Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton has described as "very unfortunate" a legal move by the William Mahfood-led Wisynco Group Limited to block the Heart Foundation of Jamaica (HFJ) from repeating information it posted on social media aimed at warning Jamaicans about the dangers of excessive sugar intake.
The information was posted on Instagram last month as part of a public education campaign, dubbed 'Are You Drinking Yourself Sick'. The campaign features a number of commercials that have been airing on local television and various social media platforms since late last year.
But Winsyco has charged, in court documents obtained by The Gleaner, that the information posted on Instagram conveyed false and defamatory information about its CranWata beverage.
Consequently, the company, through its attorneys, has filed documents in the Supreme Court seeking a declaration that the information posted on Instagram is defamatory and an injunction barring the non-governmental organisation from repeating it. The application is to be heard in the Supreme Court next week, but the legal move appears to have left Tufton baffled.
"I'm not sure what is the logic, business or otherwise, for a company to pursue legal action against an NGO seeking to pursue a critical and globally recognised public-health mandate," he told The Gleaner yesterday. "This development is very unfortunate," Tufton added.
Wisynco's general counsel Rachel Zacca would not confirm or deny that the company has filed legal action against the NGO when contacted by The Gleaner yesterday. But in an affidavit included among the court documents obtained by The Gleaner, Zacca requested that Wisynco's application be treated with urgency.
"The claim and application are urgent because the Instagram post complained of was published on March 1, 2018 and remains accessible by Google search in circumstances where the advertising campaign that it forms a part of is ongoing and continuing," the affidavit said.
Wisynco contends that the since-deleted Instagram post made an inaccurate claim about the volume of sugar contained in its CranWata beverage before asking the question: "Are you drinking yourself sick? Drink water instead."
Noting that the aim of the campaign is to discourage the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, the company claimed that the inaccurate information posted by HFJ is defamatory because it suggests that drinking Wisynco's products, specifically CranWata, will make them sick.
"The said words were calculated to disparage CranWata and Wisynco in its business. In consequence, CranWata's and Wisynco's reputation have been seriously damaged and the principals of Wisynco have suffered considerable distress, anxiety and embarrassment," the company asserted.
In a closer-than-expected Venezuelan presidential election held last Sunday to replace the late Hugo Chávez, opposition candidate Henrique Capriles has refused to recognise the result, calling it "illegitimate" and fuelling violent protests.
Nicolas Maduro, Chávez's preferred successor, received 50.8 per cent of the votes to Capriles' 49 per cent. Voter turnout was high, at 79 per cent, just short of the 80 per cent reached in last October's Chávez-Capriles matchup.
As election results were announced in central Caracas, there were jubilant celebrations by Chavistas, with fireworks and honking car horns. But in the suburbs, Capriles supporters were in an angry protest mood, banging pots and pans loudly in the streets, and lighting fires.
Pointing to what he claimed were voting irregularities, Capriles promptly accused the ruling party of election fraud, and said he will not accept Maduro's victory until a full audit of the results is carried out by the National Electoral Council (CNE). "I don't make pacts with those who are corrupt or illegitimate," said Capriles, who is demanding a manual recount of every single vote cast.
As of Sunday night, Maduro initially said he would gladly accept a full recount. "If they want to do an audit, then do an audit. We have complete trust in our electoral body." Vicente Diaz, one of the members of the electoral council, also publicly expressed support for an audit.
But, by Monday, the narrative had changed, leaving the impression that the government was reneging on its promise. Tibisay Lucena, president of the CNE, announced to the media that all of the proper auditing checks had already been undertaken as part of Venezuela's elaborate standard process of verification, and that a manual recount was, therefore, unnecessary.
Venezuela uses electronic machines to tabulate votes, rather than handwritten ballots. When each vote is cast, the machine automatically issues a printed receipt that confirms, and serves as a record of, that vote. This is more reliable, and less susceptible to tampering, than, say, the machines used in the US, where absence of a printed receipt means one never knows whether the vote was, in fact, registered as you cast it.
As part of CNE's standard protocol, 14 audits had already been conducted before and during the voting process, to ensure correct functioning of the system. CNE had audited a sampling of 54 per cent of the vote, with observers from all parties present - which Lucena explained is "a statistical proportion that in any part of the world is considered excessive".
Citing the importance of maintaining rule of law, she then added that "candidate Capriles ... has refused to recognise the results announced by this body. That is his decision, but in Venezuela a state of law exists which must be respected."
Carlos Alvarez, head of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) observer mission which was present throughout Sunday's voting, also chimed in with assurances that UNASUR had observed "wide exercise of citizenship and freedom" during the election, and that, therefore, "results emitted by the National Electoral Council should be respected, as the competent authority on this matter".
Satisfied with the results of a thorough electronic voting system widely regarded as "the best in the world", Venezuela's five-member electoral commission then smugly announced that the results were "irreversible", and proceeded to declare Maduro the president-elect, with the formal swearing-in ceremony to be held April 19.
This, in turn, further outraged opposition supporters, leading to more protests. There have been at least seven confirmed deaths and 61 injuries so far throughout the country, in the aftermath of the elections.
For Jamaica, what's at stake in all of this post-election haggling is that Maduro is the candidate most devoted to continuing Chávez's generous PetroCaribe arrangements, which provide discounted oil through concessionary loans. To date, Jamaica has benefited to the tune of US$2.4 billion from those arrangements. Even though, as PetroCaribe Development Fund head Dr Wesley Hughes recently indicated, Venezuela may at some point have to review its terms, a favourable arrangement for Jamaica is clearly more likely to survive under a Maduro administration.
Maduro has also agreed to honour Chávez-inspired regional alliances like ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America), and to continue pursuing the close relationship and economic exchanges with Cuba. Capriles, in contrast, lacks the Bolivarian ideological commitments that led to all of those regional arrangements in the first place, so would likely consider discontinuing or replacing them.
With such a narrow mandate, and a split nation, Maduro will have a tough time governing during the next six years. The razor-thin margin leaves his political legitimacy less firmly anchored than Chávez's was. That perceived weakness, in turn, provides encouragement for further destabilisation attempts by opponents in concert with the US - something that was constant during the Chávez years and included an unsuccessful 2002 attempted coup.
And there are mounting problems to be solved in Venezuela that have accumulated during the Chávez years - including escalating crime and murder rates, corruption, periodic shortages of food staples, and nearly 30 per cent annual inflation.
In particular, the country's heavy economic dependence on oil - with 95 per cent of export earnings deriving from oil and roughly 45 per cent of government revenues - means that if oil prices should dip on the international market with countries like the US producing more of their own, there will be less in Venezuela's national coffers with which to continue the expensive 'social missions' that ensure votes.
Will a less charismatic, less commanding former bus driver like Maduro be able to overcome all of those challenges, and unify the country's resolve to continue its progressive Bolivarian reforms? As memories of Chávez fade, Maduro will have to develop his own persona, beyond the overworked campaign slogan that he's 'the son of Chávez'.
Lawrence Powell is honorary research fellow at the Centre of Methods and Policy Application in the Social Sciences at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and a former senior lecturer at UWI, Mona. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and lapowell.auckland@ymail.com.
A search and rescue operation is now being conducted by the Jamaica Defence Force Coast Guard and the Jamaica Constabulary Force's Marine Division for 22-year-old Jerome Christie, a security guard of Binns Road, Kingston 11.
Reports from the Port Royal police are that about 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, Christie and a group of men were fishing at the beach when he stepped into the water, lost his balance and sunk.
Meanwhile, another man was suspected to have drowned on Sunday. He is 31-year-old Alton Swaby of Saint Toolist district in Porus, Manchester.
Swaby is suspected to have drowned at his home. Reports from the Porus police are that about 6:15 a.m., Swaby's relatives stumbled upon his body in a water tank behind his house.
The police were summoned and the body was removed to the morgue, pending a post-mortem. No foul play is suspected. Investigations continue.