PDM on Woodford Hill beach access

The People’s Democratic Movement (PDM) stands in full support of any investment project which promotes the development of our economy and improves the quality of life of our people. But we do so on one condition. And that is that the operation of the project does not infringe our basic rights and freedoms or otherwise take away our dignity as a nation and as a people.

Minister of Tourism, Ivor Nassief, has given the people of Wesley and Woodford Hill two months in which to decide whether or not to surrender their freedom to enjoy the unrestricted use of Woodford Hill beach in exchange for construction on the coastline of one hotel resort or another. At first, it was a 5-star, 200-room, U.S $60 million resort hotel. The Minister was as blunt as he is known to be: If the people want to continue to have free and unrestricted access and use of the beach, no hotel. But if they want the hotel, no freedom of access, and only the hotel guests will be allowed use of the beach. Now, under pressure from residents, we are told that if Dominicans are prepared to accept some kind of restricted access the investors would construct a 3-star hotel. The beach in question is the best beach in the island to which people from all over Dominica are used to going on a holiday. Further, the hotel guests would probably be persons of white skin.

We in the P.D.M believe that, if built, the proposed resort, whether 5-star or 3-star, might bring some economic benefits including jobs and an outlet for agricultural products and items of craft. And we fully agree that development never comes without a price.

But, the condition for the setting up of the resort of whatever star rating, namely, that Dominicans will no longer have free and unrestricted access to use of the beach is too high a price for our people to pay for whatever benefit the hotel resort might bring.

We take this position because we do not believe large-scale hotel tourism to be either the best or the safest way for Government to grow the economy. Statistics for the Caribbean region show that 90 cents out of every dollar made by foreign –owned big hotel tourism go back overseas and only 10 cents remain in the islands. And we are certain that whatever benefits large-scale hotel tourism might bring can be achieved in other ways which do not compromise our rights and freedoms, deprive us of our dignity or make us second class citizens in our own country.

An alternative course would be for Government to focus, for example, on cottage and guest-house eco-tourism where most of the money earned will remain in the country and be more evenly spread among the stakeholders? Why not get our energy alternatives right in order to reduce the costs of doing business here and make the island attractive to investments such as in job-creating information and communication technology (ICT) projects? Why not exploit our agro-industrial potential, including the processing of a wide-range of fruits which go to waste from year to year and including also the development of a medicinal herbs industry? Why not with the help of our friends from the People’s Republic of China take the development of our small business sector much more seriously than we now do?

The P.D.M wishes to draw the Minister’s attention to the Beach Control Act, Chapter 42:04 of the Revised Laws of Dominica 1991 passed by the Labour Party in 1966. Not only did the Act protect the unrestricted right of all the people to freely access and use any and all beaches in the island. It went further and gave Government power to acquire surrounding private lands to ensure that the public’s right of access to the beach would never be trampled upon.

The Tourism Minister and the people of Wesley and Woodford Hill should be reminded of the passion with which the people of Dominica have protected this right in the past. When residents in the North-East found themselves excluded from access to Hampstead beach Chief Minister Le Blanc stepped in to protect that right. When the owners of Castaway Hotel put up barriers to prevent access to the adjacent beach, the people of Mero and St. Joseph rose up and tore down the barriers. When the proprietors of the Coconut Beach Hotel built a gate to prevent free access to the beach in front the hotel, the people of Portsmouth marched in protest and Government was forced to acquire land to ensure public access to the beach. And when a gate through which they passed to go on to Batalie Beach was padlocked, the people of Coulibistrie and Morne Rachette marched to Batalie, mashed up the padlocks and swarmed onto the beach.

In fact, throughout the region including in the tourism-based countries like Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada and the Bahamas, the practice of excluding nationals from their beaches has long been a thing of the past. That practice had been part and parcel of slavery and colonial rule in the Caribbean, segregation in the United States, and apartheid in South Africa. It has no place in an independent nation-state.

For all these reasons the P.D.M believes that Minister Nassief’s approach to the matter is clear indication of the contempt which he holds for the working people of this country. Not only has he spoken about the need for residents to compromise their right of access. Not only has he told us that in Anguilla such compromise was made. But he has gone to the extent of identifying beaches surrounding Woodford Hill beach which the Wesley /Woodford Hill communities can make use of. Why doesn’t the Tourism Minister accept the fact that Massa day done in Dominica? Why doesn’t he stop trying to turn back the hands of time?

In any case, Minister Nassief needs to be told that the question of access to Woodford Hill beach is not a matter for the people of Wesley and Woodford Hill alone. Government needs to tell him that Woodford Hill Beach, like other beaches in the island, is a national resource held in trust by the State for all the people. He needs to be told that the issue at hand is a national issue to be resolved at the appropriate level of Government rather than by a show of hands at one or two meetings convened by him in Wesley and Woodford Hill.

The P.D.M therefore calls upon Government to discipline Minister Nassief for the demeaning, crude and high-handed way in which he has chosen to deal with the matter. We go further and call on Government to take the issue of beach access or non-access entirely out of his hands.

At the same time we advise the people of Wesley and Woodford Hill to put party loyalties aside. We urge you never to sell your birthright for a mess of pottage. And we call on you to join forces in defence of your right to unrestricted enjoyment of Woodford Hill beach.

Finally, we trust that working people throughout the length and breadth of Dominica will stand in firm support of the position that our beaches are for the free and unrestricted use of our people. By all means we stand for development. But not for the kind of development that tampers with the rights and freedom of our people. Benjamin Franklyn that Great American, once said: “Any society that will give up a little liberty to gain security will in the end lose both.” We agree wholeheartedly.