![\"\"](\"http:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/commentary2.jpg\" "\\"commentary\\"")
I note with disbelief that a meeting of Caricom leaders in St. Kitts expressed solidarity with Libya\u2019s Colonel Gaddafi, the butcher of Libya, but said nothing about the atrocities Gaddafi inflicted on his own people who are seeking reform in the context of the Arab spring that is unfolding in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
The Caricom\u00a0 leaders are calling on NATO leaders to end the \u201caggression\u201d against Libya and seem to be oblivious to the fundamental principle, enshrined in international law, that permits intervention in countries on humanitarian grounds when the lives and safety of citizens are threatened. No one in his sound mind will dispute the potential for blood bath and mayhem, had Gaddafi been allowed free reign to take down the rebels in opposition to his rule.<\/p>\n
If NATO\u2019s action in Libya is aggression then the humanitarian intervention in Bosnia during the administration of President Bill Clinton in the mid 1990\u2019s where thousands of Muslims where under threat of extermination by the ruling Serbs, was also aggression. But it would take a village idiot, or someone who is woefully out of touch with reality, to conclude that the NATO operation in Bosnia was anything but a humanitarian mission.<\/p>\n
Caricoms\u2019s irrational outburst in St. Kitts is both enigmatic and predictable. Enigmatic because the Caribbean region, by and large, has a somewhat strong tradition of democracy and respect for individual rights and the rule of law, even if this condition is being eroded in some territories, most notably in Dominica where the prime minister, Roosevelt Skerritt, has embarked upon a mission\u00a0 to replace the rule of law and democracy that we inherited from our colonial master with \u201crule by Skerritt\u201d. Predictable because our leaders do not fail to take the low road when their personal or political interests are threatened.<\/p>\n
Note for example that the two leaders who were quoted in the Caricom press release: Dominica\u2019s Roosevelt Skerritt and his counterpart in St. Kitts. The former is known for obtaining bundles of cash from Gaddafi that serves as a slosh fund to carry out his nefarious political activities. The latter reportedly was carded to receive a branch of a Libyan bank. Others in Caricom may not be as shameless as the aforementioned leaders, or are more suave in disguising their true motives. Yet their silence speaks volumes about their willingness to tolerate abuses of human rights, and indeed even genocide, if this will\u00a0 permit them access to Gaddafi\u2019s pieces of silver.<\/p>\n
It is a shameful blot on the record of Caricom to say to the international community that it is permissible for a leader to butcher his own people providing that this leader is generous with his wealth. It is also shameful that these leaders would resort to the old rhetoric of anti colonialism to justify their behavior when the entire world has moved beyond this tired refrain to a more enlightened position about democracy and human rights which few apologists would argue exists in Libya under Gaddafi.<\/p>\n
Some may want to justify their support for Gaddafi by claiming that it is in the region\u2019s and individual country\u2019s foreign policy interest to support him. But as I stated in my previous piece entitled \u201cIt All Looks Familiar\u201d, given our size and economic irrelevance, our significance and indeed, our relevance in the international community cannot be divorced from the principled positions we take on matters that affect the global village that we live in.<\/p>\n
It may well be that Caricom leaders wish to stake out a position for themselves and their citizens in defiance of the values that the rest of the international community, guided by the evolution of proper norms of behavior, find morally acceptable. But it is also possible that they are genuinely confused, caught between the devil\u2019s benevolence and the ethical standards that some, with the possible exception of Skerrit, believe to be sacred in the conduct of domestic and international policy.<\/p>\n
Aggression and intervention in the internal affairs of another country are illegal and undesirable but not when undertaken in a humanitarian mission to save lives.<\/p>\n
So my advice to the Caricom heads whose heads are buried deeply in the sand is to get real and take note of the century we are living in. In this twenty first century where the world is flat and territorial boundaries are being knocked down by advances in communication and technology, adherence to the old canard of \u201caggression\u201d when human rights are being trampled upon is as relevant today as the slave ships that transported us from the womb of Africa more than three centuries ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I note with disbelief that a meeting of Caricom leaders in St. Kitts expressed solidarity with Libya\u2019s Colonel Gaddafi, the butcher of Libya, but said nothing about the atrocities Gaddafi inflicted on his own people who are seeking reform in…","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":39536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n