FREEDOM OF THE PRESS THREATENED IN THE EASTERN

C O N F I D E N T I A L BRIDGETOWN 000979

SIPDIS

NOFORN
SIPDIS

SOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/01/2016
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL SOCI KDEM KPAO XL
SUBJECT: FREEDOM OF THE PRESS THREATENED IN THE EASTERN
CARIBBEAN

REF: A. BRIDGETOWN 829

B. BRIDGETOWN 429

C. 05 BRIDGETOWN 1420

Classified By: DCM Mary Ellen T. Gilroy for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C/NOFORN) Summary: Freedom of the press is threatened in
the Eastern Caribbean by governments that are increasingly
intolerant of criticism. Government officials in several
countries have threatened to impose legal standards upon what
they complain is an unrestrained media that engages in libel
and character assassination. Politicians have also used
various legal mechanisms to strike out at journalists thought
to be overly critical or simply too inquisitive. To date,
only St. Lucia has adopted legislation intended to allow the
Government means to intimidate and potentially punish the
press, although Eastern Caribbean authorities have found
other methods to harass and even jail media figures. Such
actions have elicited concern from media practitioners and
NGOs committed to protecting the rights of journalists and
the free press. This troubling situation is indicative of
the limited development of civil society in these small
island states, in which political leaders are given
considerable power over sovereign nations that are in reality
small communities of limited political maturity. End summary.

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Freedom of the Press Threatened
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2. (U) Eastern Caribbean political leaders are increasingly
turning to threats and extra-legal means to temper what they
believe is a biased and irresponsible press. Nearly all
governments in the region have threatened at some point to
impose legal standards that officials argue are necessary to
tame the excesses of newspapers and talk radio. Several
government figures have taken direct action against what they
perceive as unwarranted criticism and slander by filing libel
suits against individual journalists and media figures. In
extreme circumstances, such actions have led to journalists
being detained by the police for questioning about their
sources. While observers concede that at times the Caribbean
media, particularly talk radio, allow unfounded accusations
to go unchallenged, the current climate of government
intimidation has led NGOs such as the Association of
Caribbean Media Workers and the International Press Institute
to issue warnings about growing media self-censorship and
threats to freedom of the press.

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Talk Radio Stirs Up Governments
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3. (U) Much of the impetus behind calls to legislate media
standards has been the daily stream of opinion and criticism
found on talk radio throughout the Eastern Caribbean. The
region has seen significant growth in the number of radio
stations during the past decade, with much of the air time
devoted to talk shows that focus on politics and issues of
the day. In some instances, the opposing political parties
sponsor their own talk radio programs on which the partisan
host can be guaranteed to turn the discussion in favor of
their party. The criticism offered against sitting
governments, and charges made against officials, by callers
to these programs are often harsh and unsubstantiated,
relying on rumor and conjecture, according to incumbent
politicians. Governments have responded by calling for
standards that would govern the media and prohibit what
officials say is slander and character assassination.
Critics of such measures argue that the region's vigorous
libel laws should be adequate protection for public figures
against any media excesses.


4. (U) A typical example of a government official threatening
to rein in the media can be found in Dominica. Shortly after
winning re-election in May 2005, Prime Minister Roosevelt
Skerrit criticized radio call-in programs that persisted in a
"campaign of tearing down, blackguarding and undermining" the
country through criticism of the Government. In response,
the PM proposed to strengthen the law to "stamp out
lawlessness and irresponsible behavior, calculated to do harm
to the image and viability of our country." Even in staid
Barbados, where political culture is more mature than in
smaller Caribbean countries, Prime Minister Owen Arthur
criticized in Parliament the nation's leading political radio

program for airing talk that desecrates the Sabbath.

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St. Lucia: Spreading False News a Crime
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5. (U) St. Lucia is, so far, the only Eastern Caribbean
country to have legislation that observers believe was passed
specifically to provide the Government with the legal means
to punish critics in the media. In 2003, the St. Lucia
Parliament added a prohibition against "spreading false news"
to the nation's criminal code, making it punishable by two
years' imprisonment to publish a "statement, tale or news
that...is false and that causes or is likely to cause injury
or mischief to a public interest." To date, the law has not
been used although it is frequently the topic of discussion
in the press.


6. (U) In 2004, when the false news legislation went into
effect, St. Lucia Prime Minister Kenny Anthony and other
officials publicly defended the law, known as Section 361, by
using the example of a newspaper knowingly publishing a false
account of a deadly disease arriving in St. Lucia, which
would ruin the nation's tourism industry. One Government
Minister claimed in Parliament that St. Lucia had already
seen such "instances of media terrorism" without offering any
examples. Because, however, the PM had complained on
numerous occasions that members of the media were engaged in
a disinformation campaign intended to bring down his
Government, many journalists believe that Section 361 is
intended to bully the media into being less critical. The
editor of the "St. Lucia Star," the nation's leading
newspaper, criticized the law in an editorial as "unjust" and
"ominous" legislation intended to protect incumbent
politicians and gag "an already diffident, frightened, barely
surviving local media."

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St. Vincent: Stifling the Media
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7. (U) The St. Vincent media have seen a steadily worsening
situation in which various media practitioners have been the
targets of attacks by Government officials. The nation's
typically raucous talk radio has come in for particular
criticism. In 2005, the Government successfully used an
obscure law to prosecute the nation's leading radio show host
for making statements "likely to cause public alarm" during
an opposition party meeting (ref C). After Government
critics turned up the level of invective on talk radio to
promote their views during the country's December 2005
election campaign, Government officials responded with calls
for legal media standards (ref A). In February 2006,
Minister of Information Selmon Walters complained, "At the
moment there are no standards. At the moment, there is no
regulation policy. Anybody can talk. People can say what
they want." The St. Vincent media responded critically, with
an editorial in "The News," the nation's leading newspaper,
calling the Government proposal "a dangerous precedent in
stifling the media."

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Crucifixion and Media Bashing
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8. (U) St. Vincent newspapers have also come in for official
criticism, including a recent incident in which Prime
Minister Ralph Gonsalves publicly excoriated the weekly
"Vincentian" for several editorials critical of the
Government's handling of crime. The editor, Ashford Peters,
responded with an editorial that appeared on April 14, Good
Friday, titled "The Agony of Crucifixion and Media Bashing,"
comparing the abused St. Vincent press to Christ. The editor
wrote, among other things, that the "crown of thorns placed
on Jesus' head reminds us of the mockery, and disrespect by
some, and the unrelenting pressures placed on some
journalists and media practitioners to resist compromise as
we struggle to preserve press freedom and adhere to the
ethics of the profession." Within two weeks, the newspaper's
management sacked the editor, an action decried by an ad hoc
committee of journalists as sending a "wrong and chilling
signal to media workers" as the dismissal came so soon after
the PM criticized the editor. These and other journalists
are currently forming an organization to represent media
workers in St. Vincent.


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Grenada: Police Detain Newspaper Editor
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9. (U) Grenada has what could be considered the most
troubling record of Government attempts to intimidate
journalists. In March, the police detained and questioned
George Worme, editor of "Grenada Today," one of the island's
four weekly newspapers, in connection with a letter published
in the paper that was the subject of a criminal libel suit.
The letter to the editor was critical of an individual
involved in the Government's ongoing, controversial effort to
remove from Parliament a leading opposition member for having
dual Grenadian/Canadian citizenship. The President of the
Grenada Bar Association complained that the editor's
detention was a blatant Government "attack on the freedom of
the press." The Media Workers Association of Grenada said
the action was "designed to pressure the media" and
criticized the Government for a pattern of media
intimidation.

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Prime Minister Threatens Journalist
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10. (U) The Government of Grenada, and Prime Minister Keith
Mitchell in particular, came in for similar criticism in 2004
when the police detained journalist Leroy Noel for
questioning about his sources for articles on corruption
charges made against the PM. Just prior to Noel's detention,
the Government threatened to take legal action against any
local media outlet that reprinted the corruption charges,
which first appeared on a U.S.-based website (ref B). PM
Mitchell also reportedly threatened Noel personally after the
journalist began reporting on the story. These incidents
drew criticism from several NGOs, including the International
Press Institute and the Committee to Protect Journalists.

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Anti-Media Epidemic
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11. (U) An anti-media epidemic is sweeping the region,
according to Wesley Gibbons, former President of the
Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM),who complained
in 2005 that "oppressive media laws" are "hovering" over the
region and journalists increasingly face criminal charges
when civil libel laws are available. The ACM has
acknowledged the deficiencies of regional media, particularly
a shortage of media workers with professional training and
talk radio's lack of journalistic integrity, but the NGO has
also recognized talk radio as a democratizing force that has
given the region's previously marginalized people an
opportunity to voice their opinions. In May 2006, an ACM
statement marking World Press Freedom Day opined that
governments continue to greet an increasingly dynamic
Caribbean media with "regulatory sanction and censorship."
Similar criticism of regional governments was offered by the
International Press Institute (IPI),a spokesman for which
complained in March that increasing attempts to "stifle
critical coverage" in the press was a "serious threat to
freedom of expression and opinion in the Caribbean." The IPI
has detailed incidents of Caribbean governments seeking to
intimidate the press in its annual World Press Freedom Review.

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Comment
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12. (C/NOFORN) The ongoing attempts by Governments and
individual politicians to intimidate the press into being
less critical and more compliant is characteristic of Eastern
Caribbean political culture. Despite inheriting democratic
traditions from their former colonial master, these
small-island states remain in many ways politically immature.
They are independent nations in which prime ministers and
other officials are given considerable power and the
trappings of full state sovereignty over what are in reality
extraordinarily small communities, smaller than most American
municipalities. Prime ministers oversee all aspects of
governance from foreign affairs down to paving the streets;
there are no intermediaries such as local governments. This
degree of control often results in politicians developing
what one local observer has called "a little god mentality,"

in which a prime minister personifies the nation and
criticism of individual leaders and their policies is taken
as disloyalty to the state. As in the previously mentioned
case of Dominica, criticism of the PM and his Government was
seen as a threat to the "viability of our country."


13. (C/NOFORN) Such a political culture could endure in
societies with limited media. The Eastern Caribbean
countries traditionally had only a handful of weekly
newspapers and one state-run radio and television station on
each island. The past decade has witnessed, however, an
increase in media outlets, particularly radio stations. The
response from governments has been to embrace the new media
only as far as they could manipulate them. Local newspapers
that rely on considerable government advertising can be kept
relatively docile. When newspapers get too critical or
inquisitive, editors and journalists may be sued for libel
or, in extreme circumstances, arrested. Radio, however,
which relies on commercial advertising, is more difficult to
control. Thus, prime ministers and other officials who are
uncomfortable with daily, sustained disapproval threaten the
critical media with new laws that they believe will rein them
in.


14. (C/NOFORN) Many regional media outlets exacerbate this
antagonism by exhibiting an egregious lack of professional
standards. Media organizations see themselves as labor
unions rather then institutions that define and uphold
professional standards as they do in the UK; nor do the
Eastern Caribbean media maintain shared but
non-institutionalized professional standards as in the U.S.
Strong investigative and analytical reporting skills, though
badly needed in the region, are scarce. Sources are rarely
checked or verified, and often little or no distinction is
made between allegations, exaggeration, and fact. Because
Caribbean communities are so small, criticism on either side
can quickly degenerate into personal attacks. This
lamentable concurrence of factors makes it easier for
politicians to justify their criticism of the press and calls
to legislate media standards.
KRAMER