Peter Espeut
DID HURRICANE Emily strike a direct hit on Jamaica? If your answer is no, then you are guilty of having the narrow island mentality I am complaining about in this article.
The fact is that dangerous Hurricane Emily passed right over the Pedro Cays where over 1,000 citizens of Jamaica live, and which is an integral part of the nation-state of Jamaica. The shack cities on the cays were devastated, and the fishers lost thousands of fishpots which is the source of their income. Not even a tiny report of this has appeared in the media. Not even the question: "I wonder how Jamaicans on this part of Jamaica have fared?" It is as if they are a part of some foreign country. The island of Jamaica may have been largely spared, but the nation-state of Jamaica received a direct hit. That is why I said above that if your answer was no, then it betrays an insular mentality. Jamaica is not an island state: it is an archipelagic state - a state made up of many inhabited islands.
FIVE INHABITED ISLANDS
In fact, the Jamaican nation-state is made up of five inhabited islands - six if you include Navy Island. Our citizens on the smaller islands have been largely ignored by the government and practically everybody. A police/military post has been established at the Pedro Cays for drug interdiction purposes, but there is no post office and no health clinic. In fact, although the Pedro Cays are nominally in the parish of Kingston, the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation takes no interest in them. No councillor represents them, and they have no Member of Parliament, because they do not fall into a constituency or parochial division. These citizens and residents of Jamaica are being denied their constitutional rights, for there is no provision for them to be registered or to vote.
THRIVING PART OF ECONOMY
I am told that most residents live there permanently, returning to the island of Jamaica once or twice a year at Christmas, etc., to visit family, or to conduct business. There are shops there and a bakery, and there is a makeshift cinema showing movies, some of them as blue as the sea. The boats which arrive daily to purchase their fish also supply them with fuel, water, mesh wire, pot sticks and other supplies. It is a thriving part of the Jamaican (informal) economy, supplying households on mainland Jamaica with fish, saving the formal economy from having to use scarce foreign exchange to import fish. Do they deserve to be ignored in this way by the government of their country, and by the media of their country?
Under the UN Law of the Sea, a country's territorial limit and exclusive economic zone (EEZ) are measured from the "baseline", to put it simply, areas where citizens live, or areas under the control of the country. In the negotiations to define its boundaries and EEZ, Jamaica uses the Pedro Cays as part of its baseline, arguing that Jamaicans live there and that they exercise control over the cays. This is only minimally true; they could hardly do less. The Pedro Cays are not integrated into the civil and political life of Jamaica.
FIRM UP BORDERS
All Jamaica needs to do to firm up the present boundaries we want to have, is to erect a lighthouse on South-West Rock at Latitude 16º47' N and Longitude 78º12'W, but we have continued to delay to do this. We are in danger of having the southern area of the Jamaican nation-state challenged and reduced! Our "press-release media" have taken little interest in this. Jamaica could have retained exclusive jurisdiction over several important fishing banks like Serrana, Serranilla, Baja Nueva and Mysteriosa if only we had done our due diligence at the time, and now we have lost them. Our exclusive area is the smaller because of the failure of our governments in the past to do their first duty which is to protect our borders. The hands-off approach shown to the Pedro Cays is an extension of the general hands-off attitude to things marine.
And now the Jamaican fishers who live within the boundaries of Jamaica are crying out for the recognition they deserve. They get a direct hit from Hurricane Emily, suffering substantial damage, and the news media report that the hurricane missed Jamaica. What an insult! When are we hopeless landlubbers going to break out of our one-island mentality and embrace our true national patrimony which includes all five inhabited islands? When are we going to assign this part of our archipelagic state to a Parish Council division and a political constituency so that these citizens can possess their constitutional rights?
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and is executive director of an environment and development NGO.
