Kambon slams 'out of place' Spanish ambassador

Shabaka Kambon
Shabaka Kambon

SHABAKA Kambon, head of the Cross Rhodes Freedom Project, has slammed the Spanish ambassador for being "out of place" with regard to his recent letter, with regard to the Columbus statue on Independence Square.

Ambassador Javier Carbajosa wrote a letter to the media in which he said when the topic arose, his first reaction was one of "amazement."

The ambassador wrote, "At a time in which covid19 is still among us and the consequences on the economy of TT seem uncertain. Really?!!! Is this an urgent problem for TT now?"

Kambon, on Wednesday, issued a statement on behalf of the Cross Rhodes Freedom Project, in response saying, "The only thing he didn’t say was that we should return to the nearest plantation. It is curious that he didn’t speak up last year when Spain’s cabinet agreed to exhume the remains of the fascist dictator and mass murderer General Francisco Franco from a 260-metre-long underground basilica topped by a 150m-high cross, north of Madrid."

Kambon also responded to a comment in Carbajosa's letter that: "History cannot be rewritten to the taste of the consumer. It is what it is, with its lights and shadows, and it is part of our legacy. We should accept it and learn from it. My point is that trying to rewrite history and pretend that things never existed is, in my opinion, a futile and hypocritical and dangerous endeavour."

Kambon countered, "Why didn't speak up over the years when they were moving the other symbols of the Franco era from Spain's streets, buildings and squares? Why didn’t he defend history when Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sanchez said, 'this decision marks an end to the moral insult that the public glorification of a dictator constitutes.'

"Why didn’t he tell Spain’s deputy prime minister, Carmen Calvo to 'accept it and learn from it' when she argued that: 'Democracy is not compatible with a tomb that honours the memory of Franco'?"

He said the foundation "will not waver in our resolve to end the veneration of the architect of native genocide and the transatlantic slave trade in TT and across the entire Caribbean. We understand as did the people of Spain that our action is a live political decision pregnant with wider meaning for the development of our modern democracy.

Kambon said just as Spanish people understood that exhuming Franco was a necessary step in the final stages of Spain’s move away from authoritarianism, "so too do we understand that removing Columbus is a necessary step in our own historic journey away from our racist brutal colonial violence towards real independence."

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"Kambon slams ‘out of place’ Spanish ambassador"

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