Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Jamaica and Belize

• Pages: 221-263

CHAPTER 12

ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA

Introduction

In the author’s 1977 volume,1he referred to the status of associated statehood that had

been granted to Antigua, in common with the other five territories of St Vincent, St Lucia,

Dominica, Grenada and St Kitts/Nevis/Anguilla. In dealing with the future of Antigua, it

was stated that in 1974, George Walter, Premier of the country (then under a government

of the Progressive Labour Movement (PLM)) had made it clear that the 1976 elections

would be fought ‘on an independence ticket’.2The 1976 elections were, in the event, won

by the Antigua Labour Party (ALP) headed by Vere C Bird (later Sir Vere), a veteran and

distinguished politician, whose party had at first taken the line that, although it favoured

independence, there should be a referendum to determine the wishes of the people in the

matter. Walter’s intention to take Antigua to early independence had, of course, been

understandable since, although Antigua was the first territory to be created an associated

State, by 1974 Grenada, which obtained that status after Antigua, had already become an

independent country within the Commonwealth.

In 1978, the ALP Government declared that Antigua was ready to take its place as an

independent state in the international community. The Government justified its volte face

on the independence issue by the argument that between 1974 and 1978 the economic

foundation for independence had been well and truly laid.

The Government, however, did the decent constitutional thing of calling early

elections to secure from the people a mandate to proceed to independence. This mandate

was generously given, for in the general elections held in 1980, the ALP won 13 of the 17

seats in the House of Assembly. Shortly afterwards the Government requested Her

Majesty’s Government to convene a conference in London as a preliminary to terminating

the status of association between HMG and Antigua under s 10(2) of the West Indies Act.

Invitations were duly issued to the PLM, the Barbudan Member of Parliament and the

Chairman of the Barbuda Council to attend.

In the meantime, the Antigua Government had prepared a draft independence

constitution which was debated and approved in the House of Assembly with some

amendments. The PLM had prepared its own draft commentary on the Antigua draft.

When the news reached Barbuda, there was violent reaction by the Barbudans to the idea

of being integrated with Antigua in independence; and it was this reaction which delayed

the conference until December 1980. Incidentally, in March 1981, at the Barbuda local

elections all the seats had been won by the Barbuda People’s Movement which had

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ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA, BARBADOS,

JAMAICA AND BELIZE

1 Phillips, 1977, Chapter VIII, pp 78–93.

2 Ibid, p 93.

vigorously campaigned for secession. But we must return to the London conference of

December 1980.

At this conference the PLM (the Opposition party) made the following proposals for

amending the Government’s draft:

(a) they questioned the time by which a person arrested should be told of the grounds of

his arrest;

(b) they wished to see inserted in the document:

(i) the right to legal representation and its extension to government legal aid;

(ii) the right to bail;

(iii) the time limit within which an accused person should be brought before a court;

(iv) the circumstances in which a person unlawfully arrested or detained should be in

a position to obtain compensation and from whom;

(v) the time within which compensation should be paid for property compulsorily

acquired;

(vi) a right to strike, to bargain collectively and to collect union dues;

(vii)p rovision for a unicameral instead of a bicameral legislature;

(viii)p r ovision for a system of proportional representation for the Senate and for

reducing the size thereof;

(ix) a clause permitting a minister of religion to become a member of either House;

(x) an age reduction from 21 to 18 for qualification for membership of either House;

(c) they questioned why a member of the House of Representatives should have to

vacate his seat if he sought to cross the floor of the House;

(d) they asked that, in appointing the chairman of the Constituency Boundaries

Commission the Governor General should seek the concurrence of both the Prime

Minister and the Leader of the Opposition; and they raised other issues relating to the

security of tenure of this Commission;

(e) they requested that mandatory provisions should be included in the Constitution for

a Leader of the Opposition, regardless of whether or not there was an Opposition

presence in the House – in which case the minority leader in the Senate should

become Leader of the Opposition; and

(f) they argued that the members of the Public Service Commission should be appointed

with the concurrence of both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.

As far as the Barbudan delegation was concerned, this is how the conference chairman

summed up in a nutshell their general position:

The Barbudan delegation stated that they could not agree to any constitutional

arrangements which did not provide a separate future for Barbuda; that any other

constitutional arrangements would have to be referred by them to the people of Barbuda;

and that their participation in the discussions was for the purpose of seeing whether constitutional

safeguards for Barbuda could be agreed which they could lay before the people of Barbuda [emphasis

supplied].3

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3 See the Report of the Antigua Constitutional Conference, December 1980, para 43.

The reply from the Antigua Government delegation was that because Barbuda had been

an integral part of the State since 1860, the Government could not permit it to have a

separate existence at this stage, but that every effort would be made to give a greater say

to the Barbuda Council in the conduct of their local affairs and that the Government

would abolish the office of the Minister for Barbuda Affairs in the Central Government if

it was satisfied that alternative arrangements could be made after independence for

proper liaison between itself and the Barbuda Council.

At this point, the matter of the original merger of Antigua and Barbuda should be put

in proper historical perspective. The following résumé sets out how Barbuda came to be

regarded as a part of Antigua.

Merger of Barbuda with Antigua

When one examines the record carefully one finds that what has been said about the

‘arbitrary buffeting’ in the case of Anguilla4applies equally to Barbuda. The 19th century

was a time when the Colonial Office was engaged in a process of regional consolidation

for its own administrative convenience. In the Leeward Islands, there were Anguilla,

Barbuda, Crab Island, Passage Island and Sombrero, in respect of which they needed to

find large islands to which to attach them – the linking of the first two being the most

important.5

Barbuda had first been granted to Christopher Codrington as far back as 1685 under

Letters Patent. There was an original 99 year grant which had been renewed in 1805 for a

further term of 50 years, and when the grant came up for renewal in 1854, HMG expressed

their desire to resume occupation of the island. They were, however, prepared to permit

Codrington to enter a rental agreement with the Government of Antigua of which

Barbuda would become a dependency – though not in reality an integral part. It was then

suggested by one Colonial Office official that the wisest course would be to make a Mr

Nugent, Codrington’s agent, Lieutenant Governor of Barbuda and to grant him power to

make laws subject to confirmation by the Governor of Antigua. This was clearly

impractical, however, as Mr Nugent was at the time the Speaker of the Antigua House of

Assembly. In any event, the then Colonial Secretary considered it absurd that Barbuda

with a population of less than 1,000 should have a Lieutenant Governor of its own.

At this time Barbuda was used by Codrington mainly as a place to run deer and feral

stock, as well as to provide wood, charcoal, lime and ground provisions for Codrington’s

Antigua plantations. It has also been claimed in some quarters that the island was used

by Codrington as a stock farm for breeding slaves, but this claim has been seriously

doubted.6An additional source of income to the Codringtron family was the salvage

arising from the many wrecks caused by the treacherous reefs surrounding the island.

Codrington’s renewed lease therefore brought into question the future status of

Barbuda, and on an approach being made to Governor Higginson of Antigua, it was

agreed that Antigua would be prepared to have its laws extended to Barbuda.

Codrington would then have a gratuitous tenancy for a period of 50 years, in

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4 See the opening two paragraphs under ‘Anguilla’, Chapter 7, above.

5 See Confidential Despatch, 19 March 1925, Thomson to the Secretary of State for the Colonies.

6 See Lowenthal and Clarke, 1977, pp 510–35.