Governor pushes back on OECS, CARICOM’s ‘colonialism’ claims
Governor John Rankin has sought to set the record straight regarding statements emanating from various regional bodies in relation to the Commission of Inquiry (COI) report and its recommendations.
Member States within both CARICOM and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) blocs have condemned the report’s recommendation for a partial suspension of the BVI‘s constitution and direct UK rule in particular, calling it a regression and a return to colonialism in some instances.
The same sentiment has also been voiced by several individual Caribbean leaders in their own right.
UK’s proposal misinterpreted
But Governor Rankin has suggested there may have been a misinterpretation of the UK’s position in relation to that recommendation.
“Some of the responses have been to the effect that the proposal is to abolish the constitution as a whole and simply impose direct rule across-the-board from London or by the Governor. That’s not the proposal,” the Governor said in a recent 284 Media interview.
He continued: “The proposal is actually for partial suspension, which relates to ministers and the House of Assembly.”
According to the Governor, under the proposal, if it were to be implemented, the BVI’s courts, relevant statutory boards, the Director of Public Prosecutions and human rights provisions within the constitution will all remain.
“The proposal is actually not to abolish the constitution, the proposal is a partial suspension for a temporary period and I think maybe that hasn’t always been appreciated in some of the statements that we’ve seen,” the Governor expressed.
UK has duty to curb abuse
Meanwhile, Governor Rankin said the UK recognises the territory’s right to self-determination and notes that, under the United Nations (UN) charter, it has an obligation to promote self-governance within the territory.
But the Governor said under that same UN charter, the UK government has a duty to prevent abuse against the people of the BVI.
Within that context, he argued, it is also the UK‘s duty, while supporting self-governance, to “prevent what’s been happening and to prevent corruption, to prevent abuse of rights within the territory”.
“We need to try to do both,” the Governor arged, “and I believe that by tackling the recommendations as I have said before, we can actually put the BVI better on the path to self-governance.”
“Let’s wait to see the decision in relation to the partial suspension issue,” the governor added. “But the objective is what I think everybody should be supporting, which is better good governance.“
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We will not accept white supremacy in the bvi
Well…. the alternative didn’t work out so well did it?
They didn’t turn our country into a narco state. They didn’t let the fire at the dump run out of control. They didn’t invest 7.2 in the airline. They didn’t spend $100 million on the pier park. They didn’t spend $1 million on the wall. They didn’t fail to rebuild our schools. They didn’t stop the plunder allowing us to have the most unreliable utilities in the world. They didn’t force us to pay the highest telecom rates in the world for cell phone service while getting rich at our expense.
yes our own did all of those things. however england did worse to us….i would not go as far as talking bout white supremacy but the right to MANAGE OR MISMANAGE our own affairs should stay with us….england is not heaven so they are not saviours….we got into our own mess and we can fix them….not that we dont need some help….but we dont need england to run our country….give us some technical advice, some money and get outta the way.
Really? What bad things did England do to us in the 20 years?
Reg: All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system and public health, what have the British ever done for us?
Revolutionary I: Got rid of a corrupt leader?
Reg: Oh Shut up!
Money for what??? Go find all that has been wasted.
what good have they done for un in the last 150 years?
“give us some technical advice, some money and get outta the way.” Yes – they have been doing that for decades. What was the first thing Fahie the Fat did? He hired foreign Bodyguards and told us he had instructed them to shoot to kill. He also bought himself a new $150,000 car. Why? He should have bought a bike to get in shape.
You are part of the problem if you don’t accept that we are incapable of leading ourselves today. Tomorrow we will be and everyone will understand what direction we are going in and we will no longer be a Narco State.
Money for what??? Go find all that has been wasted.
London is the Money Laundering capital of the world. You can’t preach to us.
Someone has to launder
all the BVIs drug money. Might as well be London.
Yes you are correct and that feeds BVI . With out it BVI. Has nothing
Actually, that’s a lie. London has never been reported as a money laundering center.
Reg, don’t insult our intelligence by just making it up.
“We list nearly half of all countries as major money-laundering destinations – China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Laos, Macao, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan face the most massive issues with financial secrecy.”
https://sanctionscanner.com/blog/major-money-laundering-countries-251#:~:text=We%20list%20nearly%20half%20of,massive%20issues%20with%20financial%20secrecy.
Well said!
Far too much scaremongering and false comments being made to undermine the UK. The UK is not squeaky clean but they have checks and balances which many do not.
is all these down island statesmen are mumbling about in their incoherent speeches. The BVI is a UK colony with the longest reigning Queen in charge. Nothing else matters!
Hi Governor
Good job with the reply. Nice and balanced. The foreign bodies and persons do not know what they are talking about, as they are not here to see the corruption. I would have been more hostile and told them to mind their own business, but your diplomatic answer is correct.
Get on with it yes yes yes. Them house of assembly members are too lazy and dis**nest. I don’t understand why them running to CARICOM for everything. Them don’t treat the people good especially UK and other Caribbean people living among them aa$$. Suspend the dam constitution and clean up house. These people are wicked.
Thank you for clarifying this. These protester spreading propaganda. “They coming to take our land” ect. Totally spreading lies to gain traction. Clearly this is not the Uk intention. These people are solely interested in creating a fair domacracy for all! It is about time . Years of corruption. It is about time this ends! I welcome you UK.
The sooner the UK takes over will be the best for the British Virgin Islands, this new government is taking us down the sane road.
Governor don’t let the Black crooks from around the Caribbean sway you. They are afraid that they themselves will lose the keys to the piggy banks in their own countries. Just remember Governor. The Black man is a crook in his heart no matter where he lives around the globe. He fills jail cells everywhere and it’s not due to his color. South Africa was given back to the Black man. Since that occurred crime has risen, poverty has risen and corruption has risen. It’s due to his criminal behavior and is in his genes.
What a putrified dead racist skunk you are!
By the ways, we learned all that criminality from your teachings. You should be proud!
What kind of Racial s**t of a comment being made here?
BVI News yes everybody is entitled to his / her own opinion, but why did you let this idiotic bi**t post this drivel on your website.
You should do the right thing and remove it.
Yesssss, whitey. It’s time to stop throwing rocks and hiding your hands. Say what’s really on your mind.
Essentially this is counter counter propaganda. Rubbish written to get the exact response that it did. I can bet it was composed by one of our marchers and shouters.
Exactly! I’d bet the house that Governor is a local trying to make it look like he’s a white racist dude.
Transparent fake. A real racist would not write that.
Leave it on the site to show people what a fake post looks like.
Don’t worry folks, Governor is obviously just
someone trying to make it look like he’s a racist to stir trouble.
That’s the thing with the internet, people pretend they are adults.
Shame on you!
If you are black check your history,and if you are white still check your history and see who did the most Robberies around the would,the most invasions,accupations,
The worst atrocities in this would has been done by whites towards black.
So don’t make it look like blacks are the villans here.
If you want the brits to take over your territory it’s all good for you but don’t ever pull down the black man in your endeavors.
I don’t want to assume that your white but you’re definitely a racist idiot. You brought up South Africa,ok when a country not to mention a continent has been used and abused for centuries the psychological effects remain for decades and decades. Are the black men in power in South Africa doing a good job? I would say probably not as we know there are many reasons some definitely their fault and some due to resistance for change.For you to say the black man is a crook just shows us that you are obviously ignorant and racist. Go educate yourself and learn about the original man and where most of the knowledge of everything came from. If the black man is a crook then what is the white man? Don’t go down that road because we came to far to go back. The times of long ago are far long and gone and the new generation will most definitely resist and give up their lives fighting.
I hope you are not living amongst us, and you feel the way you do about the black man! every race has its issues. I am afraid how I would react should your true identity be exposed!
We live in a scary world where you may be one of my co-workers.
John Cline, You are the one who is gravely mistaken in this because most of the people of the BVI want a UK take over, the only people that don’t want it is people like you who feed off of the corrupt governments. You really need to find something better to do with your time, you are so afraid of losing your big income from government you just can’t afford to SHUT UP.
No to taking over our financial institution. That, it is belived correctly, is your sole motive. Only a HOODLUM would and does such.
No to dissolving the constitution.
No to dissolving the HOA
No to disenfranchising our elected members of their demoratic and political rights.
No to dissenfranchising the people of their inalienable rights. They are human beings and have the same rights on this earth.
What rights do the two thirds of the adult population with no vote have?
How many of us move to the UK to live or the Caribbean islands? A drop in the bucket. No to direct rule. Help us sort out the governance issues without recolonization.
I don’t see you saying no to corruption! Are you in favour of corruption??
Our people, our leaders have been deliberate in their greed and wrong doings now they are asked to answer, “It’s Every body else’s fault”.
The 15 or so full member Caricom states are all independent territories that have no mother country to fall back on in times of disaster. Also, they are totally on their own with no parent to provide oversight when destructive corruption occurs within their systems, the BVI is not in that position, so, their opinions really has little or no significance to this territory.
Rattie you rather be abused by your own.uk is not a color,look who leaving there ; multi ethnique
No, no and no!!!, YES,YES, YES,YES, TO UK TAKE OVER.
What a putrified dead racist skunk you are!
By the ways, we learned all that criminality from your teachings. You should be proud!
No shit Sherlock! You are clearly the kind that condones slavery, oppression, discrimination, jim crow, red lining, hanging Black humans from trees and taking all the gains BVIslanders have accrued ovr the year for yourself..A TYPICAL WHITE MAN’S AND UK MENTALITY..
Chill Dude!!! You gone have a hart attak!
@Toger Burnett, you are not telling the fully story. The West Indian Islands were the hub of the British Empire. Slave labour made the sugar colonies very highly profitable. The profits built the UK economy and created commercial capitalism. The profits from commercial capitalism funded industrialism capitalism which funded the Industrial Revolution. Though the sugar colonies were highly profitable, the UK didn’t invest in the infrastructure of the colonies. They invested in getting goods to the ships for shipment to the UK. Commercial capitalism collapse, along with WWI and WWII, caused Britain to abandon the sugar colonies, casting them adrift into independence. They set the former colonies adrift into independence poor, with a no infrastructure, poor education, poor health services, failed sugar economy and without a national development plan. They are still suffering from the legacies of slavery and colonialism. The islands were exploited and yet to receive any reparations. The islands are not yearning to return to colonialism. What they want is reparative justice.
The Cariibean was insignificant in the British Empire. India , Australia, Canada , Africa were the jewels in the Crown. The Caribbean was and is largely irrellevant.
@Rubber Duck, you may be a media Wh**e from the UK but you talking out of school. The school chiren say the BE came in two iterations and the West Indies and the Americas were in the first iterations. The West Indies were known as the “ Suger Colonies” and they were highly profitable. The second BE iteration included Australia ( a penal colony), Ceylon, Africa, etc.
You’re forgetting an earlier link that set off the historical connection you mention.
The black slaves were taken prisoner by other black men
whip enslaved them and sold them to the white men ti ship here.
So let’s not pretend that slavery is about race. It’s about money. Always was way before the white guys turned up.
That’s the white man’s narrative
And some of you black men running with it
That was written in the white history books to make us feel that we betrayed our own they thought us to hate our own I still can’t believe that black people are still looking at the white man as there savior wow it’s so sad.
when the whiteman went into black africa, full of strong black warriors, hunters and (should I say savages?) and just take out slaves at their pleasure? Just like that? Someone needs to write another narrative. Something doesn’t add up. Hmmm
Thank you,
That is a fact….
Thank you,
That is a fact….
The BVI has received billons of dollars from the UK over the past 170 years. Where did that bring us to? It led us to the Narco State with dumps burning out of control, widespread corruption and mismanagement. Where else in the world would a school spend $1m to build a simple wall? Where else in the world would a country hand over $7.2m without doing a google search to check out the perps? Where else in the world would would a country spend $50M building a hospital that would spend 5 years sitting empty because of its poor design and construction. Where has all of that money gone? Look around you.
You think we deserve reparations? Get to work, let’s make this place a better place to live. But don’t for another second think we are owed anything. We squandered the opportunity to self govern. Maybe in the next generation we will be able to do so if we work hard and focus on education so that our children or grandchildren can avoid the mistakes that we have made,
Cost over $200 m. That been under the bed. Biggest gravy train project bvi done.
But Orlando say he has no regrets. He’s so full of s**t.
The comments on here seems one sided they bash all bv islanders seems like paid online gangsters
Am here waiting so patiently for the uk to pass all the laws and weed out all the corruption that are here at home. And to get reid off these drugs kin ping. Too much people dying and some of these cases cannot solved. Why some of them so scared because they had to give account for all their belonged and other stuff. Agree with uk a million times.
Thank you, Governor, well stated.
Let’s hear the silly tactics they will come with now.
All the countries in CARICOM and the OECS had experiences with you and somehow me must believe you and disregard what they have said. The complaints about the UK are exactly the same but I guess they are all corrupt so we should not believe them. The UK plundered and stole from the entire hemisphere. They enslaved Africans and to this day have not found the courage to apologize. Yet we must believe them over our Caribbean brothers and sisters.
Those organizations have no clue of the internal mismanagement, and illicit activities taking place in the BVI . Any one of them had their head of state locked up in a federal prison for alleged …..
let them keep quiet
Most of the OECS and CARICOM countries are cesspits of corruption themselves and their leaders certainly wouldn’t want anyone coming in to clean them up. See how rich some of those people have become after decades in power, meanwhile many of their people live in poverty and the hospitals and schools look like the kind of things you’d see in an OXFAM ad. Horrendous conditions!
The past is the past we have to move forward. The reality is that the very blacks are the racist by calli g their own blacks island man and abuse g their own people of the acharpelago by stealing their monies. We need a great change in this acharpelago. We need the UK take control until all those pirates are arrested and uprooted never to return. U too currupt and believe in to dam much obeah to be calling people racist. So go sit down fro chatti g nonse. Up to now fromt line workers cant be properly paid.
Which Col report y’all stupid or wah,it’s Hickinbottom and his ra**st team report.
Be very careful what you wish for just ask the people turk and caicos what happen to them by the UK
IT SEEMS HERE MOST OF THOSE COMMENT ARE WHITE PEOPLE LIVING IN THE BVI , BUT YOU ALL WILL NEVER GET YOUR WAY HERE IT BVILANDERS WAY NOT YOURS
The people who perpetrated the worst abuse on the Caribbean ever now claim they are coming to curb abuse. If this wasn’t already funny I would have laughed. You people must really think that we are stupid.
Here the white man goes again… nobody except he understands anything. Only white man gone to school. ALL the leaders of CARICOM and all the leaders of the OECS do not understand the UK position. Rankin and Milling need to understand that after 400-plus years, black man understands clearly what is colonialism, and what is progressing and regressing colonialism. This ain’t 1838 no more.
Sir Gary Hickinbottom’s core and most drastic recommendation in the CoI is suspending the constitution and imposing UK direct rule. Governor John Rankin asserts that, “The proposal is actually for partial suspension, which relates to ministers and the House of Assembly.” This is political spin and not even good political spin. Governor Rankin is insulting and disrespecting the VI people intelligence. Do not try to sell the VI people a pig in a poke.
Undoubtedly, suspending the HOA and ministers is suspending the constitution. The right to vote is the most democratic right. The late former US President Lyndon B. Johnson and the late iconic civil right s leader, social activist and Congressman John Lewis eloquently wrote:
“The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change
agent you have in a democratic society. You must
use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.”
-JOHN LEWIS
“This right to vote is the basic right without which
all others are meaningless
-PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON
It is apparent that suspending the constitution and imposing direct rule was a fait accompli. It is also apparent that the VI has a Hobson’s choice. The process seems grossly undemocratic, for the VI people seemed to have no means of redressing the unilateral action. However, the unilateral action is consistent with the colonialism institution. The VI constitution too is not a full democratic document; it is riddled with many undemocratic practices.
Moreover, Governor Rankin’s push back against CARICOM, OECS, other agencies, along with regional leaders, is not earth shattering surprising news. The Governor is a diplomat appointed by the UK to represent the UK and is duty bound to support the UK’s position.
Will suspending the constitution and imposing direct rule in the 21st Century be part of the legacy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth Ii, as she relishes and celebrates her Platinum Jubilee (70 years on the throne)? The VI like the UK has governing challenges. It has had governing failures. And the VI and the VI people must own the failures, lean forward, fail forward, and learn and develop from the failures. The VI and its people must unite, cooperate and cooperate and together solve the problem(s). Unless there are some hidden agendas, the constitution does not need to be suspended and direct rule imposed to solve the problems.
The CoI and the arrest of former Premier Andrew A. Fahie rocked the BVI and exposed some structural and democratic weaknesses in the BVI governing structure. The BVI clearly has some governing structural failures. However, governing failures are not unique to the BVI; all countries/territories, agencies, organizations, institutions, etc, experiences and have to deal with failures. They all need a plan of action (s) on how to deal with the failure. I concur with your suggestion for the initial step in addressing the problem:
“ The VI like the UK has governing challenges. It has had governing failures. And the VI and the VI people must own the failures, lean forward, fail forward, and learn and develop from the failures. The VI and its people must unite, cooperate and cooperate and together solve the problem(s).
Correction: “ The VI and its people must unite, cooperate and cooperate and together solve the problem(s).” Should read, “ The VI and its people must unite, cooperate, and collaborate and together solve the problem(s).”
The colonial education system once they allow us to learn reading, writing and arithmetic was about Brer Anansi, Humpty Dumpty and all kinds of fables. Now Governor Rankin still trying to tell/sell us fables because we continue to behave like step and fetch simpletons. If the White man tell us east is west and up is down we run with it. He tells the constitution is not being fully suspended, for only the HOA and ministers are being suspended and too may of us behave like mumus and believe it. I heard that of them with the Christian Council that met with Amanda Milling and Gov Rankin was skinning and grinning for the folks providing belly full of laugh at the mumus. How come there is no full accounting from the Christian Council? They are ashamed of their behaviour. Quit being piss on and believing it is rain.
Milling broad is one u**y woman.
God’s creations are never ugly. And usually who we call such have the most awesome hearts and minds. However, an ugly brain is much uglier. Pick your poison.
If all is so well in those independent caricom countries why are their citizens here crying foul about how they are treated in this territory
Mr. E.L you have to say something, every 8 to 10 years you get counted and declare you in broken bank for not paying your taxes to the government. On the other hand, the people of BVI forgot the great theft of the Beef Island bridge here is happening this scam of the people’s money for many years special since when RTO
Mr. E.L you have to say something, every 8 to 10 years you get counted and declare you in broken bank for not paying your taxes to the government. On the other hand, the people of BVI forgot the great theft of the Beef Island bridge here is happening this scam of the people’s money for many years special since when RTO