I call "bullshit"

In yesterday’s newspaper SURE paid for a two-page advertisement which basically told the people how wonderful SURE is and how committed it is to serving the people of St Helena.

As the phrase goes, “I call bullshit”.

Imagine a visitor who arrives at the Airport on a Saturday. His friend is not there to pick him up and he doesn’t have his friend’s number, so he calls Directory Enquiries and hears a recorded message saying that the service is only available from 8am to 4pm, Mondays to Fridays (excepting public holidays).

This being St Helena, of course, he does not have to wait for his friend to remember him, or the 43 hours until SURE next operates, he just asks somebody for help and probably ends up getting a free lift to his friend’s place – but that is not the point.  Our visitor’s first impression of St Helena is that it makes a 3^rd world country look sophisticated.

If your Internet fails or your telephone goes crackly at 2pm on a Saturday you cannot even report the fault until 8am on Monday (or Tuesday of Monday is a public holiday).  In the “real world” two days without Internet access would be considered a crime – here it is a fact of life, often experienced.

I could site many other examples.

If SURE wants the people of St Helena to believe it is committed to improving their lives it should start by providing a reasonable standard of service at the times when it is required (which is, by the way, 24/7).

(PS I am well aware that, as a result of my posting this, my telephone/Internet will mysteriously develop a fault at about 2pm tomorrow.  That’s the price I must pay for telling the truth.)

United Nations & St Helena

Our Equality & Human Rights Commission ("SHEHRC") has made its first submission to the United Nations regarding Human Rights on St Helena, which makes interesting reading!

The submission is part of an update on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the document can be read at https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CCPR/Shared%20Documents/GBR/INT_CCPR_IFS_GBR_41059_E.pdf (other submissions are indexed here: https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/SessionDetails1.aspx?SessionID=1371&Lang=en).

The SHEHRC's submission concludes .....

Two issues stand head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to addressing human rights issues within St Helena and affect the SHEHRC’s ability to achieve real progress. They are:

1. The Territory’s restricted ability to exercise its right to self-determination including to report directly to the UN, vote on significant matters like “Brexit” or indeed take part in the elections for the Government that decides its future.

2. The very unclear relationship between the UK Government (UKG) and SHG with regard to responsibility for protecting human rights. Although UKG has supported the development of human rights laws and policies in its St Helena, including the addition of a Bill of Rights section in our Constitution, it has not codified its own responsibility for human rights on the island.

If transparency on these issues can be achieved the path for reporting and resolving the SHEHRC’s concerns will be clearer and it will be more likely that the human rights concerns on the island will be understood and resolved.

It's a great shame that Sir Simon McDonald did not take the time to meet with the SHEHRC during his recent visit. He and they could have had an interesting discussion about this!

It will be interesting to see what the UN thinks about the UK Governments treatment of its ‘colonies’.