Tourism crime underscores Caribbean weaknesses

Aug 03, 2008 Features / Columnists, Ronald Sanders

By Sir Ronald Sanders

Tourism to Antigua and Barbuda has suffered a serious blow from the tragic killing of British doctor, Catherine Mullany, and the serious injury to her husband, Ben, as they honeymooned at a hotel. At the time of writing Ben Mullany is critically ill in intensive care.

The incident was widely reported internationally and became a topic for discussion on many Internet “chat” websites. Headlines in British newspapers severely damaged the image of Antigua and Barbuda which relies on tourism for more than 70% of its GDP.

Those headlines read: “Antigua has murder rate three times higher than New York”, “Antigua Honeymoon Murder: Beware the Perils of Paradise”, and “Caribbean Shooting: How safe is Antigua?”

Understandably, the story raged in the British media for days. This was a young couple on their honeymoon who had not yet seen their own wedding photographs.

They were due to return to the UK the next day to start a life together, and from all accounts they suffered an unprovoked attack in their hotel in the early hours of the morning.

It will be some time – and only with hard work in the tourism marketplaces – before Antigua recovers from all the unpleasant publicity.

The region as a whole is a casualty of this awful tragedy which unleashed headlines around the world that highlighted the word “Caribbean”.

The entire affair underscores the fragility of the tourism industry, and the absolute necessity for small countries to care of it in all its aspects far more than is required elsewhere.

Tourism to the US or the UK would not suffer from the murder of two tourists; indeed the attention that such an incident would receive from the media would be perfunctory and short-lived. Not so for small countries particularly when citizens of big countries are involved.

The impression created by the media coverage of the Antigua tragedy is that tourists are targets of crime. Of course, this is simply not true.

In Antigua, for instance, it has been 10 years since a tourist was killed, and the incidents of homicide involving tourists in the entire region are few and far between.

Violent crime in the Caribbean is a far greater problem for the resident population. A UN report says the region has a murder rate of 30 per 100,000 inhabitants – four times the North American figure and 15 times the average for Western and Central Europe.

Homicides last year were 1,547 in Jamaica (population 2.5 million), 388 in Trinidad and Tobago (population 1.5 million), 19 in Antigua (population 75,000) and three murders in four days last November in St Kitts (population 40,000).

These figures do not reflect robberies and rapes that have also become prevalent in many Caribbean countries. The same UN report says that assault rates in the region are significantly higher than the world average.

The very geography that makes the Caribbean a desirable destination for tourists also accounts for its attraction, as a trans-shipment point, to drug traffickers who move cocaine from the supply markets in South America to the demand markets in North America and Europe, bringing a proliferation of illegal weapons into the region for distribution to their foot soldiers.

Beyond that, years of neglect by the US in terms of investment and official development assistance and the worsening terms of trade with the European Union (EU), as well as their refusal to support the case for special and differential treatment for the Caribbean in international institutions such as the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation, have contributed to rising unemployment, more poverty, a drop in real earnings and a consequential increase in crime.

The deportation of criminals from the US, the UK and Canada has also not helped the crime situation.

Official reports claim that only a small number of these deportees were convicted of violent crimes ignoring completely that it doesn’t take more than a handful of experienced criminals to wreak havoc in small countries with tiny security forces and limited resources.

At the end of the day, the problem of crime in the Caribbean is intrinsically tied to the need for economic development and international assistance.

Interdiction of drug traffickers in Caribbean waters by UK and US coast guards is extremely important to help stem the tide of crime related to drugs, but it isn’t enough.

Caribbean governments themselves also have to do much more. Using the criminal justice system to convict and imprison offenders is one part of the answer but not all of it.

While police forces have to be strengthened and better resourced to prosecute crime, preventative measures are also critically important, and these include practical programmes to engage young men especially by re-education and training and creating productive employment for them.

It is a task in which governments need the active participation of their opposition political parties, the private sector and trade union groups.

It would also be beneficial if Caribbean governments could each make the leap to pooling the management of violent crime into a Caribbean Crime Council vested with the legal power to deploy security forces within each country, and to negotiate assistance from the international community.

Violent crime has been affecting investment in the expansion of existing businesses and the establishment of new ones in several Caribbean countries for more than a decade.

The UN suggests reduction in violence for Haiti and Jamaica could boost annual economic growth per capita by 5.4 percent.

Guyana and the Dominican Republic would also benefit with potential growth rate increases of 1.7 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively.

Attacks against tourists are reprehensible, and the tragedy in Antigua is a terrible event. But, they are part of an overwhelming problem of violent crime in the Caribbean that requires governments to develop comprehensive responses both nationally and regionally, and, having done so, to act on them.

(The writer is a business consultant and former Caribbean diplomat)
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