Antigua & Barbuda’s Ambassador to Iraq, Ahmed Abbas Oleiwi Al-Hassani received his instruments of appointment from Governor General, Sir Rodney Williams, last week, at Government House.
Attorney-at-law and former Ambassador of Jamaica to the United Nations, Curtis A Ward believes that an announcement by the ruling government to open its Citizenship by Investment Programme (CIP) to Iraqi citizens, is a threat to the whole Caribbean region.
He told OBSERVER media, “Antigua & Barbuda is not isolated from the rest of the Caribbean or from the Americas and anything that any government in the region does, does have some implications on other countries of the region.”
Ward’s remarks were made yesterday, just over a week after the nation’s first ambassador to Iraq was appointed. Ahmed Abbas Oleiwi Al-Hassani’s appointment followed an announcement by the government, which removed the country from the twin island nation’s CIP blacklist, which had prevented Iraqi citizens from applying for permanent residence after December 11, 2014.
There is no clear indication as to what prompted the nation’s government to remove the war-burdened country from its blacklist, except that Prime Minister Gaston Browne said yesterday in parliament that a physical presence in Iraq would ease the application process.
He said, “We had taken a decision just over a year ago that we did not have the capacity to process applications in certain areas in the Middle East. Now that we have a physical presence, it will be easier for us to process those applications.”
According to Browne, Ambassador Ahmed Abbas Oleiwi explained that within the green zone — a safe zone in Iraq — there are hundreds of thousands of wealthy people that Antigua & Barbuda will be able to attract.
The newly formed alliance between the government and Ambassador Oleiwi, government said, made room for “a total US$1.5 billion investment in Antigua & Barbuda over the next several years”.
In the upcoming days, approximately US$5 million of that amount, will be handed over to the ABLP administration, along with an additional US$10 million advance payment, set aside for 50 CIP applications from the Ambassador. According to a press statement from the Ministry of Tourism, Economic Development, Investment & Energy, the US$15 million has already been earmarked to go towards the Cruise Port Development in St John’s.
However, notwithstanding the magnitude of development, Ward argued that there was reasonable rationale to have Iraq on that list and that there were no reported changes to the state of that country which, he felt, warranted a lifting of the ban.
He told this newspaper, “I was a bit surprised because Iraq had been listed among the countries that the CIP was not available to, and as far as I could tell the situation in Iraq hasn’t changed over the past several months, so I would be very curious as to what has changed to make it possible for Iraq to be removed from that list of non-CIP eligible countries.”
Ward, who has served two years on the United Nations Security Council, said while he acknowledges that Antigua & Barbuda is a sovereign state, there are far more serious implications associated with allowing Iraqi citizens to purchase the country’s passport.
“Antigua & Barbuda is a member of Caricom; people travel on Caricom passports; people who have access to an Antigua & Barbuda passport also have access as a citizen to a Caricom passport, which means they can enter any Caricom country quite easily. So there are implications for other countries within the region,” he explained.
The international consultant added that such a move could also affect North America, because of increased travel to the region from Antigua & Barbuda.
Wade told OBSERVER media, based on the insurgencies in countries like Iraq, the real issue exists with the level of security and the kind of citizens wanting to take advantage of the CIP.
“We know that there are terrorists operating in Baghdad, there’s no question about that, and they may also see this as an opportunity.”
He questioned whether the programme could be used as a gateway for terrorism.
“I am not suggesting that is this case, but one has to be careful and one has to be cautious to ensure that anyone taking advantage of a flight from Baghdad to Antigua is not coming into the region to use the region as a gateway to go elsewhere, because this is how the whole planning of terrorists operates and they don’t move with haste, they look at soft targets and they look at opportunities.”