On November 29

On this day in ...
... 1781, a 3-day massacre began when crewmembers tossed 54 African persons held in slavery out of the ship Zong and into the Atlantic Ocean. More than 120 persons would perish in this manner -- undertaken by the ship's captain, who aimed to file an insurance claim for the at-sea loss. "Another ten, in a display of defiance at the inhumanity of the slavers, threw themselves overboard and, in the words of a contemporary account, 'leaping into the sea, felt a momentary triumph in the embrace of death.'" (credit for photo of commemorative plaque, unveiled in 2007 in Jamaica) The insurance claim would be denied, but no one would be prosecuted in the incident; however, it provoked antislavery abolitionists to greater action.


(Prior November 29 posts are here, here, and here.)

Guns: The Kind of Trade Nobody Wants

Although we hardly talk about this issue in business circles, there is at least one area of trade between the U.S. and the Caribbean that is thriving: The trade in illicit arms. The problem made front page news recently when Mexico's drug war spilled out into U.S. territory. The cartels, fighting for dominance in the lucrative drug trade, are killing off anyone that gets in the way - -including police officers, lawyers and judges. Their reign of terror is supported by a seemingly unlimited supply of AK 47s and other "cop killer" arms that are de rigueur for drug lord wannabes. Mexican gun control laws are quite strict, thus almost all of the weapons are imported from the United States. But now that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF) has turned its attention to choking off that trade, entreprenuerial arms dealers are setting their sights elsewhere. Jamaica has become the new destination of choice for U.S. arms.
The guns stream into Jamaican ports tucked away in shipping containers storing legitimate cargo. They eventually make their way into the hands of Jamaican gang members who use them to terrorize and threaten the local population. Jamaican offiicals confiscate about 1,000 firearms a year, nearly 80 % of which are U.S. origin. Indeed, in 2007, Jamaican police confiscated one of their biggest prizes to date--a .45 colt pistol registered to the U.S. army. "We are at a loss for this one," admitted a Jamaican police official when asked to comment on how a U.S. army pistol found its way onto Jamaican shores.
The cost of the gun trade on the Jamaican people is nearly unbearable. Shortly after being robbed at gunpoint, one man poignantly wrote of these costs:

You can go into any inner-city community and beg, borrow or buy a gun. I overheard a group of children talking one day and they were knowledgable about the guns. They knew them by name. They could identify them by their sounds. It was frightening. These were children of war.

The network of guns-for-drugs traders is a sophisticated one that spans from the United States all the way to Central and South America -- with pit stops in Caribbean countries like Jamaica and Haiti. While some might argue gun running is a problem for domestic law enforcement, the Jamaican example demonstrates why this is also a trade concern. How do these guns make their way through these diverse countries? How do they end up in Jamaica's customs territory? Cargo manifest forms must be falsfied. Customs and other trade officials must be bribed. And the problems rest not just with Jamaican officials, but U.S. ones as well. If it is that easy for U.S. exporters to send arms into Jamaica, then our export control mechanisms are clearly inadequate. It does not bode well for our efforts to prevent sensitive U.S. technologies (both firearms and otherwise) from making their way into the hands of our enemies.
To effectively deal with the runaway gun problem, both the United States and its export partners must begin to address the issue in part as a trade problem. U.S. officials must go after the exporters; and we must also work with countries like Jamaica to strengthen their Customs capacity. Jamaican officials need the latest detection technology, faster boats, more training of personnel -- and of course will and determination -- to succeed against the gun runners. Currently, Jamaican Customs officials have confiscated just 100 guns coming into ports in the last five years. This number is simply inadequate.
Guns and the Second Amendment are hot-button issues in U.S. politics, to be sure. But we are not talking about domestic consumption. Our guns are leaking out into the wider world and causing havoc in communities ill-equipped to deal with it. It is time for us to act. We have an obligation to act.

On August 5

On this day in ...
... 1888 (120 years ago today), 39-year-old Bertha Benz drove on the 1st long-distance automobile trip. As depicted at left, she took her 2 teen-aged sons, in a prototype car designed by her husband, Karl Benz, and did so without the knowledge of her husband, Karl Benz. The 3 adventurers traveled 106 kilometers (about 66 miles), from Mannheim to Pforzheim in Germany, "return[ing] a few days later without any any major incidents." (photo credit)
... 1740, the British governor of Jamaica signed a "patent ... granting 500 acres of land to 'a certain Negro woman named Nanny and the people residing with her.'" That woman was Nanny of the Windward Maroons (right), who'd negotiated the grant in her role as leader of former slaves who'd found refuge on the Caribbean island. Nanny is the transnational foremother of IntLawGrrl Karen E. Bravo.

On this day

On March 30, ...
... 1870, Secretary of State Hamilton Fish proclaimed the 15th Amendment fully ratified. The Amendment guaranteed that "[t]he right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Of this the Library of Congress' website states:

[T]he promise of the 15th Amendment would not be fully realized for almost a century. Through the use of poll taxes, literacy tests and other means, Southern states were able to effectively disenfranchise African Americans. It would take the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 before the majority of African Americans in the South were registered to vote.

... 2006, Portia Simpson Miller (left), about whom IntLawGrrl Karen E. Bravo posted here, was sworn in as Jamaica's Prime Minister, the 1st woman to hold that position. She lost the post in September 2007 after her party was defeated in parliamentary elections. While head of Jamaica's government, she was listed among Forbes' 100 Most Powerful Women.

Jamaica, Portia Simpson Miller and Vijay Prashad’s The Darker Nations

In his 2007 book, The Darker Nations, Vijay Prashad tours the world (from Bandung to Cairo to La Paz, Belgrade to Havana) detailing the adventure of the countries of the Third World in the years of decolonization and its aftermath. In each city he describes the efforts of Third World leaders to create an alternative to the bipolar world of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War, and the factors that led to the demise of that project.
In his chapter on Jamaica (Kingston: IMF-led Globalization), Prashad outlines the choices confronting Jamaica and other non-oil-producing countries in the Third World in the 1970s. Unable to pay its current account deficits and needing oil to run its industries, public sources and transportation system, Jamaica borrowed from Peter to pay Paul, sinking ever further into debt. According to Prashad, in 1976, the balance of payments deficit was $231.3 million. By 1982, the deficit was $612 billion and rising.
In addition to the other consequences stemming from the structural adjustment programs that were a condition of IMF bailout (cuts in educational, health and other social programs), Prashad describes the collapse of the Jamaican women’s movement that had initiated women’s liberation gains such as legislation providing for equal pay, minimum wage, maternity leave and de-bastardization of children born out of wedlock. The withdrawal of state funding demanded by the structural adjustment program lead to a weakening of the women’s movement and a retrenchment of their activities, as the women’s groups became dependent on funding from private foundation from the U.S. and the global North. Those funding sources pulled funding when groups engaged in “unacceptable political” activities.Today, Portia Simpson Miller is Jamaica’s first woman Prime Minister, acceding to power by winning the support of her colleagues in the ruling party in the lead-up to the resignation of previous Prime Minister, P.J. Patterson. However, Simpson Miller’s accession to power does not reflect a widespread acceptance of women’s leadership roles in Jamaican politics. General elections will take place on August 27, giving the Jamaican public the opportunity to express their approval or disapproval of her leadership.