Gordon Robinson | UK visa conundrum

And then there were three. In November 2022 UK announced it was lifting visa requirements for Guyana, Peru and Colombia. Those nations’ citizens may visit UK for up to six months without a visa.

The British Embassy in Colombia was quoted as saying the move “opens the doors for new business opportunities in various sectors” while Gavin Cook, British Ambassador to Peru said “many more opportunities are opening up today, from tourism and commerce to cultural, academic and sports exchange in any of the four countries of the United Kingdom: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This is just the beginning of another great chapter in our fantastic bilateral relationship.”

But what about JamRock? Along with Haiti and Surinam, this leaves us as one of only three CARICOM countries with UK Visa requirements firmly in place. So Jamaica remains on a list of about 100 visa-required Countries that includes Afghanistan; Bahrain; Bangladesh; Belarus; Bolivia; China (PRC); Cuba; Georgia; India; Iran; Kazakhstan; Kosovo; Kyrgyzstan; Lebanon; Mozambique; Nigeria; North Korea; Pakistan; Palestinian Authority; Russia; Rwanda; Saudi Arabia; South Africa; Syria; Turkey; and Ukraine.

Tribal Twitter trolls attached at the hip to JLP immediately took personal affront and blamed it on Guyana’s “suddenly” becoming an oil rich nation thus insinuating (very superficially) that its new status was purchased.

But they can calm down because this isn’t a slight aimed at JLP or any Jamaican Government. It has nothing to do with oil. If it did, then other CARICOM Nations, without oil or wealth of any kind, would suffer Jamaica’s fate. None of Antigua, Barbados, St. Vincent, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, Bahamas, Dominica or Grenada are “oil rich” or wealthy. But they’re all exempt from UK Visa requirements.

On January 8, 2003, the Guardian published a report by Sarah Left headlined New UK visa rules for Jamaicans. It reported on the imposition of Visa requirements on Jamaicans as of midnight:

“The scheme has been introduced after the home office found that ‘significant’ numbers of visitors were either being refused entry on arrival or never returned home. The home office said immigration officers refused entry to so many Jamaican nationals that legitimate visitors from the country faced delays of up to three hours at British airports.

‘At our main ports of entry in the run-up to Christmas, Jamaican nationals accounted for around 20 per cent of all passengers refused,’ the home secretary, David Blunkett, said.”

The problem wasn’t then and isn’t now (except obliquely) any Jamaican Government. The problem has always been Jamaicans. Blunkett said:

“I have also become concerned about the unacceptably high number who come to the UK as visitors and then abscond – more than 150 a month during the first half of 2002.”

He went on:

“The UK has strong links with Jamaica which contribute to the richness and diversity of our country. Visas will not stop genuine visitors from Jamaica coming to the UK but this will mean they will no longer spend hours at immigration control on arrival.”

That was cute spin but the bottom line was, and is, that any country imposing visa requirements on citizens of another country does it because of its own security concerns and NOT because of oil. Back to the Guardian:

“A spokeswoman for the Home Office said the move had been under consideration for some time, adding that the formal decision to institute a visa programme had been taken ‘well before Christmas’. She insisted it was not linked to crime concerns.

‘This is not a knee-jerk reaction to anything else that has been going on, and no-one should consider that it is linked to the shootings in Birmingham, for example,’ she said.”

DWL! As Noah sarcastically replied to a disembodied voice claiming to be God “Right!”

The Guardian’s not-so-subtle rebuff of that leg-spinner’s “wrong-un” was:

“Last year, the deputy high commissioner in Jamaica, Phil Sinkinson, sparked a furore by claiming that one in ten passengers flying from Jamaica to the UK was a drug mule. He estimated that each flight into the UK carried about 30kg of cocaine in plastic bags that had been swallowed by passengers.”

One more picture. Hold it. It’s a Security concern.

The Guardian concluded:

“About 55,600 Jamaican nationals travelled to the UK in 2001, with 6% of them (3,340 passengers) refused entry at immigration control, the home office said. It added that between January and June 2002, more than 1,000 Jamaican nationals had absconded after being granted temporary admission.

More worrying, Mr. Blunkett said, was the number of children who entered the UK and were never heard from again.

Last year, British Airways recorded the arrival of 1,202 unaccompanied minors arriving at Gatwick’s north terminal from Kingston, but only 592 returned home during the same period.”

Read those words and weep for my people. Guyana did NOT buy its removal from the Visa restriction list with oil money. Neither did Peru or Colombia. If Jamaica found itself with all the oil in the world but Jamaicans breach of UK immigration protocols continued at that alarming rate, Jamaicans would still need UK Visas.

But JLP trolls weren’t finished with their thin-skinned defence of Jamaica by way of tearing down of Guyana. When confronted on Twitter with the list of poor CARICOM nations without visa restrictions, the riposte was:

“Jamaica is and has always done better on the Corruption Perception Index than Guyana. It’s definitely the oil and gas.”

Really? The Corruption Perception Index? So Jamaica ranked 70; Guyana 87; and that should be the determining factor? Lookie here, nations imposing visa restrictions don’t give a flying fig about corrupt governments so long as the corruption doesn’t infect their citizens. So Argentina (ranked 96; no oil) is on the no-Visa list. China (ranked above Jamaica at 66; no oil) is on the Visa-required list. Oil rich Bahrain (ranked 78) and Saudi Arabia (ranked above Jamaica at 52) are on the Visa-required list. Colombia (tied with Guyana at 87) and Peru (105) have been oil/gas exporters for decades (Peru not-so-much; Copper is its major export) but are only now coming off the Visa-required list with Guyana.

It’s. NOT. About. Oil!

But JLP trolls believe everything is a barb aimed at their beloved political party so flee when no one pursues. I don’t believe this is any comment on the Government but I do have a visa related bone to pick with this and previous Jamaican governments.

In 1970, Guyana became the first West Indian Nation to become a Republic and abolish the Privy Council. It abandoned the imperialist Westminster electoral system for a more indigenously suitable proportional representation model. Despite this decades long snub of its former colonial masters, UK lifted Visa requirements for Guyanese.

Jamaica’s ties to the British Empire are suffocating. Jamaicans (and Guyanese like the late, great Norman Beaton) poured into England after World War II to help resurrect a decimated economy. Since then, all Caribbean immigrants, including Jamaicans, have been treated like trash by England. Yet, SIXTY YEARS after claiming to have gained independence from that colonial enslaver, Jamaica still clings to the Privy Council as “Jamaica’s” Final Court of Appeal and King Charles as Jamaica’s Monarch. Despite our sickening sycophancy, we must beg for a Visa to visit for even a day or to appear in a “Jamaican” court.

We must be high!

Any self respecting Government would be ashamed that it still fawns at the feet of an imperialist Monarch and petitions a British Court to tell us what Jamaican Law is or should be. Any self respecting Government would’ve long since renounced the British Monarch; abolished the Privy Council as having the effrontery to call itself a Jamaican Court; and replaced the colonizing Westminster governance system. Instead we persist as if we suffer from battered woman syndrome without seeking escape and embrace our abuser no matter often it disrespects us.

Jamaicans care even if their Governments don’t. For example, one Haile Mika’el Cujo, self-styled fifth generation descendant of Cujo, poet, author, songwriter, political activist and all around eccentric, has taken the time to draft his version of a new Jamaican Constitution. He sent it (in July and a revised version in August) to all Parliamentarians including the Constitutional Affairs Minister. All he asks is to be heard by Parliament as a Jamaican citizen with concerns and ideas about reform. He has been ignored. Will his efforts on Jamaica’s behalf be wasted?

Meanwhile what has the much ballyhooed Constitutional Affairs Ministry achieved after nine months? Sweet Fanny Adams it seems to me. It hasn’t even empanelled a Constitutional Reform Commission to seek widespread consultation (including with Haile Mika’el) with a view to urgently needed restructuring of Jamaican society.

What is its real purpose?

Peace and Love.

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com