The issue of Dominica being blacklisted by France was discussed as CARICOM heads met with World Bank President Robert Zoellick at the 21st intersessional CARICOM Summit currently ongoing.
France named 18 nations as being uncooperative tax havens and threatened to impose higher taxes on French companies that have operations in those jurisdictions. Anguilla, Belize, Grenada, Montserrat, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines were the other Caribbean countries on that blacklist.
Prime Minister of St Kitts and Nevis Denzel Douglas, who is on island, told a media interview last evening that France’s action was unfair.
According to him, Zoellick was told that he should use his contact and influence with France to ask for some flexibility in having the country revisit its position, before January 2011.
“I alluded to the situation where we have been given a target date of March 31st to achieve 12 agreements with the OECD countries and before we could achieve that, France imposed a black listing against and took punitive action against companies that may be doing business in the Caribbean,” Douglas said.
“We felt that it was unfair because several of us has already negotiated terms and agreements with France and we were waiting for France to give dates for signing those agreements and then one week before she took this unilateral action,” he added.
Meantime, Douglas says for small indebted countries to continue on their development agenda – especially in stabilizing the economies – the World Bank should use its position to assist in accessing concessionary terms in loans.
He said the World Bank needs to be mindful of the vulnerabilities of small highly indebted middle income countries.
He believes the economic transformation path is being made more difficult.
DNO CORRESPONDENT.
France used its economic might to cripple Haiti after a protracted war for independence which the Haitians won in 1804. France enjoys blood diamond from Africa and they prosper from child labor. France is also a safe haven for the Duvaliers who stole billions of dollars from impoverished Haiti, Why won’t they help Haiti recover the billions of dollars hiddes in Swiss and other European banks?That’s the nature of imperialism. If they can’t control you and your resources. they will cripple you economically. Ask the Cubans!
blacka you sound like you just crawled out from under a stone.dominica was blacklisted under the rule of the coalition government which labour was a part of and not under the UWP.you need to get your facts before coming on there on embarass yourself.under UWP i could just get up and go canada under labour party i have to obtain a visa.as for developement the country was running sweet.ask any drugsman out there.they’ll tell you they made the most money during the reigns of the UWP cuz parros were making more money to go buy the coke and weed
Simple Economic invasion strategy?
Gone are the days of open agression as did the french 10 wars to get control of the Caribbean’s resources.
Simply place an agent with a degree in psychology and a primary French/EU citizenship (and secondary Dominican/Caricom passport …kept a secret from those who voted him and the DLP for ~15 years?) as head of ECC and Caricom and ….
let him negotiate on your behalf unknowing to them…
when they come begging…
The BALL IS IN FRANCE”S Court
How many Dominican fishermen have disappeared?
How many square miles of territorial sea have we lost ?
Now we can only fish up to 20 miles west (becuase of a French man giving away our Bird island in exchange for ???? we were able to be in our water 270miles west.
what is the economicvalue of the fishery?
what is the economic value of the massive oil and Gas found around bird island?
(see: TREASON ACT 10:01
http://www.dominica.gov.dm/laws/chapters/chap10-01.pdf)
now we only have ~2 miles north and ~5 south of our coast.
east is less than 30 miles as the french waters form a cone to the east.
Our fishing banks are fisehed every night by the French who set traps and return the next night for it.
How many of my fellow Caricom fisherfolk have been held at gun point, killed and disapeared after encounters with French and Venezuelan fishermen and Drug runners?
http://dominicanewsonline.com/?p=462
http://www.caricomlaw.org/
http://dominicanewsonline.com/?p=1058
http://www.jis.gov.jm/special_sections/CARICOMNew/CSME2.html
How many nuclear powers are now flexing nuclear and military force in the “peaceful ” caribbean sea becuase of the bird island issue?
Are not fuel storage and airports the prime / 1st targets to be bombed in any conflict.
http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/news-17030–31-31–.html
http://repeatingislands.com/2009/06/18/the-venezuela-petrocaribe-project-and-energy-security-for-caribbean-countries/
.
@True Patriot UWP HAD DOMINICA ON THE BLACK LIST THEIR FULL TERMS IN OFFICE WITH NO DEVELOPMENTS ON THE ISLAND DURING THAT DRY SPELL TIMES.. NOTHING WAS GOING ON IN THE ISLAND NOTHING AT ALL..SO GO BACK IN UR LIKKLE HOLE AND SHUT UP. DIE ASS POORER
@True Patriot UWP HAD THE COUNTRY ON THE BLACKLIST FOR THEIR FULL TERM IN OFFICE WITH NO DEVELOPMENT IN THE COUNTRY OVER THAT TIME PERIOD. SHUT UP AND GO BACK IN YOUR LIKKLE HOLE.
LCM I agree with your statement that is exactly the point and it’s good adviise for all those who are in authority and especially the GOVERNMENTS in the regions to adhere too, whenever issues that we dont like comes up we do not think them thru instead we display our lack of knowledge and start throwing insults, well, this is not the time for that because we still need FRANCE and the USA regardless.
The ISLANDS in the Caribbean have to understand that they must speak with one voice for the larger COUNTRIES to listen untill then individualy they will not be able to make any changes.
The way the story reads, I dont see where Dominica is on the black list. Is it that Dominica is on there along with the other caribbean islands? The impression I get from reading this story does not tell me Dominica is on the list.
All these accusations and black list tells us that the caribbean cannot continue as individual countries and be competitive in these times. We have to become stronger as a region and focus on unity. join and utilize our human and physical resources, to better the region.
There is no way we as individual countries can compete with these industrial countries. We keep going to the world bank and IMF and getting donations from these industrial nation. Soon we will be subjected to economic slavery.
We need to embrace science, technology and innovation on a regional level and get rid of some of the cultural differences and ideas that keep us back. In other words why cant we start geothermal energy instead of having the french do it. why cant we safegaurd our products instead of America passing laws that affect small business.
The strange thing is we have very smart people in the Caribbean who are not utilized properly. As a result we will continue to be harassed by these nations. They force us out of selling bananas, off-shore banks, now we on black list because we try to get companies to come here just to create jobs.
my two cents
Dominica needs to stand and defend its waters against the French fisher men with coast guard boats men and machine guns, if right is right and wrong is wrong. This is not Haiti so let’s play.
I hear no one talking about Dominica being on this Blacklist but yet i still read comments on here about UWP getting Dominica placed on the blacklist…. Hypocrites…..
men lang su soon sacozi or watever his name is. They need to worry about guadelopue and martinique who ar ebigger tax havens than dominica. please. You would think some people would clean their backyard before tryig to tel other folks how things are done.
True dat. I agree.
Who the hell needs France anyway?? Hypocrite nation!!…. does the world bank have any of the small countries pleas in their best interest?. I don’t think so
Don’t be foolish we need France,USA and all the other larger countries so you see we have to abide by all the LAWS in the International Commonittees when we fail we suffer the consequences who cant hear will feel but what you should be asking yourself is what does DOMINICA do what can the people on the street office homes do to take back our ISLAND.
We cannot listen to the likes of Denzil Douglas and other leaders that were not on the black list it’s our Island and so far it’s just 2 Island that”s 2 to many but Trinidad can fend for themselves we are a small fish in the pond our GOVT have let us down because they were given a warning but these men believe they are above every LAW but saving our Island was not in their best interest but we the people we saw all what is going on and still haven moved to make any changes yet we sat idly instead.
THE LAW OF DOMINICA MUST BE ADHERE AT ALL TIMES AND NO IS ABOVE THE LAW !