UK's direct rule over Turks and Caicos?

BY Trudy Simpson "Is Colonialism Really Dead?"

Trudy Simpson asks whether Britain’s plan to restore direct rule over Turks and Caicos Islands amounts to ‘modern-day colonialism’ THE TURKS and Caicos Islands (TCI) face losing the right to govern key areas if Britain goes ahead with its plan to suspend the Caribbean territory’s constitution and take direct control of day-to-day government operations.

UK government ministers, Foreign Office officials and the TCI’s governor are now considering the final report of a UK-led Commission of Inquiry, which found a high probability of ‘systemic corruption’ and misuse of public funds in the British dependency.

But current TCI Premier Galmo Williams, and his predecessor, Michael Misick, have accused Britain of exerting ‘the strong arm of modern-day colonialism.’

Galmo has been fighting against the takeover, taking a last ditch appeal to the UK’s High Court. The UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has rejected the colonialism accusations. ‘This would not be a shift to indefinite direct rule (but) would be an act of constitutional significance in order to restore the principles of good governance.

‘It would be for an interim period which would last no longer than it takes for the necessary reforms to be implemented, and to take effect,” the FCO told The Voice. It added: ‘The Governor would consult with Turks and Caicos Islanders throughout this period, including through the bodies which would be put in place to replace the Cabinet and House of Assembly, ie the Consultative Forum and the Advisory Council. ‘The Forum is intended to ensure that the voice of the people will continue to be heard.’ But in the minds of some, thoughts of colonialism may still linger, harking back to the decades when Caribbean territories lived under the colonial yoke of the British Empire.

Under colonialism, Caribbeans were dependent on and had no say in critical decisions which impacted on their daily lives. These were decided by foreigners in London. After the 1950s, many Caribbean countries opted for independence, but territories such as the Turks and Caicos, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and several Dutch and French-speaking Caribbean countries were forced or opted to remain overseas dependent territories.

That direct dependency has had harsh consequences for some. For example, in the 1960s, Britain evicted the inhabitants of its dependent territory, Diego Garcia, so Britain could honour a deal with the Americans to build a military base on the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean. In 2001, 35 years later, the people and their descendants, trapped in poverty in Mauritian slums, took the UK to court to try to go back to their homeland. While the UK’s treatment of its dependencies has changed a lot since then, the TCI’s case – the second time the UK has intervened in the country’s operations since the mid-1980s – does bring up the question of whether Britain’s action is a form of modern-day colonialism.

Dr Peter Clegg, a senior lecturer in politics at West of England University, told The Voice that although colonialism is not dead, Britain’s actions regarding the TCI should not be confused with modern colonialism. “I can understand the argument that this is neo-colonialism or a new form of colonialism, but the issues are so fundamental to the island that the British government did not have much choice but to react in the way they are doing,” Clegg said.

The Foreign Office also dismissed claims that it is hypocritical to intervene in the TCI when many of the UK’s MPs have also been caught misspending taxpayer money. It said: ‘The expenses crisis in no way affects the UK's strong stance internationally on the importance of democratic politics, accountable government and anti-corruption. What you see in the UK is a political system that has recognised that something is wrong, and is working to deal with it.’ Clegg agreed, adding: “I think the TCI accusations are so serious and so fundamental to the operation of the islands and the government that an external power, in this case the UK, has to step in to deal with the underlying issues.”

Clegg, who is part of a Caribbean Politics Specialist Group, said Britain’s overall control, enshrined in the TCI’s constitution, is rarely used. “It’s their right to do it but this use of British power is very rare and they do this very reluctantly. The UK has a legal and financial responsibility for the territories, and an obligation to ensure that operations run properly in its dependent territories.” Patrick Bryan, Professor of history at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Kingston, Jamaica, said the TCI agreed to this by remaining a ‘colony’ of Britain. “If they are a colony of Britain, how can they decide that Britain isn’t going to do this to them? It seems to me that the people in the Turks and Caicos cannot behave independently and still be a colony. They are not independent. Colonialism never died in the Turks and Caicos and this is one of the consequences of it,” he told The Voice. Clegg explained that the TCI – which has a small and close-knit population of 32,000 – need outside intervention because any reforms undertaken by the government, with its lack of proper division between the executive and the legislature, could be later questioned. He added that the UK faces difficulty because the nature of governance between the UK and its territories is “not very clear cut in reality.”

Clegg said this was illustrated recently when the UK chided Bermuda for not consulting Britain over the island’s acceptance of four former Guantanamo Bay prisoners. Bermuda, which controls immigration, accepted the former terror suspects on those grounds. But the UK said it should have been consulted because this was also a matter of security, which the UK controls. “…You have a clash and some uncertainty as to where the lines of power and authority rests,” Clegg explained. Both Bryan and Clegg said colonialism is still alive in the modern Caribbean. Bryan said this colonialism spreads beyond the existence of dependent territories like the TCI to encompass forms of neo-colonialism, where trade and other agreements with industrialised countries and former colonial masters keep sovereign Caribbean countries such as Jamaica as dependent as they were pre-1960s.

“Our economies are as dependent on the industrialised world as they have been under colonialism. It’s simply a continuation of the old economic controls,” Bryan said. Both men said that the only way forward in the fight against neo-colonialism is regional integration, which faces major obstacles.

“There would need to be far more cooperation and dialogue so that we don’t always find ourselves subject to the divide and rule pattern that we have seen all these years. If each nation or each group of nations seek a solution in its own right, there won’t be a solution in the long term,” Bryan said. Direct link to the original story: http://www.voice-online.co.uk/content.php?show=15790