Most Americans think that the territories are just like states. They certainly aren’t and in times of crisis, the residents get to learn that first hand. In times like these we’re reminded that colonies (with all that bad things we think of when we think of colonies) still exist in our hemisphere.
The Caribbean colonies of four neo-colonialist powers, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States, have discovered the hard way where they stand with their colonial masters when faced with an extreme natural disaster. In the wake of hurricane Irma, a Category 5 mega-storm, the populations of the island territories of the four colonial powers, as well as Barbuda, a dominion of Queen Elizabeth’s “Commonwealth,” were relegated to second- and third-class status when it came to the receipt of urgent assistance in the wake of Irma.
Long a domain of rich and famous part-time residents and offshore shell corporations, the permanent residents of the islands of the northeast Leeward Islands are merely looked upon as tourism employees and clerical staff for offshore banks and law offices catering to money launderers and tax evaders. When these victims of Irma cried out for basics – water, food, and medicines, they were initially ignored by neo-colonial offices in Paris, London, Amsterdam, and Washington, DC. Read more here.