MIA > Archive > Tim Hector
Fan the Flame, Outlet, 16 May 1997.
Online here https://web.archive.org/web/20120416011318/http://www.candw.ag/~jardinea/fanflame.htm.
Transcribed by Christian Høgsbjerg.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
It is unusual, most unusual for me to begin a piece with a disclaimer. This time I must do so. I am not a lawyer. However in the reading of history I have had to do some international treaty law and constitutional law. But I do not claim any special knowledge.
With that said, I can now proceed to deal with one of the most vexing issues of the present time, on which the deafening silence of those who know is most embarrassing.
I speak of the Ship Rider Agreements recently signed by CARICOM governments with the United States government. Early or late signatories, they are all the same. Though the resistance of Jamaica and Barbados helped to wipe of the obsequious egg off the collective face of the region.
The first problem is that this Ship Rider Agreement has been entered into by the Lester Bird government of Antigua and Barbuda without anyone, save a very few government officials, knowing what is in it. Not a soul knows. Yet it is binding on the people of Antigua and Barbuda.
It has not even been published so that people know what is contained therein. The ignorance of the people is obviously considered best. It is to that state of colonialism we have retrogressed after 15 years of independence. At the stage when we should be most vigilant in guarding our newly won independence, it is precisely at that stage when we are most lax, most insouciant. Government takes it, as a matter of right, that the people need not know what laws and agreements bind them restrain and constrain them. Not ours to reason why.
And the people, truth to tell, acquiesce in this state of affairs. Crown Colony governments has returned with a vengeance! On this I will not dwell longer, lest of hemlock I must drink.
I am going to quote one of the fundamental principles of international law. It is this, and can be understood by everybody without legal interpretation. I may just add that for a long, long, time people have been at a loss to describe ‘sovereignty’. One knows what it is, but one cannot always state with exactitude what one means. A definition of sovereignty plagued political science from Plato in ancient Greece, to our time. Yet no concept is more valid to a small state than sovereignty. And sovereignty is like virginity, you either have it or you ain’t. You cannot be half virgin. So too a nation cannot be half sovereign.
Now the following is generally accepted the world over. ”Sovereignty requires that the power in control of the territory prescribe and enforce its laws in that territory; any state that does not maintain this prescriptive and enforcement jurisdiction within its territory, is not sovereign.”
You cannot want anything clearer than that. Incidentally, the principle was laid down by an American jurist. It required that states maintain their law, and its enforcement, within their territory of land, sea and air, or the state which relinquished that duty to maintain its law within its own territory relinquished its sovereignty at one and the same time. Co-operation between states must enhance sovereignty not deflower it.
Now this question of nations boarding vessels of other countries has had a long history. Naturally, the slave trade, and the problems caused by the slave trade, are similar to those caused by modern drug-trafficking. Be it noted that just as the slave trade and slavery created the World Market, by bringing into existence the New World, so too the slave trade and slavery is much of the basis of international law. Here goes.
After Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807, and won many countries who were not involved in slave trading or slavery to its side, the international community sought to suppress the most awful trade on earth, the trafficking in human beings, mainly Africans, as mere cargoes, mere things, for sale. Suddenly the consumer of the world was outraged by what it had blissfully condoned.
To suppress the slave trade, states entered into agreements, treaty arrangements, to prevent the trade in humans. Such states therefore permitted a reciprocal agreement, known as the droit de visite, under which states, had the right to visit each other’s merchants vessels suspected of trading in slaves on the high seas. That is not vessels in each other’s territorial waters were to be visited, but only on the high seas.
One of the ironies of history, is that it was the United States which most vehemently objected to ships of other states interfering with or intercepting its own ships on the high seas. In fact it was not until 1862 that the US conceded the right for British vessels to visit its ships to ascertain whether or not there were slaves on board. In 1862 by the Treaty of Washington the U.S. conceded to Britain the right to visit its ships to prevent the trade in slaves.
In fact, it was not until 1870, after the U.S. itself had abolished slavery, by virtue of its Civil War, that the U.S. agreed to the detention, search and possible seizure of vessels carrying slaves, and to tribunals to arbitrate when seizure of vessels occurred. The U.S. tolerated so to speak, no Ship Riders.
The point ought to be clear, once the U.S. had a demand for slaves, African slaves, it resisted all efforts to suppress this inhuman and destructive trafficking in slaves and resisted all ship rider agreements. It is now imposing them. The wheel has come full circle.
Simultaneously, it must be said that Britain, having reaped bumper profits from the slave trade and slavery, turned against both the slave trade and slavery, only when it was clear that its rivals, France in particular, was deriving greater benefits from the slave trade and slavery.
The British humanitarians or abolitionists, represented knowingly or unknowingly, this political and economic policy of Britain. Their conscience and consciousness coincided with British political and economic imperatives.
Even so, in 1870, when the U.S. came fully on board against slave trafficking, international law accepted that only the flag state, that is, the country whose flag a ship flew, could actually proceed to seize the ship or arrest those on board with slave cargoes, caught on the high seas.
I hope I have laid bare some complex legal principles which govern ”trafficking” including “drug trafficking” and which derive from “slave trafficking” in international law.
After the attempts to suppress the slave trade which covered the high seas, there were the agreements to suppress contraband traffic, more commonly known to history as ‘rum-running’ which agreements, granted coastal states the right to stop and search ships within or immediately without, their territorial waters, and a right of ‘hot pursuit’ beyond this extended zone.
The best known agreement on this suppression of ‘rum-running’ is The Convention between the U.S. and Great Britain for the Prevention of Smuggling, commonly called the Alcohol Treaty of 1924, This provided that Great Britain “will raise no objection to the boarding of private vessels under the British flag outside the limits of territorial waters by the authorities of the United States.” In exchange for this Britain got the right, to transport alcoholic beverages to or from U.S. ports, provided such liquor was under seal. The point I am emphasising, that all such agreements had a quid pro quo, you give me this, I give you that, or as lawyers say, the principle reciprocity.
I must of necessity add, that under the Alcohol Treaty, under article 3, enforcement personnel and suspected individuals were subject to the laws where operations take place. They were never subject to the laws of the most powerful country in the operation, but everyone was subject to the laws where the operation took place.
The US/Antigua and Barbuda Ship Rider Agreement says: that ship riders will “enforce, seaward of the territorial sea of Antigua and Barbuda the laws of the United States where authorised to do so” and “Authorize the Antigua and Barbuda vessels [on which there are U.S. Ship-riders] to assist in the enforcement of the laws of the United States seaward of the territorial sea of Antigua and Barbuda.”
And, where there are no ship-riders from Antigua or Barbuda, on board, the U.S. will do as it so chooses, and the Antigua and Barbuda government will authorise after the fact!
It is immediately obvious that Antigua and Barbuda becomes a state ”that does maintain its prescriptive and enforcement jurisdiction within its own territory, [and therefore] is not sovereign.”
More importantly, and ever more seriously, Antigua and Barbuda is conceding to the U.S. the right to apply U.S. law in the Caribbean Sea, permitting the U.S. to harass ships bound for other nations, say Cuba, and therefore compromising not only our sovereignty, but the sovereignty of others. It is totally unacceptable, in law, and in international law. Nothing in past treaties or international agreements justifies this extension of U.S. law in territorial and non territorial waters.
More than that, in the Ship Rider agreements the authorised party – the U.S. – acts on behalf of the authorising state – say, Antigua and Barbuda – and it is the authorising state – Antigua and Barbuda – which must assume responsibility for claims arising out of acts of omission or commission by the United States!
Poor David pays for rich and mighty Goliath!
In other words, the U.S. in the Ship Rider Agreements observes no more than the principle of pacta sunt servanda, that is, that treaties must be performed in good faith, while offering no protection to Antigua & Barbuda, or for that matter Trinidad and Tobago in satisfying third country claims. The U.S. leaves the weaker country with the responsibility to pay for damage against third parties, or countries. In plain terms if a U.S. Coast Guard vessel engages another vessel, an Antiguan vessel, and damage results, it is Antigua and Barbuda that is mainly responsible!
This violates all past international agreements. It is universally accepted that in relations between unequal states, the settlement of disputes generally is for the benefit of the weaker state, with the stronger state accepting liability where third parties are involved. The mighty United States has now passed its responsibility to the weaker states, Antigua and Barbuda, or St Kitts-Nevis. It is an open violation of international practice.
So poor tax payers in Antigua and Barbuda, or St Lucia or St Vincent could be made to pay for acts committed by the U.S. under the Ship Rider Agreements against Third parties or countries. It is both inequitous and iniquitous. Somebody had to be mad when they signed this Ship Rider Agreement.
Fairness compels me to state that under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention, the U.S. refused to be bound by the settlement mechanisms as they related to other states and parties. The U.S. has a history of not accepting responsibility for third party damage or claims. Might, it seems, absolves the mighty of responsibility. Of course, in the law of the imperialist jungle, Might enforces its own ways, and accepts only whatever obligations Might chooses. Antigua and Barbuda sanctioned this new imperialist jungle law in Caribbean waters.
I do not wish to involve this article in more legalisms. However, the Ship Rider Agreement also applies to aircraft flying over Antigua or Barbuda or Trinidad and Tobago, or any other OECS country’s airspace.
It is unarguable that customary international law recognises no right for foreign air craft to overfly other states. Why then is the U.S. insisting on these violations of customary international law? And why is Antigua and Barbuda as well as other territories agreeing to these violations? It is, to say the least, sinister of both parties. Weakness does not excuse wickedness.
Now, I do not wish to leave the impression that I am opposed outright to attempts at international drug interdiction. That would be nonsensical.
Nor am I against Caribbean States co-operating to suppress drug-trafficking in Caribbean waters. And co-operating with the U.S.
Nor am I holding, that the Caribbean is endowed with the means to combat drug trafficking and drug traffickers. The cocaine cartels, [not marijuana, be it noted] are powerful.
But the drug trafficking problem is not an Antigua & Barbuda problem. It is not a Trinidad and Tobago problem. It is not an OECS problem. It is a Caribbean problem. Or better, a Caribbean-U.S. problem.
Therefore the U.S. should not be making bilateral drug interdiction agreements, Ship Rider, with each Caribbean island or coastal state. The U.S. should be doing so with CARICOM in the first place, or CARIFORUM, which includes Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Or better, the Association of Caribbean States, which gives the smaller states a larger umbrella, against the giant of the North.
But I will not go as far as the Association of Caribbean States. That would be insisting on the ideal.
For sure, the Treaty establishing the Regional Security System, in 1985 specifically promotes at article 4(1) of that treaty regional co-operation in the prevention and interdiction of traffic in illegal narcotic drugs.
Why did not the U.S. use this Regional Security System (R.S.S.) for its new drug interdiction efforts under the new Ship Rider Agreements. Why did the U.S. adopt the bilateral approach rather than the multilateral approach? It could have no good reason. None whatsoever.
The reason is obvious. The U.S. preferred to deal with each state individually, the better to divide and rule. In short, the better to re-colonise. Dealing with each, individually allows it to rely on any puppet to authorise and validate its illegal acts under this or that Ship Rider. It could not so bend the Military Council of he Regional Security System.
The Caribbean itself, the better to reach Uncle Sam’s pockets, accepted the individual agreement approach, rejecting Caribbean integration in the process, and its own Regional Security System. Caribbean leaders turned their backs on the very Caribbean integration to which they pay lip-service, and allowed themselves to be picked off, in their insularity, one by one, in the service of U.S. purposes and grand imperial design for the region. It is a very sad moment in Caribbean history.
U.S. control over the Caribbean Seas is explicitly and implicitly provided in each Caribbean Ship Rider, be it negotiated early or late. The end result, is that the U.S. has greater control over the sea lanes of the Caribbean, with its loss of control over the Panama Canal. Cuba is now more open to U.S. assault, and a total naval embargo, illegally enforced by the US under various insular Ship Riders than ever before!
Spineless Caribbean leaders, conscious or unconscious of their own re-colonisation, in extending U.S. law and making it supreme in Caribbean waters, have brought this upon the Caribbean.
It is the duty of the people of each state to call upon their governments, be it in Jamaica or Barbados, which held out till the last hour, or Bahamas, Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda, which capitulated early, to reject each Ship Rider, and opt for drug interdiction with the U.S. under the Regional Security System, and with the active support and participation of the European Union.
This way we can insist that the Caribbean be a Zone of Peace. With the insular Ship Riders we have taken a giant step to ensure that the Caribbean be a Zone of War, exclusively in U.S. imperial interests.
No one can accuse me of only criticising and not putting before people a reasoned alternative. I can do no more than this. Over to you.
Last updated on 30 May 2022