Anguilla is a small, 35 square-mile, English-speaking
island located in the centre of the West Indies,[2] 100 miles to the west of
Antigua and to the north of St Kitts, and with a population of some 14,000
persons. Its principal industry is
tourism, mainly funded by foreign direct investment. It was first occupied for millennia by succeeding
waves of Amerindians who came out of South America. These died off as a result of interaction
with the Spanish after the “discovery” of the islands by Christopher Columbus
in 1492. They left no written records,
and their cultures are known to us mainly through the activities of
archaeologists.
Anguilla became a part of the Spanish Empire
by virtue of Pope Alexander VI’s Papal Bull Inter Caetera and the
resulting Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494.
This brought an end to military conflict between Spain and Portugal and divided
the New World between their two contending thrones. The Spanish, however, did not occupy the
island as it was too small and insignificant to be of any interest to them.
Subsequently in the year 1627, Anguilla
became an English colony when King Charles I claimed it as his own and included
it in his grant of the islands of the West Indies to the Earl of Carlisle. Englishmen did not actually occupy it until
1650 when a group of dissatisfied tobacco planters from St Kitts and Nevis,
fleeing the taxes imposed on them to fund the defence of those islands, together
with some run-away indentured labourers seeking freedom from servitude in Barbados,
arrived and stayed. The first English settlers
grew tobacco for export. Poor rainfall
and deficient soil soon reduced them to raising goats and other small stock for
export to St Kitts, and growing peas, maize and sweet potatoes for home consumption.
After the island was settled in 1650, no
attempt was made by the colonial power to provide for the islanders to make
laws for themselves or to establish an executive body to administer
government. The deputy governor of
Anguilla was, for generations, elected by local planters and, alone among all
the other colonies, was merely approved in his unofficial and unpaid office. Governor in Chief of the Leeward Islands, William
Mathew, in 1734 described the deputy governor’s authority in this way:[3]
As for being under
government, they are out of all notion of that.
From time to time deputy governors from among them have been appointed
by His Majesty’s Chief Governor of these islands, but these have no authority
over them but what they are able to enforce with a cudgel.
Abandoned and ignored by the colonial
authorities, the islanders managed to survive between 1650 and 1825, entirely autonomously. With the ending of the long drought in about
1725, they began to grow sugarcane for the first time. They imported several hundred Africans to labour
in the fields. The black, white and
coloured descendants of these early immigrants now occupy all the land, and out
of conceit consider themselves to be the native or indigenous people of the
island.
In the early years of the nineteenth
century, the “great experiment” of the abolition of slavery began to dominate the
concerns of the Colonial Office towards its remaining colonies in the Americas. The passing of the Slavery Abolition Act
by the British Parliament in 1833 was the first legislative step towards the
abolition of the system of plantation slavery in the colonies. Effective abolition depended on the passing
of an Abolition Act in each colony.
Anguilla possessed no legislature and no system of real law. For slavery to be abolished in Anguilla it
would be necessary for the Anguillians to be brought under some system of
law-making.
The solution devised by the Colonial
Secretary in London was to persuade the nearby colony of St Kitts to let Anguilla
unite with it. In that way, laws made in
St Kitts would apply in Anguilla. The St
Kitts planters and merchants who dominated their legislature and executive
council agreed to take on this responsibility on one condition. Not one penny of St Kitts money, they
insisted, was ever to be required to be expended in Anguilla. The Colonial Office was obliged to agree, but
on condition that no funds were ever to be required from London. For their part, the Anguillians were granted the
right that no law affecting them would be introduced into the St Kitts
legislature unless their elected representative was present. The result was the resignation of the last deputy
governor and the passing of the Anguilla Act of 1825 by the St Kitts
Assembly. This unhappy legislative union
between the two colonies lasted for another 142 years, until the Anguillians effectively
ended it in 1967.
With the collapse of the West Indies
Federation of 1958-1962, and the return of the smaller islands to colonial
status, the British actively encouraged independence. First, the islands were designed to become semi-independent
“Associated States”, and then, hopefully rapidly, fully independent. This solution worked as planned with such of
them as Antigua, Grenada, St Lucia and St Vincent. It failed in the case of the Associated State
of St Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla. The Anguillians,
in what has become known as the Anguilla Revolution, rebelled from the threat
to keep them tied in perpetuity to the St Kitts administration. On 29 May 1967, by a public vote taken in the
island’s main sports field, they decided to expel by force the St Kitts
administration from their island.
On 11 July 1967, Anguillians voted again in a
referendum by an overwhelming majority of 1,813 to 5 to separate from St Kitts
and to run their own affairs. Three
months later, on 21 October, a locally elected Peace Keeping Committee took
office under a newly approved Constitution and began knocking on the doors of
the United Nations demanding admittance.
Two years later, on 6 February 1969, the British being reluctant to
accede to their demand to be legally separated from St Kitts, the Anguillians adopted
a new Constitution and declared the island the independent Republic of Anguilla
under the leadership of their first President, Ronald Webster.
Just weeks later, on 19 March 1969, the
Republic was ended by a dawn invasion by sea and by air by a contingent of
British paratroopers. These were invited
in by St Kitts and other Commonwealth Caribbean states who hoped the island
would be returned to St Kitts control.
However, one of the first acts of the British government after the
invasion was to promise the Anguillians that they would not be subjected to an
administration under which they did not want to live.[4] This guarantee that Anguillians would be for
evermore free of the threat of being returned to the hated administration of St
Kitts was sufficient to make them accept the beginning of British administration
of the island. There was previously no
British government presence in Anguilla from the time of settlement in 1650, a
period of over 300 years.
Unfortunately for Anguillian aspirations to eventual
return to self-government, most of the leaders of the Anguilla Revolution and
their successors in office were men generally speaking of little formal
education,[5] and not imbued with any of
the principles of civics, ethics, or good government. They were instead charismatic, self-centred,
self-made men, single-minded in their determination to separate from St Kitts. Our people, while universally pious and churchgoing,
subscribe mainly to unsophisticated, fundamentalist, US Bible-belt Christian sects,[6] and are not intellectually
equipped to avoid making such persons our leaders. We remain essentially a frontier society,
hostile to any form of authority or regulation.
Centuries of deprivation and long isolation have bred a strongly
xenophobic culture. A corrosive
suspicion and distrust of outsiders, and of all values and concepts not
promoted by the Old Testament, dominates the attitude of many of our service
providers towards the main pillar of our economy, tourism. This self-destructive attitude is cynically
encouraged by the local political elite as a tool to attract popular allegiance
and support for their personal agendas.
The business of government is conducted in
Anguilla under a veil of secrecy inherited from an earlier British model. If a law does not require the information to
be published, then to disclose it is a breach of your oath of secrecy as a
public servant. Under this system,
misgovernment flourishes. The public
works tendering process is neither constitutionally mandated nor otherwise
protected from political interference or administrative bias and is easily
manipulated in secret. In spite of a
well-meaning but ineffective Public Procurement Act, public works contracts
are seen to be awarded to political supporters and family members of the Ministers
or, equally objectionably, to those whom the administration deems to be most
suitable, based on arbitrary and secret criteria.[7] The government chief surveyor approves private
land surveyors altering boundary marks without ensuring that the neighbours are
alerted to the pending survey so that they may observe the process and protect
their interests by objecting if necessary.
Elected Ministers regularly overturn public administration decisions on
work permit, land development and planning matters based on personal
relationships and other irrational grounds.
At general elections, the corrupting
influence of the constituency system comes into play. Most elections are won by majorities of less
than a few hundred votes. The politician
with the means to endow his district with suitable gifts is almost guaranteed to
win.[8] Family trumps merit. If you are a politician running for office, it
helps to have more relatives resident in your district than the other
candidate. After every general election,
we watch as our new Ministers of government remove the previous unsuitable, political
appointees to statutory boards and committees and replace them by their own.
The British Governors, supposed to lead us in
matters of governance, very occasionally register their disapproval of our Ministers’
more obviously bad decisions, based as they so often are on cronyism and
conflicts of interest. But they do nothing
to insist on and to ensure the introduction of mechanisms that would improve
our culture of misgovernment. Recently,
one Governor was seen to shield a Minister of Finance from criticism when a
member of the opposition protested in writing at the Minister’s continued
chairing of the board of directors of a local bank with which his government
did banking business. The Governor put
it in writing that he saw no conflict of interest. The Minister continued to hold and serve in both
offices for many years. A Minister of Lands,
whose legal duty it was to investigate and recommend approval of applications
by foreigners to purchase land in Anguilla, continued for many years, without disapproval
from the Governor, to advertise his private real estate business on a large
billboard on the main highway.[9]
The public of Anguilla are slowly becoming
aware that this lack of transparency, integrity and accountability in our
system is unacceptable. We are beginning
to acknowledge the need to rely on consistent, dependable and fair processes in
government. Voices are being raised
demanding transparency in the award of public contracts and the granting of
permits and licences. But these voices
are still very much in the minority.
Within fifty years of the British invasion, some
of Anguillia’s leading politicians and opinion makers are now chafing at what
is at best minimalist British rule. So,
Ministers protested the bringing of criminal charges by the police, who answer
only to the Governor, against a Minister in relation to his alleged sexual
exploitation of female applicants for permits and licences.[10] Ministers were annoyed at the Governor raising
objections to the Chief Minister signing a letter offering the Social Security
Fund to an obviously suspect investment company as collateral for a highly
unlikely promise to let us borrow a large sum of money at little or no interest.[11] The Minister of Lands was outraged recently
at the refusal of the Registrar of Lands, who answers only to the Governor, to obey
his order to reverse a judgment of the Court of Appeal and to illegally alter
the registered title to a parcel of land in favour of family members of the Minister.[12]
Anguilla is not unique in the West Indies regarding
the lack of mechanisms to ensure good governance. We share a similar unsatisfactory system with
our independent neighbours who were once British colonies. Charles Wilkin QC of St Kitts and Nevis, in a
recent speech, described the three major ailments in the fragile democracy of
that country as, one, the inadequacy of the Constitution; two, the overwhelming
and senseless negativity caused by political tribalism; and, three, the
weakness of civil society. The identical
criticisms can be applied to Anguilla’s Constitution and its institutions.
Benito Wheatley of the British Virgin
Islands commented, in relation to that British Overseas Territory, that the
vain and egotistic men they elect to office take a headstrong approach to
governance.[13] Ministers feel no need for real consultation
with the people on most matters, and take decisions of government contrary to
the advice of the technical experts. This
comment is especially true of Anguilla.
The award of public works contracts, the granting of work permits to
foreigners, and the overturning of planning decisions over the past 40 years
have proceeded in Anguilla under this system.
The relevant statutes specifically provide for appeals from administrative
decisions to be made to the Ministers, with devastating damage to public
confidence in the system of government.
Our only remedy for political abuse up to this point has been to remove
the last lot of miscreants and replace them by another lot every five
years. This is not a satisfactory
solution. The flaw lies not merely with
the unsuitable individuals we elect but, more so, in the inadequacies of the Constitution
under which they flourish. The result
has been a growing feeling of disenchantment with our system of governance.
The rhetoric of our more popularist radio commentators
grows louder. They point out that colonialism
is a state of subjection based on racism and imperialism. They typically argue,
The British provide us
with nothing of value. We pay our own way. We raise our own public funds. We receive little or no aid from Britain. He who pays the piper should call the
tune. The United Nations has guaranteed
us colonial people the right to rule ourselves.
We should seize that right. Besides,
if we were independent, we would no longer be limited to fruitlessly seeking
financial and institutional assistance from the one administering power. Instead, we would be free to receive help
from all the major powers. We could even
make them compete among themselves to see which one can give us the most aid.
Without batting an eyelid in shame, they
suggest to us that one of the main values of independence from Britain is the
enlargement of our begging bowl. “Besides”, they say to us, “the British can’t be trusted to put the
necessary safeguards in place. Leave it
to us”, they say. “We’ll take care of everything after
independence. You can depend on it.”
Even as these politicians exhort and
importune us, we observe with an intense sense of outrage the political elite
of some of our recently independent West Indian nations abusing the power
entrusted to them by their people. We
have not forgotten how, after independence in 1962, the people of Jamaica fell
victim to Michael Manley’s charismatic but cruel and confiscatory reign.[14] We recall how, after Trinidad and Tobago gained
political independence also in 1962 under the rule of Dr Eric Williams, his
administration became so corrupt and oppressive that there was an uprising that
was put down only after CIA infiltration of the Black Power demonstrators. Nearby Antigua and Barbuda were dominated for
decades by the charisma and oratory of a corrupt local dynasty.[15] We watched the rise and fall of Prime
Minister Eric Gairy of Grenada, one of the most venal and lecherous of West
Indian political leaders. His larcenous
career flourished with impunity under the same colonial and post-colonial constitutional
and legal system that we are subject to in Anguilla at this time. This is the system under which an ambitious
political element in Anguilla proposes that we should venture into independence
without delay.
The failure of the British Government, in
neglecting to send our West Indian infant nations off into independence clothed
with a constitutional framework adequate to provide our people with some
certainty of freedom from local tyranny, is notorious. As some of Anguilla’s power-hungry political
elite grow increasingly weary of the restraints of colonial rule, their cry for
full internal self-government, if not complete political independence, begins
to grow. They claim that it is time for
Anguilla to be once again independent from outside rule.[16] They condemn as British stooges those who
point out the danger of going into independence without the necessary
constitutional and legal safeguards to protect our lives and our property. But, the risk is not lost on most of the
ordinary people of Anguilla that, once we are granted our wish to be
independent, we shall quickly descend into an even more brutal period of self-inflicted
local tyranny.
The unwritten British Constitution works in
the United Kingdom partly because it is supplemented by a system of conventions
that have near legal force. In our young
and immature democracy of Anguilla, with a written Constitution but no respect
for foreign conventions and not enough time to develop ones of our own, the
system fails us. The present Westminster-model
Constitution we inherited from London consists of a skeletal provision for a bureaucratic
administrative machine, absent any mechanism to ensure good government. It is intrinsically inadequate to provide us
with the necessary protection from the baser instincts of our politicians, one
of the first requirements of a written Constitution. There is, essentially, no free press in which
these issues can be fully discussed since the one real newspaper depends on
government advertising and must be circumspect in what it publishes.
Those of us who think about these things
recognise that a paradigm-shift in government is needed for us to preserve our
freedoms and to prosper one day in the future as a country once again
independent of foreign administration.[17] Thomas Astaphan QC of Anguilla, in a series
of recent radio broadcasts, has proposed the radical route of entirely scrapping
our present attachment to the Westminster-style Constitution. He would have us go into independence under a
Constitution that provides for the President of Anguilla and each member of
Cabinet, as well as each member of the Legislature, to be individually elected
to office and subject to recall by the voters when they fail to perform
satisfactorily. Others argue that the
Westminster system can work in an independent Anguilla, but only if the several
watchdog institutions and checks and balances that operate in such independent
Commonwealth countries as Britain are first introduced and entrenched in our
Constitution and made operative in law and accepted in practice.
Vague and theoretical exhortations from
London about the need to ensure good governance are pointless. Practical measures have to be put into place
before the people of Anguilla are likely to trust our lives and property to the
unrestrainable hands of the local politician, of whatever political party. As a start, the Public Procurement Board regulating
the purchase of public services and goods must be established and protected by
the Constitution. Appointments to
statutory boards and government committees must be approved by a
constitutionally protected appointments procedure. Land development planning decisions should no
longer be subject to appeal to the political directorate, but to a
professional, independent body. The
draft Building Code, now over 20 years old, and which would ensure
compliance with hurricane and earthquake standards, should be enacted and made
to apply to everyone, not as at present just to foreigners. Immigration and work permit decisions of the
relevant administrative boards should no longer be capable of being overruled
by politicians acting on the basis of unpublished and unknown policies. There must be an effective Integrity in
Public Office Act obliging those aspiring to political office to place
their assets and liabilities on a public register for all to see, as is
increasingly normal in developed democracies.
A Freedom of Information Act, and the accompanying procedures to
make it effective, inconvenient as they are for the bureaucracy, are long
overdue.[18] Ministers should be subject to a Code of
Ethics, and coached, on taking up office, on the proper conduct of the
public affairs with which they are entrusted.
These
things seem so obviously a prerequisite for a small, developing Commonwealth country,
such as Anguilla is, contemplating going into political independence from Great
Britain that it must be astonishing to any discerning observer that they are
even controversial.
A paper read on 3 October 2015 at
the island Dynamics Conference at the University of Greenland in Nuuk on
‘Indigenous Resources: Decolonization and Development’
Researched
with assistance from Robert Conrich, ACIArb;
and Ilan Kelman, PhD
[1]
A
paper delivered at the September 2015 University of Greenland Conference in
Nuuk, Greenland, on ‘Indigenous Resources: Decolonization and Development’
convened by Island Dynamics.
[2]
Some West Indian academics, in their
rush to escape from our colonial history implicit in the use of the term “West
Indies”, have begun to use the adjective “Caribbean” to describe our
archipelago. I prefer the former in
preference to the latter ever since the latter was co-opted in the 1980s as a
cover for the US State Department’s notoriously mis-named “Caribbean Basin
Initiative” (CBI) in which the CIA funded murderous right-wing regimes in El
Salvador and Nicaragua. With the end of
the Cold War in 1989 and the phasing out of the CBI, it is now appropriate that
our region revert to its original designation as “The West Indies” to avoid any
connection with this programme.
[3]
CO.152/21, No 79,
folio 88: Mathew to the Committee for Trade and Foreign Plantations on 17 June
1734.
[4]
Known as the Caradon Declaration,
having been made to the Anguillians by Lord
Caradon, British Ambassador to the United Nations, on a visit to the island
in a successful mission to defuse a crisis that was escalating between the islanders
and the British administration in the months after the invasion.
[6]
Most of us firmly reject the “theory”
of evolution, and remain convinced the earth began on Sunday 23 October, 4004
BCE
[7]
Seen most recently when a request for
bids by the Water Corporation for the construction and operation of a water
desalination plant resulted in a bid by a competent and professional company
being turned down by the public service dominated Procurement Board in favour
of a less than satisfactory bid by a competitor. As it is, the deal fell through and the
contract went back out to bid.
[8]
The most commonly heard reason for not
supporting a political candidate is, “He never gave me anything”
[10]
Some aspects of the story were reported
here: http://theanguillian.com/2013/02/chief-minister-releases-letter-to-governor-re-minister-walcott-richardson/
[11]
The letter is reproduced here: http://corruptionfreeanguilla.blogspot.com/2010/10/due-diligence.html
[12]
The story is here: http://corruptionfreeanguilla.blogspot.com/2010/10/abuse-of-office.html
[13]
His analysis can be read here: http://overseasreview.blogspot.com/2010/01/british-virgin-islands-political.html
[14]
Joan Williams in her Looking Back:
The Struggle to Preserve our Freedoms (Kingston: Yard Publications, 2015)
describes Michael Manley’s attraction by the supreme power of Fidel Castro in
Cuba, and his collaboration with the communists in his failed attempt to bring
Jamaica under their domination.
[15]
All as detailed by Robert Coram: Caribbean
Time Bomb: The United States’ Complicity in the Corruption of Antigua
(William Morrow) 1993.
[17]
Explored more fully at: http://www.open.uwi.edu/sites/default/files/bnccde/anguilla/conference/papers/mitchell.html
[18]
But much misunderstood. As recently as
the year 2009 the then Chief Minister denied there was any need for such an Act
on the misinformed ground that there was no press censorship in Anguilla
