wat does the diasporan committee tink yaad owe dem

[X]

Re: wat does the diasporan committee tink yaad owe dem

Thanks Yuri.. guess there is a reasonable explanation why Jamaica "Diaspora's" website was last updated 7 years ago..

The headline news has the pic below with the following caption

<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="font-weight: bold">Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, The Hon. K.D. Knight </span>(center); State Minister Senator Delano Franklyn (left); and Chief Executive Officer of Grace Kennedy and Company Limited, Douglas Orane (right) pose with Delegates appointed to organise the next Diaspora Conference. </span>

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Yuri_</div><div class="ubbcode-body">http://www.jamaicandiaspora.org/index.html

Latest update - 2004 - if I'm reading this right.
</div></div>

[X]

Re: wat does the diasporan committee tink yaad owe dem

http://www.jamaicandiaspora.org/messages/index.html

according to the messages page on the website,
PJ Patterson is still the Prime Minister of Jamaica and Edward Seaga is the leader of the opposition.
Is this really the Jamaica Diaspora's website??!

[Tuff Gong]

Re: wat does the diasporan committee tink yaad owe dem

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: pleXxed</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Thanks Yuri.. guess there is a reasonable explanation why Jamaica &quot;Diaspora's&quot; website was last updated 7 years ago..

The headline news has the pic below with the following caption

<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="font-weight: bold">Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, The Hon. K.D. Knight </span>(center); State Minister Senator Delano Franklyn (left); and Chief Executive Officer of Grace Kennedy and Company Limited, Douglas Orane (right) pose with Delegates appointed to organise the next Diaspora Conference. </span>

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Yuri_</div><div class="ubbcode-body">http://www.jamaicandiaspora.org/index.html

Latest update - 2004 - if I'm reading this right.
</div></div> </div></div>

This is really ooollllllddd
I take forward the insult I made about <span style="font-weight: bold">CARICOM.</span>

[Tuff Gong]

Re: wat does the diasporan committee tink yaad owe dem

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: pleXxed</div><div class="ubbcode-body">http://www.jamaicandiaspora.org/messages/index.html

according to the messages page on the website,
PJ Patterson is still the Prime Minister of Jamaica and Edward Seaga is the leader of the opposition.
Is this really the Jamaica Diaspora's website??!


</div></div>

Maybe they started another one elsewhere, but if so they should at least endevour to remove the old one, especially since they have been in the news recently!

[David Mullings]

Re: wat does the diasporan committee tink yaad owe dem

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Tuff Gong</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
Six years now various GOJ has been actively courting the Diaspora....I am correct?

What is the position of the DBoard on:

Crime
The Justice System
Human Rights
FINSAC
The treatment of Don Crawford and Dr. Paul Chen Young
The fact that there are Dual Citizens still occupying Jamaica's Parliament and other High Offices?
The USA Cables leaked to WikiLeaks, that point to direct interference into Jamaica's local politics
Peter Phillips and the secret M.O.U.s
</div></div>

It seems that a number of members of this board do very little research and prefer to speak as if they know all the facts and have done said research.

Firstly, let's address the website.

A casual Google search for &quot;Jamaican diaspora&quot; would reveal websites such as:

http://www.jamaicandiaspora.gov.jm/diaspora/ -That is up-to-date and run by the Government of Jamaica.

http://www.jamaicandiaspora.org/ - Woefully out of date AND run by the Government of Jamaica

http://www.jadiasporafutureleaders.com/ - Run by the Future Leaders Caucus of the Jamaican Diaspora movement, no government control and up-to-date, including regular email communication.

http://jamaicadiasporaconnect.com/ - Run by the Jamaican Diaspora Institute based at UWI Mona and came out of the 2008 conference action items. Mainly controlled by the Government of Jamaica.

That gives you some food for thought and explains why we have been pushing to distance ourselves from the government. The movement and the board was never conceived to be controlled by any government.

Now to answer the questions quoted above:

To say that members of the board or even people in the movement have never taken any stance on any of those issues is naive at best, dishonest at worst.

In January 2010 in a presentation to the Joint Select Committee of Parliament, members of the advisory board spoke up about the impending Air Jamaica sale as may people had asked them to do.

Not long after they were reprimanded by members of the government for daring to speak up against a policy of the sitting government.

Each member of the board made presentations on (1) dual citizenship (2) overseas voting and (3) parliamentary representation for the diaspora. Not all the countries agreed and some were actually the opposite in terms of their presentations.

The diaspora is not monolithic.

A number of individuals have spoken out about human rights issues in Jamaica, including helping to fund NGOs, making representation in the USA and raising issues at conferences with government officials in the ministry of national security.

In terms of the Justice System there is an ongoing effort to work with the government to identify additional qualified legal draughtsmen in the diaspora to assist with the drafting of many of the new laws that currently have not been drafted due to the lack of enough such people in Jamaica.

The justice system has also been discussed at every single diaspora conference, including suggestions, volunteering and financial support offered.

Again, remembering that the diaspora is not monolithic, various views have been presented via the media at different times about different topics.

No one has issued a statement on the following:
- wikileaks
- FINSAC
- Chen Young or Crawford
- the MOUs (which were not that secret and in fact appeared in the media long before the enquiry)

That is because the advisory board REPRESENTS people who elected it and engage with it; the people it represents have not called for such representation to be made on their behalf.

We can share personal opinions but those are not opinions of the board and should never be presented as such.

I don't want to get into a debate about FINSAC but people who have read the various international reports on what happened know how much blame there is to go around so I don't expect such people in the diaspora to be complaining about treatment of Don Crawford or Chen Young.

I do expect them to complain about the terms some of the FINSAC debtors faced but as of yet not a single soul has asked me to speak up about that.

No one has asked me to make representation about the MOUs.

The GOJ has not been actively courting the diaspora for 6 years. It facilitated a conference in 2004, 2006, 2008 and this year with advisory boards serving in between each that canvassed views of many people and shared these views, good and bad, with the government of the day to help guide policy.

Some politicians don't like to be told what they are perceived to be doing wrong.

Basically, I would highly recommend that individuals who wish to attempt to speak authoritatively about what the diaspora movement or board has done or not done simply ask someone actually involved.

There is nothing to hide and I personally am more than willing to share everything.

My column in the Jamaica Observer yesterday was quite lengthy and pointed exactly to what is wrong with it and what needs to be done to fix it. Some people are upset that I am so critical of it but I call a spade a spade.

As for members of the board knowing Jamaicans.com exists, yes we do. I was turned off by some of what I saw happening on here.

[X]

Re: wat does the diasporan committee tink yaad owe dem

[Yuriatin]

Re: wat does the diasporan committee tink yaad owe dem

David - I did do a google search.

I put in 'jamaica diaspora' and 'jamaican diaspora' both and this http://www.jamaicandiaspora.org/ is what came up front, <span style="font-weight: bold">first</span>. Before http://www.jamaicandiaspora.gov.jm/diaspora/ .

Is there no way to lose / delink / deactivate http://www.jamaicandiaspora.org/?

[Yuriatin]

Re: wat does the diasporan committee tink yaad owe dem

Either way - thanks for the update. I'll certainly be delving into this site.

I'm very curious as to what some of the group's accomplishments and results are/have been.

[David Mullings]

Re: wat does the diasporan committee tink yaad owe dem

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Yuri_</div><div class="ubbcode-body">David - I did do a google search.

I put in 'jamaica diaspora' and 'jamaican diaspora' both and this http://www.jamaicandiaspora.org/ is what came up front, <span style="font-weight: bold">first</span>. Before http://www.jamaicandiaspora.gov.jm/diaspora/ .

Is there no way to lose / delink / deactivate http://www.jamaicandiaspora.org/?

</div></div>

When I search for things in Google I look at everything on the first page and go a few pages deeper. At least that's my interpretation of research.

As for deactivating jamaicadiaspora.org that is totally in the hands of the GOJ, not us.

They could simply hand over the domain name to the diaspora advisory board and let us build a new site that is actually up-to-date but I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

They like control of things.

If you want to know more about actual accomplishments check out this interview I did with Ian Boyne back in 2009 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XllCK_BoZDw

Also stayed tuned for news this week on the report cards to be presented at the conference.

It should be quite mixed; a ton of stuff rolled over from 2006 to 2008 to now and still have not been completed. I can't wait to hear the excuses this time.

There are also some actual success stories, such as the starting of the skills database and the funding in the form of some 300k Euros coming from the EU and UN, not a cent from Jamaica, thanks to the diaspora in the UK.

If one has an agenda to paint something as a talk shop and worthless, they will only look for evidence of such and ignore everything else.

Be wary of falling prey to that approach.

Has there been some successes? Yes indeed.

Has there been a talk shop vibe in many other cases? Most certainly.

Does the diaspora movement in its current form encourage participation by Jamaicans abroad? No and that is being addressed by the outgoing board and was discussed in my column this past Sunday.

Should the GOJ seek to continue a relationship with the advisory board it originally convened? It would be stupid not to.

Should the diaspora try to be more united in its lobbying? Yes.

Can the diaspora speak with one voice? No. Partisan politics comes into play outside of Jamaica too. We also still have people who refuse to read and instead believe everything certain politicians say. Still others are for or against dual citizens sitting in parliament, parliamentary representation for the diaspora and overseas voting rights.

No one group can possibly represent all the varying views in the diaspora. Again, it is not monolithic.

[Tuff Gong]

Re: wat does the diasporan committee tink yaad owe dem

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: David_Mullings</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><span style="font-weight: bold">Now to answer the questions quoted above:</span>

T<span style="color: #FF6600">o say that members of the board or even people in the movement have never taken any stance on any of those issues</span> is naive at best, dishonest at worst.. </div></div>

Who said so?
Who/What are you quoting from?

[Tuff Gong]

Re: wat does the diasporan committee tink yaad owe dem

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: David_Mullings</div><div class="ubbcode-body">In January 2010 in a presentation to the Joint Select Committee of Parliament, members of the advisory board spoke up about the impending Air Jamaica sale as may people had asked them to do.</div></div>

Air Jamaica was not founded in 2010.
Air Jamaica problems did not start in 2010.
What is/has been the <span style="font-weight: bold">Diaspora Advisory Committee </span>position/s on Air Jamaica since the Diaspora Advisory Committee came into being?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: David_Mullings</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Not long after they were reprimanded by members of the government for daring to speak up against a policy of the sitting government.</div></div>

Any proof/references beyond your just posting that here?

[Tuff Gong]

Re: wat does the diasporan committee tink yaad owe dem

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: David_Mullings</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> A number of individuals have spoken out about human rights issues in Jamaica, including helping to fund NGOs, making representation in the USA and raising issues at conferences with government officials in the ministry of national security.</div></div>

Prove it!

[Tuff Gong]

Re: wat does the diasporan committee tink yaad owe dem

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: David_Mullings</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> the MOUs (which were not that secret and in fact appeared in the media long before the enquiry)</div></div>

Show the media references?
So this<span style="font-weight: bold"> your</span> position on the M.O.U.s?

[Tuff Gong]

Re: wat does the diasporan committee tink yaad owe dem

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: David_Mullings</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> [quote=Yuri_]David - I did do a google search.

I put in 'jamaica diaspora' and 'jamaican diaspora' both and this http://www.jamaicandiaspora.org/ is what came up front, <span style="font-weight: bold">first</span>. Before http://www.jamaicandiaspora.gov.jm/diaspora/ .

Is there no way to lose / delink / dea</div></div>

Lame!

I thought the intent of the Diaspora Advisory Board was to work with folks in the Diaspora to connect, educate and find solutions.
Anything that hurts or inimical to a young organizations brand should be removed.
When you do a search if is at all possible you want what is current and factual about you be the only thing or at least at the top.

If the Diaspora Advisory Board cannot get GOJ to hand over/kill any outdated references to it ..... what can it accomplish?

[Skelly]

Re: wat does the diasporan committee tink yaad owe dem

Thanks David for pointing me to this article.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20110615/news/news1.html