EDITORIAL

Two wrongs don’t make a right

Tuesday,  November 1, 2005

The recent introduction of a visa requirement for visitors from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Jamaica, we would argue is wrong. 

The process by which 3,000 people were awarded status under the previous UDP Administration was also wrong – and these two wrongs certainly do not make a right.

No one can really be in any doubt either, who will be the ones to suffer under this latest move against our closest neighbours. Make no mistake it will be the honest hard working Jamaican’s of this country and their friends and families as well as our own who will bear the brunt.

We dare to say too that the haste in which both initiatives were launched may have been too reactionary.

Notably, it has been reported that when even the mother country - the UK government introduced visas for Jamaicans, they gave some six months notice before travellers had to comply with visa requirements.

The mass Caymanian status grant in 2003 has much to do with the recent increase in resentment by far too many people here, towards Jamaicans.

The many people who had been here for years and in some cases decades without any real rights and who deserved, and were rightly granted status, have been lumped together with another large number who were granted Status for political reasons and financial gain. As so many on the list had not been here very long and had no real claim to Caymanian Status, which is indeed a precious gift, were awarded it anyway, the country was divided and it seems, that the people who are being punished for that mistake are the Jamaicans.

The Government insists that the reason for the introduction of the visa is because Jamaica like many other nations in the world is considered high risk and this country has a right to try and deter criminal elements from entering.

A valid point. However, the problem is that the criminal element will continue to get in. That is because rules, regulations, passports, visa and other such legalities do not bother or deter those involved in serious organised crime.

The drug traffickers and gang leaders will still ensure their mules get through because they will force, cajole, bribe, blackmail or forge themselves and their people over any border.

Moreover the question also being asked is was this a Senior Civil Service decision or a political one?

The people who will suffer are those honest hard working Jamaicans who live, work and contribute here, but whose family members have remained at home.

They will now have to go through the process of visa application, pay the considerably hefty fee of some $5580 Jamaican dollars per family member when they wish to visit their husbands, wives, fathers or mothers that are working in the Cayman Islands. The Government may well be right that the nationals of many countries throughout the Caribbean and the rest of the world require visas to enter, but there are sound reasons for exempting Jamaicans. Not least this country’s deep ties and connections to that nation. Like it or not, Cayman and Jamaica’s histories are intertwined and no matter the increasing resentment for misplaced reasons the two countries will inevitably remain linked because of a shared history, a geographical proximity and economic reasons.

In the wake of Hurricane Ivan the usual stringent regulations to monitor those entering here were relaxed in order to help reconstruct Grand Cayman and it was predominantly Jamaican workers who responded to the relaxation in rules to work here.

It was not the fault of those Jamaicans or those already here that Immigration rules were bent perhaps allowing some criminals to enter more easily.

Moreover we could have taken the many different nationals from the world over many of whom volunteered to come.

But most of the construction companies and labour brokers opted for Jamaicans – some even taking advantage of the Jamaican workers’ desperation for economic improvement and making them pay fees to agents to find them work here.

In short which ever way one turns over this matter, wrongs have been committed in every direction and none of them seems to be adding up to a right.

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