Talking one thing and doing something else

THE EDITOR: In his Emancipation Day message, Prime Minister Dr Rowley (or maybe his speech writer) made an unqualified statement that “on the African continent, slavery existed before the Europeans arrived and turned Africa’s west coast into an organised export enterprise.”

He and/or the speech writer also stated, “We must also pay attention to the calls for reparative justice for centuries of slavery, particularly in light of how the covid19 vaccines were appropriated by the developed world.”

According to a good friend of mine’s, here is yet another matter of a politician talking one thing and doing something else.

Both he and I were angered by the blatant hypocrisy in the Prime Minister’s statement coming after six years of disrespect by the TT Government to the Caricom issue of reparations for the nations and people of the Caribbean for the crimes against humanity of native genocide, the transatlantic slave trade and a racialised system of chattel slavery.

Or is it possible that our anger is misplaced because the Prime Minister placed the original sin of slavery on the Africans?

Maybe so, because his government kept the former TT National Committee for Reparations (TTNCR) off its list of priorities and ignored constant appeals for legitimising the committee. I am sure the editors of each newspaper have seen my list of correspondence to the Ministry of Foreign and Caricom Affairs and to the Prime Minister himself.

The TTNCR received an egregious blow from Rowley, then chairman of Caricom, when he said, inter alia, on February 24 at the Caricom 32nd Intersessional Heads of Government Meeting:

“I take this opportunity to applaud the CRC on its pioneering work. Many of us have recognised that the road to reparatory justice is likely to be long and arduous. However, we must stay the course. To this end, Trinidad and Tobago has recommitted itself to assist the community in this regard and as a first step has appointed Dr Heather Cateau, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Education of the University of West Indies, St Augustine, as its new chairperson to our reconstituted National Committee on Reparations.”

The cavalier manner in which the new head was announced is less an offence to me, who had been chairman since 2014, and more a disrespect to the entire international movement for reparations.

Now Rowley has made his Emancipation Day appeal as though he and his government were lifelong advocates for reparations. As far as I am concerned, they never were and they may never be committed to reparations.

In the same way, Rowley’s government had never stated its commitment to the International Decade for People of African Descent from the get-go. All we have had are vague mouthings from certain ministers who do not speak for the Government.

If emancipation has to be really meaningful, if Black Lives Matter has to resonate in the modern world, respect must be given to the Caricom initiative toward reparations for native genocide and the transatlantic slave trade and (this is very important) some firm programmes must be established in TT for the remaining years of the international decade which ends in 2024.

AIYEGORO OME

Mt Lambert