Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding said yesterday it was not the first time such allegations of mistreatment and discrimination have been leveled against Barbados.
KINGSTON, Jamaica, Thursday March 31, 2011 – As a verbal war between Jamaicans and Barbadians takes place over the alleged sexual assault and verbal abuse of a Jamaican woman by a female immigration officer, and as government officials from both sides meet to discuss that incident and other complaints against Barbadian officials, three young men have come forward claiming to have also been beaten and mistreated.
Andre Davis, Jermaine Blake and Chevine Edwards who are partners in Dajavu Records, an artiste management and music production company, said their ordeal took place on the night of March 20.
The three told the Jamaica Observer newspaper that they’d gone to Barbados to promote fledging entertainer Defranco, and to seal a booking date for reggae artiste Junior Reid, who was negotiating to perform at this year’s Reggae on the Hill.
However, they said that after arriving around 9 pm, they were removed from the immigration line and questioned separately. Edwards said they were able to meet all the requirements for entry but were treated like criminals, with one police officer asking if they had supplied reggae singer Buju Banton with cocaine and if they had travelled with any marijuana.
The young man said their luggage was searched and when promotional CDs were found, “they said they didn't want our music in their country as they already have their own music.”
Subsequently, Edwards said, they were told they had been denied entry but given no reason for that decision, and taken to a holding room without the opportunity to make a telephone call.
He claimed one police officer slammed Blake into the wall and another punched Davis.
“Blake was sitting on the ground and a cop grabbed him and punched and kicked him," Edwards told the newspaper.
Locked in cold for hours
Describing the conditions in the room, he said: "The place was rank with urine and faeces, a bathroom in there was nasty and insects were crawling all over. You could see where people used the bathroom and stuck toilet paper on the walls and ceiling. It was a very horrible experience.”
“We were locked up for about 12 hours in freezing cold. We got no food, no water and nobody came to check on us,” Edwards added.
He also claimed that while in the room, police officers threatened Davis with beatings and warned they would destroy his camera if he did not delete the picture he’d taken of one of the immigration officers.
According to the Jamaica Observer newspaper, the men have filed a formal complaint with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade and have retained the services of Barbadian lawyer Santia Bradshaw and Jamaican attorney Aloun Assamba.
Their complaint follows that of Jamaican woman Shanique Myrie, whose case has reached the levels of government and CARICOM.
A delegation from Jamaica is currently in Barbados to investigate her allegations that on March 14, she had to endure a humiliating body search during which a female immigration officer probed her vagina and made derogatory remarks about Jamaicans. She also alleged that she was placed in a cold, dirty holding room overnight and sent back home the next day without a reason for being denied entry.
Barbadian officials have dismissed her story, saying that investigations had shown that she was never searched, only her luggage, and that she was denied entry because she was suspected of being a victim of human trafficking.
Jamaica PM: Not the first time
But Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding said yesterday it was not the first time such allegations of mistreatment and discrimination have been leveled against Barbados, and it was not only nationals of his country making the complaints.
“As a matter of fact, as recent as the CARICOM Heads of Government meeting in Grenada last month, the prime minister of St Vincent made complaints about the treatment of his nationals when they arrive in Barbados. At the meeting before that a similar complaint was made by the president of Guyana,” he said.
“The deputy prime minister will confirm that at almost every Heads of Government meeting the matter is raised. I normally speak about it. I speak with some amount of pride at the extent to which Jamaica is way ahead of all the other countries.”
Although not in favour of the war of words currently taking place between both sides, former Barbados Opposition Leader Mia Mottley has told her countrymen they can no longer bury their heads in the sand to the perception that others have that the island does not treat its Caribbean brothers and sisters and people of African descent fairly and with respect.
“I do not have all of the facts. But if this is the perception of us, we need to deal with it -if not our social and economic well being as a people will be affected as we warned when Government’s recent Immigration Policy was introduced two years ago,” the Barbados Labour Party member of parliament said in a statement issued yesterday.
“If we are being wrongly accused in the region, then we must correct that perception. If there is truth to the perception, then we must deal with the problems that are at the core of the allegations. Let us recognise that tourism is still our business and, above all, our reputation of being fair as Barbadians and being strong supporters of Caribbean unity is the cornerstone on which our nation has been built.”
Keep it quiet, Mottley advises
At the same time, Mottley said she believed the Myrie issued needed to be “taken out of the public realm” urgently.
“None of our people in Barbados and Jamaica can benefit from the inflaming of national passions on both sides, nor indeed can our economies…All of the Government officials in both countries need to pause and stop talking…The (late) Prime Minister David Thompson advocated that there should be no shouting matches across the Caribbean Sea by Caribbean Leaders. It seems as though that approach to diplomacy on which the Governments of Barbados, up until now, have properly relied has now died with him,” she said.
Mottley further called on Prime Minister Freundel Stuart to “take control of the issue” and put a fair, transparent and independent investigative process in place that is acceptable to all parties and agreed upon by both Governments.
She argued that failure to put this kind of process in place has already led to the threat of action before an International Human Rights Body. Mottley was referring to comments by Myrie’s attorney Anthony Hylton that he would take the matter as far as that, if necessary, to get justice for his client.
“This will only serve to tarnish Barbados reputation even if, after years of hearings, the allegations are not proven,” Mottley said.
“Prime Minister Stuart cannot postpone decisive and independent action on this matter any longer as both our national interests and the welfare of our people are at stake.”
Meantime, reports in the Barbados Today publication are that immigration officers have been receiving threats, including death threats by telephone, since the Myrie allegations.
The story quoted Assistant General Secretary of the National Union of Public Workers, Roslyn Smith, as saying the union had been informed of the threats but could not verify whether the calls warning that an immigration officer would be killed, were made locally or overseas.
Smith said the workers were now operating in an environment of fear and she has therefore called on the authorities to reach a solution quickly.
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