#Prime Minister of Barbados

[sexypinkon]

Sexypink - Created by Barbadian Sculptor Ricky George commemorating the Father of Independence the Right Honorable Errol Walton Barrow (1920-1987)

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A 9ft tall bronze statue weighing 2000lbs was erected in Independence Square to pay homage to Sir Errol Walton Barrow, the father of Barbados' Independence. It was sculpted by a St. Lucian sculptor Ricky George and was unveiled on Errol Barrow Day, Sunday January 21st, 2007.

Born January 21st 1920, Errol Barrow was the last Premier and first Prime Minister of Barbados. His political career lasted 36 years up until his death in 1987. During this time he was able to affect great social and economic changes in Barbados.

He is credited with the implementation of free education, school meals services, improved health care  the introduction of a National Insurance and Social Security Scheme and a host more achievements.

Along with the statue, Sir Errol Barrow is remembered by a public holiday, his likeness on the $50 note and he is one of Barbados' National Heroes.

https://www.gobarbados.org/errol-barrow-statue/

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[courtana]

We, Black Curatorial, Kwanda, Twossaints, Black Eats London & West India Cinema Corporation have come together to fundraise for people affected by Hurricane Beryl across the West Indies. As West Indian people it is imperative that we support each other and ourselves in the building back of our communities, this is a duty. Hurricane Beryl has devastated hundreds of communities in the West Indies. This is not a freak storm, this is a direct impact of climate crisis in the region - fuelled and sustained by overconsumption and emissions in the Global North. The ocean waters are 4 degrees warmer than expected at this time of year, this has directly affected the speed and ferocity of the hurricane at the beginning of this year's hurricane season. To understand what the importance of AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) is for Hurricane season in the Caribbean and globally please watch this video. The impact of this hurricane is very much being felt, "90% of homes on Union Island had been destroyed", according to Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves. We’re fundraising for people and charities across Barbados, St Vincent & the Grenadines, Grenada and those affected across the region. The money raised will go towards helping local fishermen in Barbados to buy new boats, support roofing and housing materials for people in Carriacou, Union and Grenada and well as St Vincent to rebuild their livelihoods and homes. We are working collectively to disseminate these funds across the region ensuring they reach grassroots communities and people directly. The Hurricane is now a category 5 and on its way to Jamaica. We urge everyone to pray for its weakening and for the people currently effected by Beryl's peril. Please continue to share and donate to those affected! If you have any questions please email us.

WHERE ARE THE DONATIONS GOING?

This fund exists to go directly to grassroots organisations providing support for those across the following countries: Barbados St Vincent & the Grenadines Carriacou Petite Martinique Union Grenada Jamaica

HOW WILL THEY BE PROCESSED AND ADMINISTERED?

We are working with Kwanda to help disseminate the funds to the existing groups they work with in the affected countries. Black Curatorial work across Barbados and Jamaica administering funds for creatives via the Fly Me Out Fund our process of sending money via transfer is already set up to support and facilitate this fund's dissemination.

WHO'S INVOLVED?

Black Curatorial Kwanda West India Cinema Corporation Twossaints Black Eats London

[opencommunion]

All 14 independent CARICOM members have now formally recognized Palestine

[fatehbaz]

In the summer of 2020, [...] Black Lives Matter protesters tore a statue of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston from its plinth in the centre of Bristol and rolled it into the harbour. [...] [C]ritics [...] argued that this type of direct action was “erasing history”. Britain’s prime minister at the time, Boris Johnson, claimed that to remove statues of figures like Colston from the public square was “to lie about our history”. Sir Trevor Phillips complained that Britain’s public history was being “erased entirely” [...]. Yet rather than lead us into an era of collective forgetting, the tearing down of Colston’s statue transported his name – and deeds – into the public consciousness.

This week, the renewed attention towards Colston bore fruit when the Guardian revealed that a historian, Brooke Newman, had unearthed a document showing that in 1689, Colston transferred £1,000 of shares in the Royal African Company (RAC) to none other than King William III. The exposure of the extent to which the monarch was financially intertwined with the slave trading company of which Colston was a director does not teach us less about history, it teaches us more.

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The activities of colonial companies like the RAC, which enjoyed a monopoly over the English trade in slaves from the west African coast, are often presented as distinct from the internal history of the British Isles.

Yes, there may have been the odd massacre performed in the service of British imperialism, but these were the actions of rogue merchants in distant tropical lands, operating far from the watchful eye of Westminster and the living embodiment of British sovereignty, the monarch. This makes it easy to delete the actions of the RAC from the national record: the 84,500 men, women and children who, during Colston’s time with the company, were taken by its ships from their homes in west Africa to suffer a life of slavery in the New World.

A quarter of them would not even survive the journey, so horrific were the conditions aboard Colston’s ships.

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Yet this separation between internal royal histories and external colonial histories has always been a [hidden] spot in our understanding of the past. Companies like the RAC needed to be granted a royal charter just to exist: they couldn’t be just registered and incorporated like companies today.

And furthermore, as the Guardian’s research has illustrated, there was often a cosy personal connection between the ruling kings and queens of this island and its slave-trading and colonial companies. This extended from James II acting as a governor of the Royal African Company to George II being a shareholder of the South Sea Company, which held the contract to supply enslaved Africans to the Spanish colonies in South America. [...]

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The new revelations arrive at a difficult time for the monarchy, with the coronation of a new king seeking to shore up the disruption caused by the passing of the long-reigning Elizabeth II. [...] Leading politicians in Australia and Jamaica, countries where the British monarchy traditionally enjoyed a great deal of public support, are now campaigning to follow in the footsteps of Barbados, [...] a step towards the Caribbean island “leaving our colonial past behind”. The rising unpopularity of the British monarchy in the once-reliable British West Indies was made evident by the protests that greeted [...] William and Kate, during their tour of the region last year. [...] The relationship between the British royal family and the former colonies isn’t just a question of symbolism or constitutional law. It is an entry point into a deep and bloody history [...]. It is a history that the lid has only just started to be lifted on.

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Text by: Kojo Koram. “Those who tore down Colston’s statue helped lead us to the truth about slavery and the monarchy.” The Guardian. 7 April 2023. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[tomorrowusa]

A Conservative politician is making millions off of slavery 190 years after slavery was abolished in Britain and its territories.

Tory Richard Drax comes from a filthy rich family notorious for having established the model for slave-based sugar plantations in the Caribbean in the 1620s. Even by the standards of a slave-based economy, the record of the Drax family was appalling.

The Barbados plantation was worked by up to 327 slaves at a time, with the death rate for both adults and children high. Sir Hilary Beckles, chairman of the 20-state Caribbean Community’s (Caricom) Reparations Commission and vice-chancellor of the University of the West Indies, estimates that as many 30,000 slaves died on the Drax plantations in Barbados and Jamaica over 200 years.

Thanks largely to their their ill-gained riches, the Drax family owns a 700 acre walled estate in Dorset which includes a deer park. And apparently they are getting even richer.

Despite threats to make Richard Drax pay reparations and seize his family’s plantation – described by one historian as a “killing field” of enslaved Africans – the government is now planning to pay market value for 21 hectares (about 15 football pitches) of his land for housing. The move has angered many Barbadians, especially those who say the Drax family played a pivotal role in the development of slavery-based sugar production and the Barbados slave code in the 17th century. This denied Black Africans basic human rights, including the right to life. Critics have called the planned deal an “atrocity” and said this is “one plantation that the government should not be paying a cent for”. Trevor Prescod, MP and chair of the Barbados National Taskforce on Reparations, said: “What a bad example this is. Reparations and Drax Hall are now top of the global agenda. How do we explain this to the world? “The government should not be entering into any [commercial] relationship with Richard Drax, especially as we are negotiating with him regarding reparations.”

It's baffling why the Barbadian government would enter into such a deal.

Drax, the MP for South Dorset, travelled to Barbados to meet prime minister Mia Mottley. It is understood he was asked to hand over all or a substantial part of Drax Hall plantation. If he refused, legal action would follow. Mottley’s spokesperson said the current Drax Hall purchase was not linked to reparations and the government “constantly acquires land through this process”. Mottley has pledged to build 10,000 new homes to meet demand on the island, where there are 20,000 applications for housing. A senior valuation surveyor said the market value for agricultural land with an alternative use for housing would be about Bds$150,000 (£60,000) an acre. At this price, the 21 hectares could net Drax Bds$8m (£3.2m). The land would be for 500 low- and middle-income family homes, which would be for sale.

I'd just grab the land and pay Drax a token £1 just so he legally can't claim he wasn't compensated at all for the transfer.

Barbados poet laureate Esther Phillips, who grew up next to Drax Hall, said the planned deal was an “atrocity” and a case of the victims’ descendants now compensating the descendant of the enslaver. “He should be giving us this land as reparations, not further enriching himself … at the expense of Barbadians. As Barbadians, we must speak out against this.”

And with the reported thousands of deaths during the 200+ years of slavery at the Drax plantation, how many people will be comfortable with the idea that their new home is built on what was essentially a forced labor camp which became a model for regional slavery? Isn't the Drax property on Barbados a large cemetery?

[kp777]

Fiona Harvey. Environment Editor

The Guardian

Sun 18 Jun 2023

The world must rethink its approach to the climate crisis, by investing trillions of dollars instead of billions in the developing world, and moving beyond conventional ideas of overseas aid, one of the world’s most influential climate economists has urged.

“We need a complete rethink of the whole nexus of climate, debt and development,” Avinash Persaud told the Observer, before a key summit. “What we are seeing today is new – countries affected by climate disaster, this is happening now. Countries are drowning.”

He called for a tripling of the finance available from the World Bank and similar institutions, and a huge influx of cash from the private sector, driven by the careful use of public funds and regulation to remove the current barriers to investment. “This is the biggest financial opportunity in the world,” he said.

Persaud is economic adviser to Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados, who is co-hosting a meeting of world leaders this week with French president Emmanuel Macron. More than 50 heads of state and government are expected to attend the summit in Paris this Thursday and Friday, including Lula da Silva of Brazil, Germany’s Olaf Scholtz and the Chinese premier Li Qiang.

Rishi Sunak is likely to snub the conference. Joe Biden is sending his climate envoy, John Kerry.

In Paris, Mottley and Persaud will set out the “Bridgetown agenda”, named after the Barbados capital where it was first mooted last year. They will call for debt relief for some of the poorest nations facing climate catastrophe, a tripling of funding from the world’s multilateral development banks, including the World Bank, and new taxes to fund climate action, including, potentially, a levy on shipping.

They will also call for reforms to the way the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and other institutions operate, to make it easier for them to “de-risk” private sector investment in developing countries, such as by providing guarantees or long-term loans.

“The private sector has to be involved,” Persaud said. “The numbers needed would swamp developing countries’ balance sheets, but private companies can do it.”

[reasonsforhope]

One country in the [climate-change] firing line is Cape Verde. The West African island nation, where 80% of the population lives on the coast, is already feeling the brunt of rising sea levels and increasing ocean acidity on its infrastructure, tourism, biodiversity and fisheries.

The country desperately needs to both mitigate and adapt to these problems, but – as with many Global South countries at present – simply lacks the budget to do it: Cape Verde’s debt reached an all-time high of 157% of GDP in 2021.

In a bid to address both issues simultaneously, the country has signed a novel agreement with Portugal to swap some of its debt for investments into an environmental and climate fund. The former Portuguese colony owes the Portuguese state €140m ($148m) and Portuguese banks €400m.

On a state visit to Cape Verde on 23 January, Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa announced the debt would be put towards Cape Verde’s energy transition and fight against climate change. Costa earmarked projects involving energy efficiency, renewable energy and green hydrogen as possible targets for the fund.

“This is a new seed that we sow in our future cooperation,” said Costa. “Climate change is a challenge that takes place on a global scale and no country will be sustainable if all countries are not sustainable.”

“Debt-for-climate swaps” allow countries to reduce their debt obligations in exchange for a commitment to finance domestic climate and nature projects with the freed-up financial resources. The concept has been knocking about since the 1980s, typically geared at nature conservation. However, after recent deals for Barbados, Belize and the Seychelles, and huge $800m and $1bn agreements in the offing for Ecuador and Sri Lanka, is this financial instrument finally coming of age?

How It Works

Debt-for-climate swaps typically follow a formula. First, a creditor [here, a group or government that money is owed to] agrees to reduce debt, either by converting it into local currency, lowering the interest rate, writing off some of the debt, or a combination of all three. The debtor will then use the saved money for initiatives aimed at increasing climate resilience, lowering greenhouse gas emissions or protecting biodiversity.

The original 'debt-for-nature swaps' began as small, trilateral deals, with NGOs buying sovereign debt owed to commercial banks to redirect payments towards nature projects. They have since evolved into larger, bilateral deals between creditors and debtors...

Debt-for-climate swaps free up fiscal resources so governments can improve resilience and transition to a low-carbon economy without causing a fiscal crisis or sacrificing spending on other development priorities. [These swaps] can create additional revenue for countries with valuable biodiversity or carbon sinks by allowing them to charge others to protect those assets, thereby providing a global public good.

Swaps can even result in an upgrade to a country’s sovereign credit rating, as was the case in Belize, which makes government borrowing cheaper [and improves the country's economy.]

Right now, these [swaps] are needed more than ever, with low-income countries dealing with multiple crises that have put huge pressure on public debt...

Debt-for-climate swaps: “Increasing in size and scale”

Although debt-for-climate swaps are not new, until recently the amount of finance raised globally from the instrument has been modest – just $1bn between 1987 and 2003, according to one OECD study. Just three of the 140 swaps over the past 35 years have had a value of more than $250m, according to the African Development Bank. The average size was a mere $26.6m.

However, the market has steadily picked up pace over the past two decades... In 2016, the government of the Seychelles signed a landmark agreement with developed nation creditor group the Paris Club, supported by NGO The Nature Conservancy (TNC), for a $22m investment in marine conservation.

The government of Belize followed suit in 2021 by issuing a $364m blue bond – a debt instrument to finance marine and ocean-focused sustainability projects – to buy back $550m of commercial debt to use for marine conservation and debt sustainability.

Then, last year, Barbados completed a $150m transaction, supported by the TNC and the Inter-American Development Bank, allowing the country to reduce its borrowing costs and use savings to finance marine conservation.

“Two or three years ago, we were talking about $50m deals,” says Widge. “Now they have gone to $250–300m, so they are definitely increasing in size and scale.”

Indeed, the success of the deals for the Seychelles, Belize and Barbados, along with the debt distress sweeping across the Global South, has sparked an uptick of interest in the model.

Ecuador is reported to be in negotiations with banks and a non-profit for an $800m deal, and Sri Lanka is discussing a $1bn transaction – which would be the biggest swap to date."

-via Energy Monitor, 2/1/23

Note: I'm leaving out my massive rant about how the vast majority of this debt is due to the damages of colonialism. And also countries being forced to "PAY BACK" COLONIZERS FOR THEIR OWN FREEDOM for decades or in some cases centuries (particularly infuriating example: Haiti). Debt-for-climate swaps are good news, and one way to help right this massive historic and ongoing economic wrong

[everybody-votes]

Poll Five - The Monarch/Republic debate

Intended for all citizens of the Commonwealth, but of course this debate is more popular in some countries than others

Now they're all very fun easy-to-learn terms, but imma explain it for fun reasons

A constitutional monarchy is essentially where a King is the ceremonial figurehead of the state. He's officially in charge of things, but in reality he doesn't exercise any power (that's left to Cabinet, the Prime Minister, and sometimes Parliament). Just a bit of ceremonial stuff such as honours. You can find this in countries such as the UK and the Commonwealth, along with other nations such as Denmark and Sweden

A parliamentary republic is basically the same as a constitutional monarchy, but with a ceremonial President instead of a King, ergo no heirs apparent or royal family to speak of. They may be elected, but they're often appointed by the legislature. You can find this in countries such as Ireland, Germany, Barbados, and India.

A presidential republic is where the President actually does have power. They may or may not have a Prime Minister as their deputy, but they often have considerable political power, and considerably more independent of the legislature than parliamentary republics. Unlike the parliamentary republic, the Presidency tends to be a directly elected office. You can find this in countries such as the Untied States, Brazil, and Cyprus.

As for an absolute monarchy. Well, the king rules all. And his children will in the future. You can find this in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Oman.

Let me know what you think!

[lboogie1906]

Prime Minister Sargeant Robert Milton Cato (June 3, 1915 - February 10, 1997) was a Vincentian politician who served as the first Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and held the office of Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and Chief Minister of Saint Vincent before independence. He was the leader of the Saint Vincent Labour Party which guided the country to independence in 1979.

He was born in Saint Vincent, British Windward Islands. He was employed by a solicitor (attorney) in Kingstown and began his legal career. He was admitted to the Middle Temple Bar. He joined the First Canadian Army, attaining the rank of sergeant, and served on active duty in France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany during WWII.

He became involved in politics. He co-founded the Saint Vincent Labour Party. He was elected Prime Minister (1967) as leader of the Saint Vincent Labour Party and was instrumental in improving the island’s economic situation. He was the first Prime Minister of Saint Vincent when the island attained statehood (1969). His Labour Party lost the 1972 election and the Opposition Leader became Prime Minister. His party and its coalition partners won the 1974 election.

He served as prime minister (1974-84) coalition broke up in the mid-1970s. He invited the public to submit proposals for an independent constitution, he led a delegation to a constitutional conference in London to prepare for Saint Vincent’s transition to full independence. When Saint Vincent achieved political independence on October 27, 1979, he became the first Prime Minister of Saint Vincent. His government did not support other socialist governments nearby, such as those in Cuba, Grenada, and Guyana, because he rejected Marxism. He allied himself with pro-Western governments in Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados and cooperated with them on economic and defense issues.

He was married to Lucy-Ann Alexandra Cato. She was a member of the St Vincent Infant Welfare Maternity League, the Thompson Home Committee, and the Saint Vincent Music Council. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[ingek73]

‘God Save the King’ doesn’t fall from Jamaican lips so easily. Soon we’ll be a republic

Barbara Blake-Hannah

Barbados beat us to it, but this week our prime minister made throwing off the colonial yoke a top priority. It won’t be easy, but watch this space

Published: 14:59 Wednesday, 18 January 2023

Britain, take note. A post-Elizabethan era is taking shape here in Jamaica. And it looks like a republic. “The government will be moving with haste and alacrity towards transforming Jamaica into a republic,” said our prime minister, Andrew Holness, on Monday. “Please move ahead with speed,” he urged his minister of constitutional affairs. If there are obstacles, the government will do whatever it takes.

But then, the signs have long been there. Little or no notice was taken in Jamaica of the Queen’s jubilee last year. There was no bunting, no official party at King’s House. The main celebration was a big party celebrating a different jubilee – the 50th anniversary of The Harder They Come, the Jamaican feature film that introduced reggae and Rastafari culture to the world. But our most notable celebrations in 2022 honoured the year in which Jamaica also celebrated 60 years of independence from British colonial rule, with many activities, memorials and galas honouring that national history.

The visit to Jamaica by Prince William and his wife, Kate, last March was designed to generate a swell of pride in the Caribbean’s ties to the “mother country” and the Queen’s rule over the colonies of the British empire. Instead, it merely highlighted Jamaica’s longstanding call for slavery reparations, and reawakened calls to end Jamaica’s history as a British colony ruled by the Queen.

Anti-jubilee anger was also apparent in Belize – the first stop on the royal tour – when indigenous citizens also told William “not on our land”, protesting against the “colonial legacy of theft” when he planned to land his helicopter on a football field in their community. That same month, Belize had hosted a meeting of heads of government of Caricom, the political and economic union of 15 Caribbean member states; and after the royal visit, ministers signalled their intention to remove the Queen as head of state.

The reparations fire became a volcano in November 2021, when Barbados became a republic. Barbados! The “small island” we in Jamaica referred to with a sneer as “Little England” took the big step ahead of us. To rub it in, the prime minister of Barbardos, Mia Mottley, declared her country’s music superstar Rihanna a national hero, thumbing her nose at Jamaica, which has yet to truly honour its even greater superstar Bob Marley. The then Prince Charles stood solemnly as the union jack was lowered.

That did it for Jamaica. If Barbados could do it, so could we! Removing the Queen as head of state immediately became Jamaica’s most popular topic of discussion. This was not about her colour and race (though neither is immaterial): it was about her role as inheritor and keeper of Britain’s history of slavery and colonialism, the fundamental and continuing reason for Jamaica’s poverty and its associated ills.

Monarchists will oppose any effort to cut ties, but they contend with a social media debate suggesting an overwhelming majority of Jamaicans have been angered by the treatment of Prince Harry and Meghan. Meghan is biracial, like so many of us, and that anger cannot help but speed the decisions of many colonial nations to step away from having a British monarch as head of state.

For 70 long years, God saved gracious Queen Elizabeth to reign over us, happy and glorious. But the familiar words don’t fall from our lips as easily for Charles. The prospect of him and his former mistress Camilla being crowned king and queen of Jamaica is not relished by many, while Harry’s book, Spare, opens a window on the dysfunctional nature of a monarchy ruled by the “men in suits” who set the agenda and make the decisions. The view is not pretty.

The Jamaican government has created a new ministry with a specific mandate to lead Jamaica along the steps to becoming a republic – and promises that it can be accomplished within a year. When the monarch is replaced as head of state, it looks likely from current discussions that a president will be appointed by the prime minister in consultation with the leader of the opposition and confirmed by a two-thirds majority of both houses of parliament, with a term of office of six years, and limited to two terms. Much needs to be done, but ​now there’s “h​​aste and alacrity”: Jamaica is ready to build a future of ​its own.

Barbara Blake-Hannah is an anti-racism activist and a former TV broadcaster in Britain

[sexypinkon]

These  monuments are significant in the landscape of our cultural heritage and  symbols of our self-determination as Barbadians

Barbados National Gallery’s statement on the restoration of the Right Honorable Errol Barrow statue for Errol Barrow Day taking place yesterday 21st January 2023

[kemetic-dreams]

HISTORICAL IGBO TIMELINES:

STONE AGE -MIDDLE AGES.

This is the period dating 1.2million years to 3000BC , the era of homo-erectus found within the areas of ugwuele uturu following the discovery of Archeolean hand axes and stone tools in caves. Clay pots dating 3000BC were recovered at Afikpo and Opi iron slags .Details of this era is buried in archeology .

EARLY HISTORY:

8th-9 th AD : Kingdom of Nri begins with Eze Nri Ìfikuánim.

1434 AD: Portuguese explorers make contact with the Igbo.

1630 AD : The Aro-Ibibio Wars start.

1690AD: The Aro Confederacy is established

1745AD : Olaudah Equiano is born in Essaka, but later kidnapped and shipped to Barbados and sold as a slave in 1765.

1797AD : Olaudah Equiano dies in England as a freed slave.

1807 AD : The Slave Trade Act 1807 is passed (on 25 March) helping in stopping the transportation of enslaved Africans, including Igbo people, to the Americas. Atlantic slave trade exports an estimated total of 1.4 million Igbo people across the Middle Passage

1830 AD : European explorers explore the course of the Lower Niger and meet the Northern Igbo.

1835 AD: Africanus Horton is born to Igbo ex-slaves in Sierra Leone

1855 AD: William Balfour Baikie a Scottish naval physician, reaches Niger Igboland.

MODERN HISTORY:

1880–1905: Southern Nigeria is conquered by the British, including Igboland.

1885–1906: Christian missionary presence in Igboland.

1891: King Ja Ja of Opobo dies in exile, but his corpse is brought back to Nigeria for burial.

1896–1906: Around 6,000 Igbo children attend mission schools.

1901–1902: The Aro Confederacy declines after the Anglo-Aro war.

1902: The Aro-Ibibio Wars end.

1906: Igboland becomes part of Southern Nigeria (the beginning of our problem)

1914: Northern Nigeria and Southern Nigeria are amalgamated to form Nigeria. (escalation of our problem)

1929: Igbo Women's War (first Nigerian feminist movement) of 1929 in Aba.

1953: November Anti Igbo riots (killing over 50 Igbos in Kano) of 1953 in Kano

1960: October 1 Nigeria gains independence from Britain; Tafawa Balewa becomes Prime Minister, and Nnamdi Azikiwe becomes President.

1966: January 16 A coup by junior military officers takes over government and assassinated some country leaders. The Federal Military Government is formed, with General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi as the Head of State and Supreme Commander of the Federal Republic.

1966: July 29 A counter-coup by military officers of northern extraction, deposes the Federal Military Government; General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi is assassinated along with Adekunle Fajuyi, Military Governor of Western Region. General Yakubu Gowon becomes Head of State.

1967: Ethnoreligious violence between Igbo Christians, and Hausa/Fulani Muslims in Eastern and Northern Nigeria, triggers a migration of the Igbo back to the East.

1967: May 30 General Emeka Ojukwu, Military Governor of Eastern Nigeria, declares his province an independent republic called Biafra, and the Nigerian Civil War or Nigerian-Biafran War ensues.

1970: January 8 General Emeka Ojukwu flees into exile; His deputy Philip Effiong becomes acting President of Biafra.

1970: January 15 Acting President of Biafra Philip Effiong surrenders to Nigerian forces through future President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, and Biafra is reintegrated into Nigeria.

References:

Understanding 'Things Fall Apart' by Kalu Ogbaa

Wikipedia

Image Credit: Ukpuru, Pinterest

[fatehbaz]

When Dr Harold Young [...] takes visitors on a journey around Belize City, the first stop is an unremarkable building, whose basement entrance is partly shrouded by creeping pink bougainvillea. Its padlocked gates and broken windows back on to a parking lot in the city’s historic centre. Most passersby ignore the innocuous plaque outside. Belize, a country of 400,000 citizens, is [...] a part of the English-speaking Caribbean. A former British settlement and then colony, it is one of the region’s eight remaining Commonwealth realms – independent countries where the monarch remains the head of state.

Belize is the only Commonwealth realm King Charles has never visited.

The building is blocked from public entry but is known locally as the former headquarters of a TV station [...] once owned by the Conservative peer Lord Michael Ashcroft, who has sprawling business investments around Belize. But for those who are aware, the building serves as a horrifying reminder of the brutality of British rule here. “It’s the last remnants of a holding dungeon for slaves,” Young says. “Before they were put out for sale.” 

Unlike the island states in the Caribbean, where plantation slavery underpinned the colonial economy, enslaved labour in Belize revolved around the logging of mahogany at camps in the country’s interior. [...] [T]he remnants of violent enslavement are now mostly absent from public view. The building’s story has been passed down for generations, and is noted in certain tourist literature. But the historic plaque outside, while acknowledging its use in the mahogany trade, presents its connections to slavery merely as “local folklore”. “When you live in a colonial environment, the colonialists don’t want you to prove what they were doing was a horrendous trade, right?” says Young, who is Belizean Creole, meaning of mixed African heritage. [...]

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History is still not fully told. Crimes remain unacknowledged. [...]

But as the United Kingdom prepares to crown its new king, the citizens of Belize are laying the groundwork for a similarly historic event: they could be the first nation to remove Charles as head of state. [...] The process, the prime minister [...] acknowledged in an interview [...] means it is “quite likely” that Belize will be the next country to leave the Commonwealth realm, following Barbados’s seismic decision to become a republic in 2021. [...] Belize is not alone [...].

[D]iscussions over the future of the British monarchy have accelerated throughout the region.

Now, officials in seven of the remaining realm countries in the Caribbean have indicated they will seek to follow the same path [...]. In Jamaica, [...] the government has committed to a vote before the next general election in 2025. In Antigua and Barbuda, the prime minister [...] said shortly after the death of Queen Elizabeth that he would hold a referendum within three years. [...]

Such debate is far from new to the English-speaking Caribbean and did not begin with Barbados’s decision in 2021, nor the death of Queen Elizabeth last year. Carried by a wave of Black nationalism and socialism, three former British colonies, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and the newly independent Dominica, removed the monarch as head of state throughout the 1970s. Alternatives to the crown had been debated in popular circles long before even then. [...]

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Still, symbolism and imagery of the current moment [...] matter, particularly as relations between the English-speaking Caribbean and the UK fall to new lows in the aftermath of the Windrush scandal and both the government and the monarchy’s recent refusals to go beyond passive expressions of regret and offer a formal apology for the atrocities of slavery.

In March last year, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s visit to the Caribbean marking the Queen’s jubilee was punctuated by a series of protests that cast a long shadow over the exercise in soft power. In Jamaica, photographs of the pair shaking hands with children through a chainlink fence and later parading in white clothing in an open-top Land Rover were decried as a throwback to colonialism.

In Belize, the couple were forced to abandon plans to visit a Mayan village in the country’s south, following protest. [...] “There’s only so much the fig leaf of public relations and exercises in ‘soft power’ can cover,” [...]. “These images and videos were widely shared on social media [...].” Outside St John’s Cathedral in Belize City, the remains of a semicircular brick wall mark the boundary from where, it is said, enslaved people were permitted to listen to services inside. The building itself was built by enslaved labour, but colonial authorities banned enslaved people from entering.

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Text by: Oliver Laughland. “‘Colonialism lingers’: Belize shrugs off coronation amid calls for repatriations.” The Guardian. 4 May 2023. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[reasoningdaily]

Saint Kitts and Nevis is “not totally free” under King Charles III, the country’s prime minister has said.

The King is the head of the two-island sovereign state – with Saint Kitts the first Caribbean island that English colonists permanently settled.

Saint Kitts and Nevis prime minister Dr Terrance Drew also said he would welcome an apology from the monarchy for its historic links to the slave trade.

Buckingham Palace told the BBC that the King has pledged to deepen his understanding of the impact of slavery, something he takes “profoundly seriously”.

“That learning process has continued with vigour and determination since His Majesty’s accession,” Buckingham Palace said.

The palace noted that the King “has long acknowledged the discussion about constitutional arrangements”.

In a speech to Commonwealth leaders last year, the King said: “Each member’s constitutional arrangement, as republic or monarchy, is purely a matter for each member country to decide.”

Last month, Buckingham Palace said it was supporting and cooperating with an independent study into the relationship between the British monarchy and the transatlantic slave trade.

Speaking about the study, Dr Drew said: “I think that acknowledging that ... something wrong was done, acknowledging it and apologising for it, is a step in the right direction.”

He added: “We are not just speaking about a monetary contribution, because we are not acting like victims.

“It is about real changes even within the systems that are still affecting people of African descent in negative ways.”

The then Prince of Wales in November 2021 during a royal visit to Barbados

(AFP/Getty)

During the then Prince of Wales’s visit to Barbados in 2021, Buckingham Palace said reparations are a political matter for individual governments to address.

There is widespread support for compensation for the descendants of enslaved Africans throughout the Carribbean. A 10-point plan was proposed in 2014 by the Caricom Reparations Commission, made up of 15 member states including Barbados, Jamaica, the Bahamas and Saint Kitts and Nevis.

The plan includes cash payments, development funding, and formal apologies by states with historical links to the slave trade.

The King and Prince William have previously expressed personal sadness about slavery.

During a visit to Rwanda last year, the then Prince of Wales said he could not describe “the depths of his personal sorrow” at the suffering caused by the slave trade.

In April, prime minister Rishi Sunak refused to formally apologise for the UK’s historic role in the slave trade, saying: “Trying to unpick our history is not the right way forward.”

Last week, representatives from 12 Commonwealth countries joined forces to call on the King to acknowledge and apologise for the impact and ongoing legacy of British “genocide and colonisation”.

The statement called on the King to act on the royal family’s recent expressions of sorrow by beginning a process for reparations and returning stolen artefacts and bodily remains.

[houseofbrat]

I’d rate Jamaica a C because I think it’s where the failure of KP’s team was most evident. Holness schooling William in front of the cameras should never have happened - that meeting should have been far better choreographed because it was always going to be a challenge. But they went into it with their popularity shield and William’s body language radiates his displeasure at bumping up against reality.

https://barbados.loopnews.com/content/watch-pm-tells-prince-william-kate-jamaica-will-be-moving

IMHO they lost the narrative the minute the tour was announced by not being clear on its aim - that it was to thank & celebrate the Jubilee - so they allowed the media to set the narrative that it was a charm offensive which gave folks like Holness their power to grandstand. And it gave the media what they want - William’s knee jerk reaction to give that speech - which only gave them more fodder to ponder out loud whether he even wants to be head of the commonwealth one day. The shame is that their team haven’t learnt much.

Perhaps I'm giving them too high marks for Jamaica, but part of me doesn't want to be unnecessarily harsh either.

That speech by William at the end of the tour...Patrick Jephson called it out in a column.

But even as the flak starts flying, the golden rule must stay the same: don't make a bad situation worse, especially by answering questions you haven't been asked.

A tour that should have been remembered for mutual goodwill now looks destined to be remembered for very different reasons. In a climate of post-colonial reassessment, it could prove a catalyst for uncomfortable changes in Royal relations with the Commonwealth.

[...]

Of course there are lessons to be learned from this tour. It's a process best done in private, with measured consultation and a realistic understanding of likely public concern.

Instead, the aftermath has been dominated by Prince William's surprise statement referring to the future of the Commonwealth, written before he left the Bahamas.

This helped fuel a largely ill-informed post-mortem on What Went Wrong.

Kensington Palace 'sources' have been helpfully trying to explain what the Prince really meant, so prolonging the agony.

All of which rather confirms President Reagan's wise words: 'If you're explaining, you're losing.'

"But they went into it with their popularity shield"

That's a good way to put it. It's why I get annoyed whenever certain people point out their popularity in polls compared to Charles & Camilla.

Charles & Camilla know how to do their jobs.

Jamaica proved that the then Cambridges--William particularly, perhaps not Kate as much--thought that being popular will prevent any kinds of problems at public & diplomatic events.

That's not the case. They still need to prepare to do their jobs, which they didn't really do before they went on tour last year.

[ausetkmt]

Barbados To Make British MP Pay Reparations For Family's Role In Slavery - Travel Noire

Richard Drax, a conservative British MP is due to pay reparations for the role of his ancestor’s role in slavery. The MP for South Dorset recently traveled to Barbados for a private meeting with the country’s Prime Minister Mia Mottley. According to the Guardian, Mottley’s cabinet is laying out the next steps, which include legal action in the event that no agreement is reached with Drax.

The Guardian also shares that, Drax’s ancestor, Sir James Drax, was one of the first Englishmen to colonize Barbados in the early 1600s. Reports show that he part-owned at least two slave ships, the Samuel and the Hope.The family also owned a plantation in Jamaica which they later sold in the 19th century.

The Drax family were the first sugar plantation owners in Barbados and Jamaica. The family is one of the few who were pioneers in the early stages of the British slave economy in the 17th century. In later generations the family still owned plantations and enslaved people until the 1830s.

Adding to this, in 2020 the Observer revealed that the MP concealed his inheritance of the 250-hectare (617 acres) Drax Hall plantation. It only surfaced after official documents revealed him as the owner.

Given that in 2021 Barbados became a republic, there is growing resistance and scrutiny of the effects of colonial activity on the island. This is an effect that has caused Caribbean-wide reassessment of the relationship with past colonial powers.

Related: Barbados Announces Creation Of A Transatlantic Slavery Museum

Barbados Wants To Make Richard Drax, British MP Pay Reparations:

Rectifying wrong:

The Barbados ambassador to Caricom and deputy chairman,David Comissiong, shared that other families less prominent than the Drax family are being considered for reparations. He mentioned that within these families lies the British royal family.

“Other families are involved, though not as prominently as the Draxes. This reparations journey has begun. The matter is now for the cabinet of Barbados. It is in motion. It is being dealt with.”

Furthering the discussion:

Following the abolishment of slavery in Barbados, the Draxes received £4,293 12s 6d in 1836 for freeing 189 enslaved people, an estimated amount worth £3 million today. Barbados MP Trevor Prescod, chairman of Barbados National Task Force on Reparations, stated, “If the issue cannot be resolved we would take legal action in the international courts. The case against the Drax family would be for hundreds of years of slavery, so it’s likely any damages would go well beyond the value of the land.”

Furthering the discussion about the effects this has on the island, Prescod went on to explain that “The Drax family had slave ships. They had agents in the African continent and kidnapped black African people to work on their plantations here in Barbados. I have no doubt that what would have motivated them was that they never perceived us to be equal to them, that we were human beings. They considered us as chattels.”

Related: The Republic Of Jamaica? It Could Become A Reality by 2025