Protesters against the banking resolution in Anguilla have marched for the third time, during the months of May and June, so far, to the entrance of the Ministry of Finance for an audience with Chief Minister and Minister of Finance, Mr. Victor Banks.
The first, in the recent series of protest marches, was staged on Monday, May 23; the second, Friday, May 27; and now the third, Monday, this week, June 20.
A letter, dated June 16, from Mr. Colonel Harrigan, notified the Chief Minister about the third protest but, in his reply, Mr. Banks informed Harrigan in a letter of June 17 that the date and timing would conflict with a number of prior appointments and so, regrettably, the protesters could not be accommodated on Monday, June 20. Mr. Harrigan replied the same day stating that the march would go ahead as planned and requested that someone should be delegated to receive a communiqué addressed to the Chief Minister. (See both letters supplied to The Anguillian.)
Accordingly, the Chief Minister delegated the Minister of Infrastructure, Mr. Curtis Richardson, to meet with the protesters on his behalf and accept the communiqué from them. That communiqué, printed below, was signed by Mr. Colonel Harrigan and read by Mrs. Ivy Plank. The text is as follows:
June 17, 2016
Mr. Colonel Harrigan
Long Ground,
Anguilla
Dear Mr. Harrigan,
I acknowledge receipt of your correspondence date June 16, 2016, in which you informed the Members of Cabinet and me that the Concerned People of Anguilla, will be holding a protest march to the Ministry of Finance to deliver a communique. We have noted that the time planned for this march and presentation is Monday, June 20, 2016 at 3.30 p.m.
We hope that you would appreciate that a number of prior appointments could conflict with this date and time especially given this short notice. You will also take account of our willingness to accommodate you on previous occasions. However, I regret to inform you that we will not be available+’for the date and time you have planned.
Kindly convey to the organizers our willingness to coordinate on a date and time that is mutually convenient.
I will endeavor to send you a hard copy of this correspondence but I will also send a copy via the email address you have so thoughtfully supplied. Please also be advised that copy of this correspondence will also be sent to the Commissioner of Police by email.
With best wishes.
Yours respectfully,
Victor F. Banks
Chief Minister
cc. Commissioner of Police
long Ground
AI-2640
Anguilla
20 June 2016
The Hon
Victor Banks
ChiefMinister
The Secretariat
The Valley
AI·2640
Anguilla
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your prompt response to our letter informing you of our intention to present a communique to you and your cabinet today, Monday 20 June 2016.
We regret that you and your cabinet are unable to receive us because ofprevious appointments. We are, however, asking for about a mere 15 minutes of your government’s time to bear the legitimate concerns of a cross section of the people whom you and your government were elected to srve.
We would be most grateful ifyou could kindly delegate someone to receive the communique for onward transmission to you and your cabinet ~we have every intention ofproceeding with the Protest March as planned.
Your truly
Contact information: Telephone: 235 7653 Email: alamc053@hotmaiLcom
20 June 2016
Hon. Victor Banks
Chief Minister
Chief Minister’s Office
P. O. Box 60
THE VALLEY
AI-2640
Anguilla
Dear Mr Banks and Cabinet,
We, the Concerned People of Anguilla, noted that 31 May came and went, with neither you nor your cabinet bothering to reply to our communiqués which were delivered to you, and them through you, on the steps of the Ministry of Finance at the time of our second Protest March on 27 May 2016.
It has not been lost upon us that you and your cabinet continually boast that your government received an overwhelming mandate at the polls on 22April 2015. That, we would wish, you have interpreted to mean that you were elected to serve the people – all of them. When, therefore, we the people, of whatever political persuasion come to you, in whatever numbers, however often, with our written concerns, we feel that you owe us the courtesy of at least a written reply. May we remind you and your cabinet that every month the people of Anguilla pay your salaries which range from EC$28,000 to EC$32,000 each, while many of those same people go hungry, with no hope of securing employment to enable them to meet even their basic needs.
We note that you nevertheless honoured the first of our four demands in that communiqué of 27 May, and issued a public apology to us on Anguilla Day, 30 May, at the Anguilla Day Ceremony at Ronald Webster’s Park. We accept your apology, and thank you for it.
We also noted your tearful offer of peace, and we accept your offer. In that spirit of reconciliation, therefore, and to help facilitate the process of reconciliation, we have come to you for the last time.
You and your cabinet know, as well as we do, that an offer of peace is meaningless if it is not founded on the high moral principles of justice, equality and truth, among others. We believe that the rest three of our demands which were presented to you for the second time in the said communiqué of 27th May, are in keeping with those high principles. Therefore, for your government to continue to ignore those demands is to continue to perpetuate the deep rifts and exacerbate the wounds in the Anguillian society, and make your tearful offer of the olive branch hypocritical.
It is unthinkable that in this Information Age when information is instant, a click of the mouse away, transmitted live, in the act of unfolding, that your government would continue to refuse to release the Banking Report to the public, under the thin excuse of confidentiality, in spite of the reasons advanced for the release of this report in our two previous communiqués. Surely, you and your government know that the age is long past when information was considered to be the prerogative of the elite few to be manipulated for their own benefit at the expense of the rest who were considered to be second class citizens.
The withholding of information is one of the marks of tyranny. The people’s right to know is one of the hallmarks of democracy. Anguilla is a democracy and we have a right to know the contents of the Banking Report – the original, unabridged, and untampered with, unredacted version. We will be satisfied with no less. Only in an atmosphere of transparency and openness can justice, equality and truth, which form part of the foundation of peace, prevail.
The veil of secrecy in which your government has wrapped itself extends to the Banking Resolution that your government has inflicted upon the people of Anguilla. No one knows the details of this resolution – not the governor, the over 3000 shareholders, the depositors both local and overseas, or the Anguillian public. We are painfully aware of the increasing number of court cases lining up in the queue to challenge the Banking Resolution. The cost of these to the people of Anguilla will beindescribable, and will be added to the known cost of the resolution.
When all is said and done, you – Mr Banks – and your government may go down in history as the infamous group that accomplished what hunger, starvation, death and the British vessels lined up to ship Anguillians off to Demerara and British Guiana in an earlier century failed to accomplish. In periods of drought and consequent famine, there is always the hope that the rains will come and there will be crops the following year. However, hope is hard to come by in the situation your government’s option of the banking resolution has created, when we consider the enormous cost to the taxpayer that we already know, plus the cost that we do not know because of your government’s blackout of information, plus the ever-mounting cost of the increasing number of court cases filed against this banking resolution. More and more people may lose hope and decide that in fairness to their children, their great-grandchildren, and by the looks of things their great-great-grandchildren, they may as well migrate overseas
We noted that in your reply of 25th May to our first Protest Letter you stated that all we did was raise objections and call for suspension of legislation, but offered no solution or suggestion for the way forward. We find this statement disingenuous, in conflict with the principle of truth; it calls to mind the Biblical Pharoah who withheld the resources for making bricks from the Hebrew slaves, but continued to demand the same level of production. You have withheld the Banking Report and the banking resolution options, but yet you are criticizing us for not putting forward a solution.
Incidentally, we are still awaiting the options which your reply stated you would instruct the appropriate officials in your Ministry to send us.
We do not agree with your position that the banking legislation cannot be suspended because that legislation is already in force. It is not unusual for legislation to be amended, suspended, or even annulled. One is left to wonder if one of the reasons for your government’s railroading the legislation through the House was to be able to use the argument that once that legislation was implemented no more discussion could be entertained
We also disagree with your statement in the same reply, that ‘the stabilization of the indigenous banking sector’ ‘was allowed to languish in a state of uncertainty under the past administration for more than twenty months’, because that statement, too, is disingenuous and in conflict with the principle of truth. As you and your cabinet know, the Banking Report and resolution options on which a resolution could be formulated were delivered to your government, and not to the previous one. Besides, every time a shareholder/director approached the former Chief Minister, Mr Hughes, with a foreign partner interested in financing a resolution, Mr Hughes would call Mr Dwight Venner, governor of the ECCB in their presence, and inform him about the proposal, but Mr Venner would invariably respond that the Banking Report was not finished and therefore he could not discuss a solution. This can be verified by persons right here in Anguilla.
We therefore reiterate the remaining three terms of our Petition, and ask you, Chief Minister and members of your Government, for the third and last time, to honour its terms
Our Petition:
1. We demand that you release to the public the Banking Report which was prepared by the ECCB, and which, it is understood, sets out, among other things, the reasons for the failure of the two local banking institutions.
2. We object to the passage of a suite of legislation including The Banking Management Corporation Act, the Obligations Act and the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (Amendment) all of whch were passed with very little public consultation. We ask that this consultation occur even at this stage.
3. We object to the implementation of a Banking Resolution with minimum public consultation. We demand that all the options for the resolution of the banking crisis be provided to the people for general consultation with a view to choosing the best possible option for implementation in Anguilla’s unique situation.
In general, we object to the handling of the Banking Crisis by the Government of Anguilla and the Governor of Anguilla, and therefore WE THE PEOPLE seek urgent and immediate fulfillment of our demands, that is to say, no later than Wednesday 22nd June 2016.
Yours sincerely
Colonel Harrigan
(For and on behalf of the Concerned People of Anguilla)
c.c. Honourable Cora Richardson-Hodge – Minister of Physical Home Affairs
Honourable Curtis Richardson – Minister of Infrastructure
Honourable Evans McNeil Rogers – Minister of Social Development
Honourable Cardigan Connor, Parliamentary Secretary
Ministerial Assistant to the Minister of Home Affairs, Hon. Evalie Bradley
Ms. Christina Scott – Governor of Anguilla
Mr. Timothy Antoine – Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank
Hon. James Duddridge – Minister of the Overseas Territories
