PolackPost: Caribbean Dancing To Another Tune
Peter Polack
By Peter Polack
The British Overseas Territory of the Cayman Islands recently legalized same sex relationships despite the opposition of many people, politicians and churches. This has not happened in Jamaica and much of the Caribbean because they are, on the face of it, independent countries.
Since independence, the Caribbean countries have ceased taking orders from the likes of United Kingdom or France, until recently. Many American possessions in the Caribbean take orders from Washington, but this is no shame as the entire Caribbean now dances to the daily tune of the Great Fiddler or hides in the shadows.
The pre CARICOM attempt of the West Indian Federation in 1958, as some countries became independent, failed after a few years. Many of these countries looked askew at the Caribbean colonies as being less than whole, for failing to seek self determination.
Fast forward today and you have the leaders of many countries submitting to American leadership or doing their best not to invite trouble as they are terrorized by visa restrictions, prohibition on Cuban medical teams and tariffs. Foreign affairs being their great weakness, as CARICOM has no body to match the EU.
So who is calling the shots in the UK Caribbean colonies.
The Cayman Islands controls over a trillion dollars worth of American treasuries and has been stalling Britain for years on an open beneficial ownership register for the thousands of companies that exist there, owned by many, including wealthy persons and corporations of the Caribbean.
Caribbean governments have consistently failed to fill the holes in their budgets with their tax evading nationals who hide wealth in tax havens. That information is readily available but not pursued.
Given today’s playing field in the Caribbean, the leaders of such tiny countries like Cayman or the British Virgin Islands command greater power, even deference from the UK, than the rest of the Caribbean especially Trinidad. The UK has few possessions in a changing world and has been forced to tiptoe around the mega tax havens.
The UK prioritized same sex relationships over an open beneficial register, a bad decision that drags on today.
Britain behaves more like a Caribbean country today, having discarded the EU, been abandoned by America and now, awash in social, political and financial discord.
The Caribbean have not been as lucky as the British Caribbean islands.
They have become the most powerful in the Caribbean under the UK umbrella and in some instances like the corporate beneficial register, Britain is simply ignored. Although, coming off the Financial Action Task Force grey list in 2023, the Cayman Islands government did not even order the closure of a single bank account in 2023. Even the FATF is tiptoeing around the Cayman Islands.
A bridge too far, even for the English or FATF.
Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Indies_Federation
Peter Polack is a former criminal lawyer from the Cayman Islands for several decades. His books are The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War (2013), Jamaica, The Land of Film (2017) and Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution (2019). He was a contributor to Encyclopedia of Warfare (2013). His latest book is a compendium of Russian espionage activities with almost five hundred Soviet spies expelled from nearly 100 countries worldwide 1940-88.
His views are his own.
