Anguilla's Autonomy in Question?

 

A friend emailed me an article recently and asked for my comments. It claims to be written by one Ebenezer Mensah. He is hardly a known expert on Anguilla. Indeed, there is every indication that he is an AI bot.

A Google search reveals Mr Mensah self-described variously as a “distinguished correspondent with a fervor for journalism that sparks transformation”, whatever that means, and as a “seasoned Process Engineer In Training with a robust background in carbon capture process unit operations”, whatever that means: https://bnnbreaking.com/author/ebenezer-mensah. There is nothing else you can find out about him online. It is fair to conclude that he does not exist.

The article is published on the “BNN Network”. This was founded by a Mr Gurbaksh Chalal, an Indian/American tech entrepreneur with a suspect past: https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-bans-bnn-accounts-founded-by-former-tech-ceo-gurbaksh-chahal-2022-6. BNN Network appears to be no more than a form of elementary aggregator that uses AI to trawl the internet and write articles on any subject Mr Chalal poses to it. The original article is here: https://bnnbreaking.com/politics/anguillas-autonomy-in-question-elected-officials-growing-dependence-on-ukg.

Nothing you can find online inspires confidence in any of Mr Mensah, Mr Chalal, or BNN’s articles. But I admit I may be mistaken in my conclusions. So, if you are Anguillian, you give them the benefit of the doubt and you read the article. It reads in its entirety as follows:

“Anguilla's Autonomy in Question: Elected Officials' Growing Dependence on UKG

Delve into the shifting landscape of Anguilla's autonomy debate as elected officials increasingly rely on the UK Government for key fiscal decisions. What does this mean for the future of national governance in Anguilla?

The enduring debate over Anguilla's autonomy has taken a new turn as current developments reveal a growing reliance of elected officials on the United Kingdom Government (UKG) for key fiscal decisions, marking a significant shift from the island's historical stance on self-governance. This evolving dynamic raises critical questions about the future of Anguilla's autonomy and its implications for national governance.

Historical Context and Present Concerns

Historically, Anguilla enjoyed a reputation for self-governance, with elected representatives operating with a sense of autonomy from the UKG. However, recent actions and statements from government officials indicate a departure from this tradition. The frequent invocation of the need for UKG approval for financial decisions, despite Anguilla's significant revenue collection, underscores a changing relationship between Anguilla and its colonial overseer. This shift is not merely administrative but symbolic, reflecting a broader change in the perception of Anguilla's governance capabilities.

Impact on National Interest and Governance

National interests, traditionally the purview of local governance, are increasingly being deferred to the Governor's authority, particularly in areas of security and social security. The repositioning of the Anguilla Commercial Registry under the Governor-controlled Financial Services Commission exemplifies this trend, further blurring the lines of autonomy. The implications of this shift are profound, touching on aspects of national identity, governance, and the future direction of Anguilla's political landscape.

Reevaluating Anguilla's Path Forward

The current trajectory raises important considerations for Anguilla's approach to governance and its relationship with the UKG. The distinction between past and present governance styles highlights an urgent need for a reevaluation of how elected officials engage with external authorities. The essence of self-governance lies not only in the capacity to make independent decisions but also in the ability to assert and maintain autonomy in the face of external influences. As Anguilla navigates this complex terrain, the choices made today will undoubtedly shape its governance model for years to come.”

I would dispute the claim that there is growing dependence of Anguilla on UKG. As Anguilla’s fiscal landscape has improved significantly over the past 12 months, since the introduction of GST, and as the sale of “.ai” domain names begins to produce significant unexpected revenue, Anguilla in practice has a decreasing dependence on the UKG.

Anguilla’s financial dependence on the UK is constitutionally total since Anguilla is a “British Overseas Territory”. Anguilla was until recently officially described as a “British Dependent Territory”. This was true but embarrassing to everybody, and so the designation was changed. The fact is that Anguilla is a colony of the UK and has and never had any autonomy of significance. Because of our very recent, and increasing locally generated revenue, our practical dependence on the UK Treasury will significantly reduce in the future.

At the United Nations, it is an embarrassment for the UK to admit that it holds colonies. Purely for cosmetic reasons, therefore, the UK has in recent decades begun to insist that it has no colonies. Some years ago, first the Colonial Office was abolished, and its staff and functions merged into the Commonwealth Office, becoming the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). When Montserrat officials and businesspersons conspired with officers of the London based Department of International Development (DfID) to criminally divert volcano-relief funds into their own pockets, the British abolished the Department and merged its function with the FCO, which became the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).

However, because Britain remains contingently liable for any damage we may do internationally, she has always insisted on retaining ultimate control of our affairs. When a colonial government becomes totally corrupt, as happened in the Turks and Caicos Islands in 2009, the Constitution could by a simple executive order of the Privy Council, known as an “Order in Council”, be suspended, amended, or revoked. Similarly, in the Virgin Islands recently where the administration was overwhelmed by corruption, the British appeared on the verge of suspending the Constitution. But a new administration is resisting such a development. As is well-known, the BVI Premier is in prison in Miami convicted for money laundering and drugs trafficking offences.

There is a lot of history that the apparently AI-generated article is unaware of. In the late 1970s, the Royal Bank of Abu Dhabi (Anguilla) Ltd was used by a gang of Pakistani fraudsters at the Playboy Casino in London to launder a forged cheque for a large sum of money. The infamous BCCI was incorporated in Anguilla, (among other Overseas Territories). So were some several hundred other paper banks and tens of thousands of shell companies some of which seemed to serve no purpose other than the commission of fraud of one kind or another. And, so, at the height of the BCCI scandal in the early 1980s, the international financial services industry, or as it was called at the time, the “Offshore Banking Industry”, was taken away from the local Minister of Finance and placed under the direct control of a London-appointed regulator.

By 1984, offshore banking in Anguilla was dead. Rodney Gallagher was sent in to shut down the offshore banks. This he did swiftly and efficiently. According to the late Fitzroy Bryant, Gallagher was an MI5 operative provided with cover as a chartered accountant by Coopers and Lybrand’s branch in Barbados. (Gallagher was such a senior intelligence officer that, as Fitzroy Briant, one time Minister of Education of St Kitts, joked at the height of Gallagher’s slaughter of offshore banks, if he were a KGB agent instead of MI5, he would already have been a Field Marshal. When he issued an order to jump to a governor of a colony, the only possible question was how high?)

The FSC was not created until 2004 some 20 years later. The FSC is the technical arm of the Governor in the oversight of the island’s international financial services. In Anguilla, there is no income tax, capital gains tax, or inheritance tax. Anguilla is thus a convenient location for some international businesspersons to headquarter their trusts and companies. These, and their local agents, are now regulated by the FSC.

Since at least 2017 the EU has included Anguilla on its blacklist of tax havens. The FSC strives to have Anguilla removed from this and other similar lists. Anguillians hope the FSC will succeed. This can only happen if the service is not brought under local political control. Elected Anguillian government officials have cousins, ex-schoolmates, and friends in every corner of the island. They all have needs that must be satisfied if one is to be re-elected.

There is no increasing reliance on the UK government for key fiscal decisions as claimed. Anyone familiar with Anguilla’s recent political history knows that in the recent past (ie, within the last 40 years) Anguilla has persisted in living beyond her means. Anguillians are traditionally averse to paying taxes, and governments are averse for political reasons to collecting existing taxes by enforcing the law. Until property tax was abolished for households earlier in 2024, only some forty percent of Anguillians paid it. None of the evaders was ever prosecuted.

Anguillians are opposed to any kind of regulation, whether by local administrators or by the British. That is why there is no effective Planning Code or Building Code. A combination of recent violent Hurricanes and international financial crises has conspired (for reasons of political survival) to force different administrations to spend more than the Anguillian Treasury could afford. Britain was (for her own protection) obliged reluctantly to insist on enforcing more of its reserve power over the colony to take steps to bring Anguilla’s public spending into balance with income. This effort largely failed until within the past 12 months revenue began to grow exponentially from a combination of unpopular new taxes and the sale of international services.

Anguilla in 2024 is now less reliant on the UK government for key fiscal decisions than it has ever been. It has merely become politically useful for out-of-power, local, would-be politicians to claim that Anguilla is being oppressed. The opposite is the truth. In the five years since Hurricane Irma devastated the local economy and infrastructure, the UK sank several hundred million pounds sterling (that it could hardly afford) into rebuilding this tiny Overseas Territory with a population of under 15,000 souls. That the UK wishes to have its own accountants and administrators positioned in Anguilla to oversee how these funds are being spent is hardly an unreasonable imposition. As the funds are exhausted, the need for such oversight will go and they can be expected to be called home.

Anguillians will have no “autonomy” until they are ready for it. The British are not standing in the way of our independence. Their officials regularly remind us that they are anxious for us to get off their backs. It has been said that we can apply for independence by email. We have no need to fight for it. We have only to demonstrate that independence is the wish of the majority of the people, and we will get it.

The problem for the politicians who are lobbying for Anguillian independence from Britain now is that the people, for good reason, do not trust them with their lives or property. Two recent administrations have blocked constitutional reforms demanded by the people. Anguillians have long called for the introduction of institutions of good governance such as an Ombudsman and an Integrity Commission. These pleadings have fallen on the deaf ears of our leaders. By contrast, the British are too far away from Anguilla to do us much harm.

Contrary to the position taken by the likely AI-authored article, there is widespread opposition to independence for Anguilla now. This will no doubt change in the coming years, but it is the present position of most Anguillians. We are not stupid. We can see through our would-be leaders’ claims of being concerned only for our welfare when they call for us to go into independence now. They want to be free of what little oversight the presence of British officials brings to restrain their self-serving dealing. That is what independence means to them.

Facing the Issues - TV Interview

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A Corrupting Independence

A Corrupting Independence – Short-term and Long-term Political Ambitions in Anguilla[1]

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

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[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.

[5]     See https://donmitchellcbeqc.blogspot.com/2011/03/cultural-identity.html

[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”

[9]     See: http://donmitchellcbeqc.blogspot.com/2006/03/19-ethics-and-integrity-in-government.html

[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.

[16]    See, for example: http://overseasreview.blogspot.com/2014/10/anguilla-political-leader-calls-for.html

[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