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Challenging year 2012: A year in review in the Caribbean Community
In the CARICOM country of Suriname, the courts are also playing a role in whether or not President Desi Bouterse remains in office.
His trial and that of others implicated in the deaths of 15 prominent people who were opposed to the then military government in 1982, has been postponed amid further uncertainty as to whether the court could continue hearing evidence in light of the recent passage of an amnesty law. The trial was due to re-start on December 12, but the Prosecutor’s Office announced that it was awaiting a ruling from the Constitutional Court on the amnesty law resulting in Judge Cynthia Valstein-Montnor having to postpone the matter to a later date.
Former Turks and Caicos Islands Premier Michael Misick was arrested at the Santos Dumont Airport in Rio de Janeiro by Brazilian Federal Police.
INTERPOL had issued an international warrant for Misick, who also found himself the subject of a warrant issued by the Brazilian Supreme Court. His arrest was sought in relation to an ongoing investigation by the Turks and Caicos Islands authorities into issues uncovered during the Sir Robin Auld’s 2008-09 Commission of Inquiry regarding alleged corruption and maladministration.
Mr. Misick was implicated in large-scale corruption in Turks and Caicos that led to the suspension of the democratic government. He faces several “serious charges” relating to corruption and maladministration.
In Barbados, a confident Prime Minister, Freundel Stuart, predicted this year that his ruling Democratic Labor Party (DLP) will be returned to power when it faces the electorate in the 2013 general election.
“We will win the next general election and with your full support we will resolve to do so in a convincing manner,” Stuart told supporters at the party’s 57th annual conference, acknowledging that “although victory may be ours for the taking” he was warning supporters “it is not going to come easy”.
Mr. Stuart, who became party leader and Prime Minister following the death of then prime minister David Thompson in 2010, said that the DLP which came to power in 2008, was quietly getting its election machinery in place and acknowledged that the state of the economy, despite the ongoing global crisis, remains stable.
