COMMENTARY: New 81-Year Old Leader Will Turn Caribbean Foreign Policy

By Sir Ronald Sanders

The majority of the electorate of St Lucia, a small Caribbean island with a population 0f 160,000 people, has brought back as their head of government Sir John Compton, an 81-year old who led the country to independence from Britain in 1979.

Sir John had retired from office in 1996, but came out of retirement in March last year to be elected leader once again of the United Workers Party (UWP) that he founded in 1964. Over the last year, despite his age, he mounted a robust campaign against the government of the St Lucia Labor Party (SLP), led by 56-year old Dr Kenny Anthony.

Without a shred of doubt, Sir John’s leadership of St Lucia will have implications for the foreign policy positions of the 15-member Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) both politically and economically.

Sir John is no wilting flower. When he disagrees, he digs his heels in hard and can be immovable if he feels that decisions are not in the interest of St Lucia or indeed of the principles he believes in personally.

In 1979, when the New Jewel Movement (NJM) of Maurice Bishop overthrew the government of Eric Gary and seized power in Grenada, Sir John ardently and vociferously opposed its recognition. He personally canvassed the British government of Margaret Thatcher not to recognize the regime and encouraged intervention to overturn the revolution, and he was sorely disappointed when the British government decided that it recognized “states not governments”.

At the time, Sir John was keeping a close eye on leftist political parties and left-wing activists in the Windward and Leeward Islands – some of whom had openly suggested unconstitutional overthrows of governments as a means of accomplishing regime change.

For him, the seizure of power by the NJM in Grenada marked the erosion of the rule of law and constitutionality in the Eastern Caribbean. It was a thought he could not abide.

Not surprisingly, when the Grenada revolution spectacularly imploded in 1983 with the killing of Maurice Bishop and the establishment of a military government, Sir John was in the forefront of those leaders who saw intervention as essential to demonstrate clearly that revolutions would not be tolerated in the region.

He was among those who strongly encouraged and supported the October 1983 US-led intervention in Grenada, not because he wanted US troops on Caribbean soil, but because he wanted Grenada and the Caribbean returned to normality.

In 1983 also, he joined his party to the formation of the Caribbean Democratic Union (CDU) which was aligned to the International Democratic Union created by Britain’s Margaret Thatcher and US President Ronald Reagan as a counterweight to the Socialist International. Other founding members of the CDU were Edward Seaga of Jamaica, JMG Tom Adams of Barbados, and Dominica’s Eugenia Charles who famously appeared on the steps of the White House with Reagan to help justify the Grenada intervention.

Sir John’s return to office, therefore, will witness a shift to the right in St Lucia’s foreign policy. It is a shift that will affect CARICOM consensus on issues dealing with the United States.

It will also have an impact on how the countries of the smaller 7-nation sub-group in the Caribbean, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), treat with matters such as the socialist vision of Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez.

Sir John is likely to take a close look at Chavez’s Petro Caribe arrangements for members of the OECS to ensure that its terms bring tangible benefits to St Lucia and not just long term debt. He will be extremely cautious, if not opposed, to any embrace of President Chavez’s wider socialist policies.

With regard to the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) that is now being negotiated between Caribbean countries and the European Union (EU), St Lucia will take a hard line in relation to bananas.

Already, there is discontent being expressed by some Caribbean countries about the region’s negotiating strategy and even the structure under which the Caribbean is conducting its negotiations with the EU.

Having campaigned on getting a better deal for banana growers in St Lucia, Sir John’s government will undoubtedly join those who feel that political representatives should replace technical officers in the forefront of negotiations. He will want to show the banana farmers, who believed that he would do better for them, that he can at least try harder to deliver the goods.

And, on the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) whose framework was brought into being earlier this year, while the idea and the process will enjoy Sir John’s support, it will not be unconditional.

He will be in the forefront of arguments for compensatory arrangements for the OECS countries, and he will hold out for terms that he regards as not disadvantageous to St Lucia. That was his position when CARIFTA was formed in 1968 and it was his position when CARICOM replaced it in 1972.

He goes into a CARICOM Heads of Government conference early next year with a bone to pick with some of his colleague Prime Ministers.

Two of them turned up in St Lucia to campaign for Dr Kenny Anthony. Sir John saw this as interference in the local politics of St Lucia, and he has said that he will raise the issue at the forthcoming meeting.

It is, of course, an important foreign policy issue for each CARICOM government: should a government leader in one country actively seek to influence the election of a leader in another? The people of St Lucia obviously thought not.

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Sir Ronald Sanders is a business executive and former Caribbean Ambassador to the World Trade Organisation who publishes widely on Small States in the global community. He is a regular contributor to Huntington News Network. Responses to: ronaldsanders29@hotmail.com

Editorial: Prayer Vigil Service Tonight for Dr. F. Joseph Whelan, 1938-2006

By Staff
In the HNN obituary of Dr. F. Joseph Whelan, we said he was an Iowa native. Actually, he was born Feb. 21, 1938 in Ft. Warren, Wyoming, the son of the late Joseph Francis Xavier Whelan and Helen Sankot Whelan.

Iowa was where Joe Whelan grew up and attended Coe College in Cedar Rapids as an undergraduate and the University of Iowa medical school for his M.D. He also earned an M.S. degree from the University of Iowa for his internship and he was board certified in psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in Boston, MA.

A Roman Catholic and a resident of Corrine, WV, Doc in later years worshiped at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Oak Hill, WV; a vigil prayer service will be conducted tonight, Saturday, Dec. 16, 2006 at 7:30 p.m. at Melton Mortuary, 1200 Harper Rd., Beckley, by Father Paul Younger of Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church.

Doc, as we at HNN fondly remember him, was named a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association in 2002; a Distinguished Life Fellowship was bestowed on him on Jan. 1, 2003 by the APA. He founded the Whelan Medical Clinic in Beckley, which he closed this year; his last position was as a psychiatrist with Mari Sullivan Walker Inc. in Pineville, WV. He was licensed to practice medicine in Iowa, West Virginia, Hawaii, Alaska and Virginia.

Doc Whelan was active in the Disabled American Veterans of America and the Civil Air Patrol and was a founding member of the Wyoming County Vietnam Veterans of America.

He is survived by Joseph Floyd Whelan of Corrine, WV; Benjamin Neal Whelan and his wife Melanie, of Oak Hill, WV; and David Alexander Whelan of Beckley. Also, many other relatives, patients and friends.

COMMENTARY: House Intel Chairman: Hezbollah? What’s a Hezbollah?

By  Jim Kouri

 
Law enforcement and intelligence experts are scratching their heads in disbelief upon discovering that the next House Intelligence Committee Chairman doesn’t possess even a basic understanding of terrorism or terrorist groups. In fact, he’s never heard of Hezbollah.

U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-TX, who was Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi’s second choice to head the sensitive and vital committee,  did not know what Hezbollah was and incorrectly described Al-Qaeda as being Shiite rather than Sunni.

Rep. Reyes appeared disoriented when a reporter asked him basic questions about the Islamic groups that are the principal targets of America’s intelligence agencies, including Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and others.

“Al-Qa’eda is what “Sunni or Shia?” Jeff Stein, the Congressional Quarterly magazine’s national security editor, asked Mr Reyes. “Al-Qaeda, they have both,” replied Reyes.

 

“You’re talking about predominately?”Predominantly “ probably Shiite,” said the puzzled Democrat from Texas.

As Mr. Stein noted in his CQ column, “He couldn’t have been more wrong. Al-Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an Al-Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.”

He also asked Reyes about the terrorist group Hezbollah. “Hezbollah. Uh, Hezbollah…” he said, laughing. “Why do you ask me these questions at five o’clock? Can I answer in Spanish? Do you speak Spanish?”

“This is no laughing matter. Where was this man when Israel and Hezbollah battled for almost two weeks?” asked a former intelligence officer and now New York City detective.

“We went from an impeached judge to a man ignorant of the basic facts regarding terrorist groups. What kind of oversight will that be?” he added.

The holes in Reyes’ knowledge are a fresh embarrassment to Nancy Pelosi, the incoming Speaker of the House of Representatives, whose leadership was undermined when her
her first choice for House Majority Leader was rejected and her choice for intelligence chairman was likewise rejected.

She selected Rep. Reyes to chair the House intelligence committee over the head of Jane Harman (D-CA), who is widely respected as having vast experience in the area of intelligence gathering and analysis especially in the Middle East. Pelosi and the left-wing of the Democrat Party bear a grudge against Miss Harman due to her politically moderate image.

“What are we being left with in congress? A chairman of the House Judiciary Committee who hates cops and panders to America’s enemies? A Senate Judiciary Committee chairman with a history of leaking classified information? A hard-left senator heading the Senate Intelligence Committee? And now a House Intelligence Committee chairman who doesn’t know what Hezbollah is?,” asked a police terrorism expert.

“Sounds like amateur hour to me,” he said.

While Reyes was preferred over Rep. Alcee Hastings — who was removed from the federal bench after facing bribery charges — for the intel post, most Americans aren’t being told by the Democrats and their media echo chamber that Hastings remains a ranking member of the House Sub-Committee on Homeland Security.

When counterterrorism maven Richard Clark was hawking his book and testifying before the 9-11 Commission, he took time out to appear on CBS’ 60 Minutes. Clark alleged that then-National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice didn’t know what A-Qaeda was (which was an obvious lie). The news media jumped on Clark’s accusation and repeated it ad nauseam.

 

But now a Democrat in an equally sensitive position has been exposed as ignorant of facts regarding terrorist groups, and it looks as if he’ll be getting the standard “pass” by those “unbiased” ladies and gentlemen of the press.

 

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Jim Kouri is fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he’s a staff writer for the New Media Alliance (thenma.org). He’s a former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed “Crack City” by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. Kouri has appeared as on-air commentator for more than 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc.  Kouri’s own website is   http://jimkouri.U.S.