What is particularly puzzling is the fact that the humiliation of the Guyanese businessman took place just days after Dr Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, had deplored the “humiliation and hostility” often meted out to Guyanese and the nationals of a few other territories at airports. Dr Gonsalves made the observation while speaking at the Inaugural Distinguished Lecture Series, [ please note: link provided by LOSP web site ] sponsored by the CARICOM Secretariat and held at the Trinidad Hilton. In his presentation, the St Vincent leader referred to the treatment accorded some nationals as “an outrage” and he appealed to his CARICOM colleagues not to shy away from dealing with the issue, which is an embarrassment for the entire Community.

Additionally, the editorial [ please note: link provided by LOSP web site ] of the Sunday Chronicle of February 16, 2003 recalled that in the 1980s, Mr Errol Barrow, the late Prime Minister of Barbados, had called for the streamlining of Immigration and Custom services throughout the Community “as well as appropriate training as part of an overall programme to help make the regional economic integration movement more people-focused, relevant and efficient to the region’s needs”.

The editorial of the Sunday Chronicle noted: “In his public presentation last week, Prime Minister Gonsalves was to stress the urgent need for a change in attitude by Immigration officers at regional airports who, like workers in some other fields of employment, seem to lack an appreciation of ‘who we are as a unique people of the Caribbean civilisation. He thought it necessary to publicly commend President Bharrat Jagdeo for courageously and consistently placing before CARICOM leaders, at every opportunity, the hostile, discriminatory treatment of Guyanese nationals at some regional airports. Jagdeo had, at one meeting of the CARICOM Bureau in Barbados, publicly stated that “this nonsense must stop”. Let it be noted, however, that no government is being asked to forfeit its rights in taking appropriate action to safeguard its own security and against abuses of its governance system as applicable, for example, in the functioning of Immigration and Customs services.”

It is widely reported that some Guyanese now resident in Barbados are running afoul of the law because of their involvement in all sorts of nefarious practices. That is why we can readily appreciate the exasperation of some Barbados Immigration officers in being overly suspicious of the motives of some Guyanese nationals arriving in the island. However, this is no basis for meting out discourteous or contemptuous treatment to persons from Guyana. Surely in Barbados, a popular tourist destination, there are state-of-the-art, fail-proof ways of ascertaining the integrity of visas and travel documents without officers having to resort to insults and offensive actions against visitors.

We believe that this contempt for Guyanese travellers has its genesis in the hard, economic circumstances of the 1980s when nationals resorted to ‘suitcase trading’ in order to obtain items of food and toiletries that were either banned or were not available here. Women, in particular, were forced to overnight at both the Grantley Adams Airport in Barbados and the Piarco Airport in Trinidad and Tobago just to save a few dollars that they would have expended on hotel accommodation. In many cases, the behaviour of the traders did not speak flatteringly of their homeland, and sometimes airline officials took sadistic joy in ordering the traders to expose their hand luggage -- an action, which often sent dozens of onions and potatoes rolling merrily along the tarmac. Sometimes, loaves of bread and cans of evaporated milk and sardines were also extracted from hand luggage to the intense embarrassment of other Guyanese.