Institute For Social Development

THE CARIBBEAN AT A CROSSROAD

Across the Caribbean, crime has moved from being a social concern to a defining economic and political risk. Nowhere is this more evident than in Trinidad and Tobago, where spiralling gang violence, firearm proliferation, and declining public confidence have forced policymakers to search urgently for workable solutions. Increasingly, that search has turned to regional case studies—most notably Jamaica, and to a lesser extent Barbados—not as perfect models, but as evidence that sustained, state-led intervention can shift even deeply entrenched patterns of violence.

Jamaica’s recent experience marks a historic inflection point. Prime Minister Dr. the Most Honourable Andrew Holness has announced a 50 percent reduction in murders compared to the same period last year, following earlier declines of 8 percent in 2023 and 19 percent in 2024. This trajectory matters not simply because lives are being saved, but because it reframes violence as an economic variable rather than an abstract moral failing. As Holness made clear at the Regional Investments and Capital Markets Conference, no serious discussion of growth, productivity, or investment can occur without confronting public safety as a national economic risk.

The Jamaican case is instructive precisely because it rejects quick fixes. Under Plan Secure Jamaica, the state committed approximately J$90 billion to national security and institutional capacity, combining intelligence-led policing, legislative reform, targeted states of emergency, and social interventions. The approach has been, in Holness’s words, “clinical, strategic, deliberate, and sustained.” This matters for Trinidad, where crime policy often oscillates between reactive crackdowns and rhetorical hand-wringing, with little long-term coherence. Jamaica demonstrates that violence reduction is not accidental; it is the outcome of political will, fiscal commitment, and institutional alignment.

Barbados offers a complementary, if quieter, lesson. While not facing crime at Trinidad’s scale, Barbados has long treated public safety as integral to national branding, tourism confidence, and social stability. Strong gun control, swift judicial processes, and community-based prevention have ensured that violence never becomes normalized. For Trinidad, this underscores a critical point: once criminality embeds itself into daily life and political calculations, reversing it becomes exponentially harder and more expensive.

The Trinidadian debate now unfolding—around emergency powers, firearm penalties, military involvement in policing, and justice reform—mirrors conversations Jamaica had a decade ago. The Jamaican experience shows that such measures are most effective when embedded in a broader national consensus that violence is unacceptable and economically self-defeating. Holness’s call for a unified national stance is especially relevant. Crime cannot be defeated if activists, politicians, and interest groups pull in opposite directions while criminals exploit the gaps.

Ultimately, Jamaica’s progress does not suggest a simple template for replication. Context matters. However, it does shatter the fatalistic belief—common in Trinidad—that high murder rates are inevitable. The lesson is not about authoritarianism or softness, but about seriousness. If Trinidad truly wishes to stabilize its society and economy, it must decide, as Jamaica has, that violence is no longer a tolerable cost of doing business.:

IS THE PRIME MINISTER OF TRINIDAD RIGHT AND OTHERS OUT OF TOUCH.
The recent election in Tobago has sent a powerful and unexpected signal across the Caribbean. In a decisive outcome, the governing party of Trinidad and Tobago, led by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, swept every seat in Tobago, defeating the long-dominant opposition PNM on its traditional stronghold.

This result has not only reshaped Tobago’s political landscape but has also muted a chorus of critics across the region—particularly among left-leaning commentators, including voices in Jamaica—who had accused the Prime Minister of betrayal, intolerance, or even racial bias. The people on the ground, however, told a very different story at the ballot box.

For months, Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar has faced intense criticism for a series of policy positions taken amid growing regional instability. Nowhere is this instability more pronounced than in neighbouring Venezuela, whose ongoing crisis has driven a steady influx of migrants into Trinidad and Tobago. Alongside this humanitarian challenge has come a sharp rise in transnational crime, drug trafficking, and gang violence—trends the Prime Minister has openly acknowledged and warned about.

Her assertion that Trinidad is being inundated with drugs, fuelling an alarming murder rate and straining public services, has been dismissed by some regional critics as fear-mongering or populist rhetoric. Yet the Tobago election result suggests that many citizens see her stance not as divisive, but as realistic.

Equally controversial was Trinidad and Tobago’s decision to cooperate with the United States by allowing the use of its airspace or airport facilities as part of broader regional security arrangements. In online discourse, this move was framed by critics as capitulation to foreign interests.

However, voters in Tobago—an island that is majority Black and often invoked symbolically by those same critics—delivered a landslide endorsement of the Prime Minister’s party. In doing so, they undermined the narrative that her policies are rooted in racial animus or elite detachment.

Elections are, at their core, judgments on performance and trust. The fact that Persad-Bissessar’s party not only secured power in Trinidad but went on to win emphatically in Tobago indicates genuine popular support rather than manufactured consent. Tobago’s voters were not oblivious to regional commentary; they simply weighed it against their lived experience. Their choice suggests a prioritisation of security, border control, and effective governance over ideological posturing.

The broader implication is uncomfortable for many commentators across the Caribbean. It raises the possibility that sections of the regional intelligentsia and social media class are out of sync with public sentiment. While rhetoric about solidarity, identity, and moral positioning resonates online, voters appear more concerned with tangible outcomes: reduced crime, controlled borders, and governments willing to make difficult decisions in uncertain times.

These are complex questions with no easy answers. But Tobago’s election result is clear evidence that many Caribbean citizens are demanding action and performance, not slogans. In that sense, the Prime Minister of Trinidad may not be isolated or wrong. It may be that others—loud, confident, and far removed from the pressures of daily life—are simply out of touch with the reality on the ground.

Barbados 2026: Debt Discipline, Social Strain, and the Test of Political Dominance

Barbados’ decision to return to the polls in 2026—during the fourth year of a five-year mandate originally set to expire in 2027—comes at a moment of transition rather than triumph. While constitutionally sound, the early election reflects a changing political and social environment, one markedly different from the circumstances that produced the Barbados Labour Party’s (BLP) unprecedented clean sweeps of Parliament in the last two elections.

The Barbados of 2026 is a country that has regained international credibility but is grappling with domestic strain.

Fiscal Repair and Its Limits

On paper, the government’s fiscal performance under Prime Minister Mia Mottley has been significant. As of February 2025, Barbados’ debt-to-GDP ratio stood at approximately 101.1%, a sharp reduction from the unsustainable levels that once threatened economic collapse. The administration has committed to a long-term target of reducing that figure to 60% by 2035, signaling discipline, credibility, and alignment with international best practice.

These achievements have earned praise from multilateral institutions and global partners and have positioned Barbados as a model for debt restructuring among small developing states. However, debt reduction at the macro level has come with constraints. Fiscal consolidation, by its nature, limits expansive social spending, and for many Barbadians, the benefits of stabilization have yet to be felt in everyday life.

The tension between economic repair and social relief now sits at the heart of the political debate.

Cost of Living and the Human Impact

Few issues weigh more heavily on the electorate than the cost-of-living crisis, which has persisted into 2025 and beyond. Evidence of its social toll is stark. The Barnardos Cost of Living – Impact on Children 2025 report paints a troubling picture of household stress:

One in five families reported cutting back on or going without heating and electricity.

40% of parents said they had borrowed money to provide essentials for their children.

78% of parents stated that cost-of-living pressures negatively affected their children.

19% said the impact was significant, with consequences for well-being, development, and future opportunity.

These figures underscore a critical political reality: economic recovery measured by debt ratios and reserves does not automatically translate into social security. When families struggle to meet basic needs, patience with fiscal explanations wears thin, regardless of international applause.

Crime and Public Anxiety

Alongside economic pressures, crime has emerged as a growing concern, with figures nearing record highs and vehicle thefts surging. In a small society like Barbados, crime trends carry psychological weight disproportionate to absolute numbers. Rising insecurity—real or perceived—feeds a sense that social order is under strain.

Crime, like cost of living, is an issue that voters tend to associate directly with governance, even when structural or regional factors play a role. If the public begins to feel unsafe, confidence in leadership can erode quickly.

From Political Monopoly to Contestation

Politically, Barbados is no longer operating under the extraordinary circumstances of a one-party Parliament. Defections from within the BLP have produced an official opposition drawn from the governing party itself, a development that signals internal dissatisfaction and reintroduces parliamentary contestation.

This opposition carries a unique credibility: it is composed of former insiders familiar with policy constraints and Cabinet dynamics. While still organizationally weaker than the BLP, its existence alters the electoral landscape. The 2026 election is no longer a plebiscite on leadership alone but a genuine contest about governance, accountability, and balance of power.

Regional and Geopolitical Pressures

Barbados’ domestic challenges unfold against a complex regional backdrop. Caribbean economies are contending with slowing growth, climate vulnerability, and geopolitical tension. The United States’ actions toward Venezuela have divided regional opinion, with Trinidad and Tobago particularly concerned about declining energy revenues and migration pressures from Venezuela.

While Barbados is less directly exposed, regional instability affects tourism, trade, and diplomatic cohesion. Prime Minister Mottley’s international profile—especially on climate finance, debt reform, and global justice—has elevated Barbados’ voice globally, but it also raises expectations at home.

Popular Leader, Narrowing Margin

Mia Mottley remains one of the Caribbean’s most respected leaders internationally, admired for her clarity, competence, and moral authority on global issues. Domestically, she retains significant personal popularity and the advantage of incumbency.

Yet popularity is no longer absolute. Rising living costs, crime concerns, social strain on families, and internal party fractures suggest that the era of unquestioned political dominance may be ending.

A complete change of government in 2026 appears unlikely. The BLP remains the best-organized political force, and the opposition, while emerging, is not yet a fully consolidated alternative. However, another total parliamentary sweep is far from assured.

Conclusion: A Likely Win, but Not a Blank Cheque

The most probable outcome of the 2026 election is a BLP victory with a reduced majority, restoring parliamentary opposition and signaling voter desire for greater accountability rather than wholesale rejection. Such an outcome would mirror regional patterns seen elsewhere, including in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, where long-serving leaders faced narrowing margins despite strong records.

Barbados’ electorate appears poised not to dismantle the current order, but to rebalance it—affirming economic stewardship while demanding deeper attention to crime, cost of living, and social protection.

In that sense, the election is less about whether Mia Mottley wins again, and more about whether Barbadians choose to place limits on power in the hope of securing a more inclusive and responsive democracy.

Put aside the emotional rhetoric, the romance of regional integration, and the familiar left-leaning public posturing. The seminal question is far more uncomfortable and far more urgent: what is actually happening to Trinidad and Tobago?

Trinidad is no longer merely underperforming; it is structurally cornered. The country is effectively broke—not because it lacks natural endowment, but because decades of policy failure, vanity projects, and an almost total dependence on the energy sector have hollowed out its economic base. What once made Trinidad wealthy has now become its greatest liability.

After more than a century, Trinidad’s oil industry has crossed a critical threshold from asset to burden. The cost of operating mature, onshore and near-shore oil fields now exceeds the revenue they generate. Successive governments failed to modernize the industry, failed to diversify the economy, and failed to anticipate competition from new producers. Trinidad built a country around energy rents and never planned for their decline.

The rise of Guyana has exposed this weakness mercilessly. Guyana enjoys easily accessible offshore oil and gas, lower extraction costs, and vast new reserves. Trinidad, by contrast, faces depleted fields, high production costs, and declining output. The closure of the refinery was not ideological or political—it was a tacit admission that the existing energy model is no longer viable.

Even more telling is how dramatically the regional economic hierarchy has shifted. Jamaica—long portrayed as the weaker, non-energy economy—now holds higher Net International Reserves (NIR) than Trinidad and Tobago. This alone should shatter lingering myths about Trinidad’s economic superiority. A country with oil and gas now has less external financial cushioning than a country with none.

The irony deepens. Jamaica, which does not produce oil, is currently exporting refined petroleum products and bunker gas to Trinidad. This is not a symbolic reversal; it is a structural indictment. Trinidad, once the region’s energy hub, now depends on refined products processed elsewhere—an extraordinary outcome for a petro-state.

Trade and capital flows further underline Trinidad’s diminished position. More Jamaican businesses now own assets and operations in Trinidad than the reverse, reflecting a shift in entrepreneurial confidence and financial strength. Meanwhile, over 60,000 Trinidadians travel to Jamaica annually, not only for leisure but increasingly for medical services, education, and business—another quiet signal of changing regional gravity.

Perhaps most damning of all, Jamaica has become Trinidad’s largest export market. This means Trinidad’s economic health is now partially tethered to a country it once subsidized through energy concessions and preferential arrangements. The former benefactor now relies on the former recipient to absorb its exports.

Against this backdrop, the notion that Trinidad can afford sentimental regionalism collapses entirely.
Why the New Prime Minister Is Effectively Anti-CARICOM
The new Prime Minister’s posture toward CARICOM is not ideological defiance; it is economic triage driven by stark realities.

CARICOM Cannot Solve Trinidad’s Revenue Crisis
Regional solidarity does not replenish foreign reserves, stabilize the currency, or fund government operations. Trinidad’s crisis is fiscal and structural, not diplomatic.

Energy Survival Trumps Regional Optics
Trinidad’s only realistic path to renewed energy revenue lies in repurposing its refinery to process natural gas. But the gas must come from Venezuela. CARICOM offers no alternative supply, and Guyana is a competitor, not a partner.

From Regional Anchor to Regional Dependent
Trinidad can no longer carry the financial or energy burden of regional leadership. With Jamaica holding higher reserves and exporting refined fuel, the old hierarchy has collapsed.

Fear of Jamaica-Style Collapse—Ironically Learned Too Late
Trinidad’s leadership sees echoes of Jamaica’s 1970s decline: falling revenues, ideological rigidity, and prolonged stagnation. The difference is that Jamaica adapted. Trinidad delayed.

Domestic Political Reality
Trinidadians are not voting on CARICOM resolutions; they are voting on jobs, inflation, energy prices, and fiscal stability. Any leader who prioritizes regional sentiment over national survival risks political extinction.

CARICOM as Constraint Rather Than Catalyst
In its current form, CARICOM does not enhance Trinidad’s competitiveness, does not unlock new capital, and does not replace lost hydrocarbon rents. From Port of Spain’s perspective, it increasingly looks like an obligation without payoff.

The new Prime Minister faces a brutal choice: secure new sources of income or preside over managed decline. That choice inevitably elevates national interest above regional consensus.
Trinidad is confronting the end of an era. The energy rents that once financed leadership, generosity, and regional ambition are gone. What remains is a country forced to choose pragmatism over posture.

The uncomfortable truth is this: a country that cannot generate revenue cannot lead a region. Until Trinidad rebuilds its economic base, CARICOM unity will remain a talking point rather than a strategy—and survival will trump solidarity every time.

Much has been made of Jamaica’s inclusion on the list of countries affected by the United States’ decision to pause the issuance of certain visas under President Donald Trump. Predictably, the announcement has triggered speculation, anxiety, and a wave of derision—particularly from liberal and left-leaning commentators—toward Jamaica’s pragmatic and measured approach to maintaining a functional relationship with Washington. Yet much of this commentary reveals less insight than emotion, and more ideology than historical understanding.

The central lesson is a simple one: this is not the world’s first encounter with Donald Trump. During his initial term, Trump made abundantly clear the kind of leadership he brings to international relations—transactional, interest-driven, and largely indifferent to sentimentality or historical goodwill. Any country with a serious grasp of recent history would have learned how to engage such a leader: not through moral grandstanding or public outrage, but through realism, preparation, and strategic restraint.

Indeed, even America’s closest allies—countries bound by shared values, longstanding friendships, and deep institutional ties—have discovered that under Trump, no relationship is immune from recalibration. Canada and major European partners have learned, sometimes painfully, that alliances once assumed to be permanent can no longer be taken for granted. In this context, it would be naïve to believe that Jamaica, a small developing state, could somehow insulate itself from these global shifts through rhetoric alone.

Under Trump, American foreign policy is unapologetically transactional. Power is exercised openly, leverage is used bluntly, and decisions are framed less around diplomacy than around perceived national advantage. A pragmatic observer would therefore neither be shocked nor indignant at the visa pause. What is truly laughable, however, is the daily spectacle of ideological hand-wringing—commentary that offers outrage in place of analysis and slogans instead of strategy.

Two concrete factors help explain Jamaica’s inclusion on the list. The first is well documented: visa overstay rates. Data consistently show that Jamaicans who travel to the United States are among those most likely to overstay their visas. While this reality is uncomfortable, it is not imaginary, nor is it uniquely Jamaican. From the perspective of a Trump administration focused on immigration control, such statistics inevitably carry weight, regardless of diplomatic niceties.

The second, and arguably more significant factor, is Jamaica’s evolving relationship with China. Over the past decade, China has become a visible and influential partner in Jamaica’s development—financing and constructing highways, rehabilitating road networks, expanding housing stock, and now proposing to revive the island’s long-dormant railway system. These projects are not abstract symbols; they represent real infrastructure, real growth, and real alternatives in a world where capital is fiercely competitive.

What is often left unsaid is that many of the countries facing similar visa pauses share a common feature: a substantial Chinese presence in their development landscape. As the United States finds itself increasingly sidelined in major infrastructure projects across the Global South, it has responded not only with rhetoric but with pressure. In this light, the visa pause appears less as an isolated immigration measure and more as a signal—an assertion of influence in an era of intensifying geopolitical competition.

The appropriate response for Jamaica is neither panic nor posturing. Rather, it is to stay the course: to continue diversifying its trading relationships, expanding its economic partnerships, and building an economy resilient enough to give Jamaicans genuine reasons to remain at home. A peaceful, prosperous, and opportunity-rich Jamaica is the most effective long-term answer to migration pressures and external leverage alike.

In a world defined by shifting power and hard choices, realism—not sentiment—is the currency of survival. Jamaica would do well to remember that.

Jamaica’s Economic Crisis: Policy Amplification, Debt, and the Legacy of Structural Fragility

Jamaica’s modern economic crisis is best understood not as the product of a single decade or ideology, but as the cumulative outcome of policy responses that amplified external shocks and weakened economic resilience over time. While global forces such as oil price shocks and international recessions played a significant role in shaping Jamaica’s economic environment, domestic policy choices—particularly during periods of People’s National Party (PNP) governance—deepened contraction, accelerated capital flight, and eroded productive capacity. By the end of the 1970s, Jamaica had suffered an estimated cumulative real GDP loss of approximately 30 percent relative to trend, leaving the economy structurally impaired as it entered the 1980s.

Jamaica had recorded a negative balance on its current account every year since 1963, largely due to chronic trade deficits. However, the 1970s marked a decisive deterioration. Expansionary fiscal policy, combined with declining export performance and rising import costs following the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979, pushed the economy into a balance-of-payments crisis. These shocks were exogenous, but their impact was magnified by domestic policy uncertainty, strained relations between the state and private capital, and rapidly rising public expenditure without commensurate increases in productive output. Investor confidence weakened, capital exited the economy at an accelerated pace, and professional emigration intensified, resulting in a pronounced brain drain that undermined long-term growth potential.

By the time the 1980s began, Jamaica’s economy was characterized by depleted domestic savings, weakened export sectors, and limited access to private capital. In this context, borrowing was not an ideological preference but a structural necessity. With insufficient export earnings to finance imports and no viable domestic credit market to support recovery, the government had little alternative but to rely on external financing to stabilize the economy and restart growth. Consequently, balance-of-payments shortfalls in the late 1970s and 1980s were increasingly financed through concessional loans from multilateral and bilateral institutions, with the International Monetary Fund emerging as the principal source of support.

During the early 1980s, Jamaica’s largest deficits were concentrated in the merchandise trade account. Trade liberalization coincided with depressed export prices, particularly in bauxite, which inflicted severe damage on foreign exchange earnings and the broader economy. Although the services account gradually improved—driven mainly by tourism—these gains were offset by substantial investment income repatriated abroad. Net transfers remained positive but insufficient to counterbalance structural trade weaknesses. Capital account surpluses during this period were overwhelmingly the result of official flows rather than private investment, with official financing accounting for more than 90 percent of capital account surpluses in the early 1980s. Net international reserves continued to decline, underscoring the fragility of recovery.

Jamaica’s rapidly expanding debt stock did not originate in the 1980s but was rooted in the fiscal and external imbalances of the 1970s. From 1980 to 1986, total public debt doubled, peaking at approximately US$3.5 billion and exceeding 150 percent of GDP by 1983. Debt servicing absorbed more than 40 percent of government expenditure by the mid-1980s and reached levels unmatched by most Latin American economies relative to export earnings. While debt rescheduling agreements in 1987 provided temporary relief, they did not resolve the underlying structural weaknesses of the economy.

The pattern of economic fragility resurfaced in the 1990s, when Jamaica experienced an additional estimated cumulative GDP loss of roughly 40 percent relative to trend, largely due to financial sector collapse and delayed corrective action. Although the global and domestic contexts differed from the 1970s, both periods shared institutional weaknesses in risk management, regulatory oversight, and confidence preservation. Notably, both major episodes of prolonged economic contraction occurred under PNP administrations, reflecting recurring structural vulnerabilities rather than identical policy frameworks.

In sum, Jamaica’s economic trajectory illustrates how external shocks, when met with miscalibrated domestic responses, can produce lasting damage. Borrowing in the 1980s was a constrained response to an economy already destabilized by earlier policy choices. The enduring lesson is not ideological but institutional: economic resilience depends on maintaining confidence, managing expectations, and aligning fiscal ambition with productive capacity.

Maroons and the Myth of Indigenous Assimilation in Jamaica

The argument that Jamaica’s Indigenous peoples were not extinguished but merely assimilated into Maroon communities is often presented as a convenient corrective to the uncomfortable reality of near-total Indigenous destruction. However, when examined critically—and especially when compared with Suriname—this claim collapses under historical, demographic, and cultural scrutiny. The enduring presence of First Peoples in Suriname alongside distinct Maroon societies provides a powerful refutation of the Jamaican “get-out” argument that extinction can be explained away by assimilation.

Suriname demonstrates a model of colonial survival fundamentally different from Jamaica’s. There, Indigenous peoples—such as the Lokono and Kaliña—persisted as identifiable communities well into the modern era, existing in parallel with Maroon groups formed by escaped Africans. These societies developed separately, with their own territories, leadership structures, and cultural continuities. Their coexistence proves an essential point: Maroon formation did not require or presume the absorption of Indigenous populations. Where Indigenous peoples survived in viable numbers, they remained distinct. The Surinamese case therefore exposes the logical flaw in the Jamaican claim that Maroon communities somehow subsumed Indigenous peoples entirely.

Turning to Jamaica, the historical record shows a dramatically different demographic reality. By 1655, when the English captured the island from Spain, the Indigenous Taíno population had already been reduced to a negligible remnant through disease, enslavement, forced relocation, and systematic violence. Spanish colonial practices had devastated Indigenous society to such an extent that there was no substantial population left to sustain cultural reproduction, let alone to meaningfully shape emerging Maroon communities. Assimilation, in this context, becomes less an explanation and more an evasion.

The Maroons themselves emerged primarily from Africans who escaped Spanish and later British enslavement. Their social organization, military tactics, spiritual practices, and languages overwhelmingly reflect West and Central African origins. While Maroon societies undoubtedly adapted to the Jamaican landscape—learning bushcraft, medicinal plant use, and guerrilla survival—this ecological knowledge does not equate to ethnic or cultural absorption of Indigenous peoples. Knowledge transfer can occur without demographic or cultural fusion, especially when one group has already been reduced to near extinction.

Moreover, Maroon identity in Jamaica has always been grounded in a narrative of African resistance, not Indigenous continuity. The treaties of 1739–1740, which recognized Maroon autonomy, were negotiated explicitly with African-descended communities who defined themselves in opposition to plantation slavery. There is no contemporaneous evidence from these treaties, from British colonial correspondence, or from Maroon oral tradition suggesting that they viewed themselves as custodians or continuations of Indigenous Jamaican identity. To retroactively impose such a role onto the Maroons is to instrumentalize them in service of a modern discomfort with extinction.

The assimilation argument also fails when assessed comparatively. If Indigenous absorption into Maroon communities were a generalizable pattern, we would expect to see it replicated across the Americas. Yet Suriname, Guyana, parts of Brazil, and even Central America show the opposite: where Indigenous peoples survived, they remained visible as Indigenous peoples. Jamaica stands out precisely because the Indigenous population did not survive in meaningful numbers. Exceptional destruction, not exceptional assimilation, explains the outcome.

Ultimately, the claim that Jamaica’s Indigenous peoples live on through the Maroons functions as a moral and political escape hatch. It allows society to soften the brutality of colonial history by substituting extinction with transformation. But history is not improved by euphemism. The Suriname comparison makes clear that survival leaves traces—demographic, cultural, institutional—and Jamaica lacks these markers in relation to its Indigenous past.

Acknowledging this does not diminish the Maroons. On the contrary, it respects their true history as African-descended freedom fighters who carved out sovereignty under extreme conditions. It also honors the Indigenous peoples of Jamaica by refusing to erase their destruction through convenient but unsupported narratives of assimilation. In this sense, the enduring presence of First Peoples in Suriname stands as a quiet but decisive indictment of the Jamaican “get-out” argument—and a reminder that historical honesty matters, even when it is uncomfortable.