‘Imagine little St Lucia took their people’
THE MORE than 400 Jamaican crew members aboard the Carnival Glory passenger cruise ship are now hanging on the hope that the Jamaican Government will welcome them home after granting the Adventure of the Seas, with 1,044 of their countrymen, approval to dock yesterday.
Up to Tuesday afternoon, the Carnival Glory was located about 285 nautical miles northwest of Kingston.
Vance Gulliksen, of the Carnival Cruise public relations office in Miami, told The Gleaner yesterday that the cruise liner “continues to have constructive discussions with Jamaican officials and hope to be able to debark our Jamaican national crew members in the coming days”.
Carnival said that within days after the March 13 pause in cruise operations, “Carnival Cruise Line had debarked guests from all 27 of our ships, and our full attention turned to the health and safety of our on board team”.
It added that when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “no sail order” was extended in April, Carnival made the decision to repatriate a vast majority of our crew in conjunction with our announcement to suspend operations until late June (which has now been extended again until August).
But it’s of no comfort for the Jamaicans on board who are longing for home.
The Holness administration, on March 24, closed the country’s borders to incoming passenger traffic to curb the spread of COVID-19.
“It is not very pretty out here. We are hearing of people on some other vessels attempting to jump overboard,” stated McNeil Miller, a bartender on board Carnival Glory.
He said nationals are adamant they should be allowed to come home.
“Imagine little St Lucia took their people. Every other little island took their people, and yet our Government cannot find a place for us. I would rather go home and isolate in my own home than being here any longer, even though we are being treated well,” Miller said via WhatsApp.
But that reasoning has been contradicted by Jamaica House, which argues that it has had to balance the right to entry with public-health risks from the new coronavirus. The Government has also cited the logistics of operationalising quarantine facilities as a key concern.
AT WITS’ END
The global pandemic, which has killed 323,000 and infected nearly five million, found cruise ships to be ready incubators for the virus’ spread.
However, a 38-year-old waitress using the pseudonym Shelly Brown, because she was not authorised to speak, said that she is at her “wits’ end” trying to make sense of the Government’s insistence not to have them disembark.
She said Jamaicans aboard
Carnival Glory were told by the ship’s management in early May of a schedule to get them home, but they were later left agonising after it was revealed that those plans were scuppered when it became clear that the Government was scrambling to identify and prepare quarantine facilities.
Brown explained how ship crews of various Caribbean nationalities ended up together.
“Jamaicans were placed aboard the same ship with other Caribbean nationals. So far, they have taken home the St Lucians, Vincentians, Grenadians; we have been to Barbados, Dominica, and the Dominican Republic,” Brown said, adding that it was shameful that Jamaicans could not return home despite the efforts of the vessel’s operators.
The mother of six said that meetings have been held with Carnival Glory’s management over the past two days and that Jamaicans were informed that the initial plan to head to Jamaica on Tuesday morning was no longer an option.
“They said it was not going to be possible because our Government is having issues with quarantine facilities and persons who are held in quarantine,” Brown said, adding that she is only comforted by the fact that her husband, a chef on the same vessel, is with her.
“But he is not doing well. It is like he is in depression. He hardly speaks to anyone at the moment,” Brown said.
Maritime sociologist Dr Caroline Graham said, however, that maritime law is complex and nuanced. She urged that an understanding of law have preeminence over pontification.
“Employers of seafarers are obliged to repatriate nationals under the terms of the Law of the Sea, and if that fails, then the flag state is responsible. But in these unfrequented times, the Jamaican authorities have responsibility for that.
“All the talk that’s been going on suggests they don’t really know how shipping works or they don’t care,” Graham told The Gleaner.
But that’s cold comfort for a group of 16 Jamaican contract workers, based in The Bahamas, who are aboard the Carnival Glory.
Dwight Mitchell, from Battersea, St Ann, described his ordeal as something scripted for a movie.
On April 23, Mitchell and his crew were flown from Freeport in The Bahamas to Miami, and then New York, before being taken to New Jersey. Wishful thinking gave them the hope of travelling back to Jamaica on the 24th, but they flew back to Atlanta after realising that that door was closed.
Mitchell said that upon arrival in Atlanta, they were met by a group of 70 or more Jamaicans who were to join them on a Delta Airlines flight back to the island. But that hope ended in bad news.
“Well, the plane did leave for Jamaica, but with only our luggage, as we were taken on board this ship. Effectively, we have to be doing without our luggage from then,” he said.