Elected members of the Antigua Labour Party and Senators in the Cabinet held a Retreat at St James’s Club at Mamora Bay on Antigua on Wednesday, 5th June 2002. At the conclusion of their consultation, they issued the following Declaration:

ST JAMES DECLARATION

We, the elected representatives of the Antigua Labour Party and senators in the Cabinet, met in solemn deliberation at the St James Club on Wednesday, 5th June to reflect on the challenges and opportunities that now lie before our nation.

Our meeting was chaired by our respected and revered leader, the Honourable Lester Bryant Bird, and was conducted in a spirit of full cooperation and resolute determination to ensure that our country can successfully meet these challenges and take advantage of these opportunities.

At the very outset, we reaffirmed our faith in the leadership of Lester Bryant Bird and we rejected out of hand the allegations that have been made, in a concocted videotape, by a minor who was clearly coerced by the adult manufacturers of the tape. We noted that, despite the claims of opposition groups and the ill-informed, no one has produced a scintilla of evidence to corroborate or support, in any way, these reprehensible allegations. Indeed, such evidence as has already been produced, including a forensic examination of a handwritten note, dismisses the preposterous allegations. Further, we observed with bemusement that the affidavits submitted to the High Court by the Leader of the Opposition and others differ substantially in content and scope from the claims they made to the public.

We deplored the irresponsible behaviour of the opposition members of parliament and expressed our disgust at their involvement in the publication and distribution of the videotape with its unsubstantiated, uncorroborated and fantastical claims. We called on them to remember that Antigua and Barbuda is a parliamentary democracy where the rule of law is held sacrosanct and where both individual rights and the public interest are jealously upheld. We urged them to place the wider interest of the nation before their own narrow political ambition, and, in doing so, to allow the law to take its course and not to seek to distort the truth by making extravagant and fanciful claims.

We complimented the Attorney-General for her swift action in establishing an inquiry into the allegations made on the videotape and the circumstances surrounding its manufacture. We noted with satisfaction that the inquiry is being conducted by a team of experienced investigators led by Mr Colin Warburton who is not a national of Antigua and Barbuda and who is completely independent and objective, and whose training and reputation in the British Metropolitan Police guarantees his impartiality.

In considering our future path, we were guided by the Eleven Commitments that we made to the people of Antigua and Barbuda at the last general elections in our manifesto, Empowering the People. We recognised with satisfaction that, over the last three years, we have satisfied the majority of these commitments.

However, we noted that public safety in our society, as indeed throughout the Caribbean, is becoming a matter of increasing concern. We vowed to tackle this problem vigorously by increasing the resources of our law enforcement agencies, seeking such external technical assistance as is necessary, and reviewing our laws to make penalties more severe.

We also resolved to tackle the social challenges that contribute to some of the difficulties associated with public safety. In this regard, we decided to set-up machinery immediately to invest in the construction of major housing schemes in depressed areas and to implement other programmes to alleviate poverty in those areas.

Public safety remains a high priority of our agenda and we are determined that our people must be safe in their homes, in their places of business and recreation, and in the streets.

We resolved to spread the resources available to the government across the face of our country. In this connection, we pledged that attention will be paid to every community across the length and breadth of our land in terms of providing roads, water and electricity on an equitable basis. We also pledged to provide assistance to voluntary community groups which promote activity designed to develop the potential of persons or groups of persons within the community.

We were mindful of the importance of protecting our environmental heritage for the benefit of future generations of our people, and for the betterment of our vital tourism industry. Therefore, while we are conscious of the need to balance the value of development with the concerns of the environment, we resolved to pay special attention to the protection of the environment from those who violate the laws of our country for commercial gain.

We acknowledged the considerable legislative and administrative work that has already been done by our government to implement electoral reform, including the re-registration of voters. We welcomed this work and expressed our full support for its continuation leading to a transparent system that accords with international best practices. We reaffirmed our deep commitment to strengthening the democratic values and principles that our Party and government worked hard over many years to establish and uphold in the interest of all the people of Antigua and Barbuda.

We regretted that one of our comrades could not be invited to our meeting because of ill-informed and precipitate statements that he made contrary to the facts and in advance of the results of any inquiry into the allegation made on a videotape. We welcome the strong and unswerving support from the members of his constituency for the Labour Party and our Leader.

We regarded the frank and full exchange that characterised our Retreat as an extremely valuable exercise and we propose to make this a regular feature in which we will deliberate deeply on matters of concern to our nation so that, in the end, we may better serve the people of our beloved country and the values they hold dear.

We so declare.

Done at St James’s Club on Antigua on Wednesday, 5th June 2002.