RTC Director

Cuba and US in online controversy

The internet seems to have become the latest front in the long ideological war between Cuba and the United States.

A BBC Caribbean report stated that Havana is now accusing Washington of trying to use illegal satellite communications equipment to destabilise the Cuban government.

In the first of a series of documentaries aired on Monday on local television, Cuba said it will lay open the United States’ effort of relaying illegal communications there.

Internet access is state-controlled and limited in Cuba.

The television programme comes just two days after Havana concluded a trial against an American man who is being accused of trying to subvert the government.

The man, Alan Gross, has denied the charge and the Obama administration is demanding his release.

Cuba has said the tribunal will announce a verdict and sentence in the next few days.

by RTC Director

Antigua-Barbuda workers to protest on Thursday against government actions

The Antigua Trades and Labour Union (ATLU) has planned a massive demonstration on Thursday in St John's, the capital of Antigua and Barbuda, to protest the policies of the government that are claimed will cause further unemployment, growing hardship and massive dislocation of workers and their families.

The ATLU has issued a call on all its members and workers throughout the country to join the "National White March" protest rally.

In a statement, the union said it is of the view that the governance crisis in which the country now finds itself stems exclusively from uninformed policy choices and wrongheaded notions adopted by the government.

"The planned layoffs at the Port, the sale of the State insurance, the massive increase in taxes since 2004, the excessive borrowings, and the acceptance of an IMF programme have driven Antigua and Barbuda to the edge of the precipice,” the statement said.

The union added that it believes that the deepening economic crisis, the late payment of wages to workers by the government, and the outstanding wages owed to ATLU members at the Public Works Department and the Central Board of Health and other Ministries, are reasons sufficient for the workers of Antigua and Barbuda to send a clear message to the government that the vast majority are dissatisfied.

The workers will be addressed by the president of ATLU, Wrigley George, and other top union officials.

by RTC Director

In Haiti, officials promise fixes ahead of March runoff election

Inside a former gym turned elections headquarters, 120 operators field calls from confused Haitian voters needing to know where to cast their votes on election day.

The 24-hour call center is among several fixes Haitian elections officials have started putting into place ahead of March 20's critical presidential and legislative runoff.

But many doubt whether the improvements, including new education requirements for poll workers and color tally sheets to help deter fraud, will be enough to boost voter confidence and prevent the high level of fraud and disorganization that marred November's first round of balloting.

"We are preparing to observe — what, we don't know," said Pierre Esperance, whose election observer group published detailed reports of fraud and voter intimidation at polling stations. "I have no confidence in the electoral machine."

Provisional Electoral Council President Gaillot Dorsinville recently told legislative candidates and representatives of presidential contenders Mirlande Manigat and Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly that his beleaguered body was "prepared to make all of the corrections necessary to better the second round."

Among the changes:

—Firing about 500 poll workers and supervisors from voting centers marred by high numbers of fraudulent and irregular votes.

The change is a welcomed one but critics say arresting poll workers and imposing sanctions on candidates found guilty of orchestrating the fraud and voter intimidation would send a much stronger message.

—Increased education requirements for poll workers and supervisors, along with additional training for them and poll security personnel. Political parties are being asked to send workers with the equivalent of a 12th-grade education, and the elections body warned competence tests will be given. Electoral lists' type-size will be enlarged, and boy scouts will guide voters in finding their names.

Voters complained in November about being unable to locate their names on lists. In some cases, workers sent by political parties were either functionally illiterate or paid to tell voters they were not on the lists.

—The cleaning up of the list of 4.7 million voters by matching the information from both the elections council and the Office of National Identification, which issues voters' cards.

Elections officials were accused of conspiring to keep voters from casting ballots by wrongly assigning voters and dividing up households. There was no conspiracy, they argue, but admit there were problems. For example, even Haiti Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive reported he had trouble locating his correct polling station after he was assigned to the wrong location.

But even with the clean up, voters can expect problems. Since the 2006 presidential elections, about 1 million new voters have joined the voting roll, 43?percent of the voting centers in the quake-struck areas disappeared in the January 2010 earthquake, and a campaign to get voters living in camps to change their polling stations failed to mobilize people.

—Improved security. The United Nations, which is responsible for delivering ballots to voting centers, came under fire for security after candidates and observers reported that some ballot boxes were stuffed even before the doors opened. U.N. officials said that they have the responsibility to protect election workers and materials, but that monitoring for fraud falls to national and international observer teams.

Kevin Kennedy, deputy U.N. special representative who has been working on security, said a review and changes are in process.

Still, critics fear that with 9,000 U.N. personnel and 3,500 Haitian National Police involved in security, there hasn't been much change between the first and second round of the U.N. security manual or contingency planning.

"We can support and advise, but it is the (Provisional Electoral Council) that has to fix the problems," Kennedy said.

Manigat and Martelly have called on elections officials to make specific changes that go beyond suggestions from the Organization of American States. Martelly has demanded that Dorsinville and Pierre-Louis Opont, the director general, be replaced. Manigat wants an overhaul of the voting centers and polling stations. So far, it appears that neither will get his or her demands.

At a rally in Carrefour last week, Manigat warned supporters to be prepared: "This time they are not going to steal your votes. This time they are not going to turn you away. This time we are going to show them that the people know what they want: They voted Mirlande."

For his part, Martelly said at a recent news conference: "We would still like for the changes to be respected, implemented. I believe that the CEP should do everything in their power to reassure the population so we avoid the same type of crisis we had in the first round."

Even before the OAS suggested that he — and not the government-backed candidate be in the runoff — Martelly maintained that he would not go into a second round with the same elections council. He has since changed his tone.

"As far as forcing their hands, we are not there for that," he said about his request.

Aware that anything could go wrong on election day, the OAS announced that it will boost its foreigner observer mission from 120 to 200. The number of observers is still too low, some contend, given the high-stakes battle for control of parliament in the legislative runoff.

Elections officials also have agreed to increase the number of lawyers at the voting tabulation center, designed to catch fraudulent ballots and tallies.

An elections report by the OAS elections experts' technical mission showed that while the government-backed candidate lost votes to fraud, all 19 presidential candidates had fraudulent and irregular votes. Also, the vote tabulation center missed about 50,000 ballots that should have been eliminated.

Rosny Desroches, a former university professor who heads a civil society group, said despite the pledges, he remains "uncomfortable."

"I have to be vigilant because of our culture of fraud in this country," Desroches said. "If they do it to succeed in exams, they will do it to succeed in elections."

Foreign observers say there was nothing sophisticated about the fraud that hampered the vote but rather "it was good old Haitian cheating" and perhaps vote buying.

Jean Hector Anacasis, a senator and one of the 17 presidential candidates who failed to make it into the runoffs, said several presidential candidates' camps purchased "voting bureaus" to guarantee a certain number of votes. He said he had refused offers to buy whole vote centers.

Rooting out the corruption, he said, is simple: there must be a rotation of elections workers, using university students and high school students in their final years.

"It's always the same people they take each year," he said. "You have to renew the electoral machine each year with new workers. Because you don't have the same people, elections work will be viewed as part of one's civic duty and the youth will become implicated in politics. You will diminish the mafia."

(c) 2011, The Miami Herald.

by RTC Director

Police kept busy during Trinidad carnival

The 2011 carnival celebrations in Trinidad and Tobago were very successful and on Monday nearly all the ministers and other lawmakers had their fun tramping on stage.

The US Ambassador Beatrice Wilkinson Welters joined in the merrymaking, prancing with Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar and Culture Minister "Gypsy" Peters.

But while the merrymaking was going on the police were very busy.

The Guardian newspaper reported that a series of minor offences committed during J'Ouvert celebrations led to the arrest of 150 people in north Trinidad for robbery, possession of firearms and ammunition, weapons, possession of marijuana and cocaine, wounding, larceny and other crimes.

The newspaper report stated that, as result, the cells at Belmont, Central and Woodbrook Police Stations and across the East-West Corridor were reported to be "packed to capacity".

There were numerous reports of fights and pick-pocketing. Dozens of knives were seized by the police during searches of people entering City Gate at the maxi taxi hub.

Twenty-three persons were also arrested during the Carnival celebrations in Toco, Matura, Manzanilla and Sangre Grande.

by RTC Director