Fourteen years ago, Douglas W. Payne of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and author of "Storm Watch: Democracy in the Caribbean", publicly exposed the "Failings of Governance in Antigua & Barbuda".
These included a lack of press freedom, electoral irregularity and manipulation of the judicial system.
Despite the hopes of many people and millions of dollars of public money spent by US Aid, IMF, World Bank, EU, OPIC and others, the Government of Antigua & Barbuda sadly has continued to fail its own people and those who have attempted to help with debt forgiveness, aid and investment monies.
So much for the Government in the Sunshine that never materialised and which, with the longstanding manipulation of the legal process, suppression of the press and its latest abuse of the electoral system has taken Antigua further down to a new level of unbridled corruption and Darkness.
One of the darkest chapters in Antigua & Barbuda's recent murky history was the criminal cloak that R. Allen Stanford threw over the country with what proved to be one of the largest Ponzi frauds and biggest bank failures in contemporary history.
It has not escaped the notice of many that the Financial Regulator at the helm of the local FSRC during the Stanford era, indicted by a US Court for complicity in the Stanford affair, has not yet been extradited to the U.S.
Still in Antigua, he is a living testament to the Antiguan Government's active participation in the affair, reinforced by the reasons given for his relative freedom: Sir Allen Stanford, the man with whom he was doing business, the man Antigua knighted, did not break any Antiguan laws.
Time does have a habit of catching up. Many thought that Stanford was untouchable.
He was not.
Some think the Stanford affair has ended. It has not.
Another chapter is about to open.
The promised investigation of IHI has descended into farce. Given the players involved, that could have been anticipated years ago. However, the scandalous affair of the Wadadli Power Plant appears to have used the same template - illustrating what many observers have been referring to as "continuous government practicing politricks."
Nevertheless, "small country" and "heavily indebted poor country" have been the "cards of choice" in the woeful mantra heard locally from various ranking Ministers as an excuse for failure and abroad when they go begging.
However, neither its size nor its financial woes have stopped Antigua from creating a new version of eminent domain in its expropriation of the Half Moon Bay Resort, wickedly abusing its own legal system, pouring scorn on its Constitution and simply ignoring the repeated rulings of its Courts to compensate the dispossessed owners for the taking of their property.
Thankfully, individual investors and rating agencies have been alerted to the cardinal sins against internationally accepted precepts of democratic governance and good business practice which the Government of Antigua engages in with regularity and without shame. By all accounts, legitimate Foreign Direct Investment is all but gone from Antigua.
Unfortunately, though, publicly unelected international agencies continue to be duped by the playing of the "cards", which not only brings their own credibility into doubt but provides complicity. As with the European Commission, this implies that these institutions provide support to other to sustain their own very existence. Some would say this has been complicity in international money laundering on the very grandest scale.
Corruption feeds on corruption. The only way to reverse the effect of a Petri dish is to expose it.
This, the Government of Antigua & Barbuda is trying to stop, by renewed threats to press freedom. It will not succeed.
The Government of Antigua & Barbuda's dreadful treatment of Ian "Magic" Hughes is well documented and continues sufficiently to demonstrate real on-going suppression of press freedom, a foundation stone of democracy.
The latest and on-going persecution of Caribarena.com yet again proves that press suppression is not only alive and well but that it now encompasses the World Wide Web.
Having suffered numerous Denial of Service attacks, which are normally reserved for large institutions and national Internet Service Providers, the perpetrators hijacked its domain account and pointed the site to a 500 internal server error page to disable it.
Caribarena.com is convinced that the latest criminal activity is another strike back from the very people whose corrupt activities they were exposing. Unlike in most cases of domain hijacking, they have not been contacted with requests for money for the return of the site and so it is another attempt to muzzle the media.
Of course none of this is possible without corruption and malgovernance at the highest level.
Antigua & Barbuda thinks it is untouchable. It is not.
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