I wonder how much money Browne got from DeNiro and why this kind of thing hasn't happened in Puerto Rico. They don't even have a communal rule to get in the way. Do no rich businessmen want to build there?Earlier this month, with almost no international news coverage and with the majority of Barbudans still displaced from the storm, an amendment [...] was quietly pushed through the Senate of Antigua and Barbuda — a body dominated by politicians from the wealthier and more populous island of Antigua. If the amendment stands, a tradition of communal land rights that dates back to the abolition of slavery in 1834 — and which has protected Barbuda as a rare beacon of sustainable development in the Caribbean — will be extinguished.
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Up until the recent changes, land in Barbuda was held in common: It could not be bought or sold, and though developers could lease land for 50 years, their projects needed to win the consent of a majority of Barbudans. It was a rare example of participatory economic planning and successful land redistribution to freed slaves and their descendants.
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[Many Barbudans are] accusing Robert De Niro of being part of a backroom effort to exploit [last summer's hurricane Irma] to fundamentally change the island’s communal land ownership law in the interest of developers.
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In 2014, the actor partnered with the Australian billionaire [...] James Packer [...] to develop an exclusive hotel there.
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But there were limits to how big and how lavish the resort could be. That’s because Barbuda’s unique and democratic collective land ownership structure keeps the pace of development in check.
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Months before the Barbudan approval process could even begin, [the Antigua-based government of Prime Minister Gaston Browne] signed a memorandum of agreement with the actor, promising a 198-year lease of 555 acres for just $6.2 million, plus an array of tax benefits. He went further, dubbing De Niro an official “economic envoy” of Antigua and Barbuda.
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[H]is government went so far as to pass the Paradise Found Act, specially designed to approve De Niro’s project [of that name] and bypass the Barbuda Land Act with its collective approval requirements. Just for Paradise Found, the act explicitly nullifies the community approval sections of the Barbuda Land Act. It also grants the project permission to build its own television service, renewable energy, and desalinization plants, “for the sole purpose of the Project,” as well as infrastructure for “large and super yachts” and a helipad.
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[B]uried in Browne’s memorandum of agreement with De Niro [is] a troubling clause, stating that should Barbudan land become available to own privately at any point in the future, the government of Antigua and Barbuda would “facilitate the immediate conversion” of leased Barbudan land to private title.
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At the time, changing the law didn’t seem politically feasible. But then came Hurricane Irma — and those troublesome Barbudans were literally swept out of the way.
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As Tim George, a U.K. citizen whose mother is Barbudan, observed weeks after the storm, “An entire population is now housed in temporary shelter, reliant on the authorities for everything, and restricted in their access to their homes. By allowing an opportunistic Antiguan government the momentum to force this change past a traumatised community in its most vulnerable moment, the core freedom secured by those emancipated from slavery, successfully defended and passed down through generations, is under serious threat.”
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To this day, Barbuda remains without power or running water. Only around 400 people have returned, in part because the schools have not reopened, leaving families with children stuck in Antigua, many still in temporary shelters. Although a state of emergency expired in October, the military never left.
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It was in this context that, on December 12, a sweeping 13-page “amendment” to the hard-won Barbuda Land Act was officially introduced in Antigua and Barbuda’s House of Representatives. It includes changes that entirely reverse the meaning of the law. In the amendment, a clause declaring Barbuda “owned in common by the people of Barbuda” was deleted and replaced. “The fundamental purpose of the Act is to grant to Barbudans the right to purchase the [land],” the amended act reads.
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To add salt to the wound, the amendment also altered the definition of a Barbudan, eliminating those whose grandparents lived on the island.
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Significantly, a section titled “Leases for major development” states that while investors can apply to the Barbuda Council for leases, the Cabinet of Antigua and Barbuda can also grant leases on its own, after mere “consultation” with the Barbuda Council — and there is no mention whatsoever of the Barbudan population voting or participating in decisions to grant leases, effectively erasing their participatory democracy.
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To many outsiders, the role De Niro played in this period seemed benign, if not downright heroic. In the weeks after Irma hit, he appeared at the United Nations and on cable news, pledging to personally help with Barbuda’s reconstruction and urging governments and international agencies to pony up aid and stand with the “vulnerable.” In interviews, De Niro did mention that he had a hotel project in development on the island.
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Barbudans are fighting back, challenging the legality of the amendment to the Barbuda Land Act.
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Members of the political party Barbuda People’s Movement sued the project, arguing that the referendum approving it illegally allowed non-Barbudans to vote and failed to anonymize the ballots.
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Members of Barbuda Silent No More filed a request for an injunction, calling the amendment illegal. “The law in Antigua and Barbuda specifically states that the Barbuda Land Act and the communal land rights it protects cannot be changed without the consent of the Barbudan people,” attorney Leslie Thomas said in a statement. But a judge denied the injunction, and this month, the amendment to the land law was approved — it now awaits only the signature of the governor general.
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In her letter sent to De Niro’s office last week, the marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson wrote: “If Mr. De Niro expresses support for Barbudans’ will to maintain their communal land ownership, that could make all the difference, and his resort project could still proceed, just requiring the consent of the community. If he does not speak up, he could become the next iconic face of a white man increasing his personal wealth on the backs of people of color.”
The Intercept
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
UPDATE 1/26: Ask and ye shall receive.
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