In an interesting turn of events this week, a CARICOM organization of which the State of Belize is a member has issued a statement supporting the recent firing of Professor Brendan Bain as head of the Caribbean HIV AIDS Regional Training Network (CHART) and making it unequivocally clear that it stands with UNIBAM in its bid to get sodomy laws removed from the nation’s law books.
Of note is that the Caribbean surveillance camera security systems Court of Justice, the judicial organ of CARICOM, is at the same time, set to hear a challenge by LGBT activist Maurice Tomlinson against immigration laws in Belize and Trinidad, which he claims discriminate against LGBT visitors.
On Wednesday, Pan Caribbean Partnership against HIV and AIDS (PANCAP) issued a statement via the CARICOM Secretariat, in which it said that Bain’s testimony in the Caleb Orozco (UNIBAM’s Executive Director) v. A.G. Belize (2012) case is not consistent with the stated goals of PANCAP to reduce stigma and eliminate discrimination, and is, furthermore, in dissonance with PANCAP’s ongoing work to remove discriminatory laws and affirm human rights.
Interestingly, PANCAP is an agency of CARICOM, and Belize, which is being sued by UNIBAM, is a member of both bodies.
PANCAP said that, “Currently, 11 CARICOM States have laws which criminalize consensual same-sex relationships between adults in private. The Global Commission on HIV and the Law has found that countries which criminalize same-sex sexual activity have higher HIV prevalence rates among men who have sex with men (MSM) than countries that do not; that criminalizing HIV transmission harms HIV prevention and treatment…”
It said that this view was communicated network camera surveillance system to Professor Bain during the 15th Meeting of the Priority Areas Coordinating Committee (PACC), a technical committee of the PANCAP Executive Board, which was held via teleconference on 15 January 2014, and Bain subsequently resigned on 14 March 2014.
As we reported in our last issue of Amandala, Bain’s contract as head of CHART was terminated by the University of the West Indies last Tuesday, May 20. Supporters in Belize and Jamaica held protests, calling the termination an unjust move to muzzle those who do not support the LGBT bid for special rights.
On Friday, May 23, Rev. Roosevelt Papouloute, president of the Belize Council of Churches, and Rev. Eugene Crawford, president 16ch NVR Recorder of the Evangelical Association of Belize, wrote UWI expressing their “disappointment and outrage,” and denouncing the termination and calling it “an act of extreme cowardice.”
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