Dear Source,
Where are the U.S. Virgin Islands?
In the aftermath of the recent bombings – and in windows of opportunity to seize moments for tasteful strategic, valuable marketing – one destination has been missing.
Missing in action and missing the boat.
While the competition like the Bahamas, St. Kitts and Puerto Rico have published in the Washington Post and New York Times modest-sized messages of sympathy and tribute along with invitations to visit, the U.S. Virgin Islands – America's Caribbean – have yet to be seen or heard from!
At the niche market of the Congressional Black Caucus's (CBC) annual conference, where our Delegate Donna Christian Christensen is at the forefront, the U.S. Virgin Islands – America's Caribbean – again is noticeably absent from the exhibit hall! Meanwhile, Barbados, Anguilla (with their tiny budget), Jamaica and various Caribbean tour operators are hawking their wares.
People! These are the worst of times and the best of times! This is the time to get back on top. Seize the moment. Implement tactical strategy! We fly the American Flag. (I'm not going to give you the campaign, jus' so).
And don't even go there about budget, etc. An open rate (no discounts, etc.) advertisement of a decent size in the Post is about $35,000 and zero creative is required. The booth at the CBC was a mere $2,000. If we can't afford to invest such little cash in our tourism marketing, we might as well close up shop.
Let's go get 'em! What are we waiting for! Let's stop feeling sorry for ourselves. Pick up and brush ourselves off, and go!
Steve Bornn
St. Thomas

Sept. 28, 2001 – St. Croix artist and art gallery owner Maria Henle is the subject of an article in the October issue of Caribbean Travel & Life magazine that also features a color photograph of one of her oil paintings.
Readers who have never met her or seen her work in person get to learn some things from the widely circulated publication that Henle's friends and neighbors on St. Croix may not know about how she got started creating her signature multi-image etchings and paintings.
"On a rainy day in 1982," the article begins, "artist Maria Henle climbed to the top of Paricutin volcano in Mexico and drew two scenes. The first was the way the volcano looked then; the second was how it looked 40 years earlier when it erupted in a fury of red-hot lava. Back at her studio, she decided to combine the images into one etching; and she hasn't changed her technique since.
"Today, Henle is famous for her multilayered paintings of the Caribbean. She juxtaposes two or more scenes to turn what would be a representational image into something abstract."
Henle, the daughter of famed photographer Fritz Henle, grew up on St. Croix, the article relates. After studying and working in such arts capitals as Florence, Italy, and New York City, she chose to return to the island to open her own gallery and work space, the Maria Henle Studio, in downtown Christiansted on Company Street.
The island is so small that you're never far from a view of the sea," she told freelance writer Maxine Rose Schurr, "and there's a great variation in topography — from the dry east end to the open vista of the south shore to the lush slopes of the north that drop right into the sea."
While Henle typically overlays two images to create her works, Schurr tells Caribbean Travel & Life readers, she has combined as many as five in larger pieces. The gallery, which during season "also showcases select artists in one-person exhibits," Schurr writes, "has become one of the cultural highlights of a visit to St. Croix."

Sept. 28, 2001 — Arrests are imminent in the murder of a 27-year-old inmate last weekend at the Golden Grove Adult Correctional Facility on St. Croix, according to V.I. Attorney General Iver Stridiron.
Miguel Lebron of St. Croix died after being stabbed in his cell Saturday by at least one other inmate wielding a homemade weapon. Soon after the murder, officials in the Bureau of Corrections, which falls under the V.I. Department of Justice, said that at least one inmate was a suspect.
But on Thursday, Stridiron said the arrests of two inmates was near, although he declined to release their names as yet. He said that once arrests are made, the suspects will be prosecuted. If convicted they will be sent off-island to Wallens Ridge prison in Virginia.
Wallens Ridge is a maximum-security facility where inmates are confined to their cells for up to 23 hours a day. Stridiron has repeatedly said that inmates who harm other inmates or corrections officers will be sent to Wallens Ridge.
"If we get a conviction, they are gone," Stridiron said. "You can rest assured that they will be exiled to Virginia."
Lebron was housed in the minimum-security section of Golden Grove and was nine years into a 13-year sentence for aggravated child abuse. There are reports circulating that the suspects came from the maximum-security wing of the prison when Lebron remained in his cell while others in his block, which was then unguarded, went to lunch.
Stridiron said he has since toured the prison. He dismissed the possibility that prison staff were negligent in the incident.

Elizabeth Greenaway, 75, died at home in Greenland, Tortola, on Sept. 23. Funeral services will be held at 4:15 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 30, at the East End SDA Church. Viewing will precede the sevice at the church begininning at 3:15 p.m.
She is survived by sons Noel, Joseph, and John Weekes; daughters Sarah Pickering, Cecelia Brown, Leona Buffoage, Margaret Weekes, and Uhura Weekes; two brothers; sisters Rossana Harris and Illva Bremble; and numerous other relatives and friends.

Sept. 28, 2001 — While the Turnbull administration is willing to return to the negotiating table with the territory’s police officers, union officials have dismissed the idea.
Talks between the administration and the territory’s two police unions broke down last Friday after three days. The unions exercised their option of taking their case before a three-member arbitration panel instead of remaining at the table.
After that decision, the unions held a press conference earlier this week where they criticized Karen Andrews, the government’s chief negotiator, for being late and dismissing officers’ proposals out of hand.
In response, Andrews, Police Commissioner Franz Christian and Attorney General Iver Stridiron held their own press conference Thursday.
"Quite frankly, I think it was premature to end the negotiations when they did," Andrews said. "I believe there is still room for us to sit down and have discussions."
But Naomi Joseph, president of the St. Croix Police Benevolent Association, said that was unlikely. Returning to the table would just result in the two parties "stonewalling" each other, she said.
"If they wanted to negotiated with us, they would have come to try and meet us half way," Joseph said. "Negotiations are a series of compromises … We were told throughout the whole three days ‘no, no, no.’ I mean, you can’t go further than no."
Andrews said that union wage proposals were too costly, especially since the government still must negotiate 23 other contracts with government employees. The government’s initial wage increase offer translated to about $10,000 per officer. The union’s proposal was about $12,000 per officer, Andrews said. The unions represent about 325 officers.
Police officers have been working day-to-day since their last contract expired in September 1999. Their last salary step increase was in 1994.
"We must do things in the concept of what is affordable," Andrews said. "We will not be promising things going in that we cannot afford."

Sept. 28, 2001 — Due to safety concerns, the Office of the Lieutenant Governor will be moved out of the newly renovated Government House on St. Croix.
The move, announced Thursday, was prompted by the Sept. 11 terror attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., that killed more than 7,000 people. According to a release from Gov. Charles W. Turnbull, whose St. Croix office and residence are in Government House along with the office of Lt. Gov. Gerard Luz James II, the move was recommended by national and local security experts.
"It is standard security practice for a chief executive and the next in the chain of command to avoid traveling together on the same airplane, boat or other carrier or occupying the same working environment for long periods of time," the release said.
Therefore, the lieutenant governor's administrative offices on St. Croix will soon be moved from Government House to an as-yet unidentified building.
"Nowhere in our country do you find two leaders housed in the same building," Police Commissioner Franz Christian said Thursday.
Turnbull decided, against Christian's advice, to put both offices in the St. Croix Government House while it was undergoing a lengthy $12 million renovation. The decision was made largely to cut government spending and rental costs.
Before the renovation, the two offices were housed in separate buildings on St. Croix as they are on St. Thomas.
The governor’s official residence on St. Thomas is the historic Catherineberg on Denmark Hill. When the governor is on St. Croix, he lives in Government House.
On St. Croix, the lieutenant governor lives at the executive mansion at Estate Sion Farm, where James will continue to live.
Turnbull and James have had some public spats since the administration began in 1998. They disagreed on the Beal Aerospace deal and the proposal to sell a portion of the Water and Power Authority to a mainland company.
But Attorney General Iver Stridiron said Thursday that he hopes people won’t interpret the decision to move James out of Government House as evidence of "an acrimonious relationship."
Prior to the reopening of Government House in June 2000, Turnbull said he planned to spend up to three days in a row on St. Croix. The renovated Government House has a conference room able to accommodate 26 people that can be used for Cabinet meetings.

The leadership of the United States must think through its foreign policy on "international terrorism" in the Middle East, or it will launch a lethal war that will open up a Pandora's Box of conflicts that none of us can imagine.
President George W. Bush has promised to "rid the world of evil-doers" and punish the perpetrators of the hijacking-bombing attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on Sept. 11. In lightening speed, the Bush-Cheney administration has begun preparations for a "global war against terrorism" and military strategy against the Al-Qaeda movement which is led by Osama bin Laden.
It is extremely disturbing that during a period of intense grief, sadness and mourning of the violent, surprise attacks on innocent civilians, warmongering has emerged. As Americans grieve, Islamaphobia, anti-Arab racism and jingoism/war hysteria are being flamed by many right-wing forces within the Bush-Cheney administration and reactionary sectors of American society.
If we, American citizens, intend to prevent another violent occurrence against America, we must carefully examine what is before us. In a liberal democratic society, the government serves the people — we make the decisions in defense of our interests. As a member of the progressive grouping that exists within American society, I am deeply disturbed by what has transpired for the last two weeks. As an African, African-Caribbean or African-American whose foreparents (biological and ideological) have fought to make American society a western democracy, I am shocked to see the reactionary response of the Bush-Cheney administration on democratic rights and privileges for all Americans.
Eventually, when this "war against terrorism" is over, many in our midst will agree with Congresswoman Barbara Lee: We rushed to judgment in the haste to punish the perpetrators of the hijacking-bombing. The U.S. government will eventually bestow a Bronze Heart for courage to Lee; she was the only member of Congress who voted against this new war, and for good reasons.
The roots of the radical attacks
I have the very unpleasant task of informing you that the U.S. government is in a quagmire due to its foreign policies, especially during the Cold War (1947-1989). I am not in any way justifying the atrocities that took place on Sept. 11, but I must inform you that it was inevitable that some radical forces, domestic and foreign, would launch attacks on the continental United States. So far, Osama bin Laden is the prime suspect. Many Americans had never heard of him, his group or his mission. We are now bombarded with numerous "facts" about him, some true and a lot at best questionable.
As high-ranking officials of the Bush-Cheney administration and veteran foreign-policy experts of the Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, elder Bush and Clinton administrations weigh in on Islamic terrorism, Osama bin Laden, and the Taliban, we cannot help but see stark contradictions.
If Al-Qaeda is the Islamic fundamentalist organization responsible for the suicide attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, the Reagan-Bush administration (1980-1988) must share some of blame for the predicament we are in.
Al-Qaeda ("military base") is a byproduct of the Mujaheddin, an intensely fanatic Islamic movement that fought against the leftist Afghan-Soviet alliance from 1980 to1989. In Afghanistan, the Mujaheddin developed as a counter-revolutionary force against the leftist Babrak Kamal government which had consolidated power in 1979. In the largest covert operation ever undertaken by the Central Intelligence Agency, the Mujaheddin project was turned into a "forward" projection of U.S. foreign policy.
The recruiting of Muslim militants
With the support of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, the CIA provided $3 billion in arms, logistic support and training to the Mujaheddin during the war against the Soviet-Afghan military forces. In order to achieve strategic depth or the widest support possible, the CIA and the ISI recruited Muslim militants from 43 Islamic countries in North and East Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and the Far East. Approximately 35,000 militants would fight within the Mujaheddin against Soviet-Afghan forces. In all, over 100,000 militants served the Mujaheddin military forces from 1980-1990.
Besides military training, these militants received indoctrination in the most extreme versions of Islam. For example, Wahabbism, a strict and austere Islamic creed, was encouraged by Saudi Arabian benefactors. Wahabbi clerics and disgruntled Saudi radicals were sent to Afghanistan during the war. No one within the Saudi leadership foresaw the impact that returning battle-hardened veterans would have on the Saudi society.
The U.S. leadership was worse. In 1986, CIA chief William Casey intensified U.S. support for the Mujaheddin against the Soviet Union. He persuaded Congress to increase funding and training for the Mujaheddin. Thereafter, they received direct and indirect training by the CIA in modern insurgency, U.S.-made weapons (especially Stinger anti-aircraft missiles) and, ironically, tolerance for opium production. Yes, heroin. The number of heroin addicts in Pakistan went from near zero in 1979 to 1.2 million by 1985! And, as exposed in Iran-Contragate, U.S. foreign policy makers in the Reagan-Bush administration allowed narco-trafficking within the United States as a supplemental means of raising funds for covert operations.
High-grade heroin hit America's streets at an alarming rate throughout the Mujaheddin-Afghan-Soviet war. The U.S. war on drugs was subordinated to the war on Communists. In guerrilla bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan, multinational members of the Islamic movement trained, organized and studied together. During the war, these militants forged ideological, political and tactical links with each other. The camps became militant universities for future fundamentalist movements and armed forces.
Immediate objectives ignored long-term outcomes
During the 1980s, the United States, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia — the key supporters of the Mujaheddin, did not consider the long-term consequences of this multinational Islamic army. The only objectives were to defeat the leftist Afghan regime and eliminate the Soviet presence in the country. Not only were these objectives accomplished; the Soviet Union imploded due to its military involvement in Afghanistan.
In 1989, Arab-Afghan veterans of the Mujaheddin created Al-Qaeda in the provinces of Kunar, Nuristan and Badakhshan in Afghanistan. Bin Laden became the primary leader. In 1990, he returned to Saudi Arabia. After a brief political struggle with King Fahd and the rest of the royal family, bin Laden left for the Sudan in 1992 and then for Afghanistan in 1996.
Since then, Al-Qaeda has grown into an international Islamic movement that seeks to remove the U.S. military presence from Saudi Arabia and to destroy Zionism in the region. The United States' struggle to eradicate Al-Qaeda will be much more difficult and bloody than the mass media are stating. The militants of Al-Qaeda were former allies of the United States during the Cold War.
Al-Qaeda turned against the United States when the Mujaheddin-Afghan-Soviet war ended. Why? Because despite the sacrifices of the Afghani people, the promised reconstruction aid did not arrive. Imagine, 1.5 million Afghani civilians perished, and 2 million still live in refugee camps in Pakistan! During the internal conflicts within the Mujaheddin (1989-1995), both the CIA and the ISI supported the ascension of the Taliban in 1996.
Afghanistan is ranked as the poorest country in the world, with a per capital income of $35 a year! Life expectancy is 47 years, and 45 percent of the population is illiterate. These obscene figures generate despair, hatred and fanaticism.
It would have been cheaper to send development aid than to send tool s of destruction. Today we are reaping a bitter harvest from an earlier period when destroying Communism was the sole objective, and anyone who was willing and able to kill became our allies. We will have to stop evil-doers, but we American citizens who have principles must be willing to eliminate the evil that U.S. foreign policymakers create when they themselves make alliances with evil forces who turn against us.

Editor's note: Malik Sekou is an assistant professor of political science and history at the University of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas campus.
We welcome and encourage readers to keep the dialogue going by responding to Source commentary. Letters should be e-mailed with name and place of residence to source@viaccess.net.

Dear Source,
Tillett Gardens and our tenants would like to thank the community for taking part last Saturday in expressing themselves, with their children, about the tragic events in the states. We would like to especially thank the children. They need to be heard and hugged every day.
Thank you to Dr. Olaf Hendricks, Dr. Ann Bernard, Dr. Iris Kern, Dilsa Capdeville, Mr. Briggs, Mr. Mohamad, Michael Bornn, Michal Rhymer, Cynthia Farmer and Evelyn Vazquez. If I have left out anyone, please forgive me.
We hope to see this discussion continue in every home, place of worship and institution. This was just a heartfelt beginning. Thank you.
Rhoda Tillett and Jason Budsan
St. Thomas

Editor's note: We welcome and encourage readers to keep the dialogue going by responding to Source commentary. Letters should be e-mailed with name and place of residence to source@viaccess.net.

The organizers of a gathering on St. Thomas to talk about feelings in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks say it was "a heartfelt beginning" and thank those who contributed.
Dear Source,
Tillett Gardens and our tenants would like to thank the community for taking part last Saturday in expressing themselves, with their children, about the tragic events in the states. We would like to especially thank the children. They need to be heard and hugged every day.
Thank you to Dr. Olaf Hendricks, Dr. Ann Bernard, Dr. Iris Kern, Dilsa Capdeville, Mr. Briggs, Mr. Mohamad, Michael Bornn, Michal Rhymer, Cynthia Farmer and Evelyn Vazquez. If I have left out anyone, please forgive me.
We hope to see this discussion continue in every home, place of worship and institution. This was just a heartfelt beginning. Thank you.
Rhoda Tillett and Jason Budsan
St. Thomas

Sept. 27, 2001 – As the Water and Power Authority board ponders whether to commit to buying $10 million worth of water and electricity annually for the next 30 years from the company selected by the government to build a waste-to-energy plant on St. Croix, questions are being raised about the project's impact on St. Thomas and St. John.
The plant, to be built and operated by Caribe Waste Technologies, is intended to put an end to dumping at the Bovoni and Anguilla landfills on St. Thomas and St. Croix, respectively. The garbage will undergo a chemical conversion process that does not involve incineration and is entirely a recycling process, according to CWT officials.
A proposal submitted to the V.I. government on June 16 by the company, Caribe Waste Technologies, calls for using the Port Authority's Red Hook facility to move garbage from St. Thomas — and, by extension, from St. John — to the plant on St. Croix.
However, Caribe Waste Technologies' local spokesman, Osbert Potter, says the company now plans to ship the waste from the Port Authority's Crown Bay facility on St. Thomas's southwestern shore. He said the change came about after CWT officials realized that the shipping operation was too large for the Red Hook facility to accommodate.
Potter said that garbage from St. John would arrive at the Bovoni landfill in the same way it does now — via trucks transported to St. Thomas by barge. Waste from the two islands would be consolidated at Bovoni into sealed 40-foot containers, which would then be trucked to Crown Bay. From there, the containers would be shipped to St. Croix on 240-foot barges owned by Caribe Waste Technologies.
The proposal calls for unloading the garbage on St. Croix at either the Gordon Finch Molasses Pier or the Port Authority pier by the former St. Croix Alumina property, depending on where the plant is to be built. Potter said CWT plans to move the waste during the overnight hours when the shipping facility sees less use. The proposal indicates it would happen from midnight to 7 a.m.
This doesn't sit well with some residents.
Doug White, a St. Thomas architect who lives in the Red Hook area, sees problems with using either the Crown Bay or the Red Hook facility. If the waste goes through Crown Bay, he said, it will have to be trucked across the island, and noise will be a factor. But if CWT plans to use the Red Hook facility, he said, Red Hook area residents will go "berserk."
"The community would be 100 percent opposed to it," White predicted. Several years ago, he said, Red Hook residents succeeded in squelching plans to use the Port Authority's Red Hook facility as a shipping point for construction materials slated for development on Hans Lollick. "The issue is noise and odor," he said.
Further, White said, if the containers are sealed, methane gas generated by the decomposing waste could cause an explosion.
A source close to the project said opting to transport the waste across the island to Crown Bay for shipping rather than shipping it from Red Hook would cost more money, because it would take more time. "Time costs money when you're trucking," the individual said.
And if that's the case, the source said, the increased expense would likely be passed on to consumers in the waste-disposal fee, called a tipping fee, to be paid by each household.
Caribe Waste Technologies officials have said the whole project hinges on WAPA's willingness to contract to buy the water and power produced. Joseph Thomas Jr., WAPA executive director, has said the utility is able to meet consumer demands on its own without buying the gasification plant output, but that it hopes "to work with CWT in whatever way it can to help solve the Virgin Islands' waste problem."
The overall Caribe Waste Technologies project will be the topic for discussion Friday at the weekly Rotary Club of St. John meeting. Michael Bornn will be the guest speaker. The meeting begins at 12:30 p.m. in the conference room at the Westin Resort.