Commentary: Caribbean Colonies – United Kingdom Failure

CAYMAN ISLANDS – A tip on the post-colonial financial abandonment of the former possessions in the Caribbean can be found in the failed announcement of a 300 million pound Commonwealth Infrastructure Fund in 2015. It is about the same amount that was actually spent on the new but unworkable airport of the tiny U.K. possession of St. Helena. That paltry fund never came to fruition but would have been a good start of the train to reparations.

Steam Train in Jamaica

That fund was going to finance a new tourist attraction steam train in Jamaica. It would have had a useful stopping point at Frankfield and Suttons in Clarendon parish where the movie Dark of the Sun was shot in 1967. An African scenario in more ways than one.

Spoiler alert, in a famous scene, a steam train crashes off the line. Remarkable for the time, but regrettable that this nascent film industry was not pursued.

Suttons was where one of the oldest slave plantations in Jamaica could be found.

Like many things out of Britain, it joined a list of failed promises by the mother country to a drone possession, discarded just like the Caribbean slaves. Owners paid and slaves consigned to an upward struggle for parity in society, for centuries.

Jamaica is not the only English orphan but all the former colonies of the Caribbean. It is no wonder why so many have become republics, now and earlier, in cahoots with other major countries like Russia, China and now, the USA.

The Commonwealth is on the verge of disappearance.

The bigger puzzle are the mute overseas territories of England like modern day mini dinosaurs , many self financed, that have disobeyed English orders to open offshore corporate beneficial registers. The tail wagging the dog.

Worse, none have seen an equal to the St.Helena airport gift but are being driven to fill the sparse ranks of British forces with local regiments in the islands or cannon fodder.

The gigantic elephant in the room of discussions about reparations have stultified into just that, words.

Commonwealth Fund

Caribbean governments are happy to pursue reparations, that like remittances, allow a distraction of no result like the disappeared Commonwealth fund. There are many such distractions today as youth unemployment grows with no new industry and the tourism sector has peaked in occasional awards for the geriatric leaders of that sector.

Jamaica has not seen any major attraction development like a tourist steam train for some time, much less a gondola lift system to the Blue Mountains. Perhaps the struggling recovery efforts of the last hurricane in Jamaica are to blame as leadership tries to cover this blatant failure with mindless but regular press releases and appointments.

Hurricane Recovery in Jamaica

The prime minister of Jamaica recently spoke of the slow pace of hurricane recovery as if he was not the ultimate person responsible. It was as if he and his cabinet are separate to the issue of failed leadership and management which is over there in a far off field, a separate entity.

Are the people of Jamaica regarded to be that stupid by those responsible for reconstruction?

After he is removed from office he can star in the Caribbean version of The Emperor’s New Clothes.

Nothing about nothing just like the Frank Reyes song, Nada de Nada.

The U.K. cannot be blamed for that failure to launch.

As my cousin in Belize likes to say, we are the sole contestant in a problem contest.

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