In the Caribbean, two islands are fighting for their identity

Every year, from 25 to 31 May, the United Nations celebrates the international week of solidarity with the peoples of non-independent territories. When it comes to the Caribbean, few think there is a need for solidarity. First, the region’s 17 non-sovereign territories are richer and more politically stable than their independent neighbors. In terms of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, seven of the ten richest territories in the Caribbean have not been sovereign. Furthermore, these territories enjoy the advantages of the great geopolitical influence of the former colonizers, and their inhabitants have passports that allow them to travel to Europe or the United States.

Yet there are also some disadvantages related to the lack of independence. The islanders have long faced a dilemma between the reasons of the heart and those of the mind, in which material benefits come at the expense of pride and a sense of belonging.

Over the past decade the cracks in relations with former colonizers have widened, and recently covid-19 and the protests of the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States have added a growing sense of malaise. In recent months, tension has risen above all in two islands.

Colonialism is not over
The first is Martinique. Like the sister island of Guadalupe, Martinique has been a French department since 1946. On paper, it is as part of France as Alsace or Normandy, and is much more integrated than the five British overseas territories in the Caribbean, the six islands. affiliated with the kingdom of the Netherlands and the two US territories of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

But recently an old scandal has re-emerged strong tensions. Chlordecone, a very persistent pesticide, was used on banana plantations in Martinique from 1972 until 1993, when it was long since banned in other parts of the world. The compound is linked to a higher incidence of cancers, and some observers say 92 percent of adults in Martinique would be exposed to its effects. In January, after a 15-year legal battle, a French court finally examined the charge of “careless creation of danger”. However, much to the chagrin of the Martinique population, shortly after came the announcement of the possible prescription of the crime, a hypothesis against which the island’s lawyers are mobilized. In February, thousands of people took to the streets to protest.

Many hold responsible for the poisoning i béké, a white minority descended from the slave colonizers. THE béké they control large agricultural areas of the island and several factories despite representing only a small part of the population. “French colonialism is never finished,” accuses Rodolphe Solbiac, an academic from Martinique. The pandemic has exacerbated tensions. In 2020, activists blocked the roads leading to an airport and tried to stop cruise ships from disembarking tourists (and with them the first cases of covid-19).

The debt trap
Martinique is not the only island to deal with the perception of lack of freedom. Sint Maarten, located 440 kilometers further north, shares an island with another French territory, Saint-Martin. In 2010 Sint Maarten became one of the four constituent territories of the kingdom of the Netherlands (until then it was part of the former Netherlands Antilles). On paper, the four territories have equal rights: each has a representative on the kingdom council and controls their own internal affairs. But in reality the islands are dominated in size and wealth by the Netherlands. As in Puerto Rico, even in Sint Maarten it is the old colonial power that always has the last word.

In March, twelve of the island’s 15 parliamentarians petitioned the United Nations to accuse the kingdom of the Netherlands of “persistent acts of racial discrimination and violations of international human rights laws.” In Sint Maarten it is politicians rather than activists who often complain about their “white Dutch supervisors”, referring to the members of a financial supervisory board that oversees the country’s public finances. The origin of the petition was the creation, wanted by the Dutch central government, of another supervisory body in exchange for 18 million euros from the postcovid recovery fund. The new Caribbean Reform and Development Agency (Coho) will be able to control budget cuts (including those on parliamentarians’ wages) and introduce tax reforms.

Non-independent territories get large sums of money from former colonizers. After Hurricane Irma, in 2017, the Netherlands paid out 550 million euros in loans through a trust fund, or about 60 per cent of Sint Maarten’s GDP. In 2019, fiscal transfers from France to Martinique reached 2.9 billion euros, almost a third of the island’s GDP.

Yet for many these provisions are paternalistic in nature. The petition accused the Netherlands of imposing excessive austerity measures, creating a “debt trap” through conditional lending, and of being too slow to disburse funds. Similar problems have plagued Puerto Rico and some British territories. The Dutch argue that intervention is necessary to stem bad governance, but the Sint Maarten parliamentarians reiterate that it is a violation of their right to self-govern.

Meanwhile, in Martinique, requests for compensation for the chlordecone scandal and slavery (a claim also contained in the Sint Maarten petition) are increasing. The Sint Maarten parliament approved a motion to “finalize the decolonization process”, without however specifying what this finalization consists of. However, these territories are unlikely to gain independence. In fact, in a referendum organized in 2010, 79 percent of the inhabitants of Martinique had voted for the confirmation of the status quo.

In Sint Maarten, ordinary people maintain a more pragmatic attitude than that of parliamentarians (who, however, admit in private that they are not ready for independence). “Maybe we see things from a different perspective than politicians,” explains Ellen, 67, a cashier at a waterfront jewelry store. Due to covid-19 it is believed that the island’s economy, dependent on tourism, has shrunk by a quarter. These are hard times, in short. “If we became independent we would find ourselves in a vortex from which we could not escape”.

(Translation by Andrea Sparacino)