How Did We Arrive At This Place/

The Jamaican Government has announced that through much con­sul­ta­tions with it’s Trinidadian coun­ter­parts about the vex­ing issue of the alleged treat­ment of Jamaicans vis­it­ing Trinidad a solu­tion of sorts have been arrived at.
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Senator Kamina Johnson Smith, told the House Wednesday that there will now be a des­ig­nat­ed area retro­fit­ted to pro­vide dig­ni­fied and pri­vate accom­mo­da­tion for per­sons required to stay overnight, who are going to be returned to Jamaica.

I real­ly see how this could be a cause célèbre consid­er­a­tion the depths to which our coun­try has sunken. Economically , moral­ly, but equal­ly as impor­tant in how we are per­ceived as a people.
If I’m not mis­tak­en I believe the quar­rel start­ed between the twin Island Republic and Jamaica over not just the treat­ment of Jamaicans when they vis­it that nation but the fact that they are not allowed free access accord­ing to the revised treaty-of-Chaguaramas which guar­an­tees cit­i­zens free access through­out mem­ber states.
Notwithstanding the CARICOM treaty ‚mem­ber states have a right to say no to cit­i­zens from mem­ber states who have not sat­is­fied cer­tain cri­te­ria , eg being able to sup­port them­selves while vis­it­ing, the like­ly-hood they will engage in crim­i­nal con­duct etc.

Increasingly Jamaicans have come under scruti­ny while seek­ing to take advan­tage of the free­dom to trav­el through­out the CARICOM region. Jamaican nation­als have filed griev­ances after alleged mal-treat­ment in Barbados as well as Trinidad and Tobago.
So far Barbados has been forced to pay com­pen­sato­ry dam­ages to one Jamaican in rela­tion to those treatments.
Shanique Myrie was award­ed dam­ages in the sum of US$38,000 by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) after she filed a law­suit claim­ing she was sub­ject­ed to a dehu­man­iz­ing cav­i­ty search by a female immi­gra­tion offi­cer at Grantley Adams International Airport, locked in a filthy room overnight and deport­ed to Jamaica in March 2011.
Myrie alleged that while she was being assault­ed ‚“I asked her who she was and she said ‘I am your worst night­mare’. She then said ‘All you (exple­tive) Jamaicans come here to do is either steal peo­ple’s man or bring drugs here,” Myrie recount­ed. Myrie told the Observer that the immi­gra­tion offi­cer removed her iden­ti­fi­ca­tion tag before com­mit­ting the act.

“She said I hate these (exple­tive) Jamaicans,” Myrie said.

Trinidad has claimed that they have a right to turn back Jamaicans whom they believe are going to over­stay their wel­come or whom they believe will engage in ille­gal activ­i­ties . It is incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult to argue against Trinidad’s asser­tions when there are approx­i­mate­ly over 16,000 Jamaicans in that coun­try who have over­stayed their allot­ted time.

The for­mer min­is­ter of nation­al secu­ri­ty of Trinidad and Tobago assert­ed that there was noth­ing in the CARICOM treaty which super­sedes his coun­try’s Constitution. On that basis he argued his coun­try has the right to enforce their laws.
It is dif­fi­cult to argue with that as well…Whether jus­ti­fi­able or not the per­cep­tion among CARICOM states is that Jamaicans are peo­ple who have a vio­lent dis­po­si­tion and a pre­dis­po­si­tion to engage in crim­i­nal conduct.
I won­der how they arrived at those conclusions?

So as the new Administration pats itself on the back and the for­mer shuf­fles up to be in the pho­to-shoot, I remind Jamaicans that noth­ing has changed as it regards how they will be treat­ed in the twin Island Republic. What they have basi­cal­ly agreed to is to pro­vide toi­lets and a place to pos­si­bly sit while they wait to ship you out on the next avail­able flight…
How the hell did we arrive at this place?