Reparations c’tte abandoned

CHAIRMAN of the Emancipation Support Committee Khafra Kambon says the national reparations committee that was appointed by the former People’s Partnership government, and of which he is a member, has since been abandoned.

He also said attempts for a meeting with the prime minister to discuss reparations for people of African descent have been to no avail.

Kambon made the statements on Thursday while delivering a lecture on reparations at the Scarborough Library, Tobago.

The lecture, titled Reparations and Self-Repair, was the seventh instalment of a lecture series, hosted by the Tobago Writer’s Guild and Tobago Library Services.

Kambon said when the People’s Partnership went out of office in 2015, committee members debated their next move, given the nature of the arrangement.

“It was a Cabinet-appointed committee on reparations but it was in keeping with not a TT agenda, but a Caricom agenda. You have a regional reparations body and each territory was mandated to set up committees. So, it is part of a Caricom agenda,” he said.

“The thing is that when the government changed, knowing we were a Cabinet-appointed committee, people were saying should we just resign or just offer our resignations because if a committee is appointed by Cabinet then the incoming Cabinet has a right to change that. They could pick and choose from within the committee. They could dismiss the committee altogether and form another committee.”

Saying members wanted to ensure continuity, Kambon said they wrote letter to the prime minister making it clear they were prepared to resign.

“We made it clear we were not trying to hold on to anything. But we never received any response and the committee has never been able to met with the prime minister up to now. We have sought several occasions to meet with him.

“On one occasion he told the chairman of the committee (Ayeigoro Ome) to meet with Minister (Fitzgerald) Hinds. He (Ome) met with Minister Hinds and since then nothing has happened.”

Kambon said the committee still meets “but there are limits to what we can do with absolutely no resources and no indication of governments position on it.

“When there is a Caricom meeting, the chairperson of the committee Ayiegoro Ome, would attend on our behalf. Sometime he would participate in conferences. But by and large the committee has been abandoned.

He added: “It is unfortunate to abandon a reparations committee in the international decade fore people of African descent. It is something I feel very strongly about and Caricom has played a magnificent role.

“The fact that governments got together and agreed to reparations, even if they do nothing else, it was a stimulation to the movement globally. It is sad to see it abandoned.”

Kambon also described as incomprehensible, the fact that he has not heard anyone in government mention the term - international decade for people of African descent.

“It is interesting because we are now at the mid-point of the international decade for people of African descent. Governments around the world unanimously agreed that this period from 2015 would be known as the international decade for people of African descent. “I don’t belong to any political party but as an African I want to see whoever is in government, I want to see them looking at my interests and to me it is incomprehensible that I have never heard a single person, since this decade has started, make mention of it. So, I think we are in a bit of a crisis as a people where that is concerned.”