Talk about independence in TCI
Dr. Michael Misick is the chief minister of my mother country, the Turks & Caicos Islands (TCI). He claims he invited members of the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization to the islands last week to
participate in the public education process to inform citizens of their rights and of the options they have towards self-determination.
Julian Hunt, St. Lucia’s Ambassador to the United Nations, will lead this UN delegation to educate TCIslanders about independence. But I fear Misick’s invitation may prove as ill-advised as a similar one Bahamian Prime Minister Perry Christie extended.
Christie’s invitation was to a UN delegation to educate Bahamians about the benefits of joining the Caribbean Single Market Economy (CSME). Owen Arthur, the prime minister of Barbados, led that delegation. However, their education fell on deaf ears.
Bahamians rejected the CSME and resented Christie’s attempt to have outsiders influence them. Reports suggest that TCIslanders will reject independence and resent Misick’s attempt to have outsiders influence them.
Like Christie, Misick didn’t bother to assess public interest in being educated about his initiative. He might have led the UN delegation to believe that TCIslanders want independence. But Hon. Derrick Taylor, Leader of the Opposition People’s Democratic Movement (PDM), insists that independence is more about Misick’s “power-hungry” political ambitions than the people’s will.
Misick dismissed Taylor’s observation with indignation by claiming that:
a colonial mindset permeates the PDM with an attitude that would perpetually make the people of the Turks & Caicos subservient to the British government.
Missick is undoubtedly trying to associate Taylor with Bermudian Premier Sir John Swan, who led his country’s anti-independence campaign. Because Swan humiliated his supporters and discredited his leadership when he famously exclaimed:
With the Americans to feed us and the British to defend us, who needs independence?
Unsurprisingly, Bermudians who opposed independence became the laughing stock of all British Overseas Territories. Misick would like nothing more than for TCIslanders who oppose independence to become the same.
Islanders prefer British to local rule
Swan’s humiliating gaffe could have easily motivated people to vote for independence just to spite him. That’s why it’s so telling. Bermudians have consistently rejected independence, both via referenda and elections.
After all, no islanders amongst the British Overseas Territories are more educated than Bermudians are about the rights and benefits of independence.
Misick insinuates that Taylor lacks the courage to embrace independence. Taylor insinuates that Misick wants independence only to be “firmly ensconced in the country’s history as its first Prime Minister.” Both insinuations are misleading.
The TCI is as prepared to sustain the challenges of independence as any former British colony was upon declaring independence from Great Britain. And, if Misick succeeds in leading the country to independence, he would become the first Prime Minister, and deservedly so.
My take on TCI independence
During an interview a year ago this week, the editor of the TCI Free Press asked me to opine on our readiness for independence. Here, in part, is what I said:
I think the right to national self-determination (or national independence) is as fundamental and inalienable as any human right. Indeed, it is the founding right that gives real meaning to all of the other rights that are codified in a civilized society.
As for our readiness, it’s patronizing even to suggest that our people are not ready for independence. After all, we are as ready today as the disorganized, war-ravaged, slave-dependent white colonists of America were when they won their independence from Great Britain over 225 years ago.
And, closer to home, we are more prepared than many of our brothers and sisters in the Caribbean were when they gained their independence many years ago.
Granted, our leaders have given cause to question their political maturity and administrative competence. Too often, our British overseers have had to make notorious interventions to redress systemic corruption and administrative incompetence. But if systemic corruption and administrative incompetence were sufficient to deny independence, most African countries would still be colonial possessions.
TCI independence referendum
It behooves Misick to back up his talk about independence. He should allow TCIslanders to decide in a referendum as soon as practicable, as Bermuda’s leader was honest and daring enough to do so.
Otherwise, he should make independence the central theme of his Party’s Manifesto in general elections scheduled for early next year.
More to the point, we do not need a UN committee to prepare us for independence. Indeed, none other than the head of the Committee Misick invited, Ambassador Hunte, conceded as much:
Many former territories were not as constitutionally or economically equipped as the TCI when they moved to the next level of their political development. The Turks and Caicos is uniquely prepared in both respects if you choose to move to the next level of political development [which is independence].
Therefore, given our unprecedented and unqualified readiness, Misick should either put up or shut up. He is duty-bound to move our country forward by putting independence to a national vote now.
Failure to do so would prove Taylor right. That would expose Misick as a hollow politician – more interested in posing as an independent leader than assuming the duties and responsibilities of governing an independent nation.
* This article was published today, April 14, 2006, at Caribbean Net News, the most widely-read newspaper in the Caribbean