By Lincoln DePradine

Three former British-run Caribbean nations, which suffered major housing and other infrastructural damage during the recent passage of Hurricane Beryl, are calling on the UK’s new Labour Party government for an “immediate” cancellation of the debt owed to Britain.

Prime Ministers Gaston Browne of Antigua and Barbuda, Dr Ralph Gonsalves of St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), and Grenada’s Dickon Mitchell made the call in a letter addressed to British foreign secretary David Lammy and to Rachel Reeves, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer or finance minister.

Gonsalves, commenting to reporters about the letter, said the Caribbean countries “really need” Britain’s help, adding that if the British “have a sense of responsibility and humanity – and I believe you do have – I think you will assist. It’s as simple as that.”

In addition to property damage, Beryl left at least 11 people dead, after making landfall as a Category 5 hurricane on July 1.

The hurricane demolished more than 90 percent of buildings on Carriacou and Petite Martinique and on SVG. In addition, it cut supplies of water and electricity.

The countries now are trying to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild. Canada, Britain and the United States have pledged contributions of money to the rebuilding effort.

However, Prime Ministers Gonsalves, Browne and Mitchell have described the money collected so far from insurance policies and contributions as a “drop in the bucket”.

They point to the continuous pattern of destructive hurricanes in the region, with Dominica losing more than 200 percent of its GDP after damage from Hurricane Maria in 2017.

The leaders’ letter warned that Caribbean countries cannot sustain the rising debt from rebuilding again and again, and urging “immediate debt cancellation’’ that should be “provided through a pre-arranged mechanism that triggers automatically in the event of a qualifying disaster such as the current one”.

Likening the impact of hurricanes on Caribbean nations to a nuclear Armageddon, the letter proposes an initiative similar to America’s $13.3 billion “Marshall Plan” to rebuild Europe after the second world war. The Caribbean version of the “Marshall Plan” would include cheaper loans; debt restructuring options; improved access to grants for climate-related damage; and, a large-scale program to build green and resilient infrastructure and stronger economies.

Gonsalves, using St Vincent and the Grenadines as an example, questioned “how is a country – with very little fiscal space – going to rebuild 2,500 houses, as in the case of SVG? Even a larger country, [with a] larger economy will find that very problematic, much less to a country as small and fragile as ours”.