By Claude Mills, Staff Reporter
Carl Marshall (centre), Jamaica's High Commissioner to Canada, converses with a delegate on day one of the Jamaica Diaspora Conference held at the Jamaica Conference Centre, downtown Kingston, yesterday. - Rudolph Brown/Staff Photographer
FIERY SPEECHES, feel-good laughter and a cornucopia of colourful Jamaican colloquialisms dominated the opening day of the National Diaspora Conference in Kingston, yesterday.
At the opening ceremony at the Jamaica Conference Centre, downtown Kingston, Prime Minister P.J. Patterson warned of the mushrooming threats of narco-trafficking and violent crime to national growth and stability, and rapped the decision of foreign governments to deport Jamaicans who had committed crimes overseas.
"We are trying to deal with these problems ourselves, but in doing so, it is not made easier that some are trying to get rid of their problem by sending people back to Jamaica and not dealing with them as their penal system requires," Mr. Patterson said to loud applause from the 250-plus audience of delegates from the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.
"If people feel they can commit a crime in another country, and they are not going to pay the penalty but they are going to be deported back to Jamaica where we cannot take any punitive action against them, then that is a temptation for them to commit these crimes," the Prime Minister said.
DRUG COURIERS
Last week, the Tony Blair-led government in the United Kingdom announced that it would return Jamaicans serving time in UK prisons as part of an early release programme, but later postponed plans to deport 'high-risk' prisoners to Jamaica. The first wave of 57 'low-risk' Jamaicans, some of whom have served sentences for trafficking drugs, arrived yesterday.
In general, the conference, the first of its kind, was less about defining an agenda than it was about providing a venue for overseas residents to celebrate their 'Jamaican-ness', and a platform for venting concerns. There was plenty of the latter.
Blane Stoddart, executive director and chief exective officer of the Partnership CDC in Philadel-phia, blasted the government's bureaucracy and red tape.
"I've been waiting 17 years for my (land) title, and still can't get it. We need to change that because in the United States, we do business in real time and to be a global presence we have to ensure that our standards are world standards," said Mr. Stoddart.
"We need to get our passports and our official documents in a timely manner. We need to be able to move goods and services through Customs in a timely manner," he added.
"I love to come to Jamaica but they dig through my bags looking for electrical equipment, and they need to stop charging my wife taxes for her hair dryer!" he said to first amused laughter and fist-shaking waves of approval.
Said Stoddart: "If I bring US$10,000 with me to Jamaica, I will spend it, and the government will get 15 per cent so lay off of us at the airport," he shouted passionately, his eyes blazing. He received a standing ovation from the audience.
Reverend Gilbert Leigh, president of the Caribbean Children's Fund which consists of Jamaicans residing in the city of Chicago, in the United States, complained to a reporter: "The government needs to make it easier to get necessary resources such as furniture for children's homes, and other equipment into the island. There is too much red tape we have to contend with when all we want to do is to help."
The two-day conference is being held under the theme, 'Jamaican Diaspora: Unleashing the Potential', continues and ends today with a dinner and dance at the Hilton Hotel.
