingly as a candidate for the St Lucia Labour Party come general elections?

“I haven’t discussed the matter with the constituents and upon my meeting with the constituents then I will know where I stand,” Compton said. “Right now I am an elected member of Parliament. I have not resigned from Parliament. I am still the Parliamentary representative of Micoud North and given that I am not affiliated with any party I am an independent person in the Parliament. If I had resigned completely I would no longer be the parliamentary representative of Micoud North. I find that would be unfair on the people of Micoud North, and also the people of St Lucia because it would have pushed us into a general elections in the next two or three months.”

Within her opening statement Compton said she would continue to speak on behalf of the people of Micoud North, and that one day, the voice of many would no longer be ignored. One reporter wanted to know, if she was truly the voice of the people, why hadn’t she gone to the people of her constituency before resigning from the Party?

“I consulted with the chairperson of my party and certain members of the branch,” Compton responded. “There was some level of consultation. I do admit that maybe I should have discussed the matter but I was under the guidance of God… I’m going to have discussions with the people and the people are going to have their time to ask me why I did what I did.”

Compton said limited budgetary allocations had a lot to do with her resignation. She had a budget of $30,000 a year to run her constituency office, pay secretarial staff and utilities. Other than that she said no money was given to her as a district representative to do any work in the constituency.

“You are at the mercy of ministers and ministries,” she expressed. “I don’t expect government to give everything to the constituency, but at least remember the constituency in the development of St Lucia.

“The parliamentary representative is bypassed in most instances and ministers do what they want in the constituency wit no consultation with either the representative or
the local government authority. The procedures and regulations of ministries and laws of St Lucia are ignored or overruled. I have cried on many nights wondering why this was being done to the constituency. I prayed about it. You ask for certain things to be resolved and it’s not, then you question, why am I here?”

Would she ever return to the United Workers Party?

Compton did not have a yes or no answer. She stated that she did not have any issue with the ministers or the prime minister of the country; her problem was that the party was moving away from key principles.

“My issue with the UWP is that they need to do an internal reflection; look at principles and philosophy,” she said.

“I am a UWP person. People find it hard because I have resigned but the very things
the party stood for are disappearing, and therefore, if the party doesn’t go back to that, there will be no party and there will be nothing for me to return to.”

   In the controversy now taking place here in Saint Lucia over whether government by the Cabinet should sell and lease off our coastline—the Queen’s Chain, it will do well for us to understand the importance of a country’s coastline to the welfare and survival of its people.

Alienation of a people from their coastline or parts of it has historically always led to their coastline becoming a highway for their exploitation and even destruction. Without going into details which the history books are bulging with, we saw it in Africa, India, China, in the United States where the native “Red Indian” population was all but completely wiped out; we see it today in the Middle East where pieces of the coastline of countries there were cut off and placed under the rule of local cutthroats to form sovereign oil states which endure to this day.

And there is the speed with which countries and people can loss their independence when their coastline is alienated. At the 1885 Berlin Conference called by European powers for the purpose of dividing up Africa among themselves, the Conference, which the United States attended, decided that “Any Power which henceforth takes possession of a tract of land on the coasts of the African continent . . . shall acquire them . . . ”. With this “compact of thieves” as it has come to be known, in force, by 1902, just seventeen years after the Berlin Conference, 90 percent of all the land that makes up Africa was under the iron fist of European ownership or control. It was, and it still is, a brutal world out there that civilized people must meet head-on if they are to survive.

Considering the loss of nationhood, and the exploitation, slavery, pain, suffering, and death, that loss of a people’s ownership of their coastline has historically brought to them, other countries should be following our lead in holding our coastline and public access to it inviolable, rather than we ourselves should be following other countries and doing away with those rights. This, the inviolable right of a people to the ownership, access, and control, of their coastline, is a matter that the United Nations could do very well to make a universal right, and include it in its regime of fundamental human rights.

Here in Saint Lucia, Cabinet has no legal standing, as we shall see below, to sell or lease the Queen’s Chain, as Cabinet has decided it will do. If it does, it will be breaking the law and the sale or lease will be null and void.

To tell people that the sale or lease of the Queen’s Chain is being done, as the government says, “in the light of the significant investment the company has made and continues to make to the economic development of the District of Soufriere and Saint Lucia as a whole” (Weekend Voice of 29 Jan 2011), to me sounds mercenary for our country – like Judas damning his soul for thirty pieces of silver. Is nothing beyond price? People make investments to make profit, to make money! Not for our economic development!

We must be sensitive to the rule of law, and more than that we must see to it that laws are in place and are respected that will redound to the survival, well-being, happiness, and future, of us as a people.

The sale or lease of one piece of the Queen’s Chain will lead to the sale or lease of the whole of the Queen’s Chain around the Island, you can be sure of that!

We are new to the business of governing ourselves. We come from a legacy of four centuries of slavery and colonialism when we were not only brutally enslaved, but when we were cut off from the art and science of governing ourselves. We were also cut off from managing our own economic affairs, and from developing the business and commercial side of our private and public lives. The result has been that for at least four centuries we, in common with the rest of our people in Africa and the African Diaspora, lost our sense of economic values and how to handle the wealth producing resources of our country and to manage and market them for our benefit as a people.

We must not forget these things—they really happened to us and their terrible adverse consequences remain with us to today however sophisticated and Westernized we may think we are. We must hasten to catch up with the rest of the world. Weak people tend to take on the attitudes and behaviour of their oppressors. If their oppressors look down on them and belittle and oppress them, then they look down on one another and belittle and oppress one another, and they continue to do that even after the chains of oppression are removed.

We Saint Lucians are not supportive of one another. We should be. We have been Independent since 1979—thirty-one years ago after centuries of slavery and colonialism—and we have sporadically been trying to gain our feet in governing ourselves. How are we doing?

We are doing very badly. We insist on keeping the death penalty and the corporeal brutalization of our children in our schools in our laws, when all civilized countries have stopped these barbaric practices. This shows the measure of the extent to which we continue to mimic our former slave and colonial masters who lynched and brutalized us. We do not even ensure that our young are fed; and we expect them to grow up into normal civilized human beings. Brutalization and hunger lead to brutalization and murder. We see it daily on our streets. And we collectively think that the only way out is to bring in Americans and Israelis to solve our problem of crime for us when we leave the root causes of the problem unattended. We are doing far worse than we should be doing.
We are selling ourselves back into slavery and colonialism. The father of a Saint Lucian lady living in the same Soufriere area tells me that a foreigner bought the house immediately behind his daughter’s home. To her astonishment the foreigner lost no time in visiting her and telling her that he wanted to buy her home, and he added, “if you do not want to sell it to me, I’ll get the government to take it away from you and give it to me.”

Is that possible? Her visitor knew what he was talking about. Since Independence our “chiefs” have changed our laws to make that possible.

Now we hear of the plan to sell or lease our coastline and to drive us to the hills, as was done to our forefathers in Africa.

Frankly, I am worried at the unprecedented unseemly scramble that I see taking place now for election to the House of Assembly at the forthcoming General Elections. No doubt the unscrupulous are already seeing what a bonanza it will be for them if they form part of the next government to have all the coastline and beaches of our country willy-nilly for disposal at their pleasure! And all that, added to their power to take our land and give it to anyone they please! Plus the power to issue Alien-Landholding Licences ad nauseam, and all sorts of gambling and other licences, monopolies, and the like. What a fate awaits us if we as a people do not unite and take collective action! With our country, Saint Lucia, a small, tiny, country, we all could be dispossessed and overcome, and legally too, and in short order, by the deliberate actions of our own leaders.

The supposed climb down of Cabinet, “to rescind the option to purchase” the Queen’s Chain, but to maintain its approval of the offer of a 99-year emphyteutic lease of the lands, leaves us in the same lurch. We are told that that is as far as the Government is willing to go. (Weekend Voice of 29 January 2011)

But does Government not know that an emphyteutic lease is the next closest thing to an outright sale that will produce the same results of violating our rights to the Queen’s Chain for the duration of the lease—for ninety-nine years, that is, for four generations of Saint Lucians down the road, in the case of the granting of the proposed 99-year emphyteutic lease? The law as it stands gives Cabinet no power to sell or lease even one square inch of the Queen’s Chain for one day. Whatever was wrongly done in the past is no licence to repeat the wrong of the past. The wrongs of the past must instead be corrected.

Reading the latest announcement to come out of government concerning the Queen’s Chain, gave me, once again, goose-bumps of fear for the future of our country. And the cavalier sense of ‘we are doing the greatest thing since the invention of toasted bread, for our country’, that accompanies every such foray into disaster for our people and our country, when the exact opposite is being done, is unbelievable! And we expect our country to develop! Yes, it will develop, but what it will develop as it has been doing since Independence, is poverty, crime, hunger, second and third class citizenship, and such adversities, for us, which we can bet will increase unless we inculcate good sense into our heads and place our survival and well-being as a people at the forefront of our minds.
Thankfully, the laws that our colonial rulers left with us, render any sale or lease of the Queen’s Chain by Cabinet, null and void ad initio. This shows that our former colonial rulers were more protective of us in this, than our own elected leaders.

A recent poll in Jamaica showed that a large portion of the people of Jamaica felt that they were better off under British Rule! It surely could not be much different here! Let us recognize our failings and correct them quickly for our own survival. We can do it!
The Queen’s Chain is said to be 186? feet in extent. Why can’t hotels be built just 186? feet away beyond the Queen’s Chain so that both visitors and the local population can together enjoy our beaches? Oh no! That’s not good for us! It’s apartheid that is good for us, what else? Apartheid, the separation of blacks from whites, was practiced in South Africa and elsewhere: and there are some people who think that it must be practiced here! And with our blessing too, even in the era of our sovereign Independence!

Let us instead push those hotels and investors back beyond the narrow strip of the Queen’s Chain so that we may enjoy what has become our birthright, and with our larger, African-derived, humanity truly welcome visitors to enjoy it too! Do we have the strength of character and resolve to do that? We better have!

We must grab and take control of our own fate. Clearly our destiny has not been in good hands all of the time since Independence.

The establishment of the Queen’s Chain and our rights to it, derive from “Ancient French Law”, which was confirmed to us by the “COUTUME DE PARIS” dated 5 November 1681 – that is, 330 years ago. (See Laws of Saint Lucia Volume VI Appendix II).
These rights were constantly confirmed to us, Appendix II shows, by various French Sovereign Acts and Memoranda issued on 6 August 1704, 5 September 1781, 3 December 1757; and when Saint Lucia changed hands from the French to the British, General Grinfield and Commodore Samuel Hood who were the British military and naval commanders at the time of the capitulation, issued a “Proclamation Assurant L’Ancient Droit” dated 23 June 1803 in the name of the British King, assuring the inhabitants of Saint Lucia of their Ancient Rights fully and entirely as they existed before the cession. These British military and naval commanders duly registered their Proclamation in the Registry of Saint Lucia!

These our Ancient Rights have been duly and expressly carried over through every change in the form of government that we have had since then. It is carried over in our current 1979 Constitution of Saint Lucia as an “existing law” under the Transitional Provisions of Schedule 2 to the Order, paragraph 2. Cabinet has no power to change that existing law. The Constitution gives the “Power to make laws” to Parliament under Article 40 of the Constitution. That power does not extend to Cabinet. Cabinet cannot lawfully break that law. “The functions of the Cabinet” are stated at Article 61(3) of the Constitution to be “to advise the Governor-General in the government of Saint Lucia . . .”

In addition, access to and public use of the Queen’s Chain by us from ancient times have long passed into being an accepted rule of law in force in Saint Lucia and it has been accepted and respected as such by all governments—French, British, and colonial—in the past. Though unwritten, that rule of law is acknowledged as an existing law under the Transitional Provisions Schedule 2 to the Order, and Article 124 of the Constitution which states that in the Constitution, the meaning of the word “law” . . . includes…any unwritten rule of law”.

We are not a newly conquered country, so that our rulers since 1979 can take on the mantle of being our conquerors and therefore can do whatever they please. It is noteworthy here that Article 40 of the Constitution which gives Parliament the power to makes laws, restricts the extent of that power. It states that: “Subject to the provisions of this Constitution Parliament may make laws for the peace, order and good government of Saint Lucia.”

Would it be for peace and order to introduce apartheid into Saint Lucia in the Twenty-first Century? Not even in South Africa today would it be considered to be! Must we or our children fight a bloody revolution for the recognition of our human dignity not even mentioning our human rights?

Can it be considered to be “good government” to abolish a right that has been accepted as a fundamental right and a birth right of the people, and that has been enjoyed by them from ancient times and confirmed by successive governments? Of course not!

If there are people here who wish to alter Article 40 of our Constitution to give them carte blanche to make any laws they please including a law to abolish our rights to the Queen’s Chain, then they will have to go through the process of getting a bill to do so passed in the House by a vote of “not less than three-quarters of all the members of the House” under Article 41(2) of the Constitution; and under Article 41(6)(b) getting that bill “approved on a referendum . . . by a majority of the votes validly cast on that referendum”.

And so we have it, that, quite correctly, only the people of Saint Lucia by a majority vote for it on a referendum can abolish the laws relating to the establishment of the Queen’s Chain, and our enjoyment of our rights to it. This is as it should be. All of us including politicians must keep to the rule of law and to the making of laws only “for the peace, order and good government of Saint Lucia”, as our Constitution directs.

Politicians must be circumspect and not believe or allow people to talk them into thinking that all they have to do is to win Elections and they automatically have the power to do whatsoever they please or are asked to do. They do not have that power, as our Constitution clearly shows.

Whatever we may have lulled ourselves into thinking, it’s a dog-eat-dog world of predators out there. There are no godfathers out there. The world has become over-populated and resources are running out, we are told. Our survival as a people depends on our own effort. We better know that and make the effort required of us at all times for our survival. We have the resources and the brains to do that.

Editors Note: The author is a Former Governor General of St Lucia.