BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Two years after the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic severely impacted the Caribbean, regional countries in 2022 re-opened their borders, cautiously returning to some form of normalcy while dealing with high levels of criminality, struggling economies, and staging general elections.
And while the COVID-19 pandemic has not resulted in the mass infections and deaths as had been the case in the past 24 months, the Caribbean has had to deal with the socio-economic impact as well as the many COVID variants.
In The Bahamas, for example, a joint report by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) estimated the total cost of the impacts and effects of COVID-19 on the country to the tune of US$9.5 billion, with tens of thousands of job losses and long-lasting impact on the country’s tourism sector.
New health concerns in the form of the Monkeypox virus and malaria were also issues the Caribbean had to deal with in 2022. The malaria outbreak in Haiti was reminiscent of 2010, when the disease, typically spread by water contaminated with the feces of a sick person, killed an estimated 10,000 people in an outbreak blamed on a United Nations peacekeeping force.
Barbados signaled the region’s adherence to democratic rule when on January 19, voters went to the polls in a snap general election Prime Minister Mia Mottley had called 18 months before the constitutional deadline.
Despite the failed attempt by the minor opposition, Barbados Sovereignty Party (BSB), in asking the High Court to postpone the elections, Barbadians bought into the philosophy that they are “safer with Mia” wholesale and re-elected the ruling Barbados Labour Party (BLP) into government with a second consecutive clean sweep of the 30 seats in Parliament, condemning the main opposition Democratic Labour Party (DLP) to a second whitewash.
The BLP became only the second political organization in the Caribbean to sweep all the seats in an election on consecutive occasions. The other time that was achieved was in Grenada when Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell led his New National Party (NNP) in winning all 15 seats in 2018.
But on June 23 this year, Grenadians booted Mitchell out of office, refusing to give him his wish for the last victory in a general election by electing 44-year-old attorney Dickon Mitchell, who a few months earlier had been elected leader of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), as the new head of government in the Spice Isle.
“Thank you from the bottom of every one of our hearts. This victory is not ours, but yours,” the NDC leader said.
Like, Mottley, Mitchell, 75, had called the general election ahead of the constitutional deadline of March 2023.
Another Caribbean leader who needed help to take advantage of an early poll was Dr. Timothy Harris in St. Kitts-Nevis. Beset by political infighting within his coalition Team Unity government, Harris had no choice but to face the electorate only two years after a landslide victory in 2020.
Disgruntled coalition members had filed a motion of no confidence in Harris, even as they left the “door ajar” for reconciliation to end the rift that had split the six-year-old government.
In the end, the political shenanigans on the twin island Federation proved too much for the coalition. Seven years after being booted out of office, the main opposition was St. Kitts Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP) returned to corridors of power on August 5.
The SKNLP won six of the 11 seats, with the former coalition partner, the People’s Labour Party (PLP) of Harris, winning one seat, the same as the People’s Action Movement (PAM). The Nevis-based Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM) won all three seats on the sister aisle.
“It is a pleasure to be given the opportunity by the people of St. Kitts and Nevis to be your prime minister. I also recognize that it is an office that I do not own, and I am only here at the behest of the people, and I also know that I am here for a limited time,” Prime Minister Dr. Terrence Drew said soon after being sworn into office.
Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit read the winds of change in his country correctly and called a snap general election on December 6, to the surprise of the main opposition United Workers Party (UWP), whose leader, Lennox Linton, had announced his decision to step down in October.
Skerrit, 50, has been in power since 2004, and in 2019 led his Dominica Labour Party (DLP) into victory by winning 18 of the 21 seats. He defended his decision to call the election two years ahead of the constitutional deadline, even as the opposition parties had urged supporters to boycott the event, claiming that the government had gone back on a promise of having electoral reform ahead of the next election there.
“I am a villain for calling an election in Dominica when I chose, but Timothy Harris in St. Kitts-Nevis collapsed his government in two years, and he is a gentleman. I am a villain for calling an election under three years in Dominica. Still, Sister Mia Mottley in Barbados is a genius for having called a snap election and in an even shorter period than I have,” Skerrit said.
“A party in Grenada won all the seats, not once, not twice, but three times over the years, and democracy has never been under threat in that country,” he said, adding, “I am a villain for calling an election when the opposition has its pants off.”
In the end, Skerrit led the DLP to a resounding 19-2 victory, with two independent candidates winning their seats in traditional opposition strongholds of Salisbury and Marigot.
But only some of the political changes in the Caribbean came through the ballot boxes. In the British Virgin Islands (BVI), Dr. Natalio “Sowande” Wheatley was sworn in on May 5 as the new Premier of the British Overseas Territory, a few hours after the House of Assembly unanimously passed a no-confidence resolution revoking the appointment of Andrew Fahie.
In late April, Fahie was detained in Miami by US agents posing as cocaine traffickers from a Mexican drug cartel. The US alleges he agreed to a US$700,000 payment to allow traffickers to use BVI ports with an undercover informant.
A United States judge ruled that he could be released on a US$500,000 bond pending his trial and that he would have to remain in monitored confinement in his daughters’ apartment.
Apart from Fahie’s embarrassing arrest, the BVI has had to deal with what the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) regarded as “a retrograde step” the move to abolish the Parliament with direct rule from London.
“It is clear to us that, in principle, it is ill-advised to impose direct colonial rule, and the history of such imposition in the Caribbean has never delivered the desired result,” the OECS said in the statement while indicating it had taken note of the position by the duly elected BVI government “which, while welcoming the recommendations arising from the Inquiry, rejects the intention of the British government to impose direct rule on the BVI.
Governor John Rankin said among the recommendations of a report of a one-person Commission of Inquiry (COI) that had examined allegations of corruption and abuse of office by elected and statutory officials were the BVI government cease to exist in its current format for at least two years.
But the OECS and the wider CARICOM grouping argued that the historical responsibility for strengthening governance in the BVI must rest on the shoulders of the elected representatives and the people of the BVI themselves.
In the neighboring Cayman Islands, the Speaker of the House, McKeeva Bush, was still hanging on to office, even though Governor Martyn Roper and others have called for his resignation about his “inappropriate behavior towards women” that they said “should not be tolerated in any society.
Premier Wayne Panton had called on the 67-year-old Bush, a former premier, to step down following allegations that while intoxicated, he sexually harassed at least two women at a cocktail party hosted by the Tourism Ministry during a Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) conference.
In Barbados, the former deputy speaker and government legislator, Neil Rowe, will re-appear in a magistrate’s court on January 30 next year after being charged with rape. In St. Lucia, the President of the Senate, Stanley Felix, had his senatorial appointment revoked after he appeared in court on a charge of perverting the course of justice. Prime Minister Phillip J Pierre said that as the government head, he “demands the highest levels of professionalism and integrity from all public at all times.”
Opposition legislator, Adrian Gibson, was granted US$150,000 bail after he appeared in a Bahamas Magistrate court on charges of abuse of power while he served as executive chairman of the Water and Sewerage Corporation.
The 37-year-old attorney faces 56 counts on allegations that he failed to declare his interest in contracts awarded by the corporation.
In Antigua and Barbuda, the country had been in pre-election campaign mode ever since Prime Minister Gaston Browne told voters that the island is “months away” from the next general election, even as the main opposition United Progressive Party (UPP) called on him to announce an election date immediately.
General elections were last held here on March 21, 2018, with Browne’s Antigua Labour Party (ALP) winning 15 of the 17 seats. The UPP and the Barbuda People’s Movement (BPM) won the other two seats.
In December, Prime Minister Browne announced January 18, 2023, as the date for the election, with Nomination Day being December 28.
“We continue to count on you, the people of Antigua and Barbuda. You are the wings behind our sails, pushing us into success, and we will continue to respect you and to work unrelentingly for your development because that is the core of our being,” Browne told supporters.
In Guyana, where the opposition is continuing the battle to overturn the controversial March 2, 2020, regional and general elections that brought the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) into office, the Court of Appeal in October ruled that an election petition by the opposition coalition, A Partnership for National Unity and the Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC), could be heard despite objections by the ruling party that it had been filed too late.
Senior Counsel Roysdale Forde had filed a motion seeking an early date for case management and a hearing to determine the appeal. Still, Trinidad-based Senior Counsel Douglas Mendes said the petitioners should take responsibility for the delay in hearing the request for election petition (88/20-P), which the High Court dismissed in April 2021.
The Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), which is Guyana’s highest court, said it agreed with the majority of the Court of Appeal that it had jurisdiction to entertain an appeal from a decision of the Chief Justice, sitting in the High Court, dismissing an election petition for improper and or late service.
In the meantime, a Commission of Inquiry headed by retired Trinidad and Tobago Court of Appeal judge Justice Stanley John has started examining the events surrounding the controversial elections.
President Dr. Irfaan Ali said the appointment of the Commission is “in keeping with my commitment…to inquire into the events of the 2020 General and Regional Elections”.
But in a year when many CARICOM countries allowed their citizens to elect new governments, Haitians were not permitted to do so.
Haiti began the year with the President of the Senate, Joseph Lambert, suggesting that 2022 be declared the ‘Year of Haitian Dialogue’ aimed at bringing Haiti “out of this too long crisis,” acknowledging that ‘today the Republic of Haiti is deprived of its Chamber of Deputies and its Senate is reduced to a third of its members, whose mandate expires on the second Monday of January 2023″.
Prime Minister Dr. Ariel Henry, who came to power following the July 7, 2021, assassination of President Jovenel Moise, has not been able to push forward the electoral process, even though he has warned that no one will be allowed to meet in a hotel or abroad to decide in small committees who will be the next President or Prime Minister of Haiti.
“The country’s situation is too serious about playing musical chairs at the head of the State. I will say that anyone tempted to use gangs, terrorists, and gunslingers to gain power will be treated as terrorists and gunslingers,” Henry said, adding, “that’s why I ask those people who have guns between hands to put them down.”
“We are moving forward with those who want to solve the problem of insecurity, set up a credible CEP (Provisional Electoral Council), and organize a widespread consultation to validate the new Constitution.
But his statements also highlighted the political uncertainty in the country, with opposition parties saying that Moise’s mandate as head of State had officially ended on February 7 this year while renewing their calls for the election of a new leader of State.
By yearend, Haiti was pleading for military assistance from abroad to confront gangs that had taken over the French-speaking CARICOM country, blocking the entrance to a fuel terminal, and engaging in kidnappings for ransom while opposition parties were staging daily street protests demanding Ariel’s removal.
The 15-member regional integration grouping saying it is “deeply concerned” by the deepening of the multi-dimensional crisis in Haiti, told the international community that its efforts to assist Haiti should go beyond strengthening the police and the judiciary.
“The continued breakdown in law and order, and its distressing effect on the people of Haiti, is intensifying. The fraught situation is exacerbated by the inability of the Haitian security forces to address the ongoing violence,” CARICOM said
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called for a clear plan of action before any mission to help Haiti goes forward, even as Ottawa warned that it would not sit idly by while gangs threaten women and children.
Both the United States and Canada made good on their warnings to deal with the government and other public officials, whom they said were fuelling the unrest in Haiti.
Lambert was faced with sanctions by Washington and Canada for his alleged involvement in “significant corruption” and “gross violation of human rights .”As in the cases of former Senate president Youri Latortue, former prime minister Laurent Lamothe, Senator Ronny Célestin, the former President of the Chamber of Deputies, Gary Bodeau, and former senator Hervé Fourcand, they have all denied any involvement in wrongdoing.
In November, two government ministers – the Minister of Justice Berto Dorcé and the Interior Minister, Liszt Quitel – resigned amid speculation that they were forced to do so after the United States revoked their American visas.
Crime continued to be a significant issue in the Caribbean, with Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, The Bahamas, and St. Lucia among the regional countries hardest hit by criminal activities, particularly murder.
In the case of Jamaica, the government has had to resort to imposing states of emergency (SOE), gun amnesty, and new policing strategies, as the murder toll of 1, 422 in mid-December easily surpassed the 1, 409 killings recorded for all of 2021.
“Taking life could now be described as a common practice, especially when you have over a thousand murders yearly…and that is without us being at war,” said Prime Minister Andrew Holness.
“Taking a life is now at an epidemic level. If a thousand or more people were dying from a disease in Jamaica we would say we have a public health crisis. We would have initiated quarantine procedures,” he said, adding, “all effort would be made to isolate the infected person.”
Not to be outdone, Trinidad and Tobago recorded nearly 600 murders against 448 last year. The second-highest number of murders to date was in 2019, with 539 homicides.
Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley has brushed aside opposition accusations of having blood on his hands, saying this will not help the situation as personalizing and politicizing murders would serve no good.
“If that is the way we are going to approach crime and criminality in this country, personalize it, politicize it, do we have any hope in getting over it? But what they see is a political opportunity, talk stupidness and believe you, the people would go into the polling station and vote them back in office as if you forget the plot,” he said.
The Bahamas, Barbados, and St. Lucia easily surpassed their 2021 figures of 119, 40, and 74 murders.
Prime Minister Phillip J. Pierre believes that CARICOM leaders, when they next meet, must prioritize the discussion of crime.
The arrest of the disgraced former chief executive officer of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, placed the international spotlight on the Bahamas, where the Chief Magistrate Joyann Ferguson-Pratt in that Caribbean country denied him bail in December, remanding him to prison until February 8, 2023. However, his lawyers later said he had decided to waive his right to fight the extradition, and in late December, he was deported to New York.
The former billionaire was arrested in Nassau mid-December and faced arrest warrants in the Southern District of New York. FTX, registered in Nassau as FTX Digital Markets Ltd., moved its headquarters from Hong Kong last year. II addition to the Securities Commission of The Bahamas (SCB) probe, the US Justice Department is also investigating FTX. In November, FTX filed for bankruptcy in the US, leaving many users unable to withdraw their funds. According to a court filing, FTX owed its 50 largest creditors almost US$ 3.1 billion.
In 2022, the traveling Caribbean public experienced difficulties in traveling from one regional country to another, especially in the wake of the collapse of the inter-regional airline LIAT (1974) Limited.
In July, the CARICOM leaders agreed on a new modern Multilateral Air Services Agreement (MASA) that will allow for a new framework within which air transportation will operate in the region.
St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves said that countries, particularly those in the Eastern Caribbean, and even Trinidad and Tobago, were severely affected by the loss of thousands of seats “because LIAT, as it was, is no longer before us.
“You did not realize it while COVID-19 was on, but after COVID has receded somewhat and people are traveling again, we see the problems.”
Guyana’s President, Dr. Irfaan Ali, said CARICOM is prepared to hold discussions with the regional private sector on the issue of transportation in the region as efforts continue to reduce the Caribbean’s high food import bill and improve intra-regional trade.
“The leaders have made it very clear we are willing to sit with such a consortium and come up with a menu of measures and incentives that will allow you the space to operate in a very viable manner and fix the transport and logistic problem,” Ali added.
Prime Minister Mitchell says Grenada is prepared to lease an aircraft if Caribbean governments cannot sort out the regional transportation sector by yearend. He said the regional airline sector needs “urgent fixing,” and there needs to be more decisive movement on the issue before yearend.
“Let’s put it this way, I am optimistic it will not get to that,” he said, adding that regional governments must be prepared to spend more money on regional transport.
Prime Minister Browne says Antigua and Barbuda does not support a proposal for the majority shareholding in a new regional airline to be placed in the hands of foreign investors.
“We also had a proposal from investors…out of Nigeria, who indicated an interest in purchasing 75 percent of the shares in LIAT. But the regional governments are also interested in reviving LIAT and re-investing in LIAT.
“I think that is a superior option because the problem is if you have an entity outside of the region with the majority of the shares, it would be just a matter of time before the price gouge us, and we would be looking at the regional option,” Browne said.
Two years after the onset of the pandemic, 2022 began with some hopeful signs of economic recovery after the worst downturn in more than a century. But the scars of the crisis are still visible in the Caribbean. Eliminating them will take time and effort.
Poverty and inequality rose. Employment only partially recovered. Owing to the enormous efforts made to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic on the most vulnerable sectors, governments exhausted their fiscal reserves, and debt and macroeconomic imbalances grew.
In July, The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said tourism-dependent Caribbean economies would continue recovering, albeit slower-than-anticipated amid weaker tourism prospects.
According to the IMF, the tourism-dependent countries, namely, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts-Nevis, Jamaica, and the Bahamas recorded economic growth of 7.8 percent last year, as against minus 14.7 percent at the height of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic when borders were closed down and the tourism sector heavily impacted.
It said this year. The commodity-exporting countries will register a growth of 5.2 percent this year, dropping to 3.6 percent in 2023. The Washington-based financial institution said Caribbean commodity-exporting countries, namely Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago, had experienced 6.1 percent growth last year compared with four percent the previous year. It said this year. These commodity-exporting countries will register 24.6 percent growth, declining to 12.8 percent in 2023.
According to the IMF, inflation in tourism-dependent countries will reach 8.3 percent this year, dropping to 4.3 percent next year. In contrast, for the commodity-exporting countries, the inflation rate this year will be 10.8 percent, declining to 6.8 percent next year.
The World Bank’s chief economist for Latin America and the Caribbean, William Maloney, also acknowledged that the gross domestic product (GDP) of the Caribbean has yet to recover to its 2019 level.
“We are not expecting that to be the case until 2024, and that reflects the overall slow rate of recovery in the region. Part of that is we know that many of the islands are tourism-dependent, and we had a hard time getting a handle on COVID,” said Maloney, noting that many countries in the region are still recording low vaccination rates against the virus.
The region has also been hard hit by the Ukraine crisis occasioned by Russia’s invasion of the Eastern European country since February because the area, except Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana, are net food and fuel importers, putting additional strain on household budgets and government finances.
The Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) is projecting a 9.1 percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth across its 19 Borrowing Member Countries (BMCs) in 2022, accelerating the region’s economic recovery, which started in 2021.
The region’s premier financial institution said that the favorable outlook is anchored by an expected surge in the GDP of commodity-exporting economies by an estimated 17.5 percent on account of solid growth in Guyana (47.5 percent), emanating from increased oil and gas production and a resurgence in energy production in Trinidad and Tobago as supply-side constraints are alleviated. The CDB said higher international prices for crude oil should translate into revenue windfall.
However, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) predicts that economic growth will decelerate in the Caribbean (LAC) next year.
ECLAC forecasts 3.2 percent growth in 2022, above what had earlier been predicted. But it expects the deceleration to intensify next year with an increase of 1.4 percent in 2023, describing the situation as “a scenario subject to significant external and domestic restrictions.
In 2022, Suriname announced that it wanted to renegotiate its existing program with the IMF in response to the new global economic reality and its effects on the local economy. The IMF has since said it will cooperate with the government of Suriname in adjusting the measures to be taken that are part of an agreed economic recovery plan.
Suriname has also been seeking to prioritize a rescheduling and restructuring of loans from Oppenheimer amounting to nearly US$800 million, with observers noting that the degree of debt reduction and lower interest rates are still the stumbling blocks.
Barbados has also announced plans for a new loan agreement with the IMF, warning citizens, “these are indeed rough waters.”
Prime Minister Mottley said her administration is going to the IMF to get US$130 million in financing for a new Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) program, which would also allow the country to access another US$210 million under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) which was established to help countries access financing to invest in resilience building.
Jamaica’s Finance and Public Service Minister, Dr. Nigel Clarke, said he was also pleased with the new RSF, with his country having had two IMF programs “back to back not too long ago.
“We in Jamaica know the value of resilience and sustainability for the experience of not having it. As an island state in the Caribbean region…economic shocks are a part of our experience, whether those shocks are from natural disasters, commodity price movements, geo-political tensions, trade restrictions,” he said.
Clarke said while regional countries “will never be able to diversify ourselves away from shocks completely, the key is to ensure that we have the resilience to bounce back from shocks and to ensure that shocks do not precipitate balance of payments or fiscal crises.”
In December, a visiting IMF team and Jamaican authorities reached a staff-level agreement on Kingston’s request for a Precautionary and Liquidity Line (PLL) and the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) with combined access of US$ 1.7 billion. The IMF’s Executive Board is expected to consider these requests in early 2023.
By the year 2030, Guyana is expected to earn approximately US$7.5 billion annually through several oil projects in the offshore Stabroek Block, according to Schreiner Parker, the head of Latin America and the Caribbean at energy research company Rystad Energy – an independent energy research and business intelligence company headquartered in Oslo, Norway.
The government has said that the country is expected to earn US$1.1 billion from the energy sector this year. The Ministry of Finance said the profit is expected from 13 lifts as its entitlement from the ExxonMobil-led consortium due to the Russia-Ukraine war, Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL)
In 2022, Guyana presented a proposal to CARICOM leaders outlining an “action-oriented and solution-based” initiative aimed at reducing by 25 percent the region’s multi-billion dollar food bill by 2025.
President Ali, who has lead responsibility for Agriculture, Agricultural Diversification, and Food Security within the quasi-CARICOM Cabinet, informed his regional colleagues that there had been concrete progress in access to financing for agriculture investment, financing through a facility called the CARICOM Sustainability Agriculture Credit Facility, otherwise known as the Credit Facility, using the Trinidad-based Republic Bank Limited as a lender.
“This is a unique facility designed for agriculture activities including, but not limited to, development of priority crops, capital equipment for farming, feeder roads to provide access to arable lands, bulk storage for crops, processing plants, shade house farming.
“This provides funding for up to five years for repaying up to two billion Guyana dollars (One Guyana dollar=US$0.004 cents) to Guyana and US$100 million to all CARICOM member states, with interest rates as low as 2.5 percent,” he said at the inaugural CARICOM Agri-Investment Forum, and Expo held in Guyana.
Trinidad and Tobago hosted a similar event, while CARICOM chairman, President Chandrikapersad Santokhi, used the inaugural Afro-Caribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF 2022) in Bridgetown to inform investors from Africa that the Caribbean offers great and profitable areas for economic cooperation and that sitting still and hoping for the best is not an option.
Human rights and LB all welcome High Court rulings that declared unconstitutional laws that discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. The Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality (ECADE) said this is “the third progressive judgment in a five-country legal challenge” it has launched in 2020. It said a decision is pending on the constitutional challenge in St Lucia.
In January, the Bahamas announced the death of Sir Sydney Poitier, who, in 1964, was the first black actor and Bahamian to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. He was 94 years old.
In 2022, the region also bade farewell to former Nevis Premier Vance Winkworth Amory, 72, who died at a London hospital where he had been receiving treatment for cancer.
Belize’s second prime minister, Sir Manuel Esquivel, died at the age of 81-years and the Guyana government led the tributes for the country’s former foreign affairs minister, Rashleigh Jackson.
Professor Duke Pollard, one of the architects of the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), died in the United States, and 93-year-old prominent Guyanese businessman, and cultural icon Yesu Persaud, was described as “a true son of the soil” following his death. Guyana also mourned the passing of historian and educator Sister Mary Noel Menezes, who died at 92. Guyana Elections Commissioner Bibi Shadick also died in 2022.
The distinguished Barbadian technocrat Dr. Jean Holder, well-known throughout the region for his pioneering work in tourism and diplomacy, died at age 85. Barbados also mourned the passing of the poet, novelist, teacher, and editor George Lamming, “an authentic Caribbean voice,” at 93.
Barbados also recorded the death of the island’s special envoy on the environment, Dr. Hugh Sealy, and 78-year-old attorney Ezra Alleyne, best remembered for successfully defending Ronald Biggs, the ‘Great Train Robbery’ fugitive, who was kidnapped from Brazil and taken to Barbados in 1981.
One of Trinidad and Tobago’s leading writers, researchers, and political scientists, Professor Selwyn Ryan, also died in 2022
The Bahamas announced the death of Sir Sydney Poitier, who, in 1964, was the first black actor and Bahamian to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. He was 94 years old.
In the field of sports, media, and culture, the region said farewell to the 29-year-old Trinidad and Tobago Deon Lendore, who died following a car crash in Texas,
The Trinidad Express newspaper reported the death of its News Editor (Features), Wayne Bowman, who died after experiencing breathing difficulties. The body of former Newsday newspaper editor, Suzanne Mills, was discovered at her home in Diamond Vale, west of the capital.
Popular Trinidad and Tobago Soca star, Dexter Stewart, better known as “Blaxx,” died at the Intensive Care Unit of the Arima Hospital after contracting COVID. The Trinbago Unified Calypsonians’ Organisation (TUCO) confirmed that veteran calypsonian Winston “Explainer” Henry, 75, had died, but the cause of death was not disclosed. Trinidad and Tobago also said farewell to cultural icon Francine Edwards, better known as Singing Francine, who passed away in the United States aged 79. The Barbadian-born Francine won the Calypso Queen competition four times in 20 years 1972, 1973, 1981, and 1983.
In Jamaica, the veteran journalist and playwright Barbara Gloudon died in hospital a few days after her 89-year-old husband. Ancile Gloudon passed away.
Mrs. Gloudon, 87, was inducted into the Press Association of Jamaica’s Hall of Fame in 2013. She was bestowed with the Order of Jamaica in 1992 and, in 2012, became a fellow of the Institute of Jamaica.
Prime Minister Holness led Jamaicans to pay tribute to theatre icon and pioneering broadcaster Leonie Forbes, who died at age 85.
Prime Minister Dr. Ariel Henry led Haitians in mourning the death of the country’s most prominent singer, composer, guitarist, and producer Michael Benjamin, who collapsed and died on stage in Paris after being greeted by a jubilant audience.
And the region said farewell to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, the UK’s longest-serving monarch, who died at 96 after reigning for 70 years.
and then 