Petition launched to remove Columbus statue

Shabaka Kambon, coordinator and founder of the Cross Rhodes Freedom project stands with a picket sign near Columbus statue in downtown Port-of-Spain yesterday. Kambon is calling for a removal of the statue and an end to a 'whitewashing' of history in T&T. PHOTO BY SHANE SUPERVILLE
Shabaka Kambon, coordinator and founder of the Cross Rhodes Freedom project stands with a picket sign near Columbus statue in downtown Port-of-Spain yesterday. Kambon is calling for a removal of the statue and an end to a 'whitewashing' of history in T&T. PHOTO BY SHANE SUPERVILLE

THE CROSS Rhodes Freedom Project and the elders of the Warao Nation have launched a petition to have the Christopher Columbus statue in East Port of Spain removed.

Cross Rhodes Freedom Project president and coordinator Shabaka Kambon announced the petition on Wednesday during the Emancipation Day celebrations at the Grand Stand, Queen's Park Savannah.

"(The statue) is venerating genocide, slavery and rape," he told the gathering.

Kambon said the groups were calling for the statue to be removed to a museum. He added that the Queen and the elders of the Warao nation were hoping to collect a few thousand signatures yesterday and the plan was to have a total of 5,000 signatures before presenting the petition to Port of Spain Mayor Joel Martinez next week. He told Newsday he met with Martinez on Tuesday morning to discuss the issue and would be issuing a release today.

"We will be ramping up the campaign between now and December, " he added.

Kambon and his group have been campaigning for the removal of the statue, once describing it as a monument to the genocide of TT’s first peoples and an insult to their ancestors. This month the Grand Council of the Warao Nation and the Partners for First People’s Development issued a release calling for a meeting with Martinez on the statue.

Comments

"Petition launched to remove Columbus statue"

More in this section