Archive for September 17th, 2009

Magistrate closes summary hearings in murder case

Magistrate closes summary hearings in murder case

| 17/09/2009 | 12 Comments

(CNS):  Courtroom Two was cleared yesterday (Wednesday 16 September) at the George Town Court House, when the three men facing charges for the murder of Omar Samuels appeared before Chief Magistrate Margaret Ramsay-Hale. Owing to what was described as a need to protect the identity of witnesses, the magistrate asked reporters to leave the court and ordered them not to report on the case. She also said that images of the three defendants Osbourne Douglas, Patrick McField and Brandon Leslie should not be shown in the media.

The magistrate issued on order pursuant to section 10 of the Criminal Law (2007 revision) prohibiting any publication of any photographs or likeneses of the defendants while proceedings are in summary court. She also said that all proceedings would be in camera (ie closed to the public) and nothing can be published which could lead to the identity of witnesses in the case.

Samuels received a single gun shot wound to his leg in the McField Lane area of George Town in the early hours of Sunday, 5 July. The 28 year old subsequently died from the wound which had penetrated his femoral artery.

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Croc couple visit 7MB

Croc couple visit 7MB

| 17/09/2009 | 93 Comments

(CNS): A pair of crocodiles that has been spotted off Seven Mile Beach are probably shy and reclusive creatures, according to Department of Environment (DoE) Director Gina Ebanks-Petrie. However, she said people who want to take pictures should do so at a safe distance. Chief Conservation Officer Mark Orr said the staff have received calls from the public saying they have seen two crocodiles in the White Sands – Seven Mile Public Beach area. The DoE also said that over the past few months the department has received a number of reports of crocodile sightings around Grand Cayman.

“As far as nature goes, this is not such an abnormal event. If undisturbed, the crocodiles will probably move on by themselves,” Orr said. “Nevertheless, we want the public to be cautious, and they should definitely not approach the animals.”

While staff cannot confirm the species of the crocodiles sighted, they most likely are one of the wide-ranging American crocodile species, according to DOE.

“These are generally shy and reclusive, and fall under international protection,” Ebanks-Petrie Ebanks-Petrie explained. She encouraged the public to continue reporting sightings of crocodiles, or any other large marine creature, to the DoE. “This information is of scientific and conservation value, and it will be added to our sightings database,” she said. “We’d also like to have any pictures that could be used to identify the animal. There is no issue with taking a few pictures from a safe distance, if you wish to do so. However, afterwards you should move away and leave the animal alone, as you would do with any other wild animal you encounter,” she added.

DoE staff can be contacted on 949-8469 or DoE@gov.ky.
 

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Really bad to the bone

Really bad to the bone

| 17/09/2009 | 2 Comments

(CNS): Football season began last week with the SASI Kick-Off Football tournament and was followed by the opening of the annual Cayman Brac Power & Light 6-a-side Football League a few days later. The CBP&L League is the main football league in the Brac and runs annually from September – November featuring Primary, Youth and Senior divisions of play nightly. If there’s one team that is causing the entire stir early in the league campaign it’s “Bad to the Bone” led by captain Cameron Brown. Brac United won their first trophy of the season by winning the Kick-Off Tournament.

They continued their dominant form into the CBP&L League last week and are the leaders of the Youth Division with two wins from two matches. Team Captain Nicholas Laurendo has tallied two hat-tricks and leads the goal-scoring table with 6 goals already. In hot pursuit behind him are Erick Rodriguez and Geoff Scott each with four goals apiece. Young female sensation Shanelle Frederick is also in the goal-scoring hunt with three goals of her own, and if the past is any indication of what’s to come then by all means don’t count her out for she just may explode to the top of the heap before long.

Struggling Un-Tiro Ballers have a few days to gather their thoughts and re-organize themselves as they stay bottom of the Youth Division table after losing all two of their week-one matches. There are signs of improvement is their camp, however, and week-two will test their character and fortitude to get a point or more to raise their spirits and give them hope.

It was team Bad to the Bone that caught most of the attention in week-one by wining all two of their opening matches to lead the Senior Division table. They pulled off a late winner against CD Marathon, Cayman Brac’s U-17 boy’s team and narrowly escaped with all three-points against Gazza. The game against Gazza will go down as controversial and arguments will continue over the weeks by many when team Gazza appeared to have scored a second-half equalizer from a direct free-kick but it was ruled to have gone through the side-netting which had a hole and no goal was allowed. Very few goals were scored in week-one from the senior division but week-two promises to light-up the goal nets and the goalkeepers themselves, so prepare for the fire-works display.

Matches are played every Monday & Wednesday at the field on the bluff with the Youth Division matches starting at 5:30 & 6:30pm each while the Senior Division matches are scheduled for 7:30 & 8:30pm. The Primary Division will get under-way in the next two-weeks and more information will be given when available.
 

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Health officials prep swine flu immunization plan

Health officials prep swine flu immunization plan

| 17/09/2009 | 2 Comments

(CNS): Cayman is now planning a vaccination strategy to deal with a probable second wave of H1N1 flu cases this fall, health officials said yesterday. Having met with Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) representatives, they said they had gone to great lengths to get sufficient H1N1 vaccine to immunize all residents, but did not expect to have enough doses for everyone right away. “As global stocks will be inadequate, we will vaccinate the high risk groups first, and as more vaccine becomes available, we will move on to the rest of the population,” Medical Officer of Health Dr Kiran Kumar said.

He stated that there would most likely bea surge in flu cases this fall, with seasonal flu coupled with the pandemic H1N1. “And, as all countries around the world, we will only have a limited amount vaccine immediately available,” he added.

He emphasized that there would be two separate vaccines this year, one for the seasonal flu and another for the H1N1 flu.  “The seasonal flu vaccine will be available in early October and although we don’t have a date yet for the H1N1 vaccine, it is expected to arrive in October as well,” Kumar said, adding that although the results of the safety studies for the H1N1 vaccine have been published, a final date for distribution has still not been determined. 

“The good news is that the studies have shown the vaccine to be safe and effective just like the regular seasonal flu vaccine,” Kumar noted.

Health officials said that at its weekly meeting on 15 September, the HSA’s Flu Response Team reviewed international guidelines and formulated a vaccine strategy for the Islands. The meeting was also attended by a visiting team from PAHO, headed by Dr Ernest Pate, regional representative based in Jamaica. 

 According to the recommendations, pregnant women, children and adults with chronic diseases including heart disease, diabetes, respiratory conditions (asthma), and immunodeficiency, as well as health care workers, are all priority groups for H1N1 vaccine.

“After we have vaccinated those groups, we will work our way through the rest of the population – children ages 6 months to 4 years; healthy children ages 5-18 years; healthy adults aged 19-49 years, followed by other age groups,” Kumar explained.

The Cayman Islands reported its first H1N1 case a little over three months ago on 4 June, and confirmed one H1N1 death in July.

“There have been 101 swine flu (H1N1) cases confirmed to date with about 2,000 flu-like illness cases that were appropriately treated and recovered at home,” Kumar stated. 

Although to date the H1N1 flu causes mild to moderate illness in most patients, HSA Medical Director Dr Greg Hoeksema reminded the public that there could still be severe cases that would need hospitalization or even cause death. “We anticipate that these severe cases will occur again in the Cayman Islands with the fall flu wave just as they have with the first wave here and around the world.  That is why the vaccine will be an important part of the strategy to minimize the impact of H1N1 in Cayman,” Hoeksema added.

Local flu statistics as of 12 September indicated that 76% of all confirmed flu cases (a total of 101 cases) since June were due to the pandemic H1N1 virus. The other 24% were confirmed as being various strains of seasonal flu viruses.  The majority of the cases (48%) occurred amongst older children and young adults in the 10-39 age group.

Flu cases have now stabilized and there has been only one confirmed case of H1N1 in the last four weeks, but residents are still being cautioned residents to stay vigilant. For more information on H1N1 visit www.CaymanPrepared.ky or www.hsa.ky. The Health Services Authority also offers the public direct responses to their flu queries through its flu email and message system – flu@hsa.ky. This complements the 24-hour flu hotline (926-2812) manned by HSA staff.

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Cops blamed for crime

Cops blamed for crime

| 17/09/2009 | 104 Comments

(CNS): Residents of West Bay pointed the finger firmly at the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service during a heated and at times angry meeting of the West Bay Action Committee over rising crime in the district last night. Angelique Howell, the area commander, was criticised for not being up to the job, her staff was described as having a poor attitude and only here for the money, while the new Commissioner David Baines (left) was declared a liar. Clearly frustrated and afraid of the surge in crime across Cayman and in their district in particular, one member described West Bay as the crime capital of the island.

Although no one from the police service attended the meeting on Wednesday (16 September), Ministers Mike Adam and later Rolston Anglin (also a West Bay representative) attended, but the meeting was dominated by the community’s anger towards the police and the perceived idea that their district was policed by foreign strangers who didn’t care.

The refusal by the commissioner to re-instate a former retired local police officer, Paul Anglin, whom everyone agreed had been an exemplary officer for more than 20 years and had petitioned for his return in the district, was lauded as an example of the problems within the RCIPS and clearly had angered residents.

They said the reason why the young people in the district were out of control was because police officers from West Bay station had not taken the time to get to know the young people or show them respect, but had alienated them. One former police officer said he had returned to the service after some years in retirement but then resigned after one year because the RCIPS had changed so much. The former cop added that he had no trust in the new commissioner as he had lied to him. "He has come here with his own agenda,” the former officer suggested of Baines.

Charles “killa” Whittaker, Cayman’s boxing hero and West Bay resident, told his neighbours that he believed that lack of familiar faces in the police was a contributor to the problem of crime as people couldn’t trust strangers. “We see a lot of people from other countries and don’t recognise them,” he said. “We used to have trust in the police.” He lamented the fact that the commissioner had rejected Anglin without having even met him.

However, Whittaker also noted the role of parents and he said that Caymanians were a poor set when it came to supporting and encouraging their children in sports and events. He said that at the “white” or “Caucasian” schools parents were there cheering on their kids. “We just send them — we don’t go and support them. I’m 35 years old but I still like to see my mama sitting ringside encouraging me when I fight,” he added.

With a few notable exceptions the meeting was dominated by the opinion that the local police were disrespectful, rude, untrustworthy, aggressive, prejudice towards their own countrymen and against Caymanians, had no integrity, were only interested in handing out traffic tickets, harassed law abiding citizens, that officers are culturally disconnected and spent too much time in their cars never getting out to find out what was going on. Many of those attending suggested that the police were merely here for what they could get and were not interested in the community or the people of West Bay.

They said that unless they were handed the evidence on a plate they didn’t do their job to look for the drugs and the guns, that they regularly ignored the hotspots and that the people in West Bay simply could not rely on them to fight crime. “The rise in crime has been allowed to happen because the police don’t care,” one attendee stated to wide agreement. Another audience member suggested that as government needed to cut costs, if police officers were forced to patrol the district on foot and on bicycles they would get to know the community better and save money.

Chair of the action committee, Henry Morgan, said that the discussion would not end at the meeting and he said things would “intensify”. The committee asked Adam to take a message to the commissioner to attend a meeting of the committee in 14 days and said that it would be a good idea to have a representative of immigration department come as well since the community strongly believed that crime and immigration were connected.  He also called for the removal of Howell, echoing the petition that resident Cadian Ebanks had recently handed to the governor requesting her move from the district.

“We have enough local ex-police in West Bay to man our own district,” Morgan told the meeting. “We are going to see this through.”

However, amongst the anger,  Jean-Eric (Notch) Smith, president of the Cayman Music and Entertainment Association, did not point the finger of blame at foreign police officers and noted the wider social problems in Cayman, such as illiteracy and the failure of the prison system. Speaking eloquently about the failure to educate young men and the very unforgiving culture of Cayman, he lamented the fact that the community at large was still talking about all of society’s problems and it was a shame that it had not yet reached the stage of seeking solutions.  He warned that the young people who were poorly educated were now armed with guns so the result of increased crime was hardly unexpected.

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Lawyer trashes fingerprints

Lawyer trashes fingerprints

| 17/09/2009 | 0 Comments

(CNS): In a controversial and bold bid to get the fingerprint evidence against his client thrown out, defence counsel for Josue Carillo-Perez, Anthony Akiwumi, has argued that not only is the Crown’s fingerprint examiner not an expert witness but the whole concept of latent fingerprint evidence is flawed and unreliable and should therefore not be admitted. Perez is accused of murdering Martin Gareau at his Beach Bay home in May 2008 and has denied being present at the scene, but the Crown is relying heavily on two latent finger prints that it says match Perez.

In the first full day’s proceedings in Perez’s murder trial (Wednesday 16 September), defence and Crown counsel were engaged in legal arguments before the judge.

In his lengthy submissions, which relied not only on legal authorities but academic work, Akiwumi put forward the theory that latent fingerprint evidence was not scientific and could not be relied upon. He suggested that fingerprint examiners were not experts but subjective witnesses offering only opinions. He said their methodology was questionable in general, but in this case in particular even more so as there are no set standards on what number of ridge characteristics would constitute a match.

Akiwumi also pointed to the bias that he said was inherent in the craft of fingerprint matching, as he said examiners are routinely just given a print ofa suspect and then a latent print from a crime-scene and asked to match them.

Akiwumi claimed that just because fingerprinting had been claimed as infallible for as long as it had did not mean it was a perfect science. He said error rates were alarmingly high and cited a number of cases where serious mistakes had occurred – including a case where an American lawyer had been accused of the “Madrid bombings” in 2004 because of an incorrect fingerprint match. He was eventually released when the prints were also found to match an Algerian national.

He also illustrated a number of other errors that he said undermined the long held theory that fingerprints are unique – a theory that has never been proved scientifically.

He compared the claims made by fingerprint examiners that when they match a print it is so conclusive no one else in the world could possibly be considered, against DNA, which is considerable more scientific, but despite its high levels of probability on matches, DNA experts never make claims to the exclusion of all others. He said the critical flaw with fingerprint matching was that examiners were not allowed to offer a probability and could only say that a latent print matched an individual with certainty, it ruled them out, or the print was inconclusive.

Akiwumi’s submissions focused heavily on discrediting the long held belief that fingerprint evidence was sacrosanct, and likened himself to Galileo persuading the church that the earth was round. He said that no real studies on the technique had ever been done to prove the science of latent fingerprinting and said it was no better than the turn of the 19th century theories of morphology, in which people claimed that an individual’s criminal tendencies were written in their facial features.

Aside from attacking the fallibility of latent fingerprint evidence, he also took aim at the Crown’s own RCIPS fingerprint examiner based on his witness statements submitted for trial. Akiwumi suggested William McKay had given no explanation for how he had concluded that Perez was a match for the prints found at the murder scene other than “I say so” and that he had originally said the prints did not match. He questioned the proposed witness’s lack of a college education and said that he had not followed his own methodology for matching correctly.

“A mere belief by a witness is not enough,” Akiwumi told the court. “Fingerprint examiners have elevated their craft and say they have the ability to determine exclusively what is a match.”

In response, Trevor Ward, counsel for the Crown, in a considerably shorter response said that it would be quite remarkable if 100 years of jurisprudence was jettisoned, emphasising the widely accepted quality of fingerprint evidence as he dismissed Akiwumi’s submissions.

Referring to the fact that fingerprint evidence has been so commonly accepted without question, Ward relied on its long history to justify why the judge should not throw out the expert’s evidence. He said that defence argument depended heavily on a few legal cases that were not authorities, and where decisions had been made by judges to throw out print evidence, these had later been overturned or reversed. He also suggested that the defence counsel’s academic source had been discredited and was himself not a scientific fingerprint expert.

Ward noted that people had been convicted for capital offence on the basis of one print alone and the court of appeal had shown “tremendous confidence inthe reliability of print evidence” and persistently upheld convictions made just on latent prints.

“It has long been known that fingerprint patterns vary from person to person,” said Ward. He added that fingerprint evidence is admissible in law and that it is the judge’s role as gatekeeper to warn juries where necessary about the issue regarding expert opinion on evidence.

He said fingerprinting was far from a new concept and he accused of Akiwumi of failing to offer binding authorities that the method is unscientific. Ward, however, did accept that errors have been made but said that couldn’t be used to undermine fingerprint evidence. Above all, Crown counsel noted that there was simply no legal basis for the court to exclude the fingerprint expert evidence. “The technique is sound and well recognised in the scientific community,” Ward added.

Tthis morning (Thursday 17 September) before the Crown opens its case against Perez, the judge, Justice Roy Anderson, will make his ruling on the expert witness testimony on the two fingerprints found at the scene of the murder, which the Crown contends belong to the accused.

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Surf ‘n’ save online

Surf ‘n’ save online

| 17/09/2009 | 0 Comments

(CNS): Even in the best of times everyone likes a discount, but when times are hard saving money is at the top of everyone’s shopping list, says Melissa Ebanks (left), the marketing and sales consultant with Cayman’s latest website www.caymancoupons.com. The first ever dedicated coupon site in the Cayman Islands, caymancoupons.com is lined up to be a great success as the islands’ one-stop online shop for discounts. Completely free to shoppers – locals and tourists alike – caymancoupons.com offers access to a wide variety of discount coupons that can be printed at the click of a mouse.

The coupons can be used across Cayman in restaurants, shops, attractions or even for services such as insurance or car rental. “We are the first company to bring this concept to the Cayman Islands,” explained Melissa. “However such sites are very common in the United states where they are widely used.”

Visitors to Cayman from the US are already used to this kind of on-line service, so Melissa expects that they will be logging on to the site before they even come on vacation. “That way they can check out what discounts they’ll be able to enjoy on some of the attractions they want to visit or restaurants they hope to eat at, as well as shops and services they’ll use, when they get here,” she added.

However, caymancoupons.com is not just a tourist service; locals will be able to enjoy the discounts on a huge range of goods and services as well. “With local shops and businesses participating, everyone can save on anything, from groceries to car insurance,” Melissa noted. “As the idea of surfing and saving grows and as more Cayman businesses join the site we will be presenting literally hundreds of opportunities for people to save.”

Caymancoupons.com is a simple and convenient site to use. The coupons are very easy to find and print and there is no registering or membership required. The site offers local business a simple and affordable way to extend discount savings to their customers to help increase business.

“It’s a win-win situation – customers save money, and businesses increase sales. Who doesn’t love a bargain?” Melissa asked. “Discounts are one of the best ways of attracting new customers and helping people get through difficult times. We all feel a lot less guilty about spending money in difficult times if we feel we got a good deal. I am so excited about this new venture as I know that once people get the chance to enjoy instant access to savings they really are going to love it.”

Each business on the website has a profile page with its key information, such as a description, contact details and, of course, the discount coupons. So businesses are not only tempting customers with savings and discounts but they can also use their profile page to promote their business and inform customers who, what and where they are.

“They say the simplest ideas are often the best and that is very true when it come to caymancoupons. It’s a terrific concept and it won’t be long before everyone in Cayman is surfing and saving!” Melissa exclaimed.

For more details about how your business can become a part of caymancoupons contact Melissa Ebanks on 525-8725 or email contact@caymancoupons.com

Photo: Melissa Ebanks, the marketing and sales consultant with www.caymancoupons.com
 

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First rocky planet found outside solar system

First rocky planet found outside solar system

| 17/09/2009 | 0 Comments

(CNN): Scientists have discovered the first confirmed Earthlike planet outside our solar system, they announced Wednesday. "This is the first confirmed rocky planet in another system," astronomer Artie Hatzes told CNN, contrasting the solid planet with gaseous ones like Jupiter and Saturn. But "Earthlike" is a relative term. The planet’s composition may be similar to that of Earth, but its environment is more like a vision of hell, the project’s lead astronomer said. It is so close to the star it orbits that the place may well look like Dante’s Inferno, with a probable temperature on its ‘day face’ above 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit.

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Are we really all in this boat together?

Are we really all in this boat together?

| 17/09/2009 | 140 Comments

Our fathers, grandfathers, uncles, brothers and husband lost their best seamen positions on the merchant ships and the super tankers because the shipping magnates replaced them with other seamen with lesser ability for a cheaper wage.

But, little did the Caymanian fathers, grandfathers, uncles, brothers, and husband knew that they would suffer a similar faith in their own home land with social and destructive consequences. With no ship on which to prove their worth they would be over-board out of the life boat.

We have spent millions andmillions of dollars to engage studies and reports about some of the most obvious subjects that we already know what the pros and cons are including the parrots. We know that the parrots are destroying the farms fruits. Yet, we have not spent any money or meaning full time on engaging into the inquiry of what has been happening to our society since our seamen fathers, grandfathers, uncle, brothers and husband became left ashore.

I believe that many of our social and deviant behavior patterns exhibited by our young people over the past two decade to the present time are directly related to the place in this society in which those who once were accepted as best seamen have now been relegated to-mere “boys”.

Any one that studied and examined societal changes should recognize what has happened here from the mid-sixties to today. The mid sixties was a time that included those Caymanian seamen, the victims of cheaper replacements. After they were thrown ashore some of them became laborers employed on the building of the edifices to facilitate the passage of money through this country. Few of them became contractors. None of them were re-trained to become fund managers or passage money managers.

The Cayman Islands experienced the great boom between the mid seventies to the mid nineties when the building boom began to even off. The men and the women arrived to sit in the board rooms, to take up residence and to count money and to set their price for their professional services. The Caymanian seamen were not regarded as professionals, according to those new arrivals. Caymanian seamen were not entitled to any professional fee as their labour and skills that they had acquired whilst working on the merchant ships and supertankers were not needed. Many of them were relegated to driving taxis. Others, who could afford a boat, took tourist out on the sea. Others, many others, had no place to find stature but the bars. By this time their labour and their skills were no longer relevant. Employers could now get labour and skills from outside for a cheaper wage.

Between the mid-nineties and today the Caymanian seamen and their sons and grandsons too became almost redundant, except for a selected few. Only those persons who were deemed to be safe and cooperative with no desire for competition would be given the opportunity to get an entry level education and a corresponding position.

Caymanian men, great men, tried and proven became mere on-lookers as other men became wealthy, socially prominent and politically powerful before their eyes. Some Caymanian women faced a little better than their fathers, brothers, uncles or husbands. Some of them could still find the clerical positions. A few of them were even elevated to the not so powerful managerial positions. They could find jobs working in some of the hotels, condos and restaurants. None or not many of them were given management or head chef positions.

Many of Caymanian seamen their sons, grandsons, and now it seems their daughters and granddaughters, are seeking solace in the bars and the clubs often owned by non-Caymanians and are served often by non-Caymanian service workers.

Meanwhile, the Caymanian children who manage to stay in school and who manage to survive the ravages of the destructive hood culture are constantly told that if they go on and get a good education, especially a good education from a foreign institutions, they will succeed past the entry level positions. Unfortunately for them, when they equip themselves with that local and foreign education and present themselves, they are told that they cannot get the jobs because they have no experience. Meanwhile, the job positions are filled and manned by others who often have no more experience than the educated Caymanians.

The results of this systemic rejection behavior structure are resentment, lack of self confidence that often leads to despair, lack of respect for organized societal norms and ultimately deviant behavior. Those whowitness this rejection process of their family or their friends or contemporaries are also affected. The domino effect of this emasculating and suppressive attitude breeds ultimate lawlessness and deviant behavior to gain status in a peer group.

What our young people see and experience now is a world that is mostly concerned with wealth, power, social elevation and privilege. A large number of our young people are victims of dysfunctional families where family stability and family values are eroded because many of them have been robbed of the ability to mobility in a non caring environment.

Many Cayman families also do not have the steadying presence of a grandmother or grandfather whose presence in the home acts as a mirror to remind the younger family members of their own mortality and values of caring for their own source of being and family history.

In so many homes today children are raised by people from other cultures who often are not equipped to deal with our cultural values that our young minds need to cultivate. Also, the country’s ordinary job market is now almost nearly serviced by cheaper foreign labour which is often detrimental for the Cayman families. They cannot compete in such a wage depressed work force and give their children the care and education they need to be successful.

Nearly every one speaks of our country as a successful capitalist bastion of wealth. Yet, many Caymanians in this capitalist system often have no access to capital unless they are in the selected safe few file. Here we are in a hundred percent over employment economy with some 27,000 to 28,000 people working on permission work permits but many Caymanians cannot get a job. This structural problem is endemic. It is endemic and emasculating to our young men and degrading to our young women.

One despicable thing that has resulted from all this is an expanding welfare system financed with assistance from work permit fees. That is the structural irony that our children and grandchildren are expected to face and accept.

We have for too long allowed the means of progress and wealth to be in the hands of a few people. Capitalism is a good system but capitalism without corresponding and connective morality and justice brings disruption, unrest, and ultimately violence. We are now experiencing this lack of morality and justice in our country. However, I do believe that we are special. We seldom do what we ought to do but we always do what we have to do.

We cannot stop progress and development but we can stop the destruction of our cultural and historical values. We can stop the violence and the mayhem. Violence and deviant behaviour have beginning in the urban sprawl that is proliferating and requiring increased public revenues as government service is needed for each left behind area.

For those who believe that they are safe because they are protected by guards and gated communities; for those whose only interest in the community is the amount of money in the cash register, I implore you to stretch out your arm and to give a hand to the child of the less fortunate family. Help him or her to get the required education and then open the opportunity door, when he or she come knocking with their qualifications. You may think that it is not your problem and wash your hands today in the preverbal act of cleaning yourself from the mess. But, you may become the statistic tomorrow.

The accumulated disappointments that he or she harbours grow into uncontrollable destructive behavior. I have heard the saying that “we are all in this boat together”. If that nautical metaphor is true then each of us is required to take turns on the oars and with the bailer to stop the boat from sinking. Let me remind everyone that should the boat sink their will be losses. There will be lost wealth as well as the loss of the means to obtain wealth. There can be no social and economic neutrality of crew members in this boat.

We now need a rigorous analysis of our vessel as we sail along. We need to inject our experiences and ingenuity into our voyage. We need to take on the social and legal mechanisms to deal with our difficulties as our cargo. We need to sail on into the difficult twenty first century with confidence, morality and Justice. To cause anyone of us to be in the water without life jacket, without being thrown a life line means that we are not all in this boat together. Let us load this boat with bales of Caymanian culture, drums of democratic values, and sail on together. To simply load this boat with bags of money owned by the selected few only to purchase objects will not prevent a mutiny.

The direction in which the boat will be heading will depend on who will be the captain and who will set the course of direction. Surely, if everyone in the boat wants to grab the helm and steer it towards this or that direction the boat may come apart on the preverbal reef.

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