Your Eyewitness had been waiting with bated breath for the big bash to celebrate Africa-Caricom Day!! Hold it!! You mean, Dear Reader, you didn’t know that there was such a “Day” that you should’ve pencilled in on your social calendar?? Well…what is the world coming to? Three years ago, on Sept 7, 2021, Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta hosted our first Africa-Caricom Summit from his capital and our assembled leaders announced via the virtual event than henceforth Sept 7 would be “Africa-Caricom Day”!! In another era, this might’ve been dubbed “The Declaration of Nairobi”, but evidently, we’re a tad more restrained nowadays!!
Over in our side of the pond, Barbados led by Mia Mottley seemed to’ve taken a lead in institutionalising the observation of the day. Seems she really meant it when she channelled Ghana’s pioneering Kwame Nkrumah and announced, “I was not born in Africa, but Africa was born in me!!” Keith Rowley of TT also echoed the sentiment – but he seemed to be merely dog whistling to his constituents who are caught up in a financial meltdown now that oil has run out. We were also declared to be the “sixth region of Africa” – which, again might be news to most folks in our neck of the woods!!
On Saturday, the Bajans had a flag-raising ceremony involving the flags of the African Union, Caricom, and Barbados at their Government Headquarters to the sounds of their respective anthems. High-level representatives delivered remarks, and the event was enriched by performances from some of Barbados’s most talented cultural artists. Following the official flag-raising ceremony, the celebrations continued into the evening with a special live television broadcast by the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Imagine that!!
But what else is pushing this love fest between us and Africa – beyond the cultural roots and all that?? Sure, that’s important – especially since we may have to seek reparations from them for selling us down the river to those European slave traders. Some have suggested (unkindly??) that Mottley may be courting support from the Africa bloc when she decides to run for the Secretary General of the UN!! Barbados is definitely too small a stage for her outsize talents!!
But more mundanely, the stated goals for the closer linkages are first and foremost, economic empowerment to foster trade relations and investment opportunities across the Atlantic. And towards which ends the Africa Export Import Bank has already extended credit of over US$1 billion to facilitate!! Then, there’s Climate Resilience, Technological Innovation, Food Security and of course, Cultural Exchange.
But your Eyewitness is pretty miffed that even though we Guyanese have already grabbed the opportunities in trade and food security, there’s been no “cultural exchange”.
Shouldn’t we be picking up some of those African twerking skills??
…tyranny next door
Your Eyewitness is quite perturbed that our officials – and the general public – aren’t more pi55ed over what’s going on over in Mad Maduroland. For a guy who already “eyes pass” us to annex two-thirds of our national territory, we seem to be giving him a free pass. And he continues to violate his international agreements – including the Argyle Declaration he signed with us and the Barbados Agreement he signed with his Opposition. For us, in view of the sophisticated billion-dollar aerial surveillance equipment he bought from the Ruskies, Mad Maduro’s clearly facilitating the shipment of dirty gold and dirtier cocaine into our side of the border – so as to destabilise us.
For their opposition, we just learnt that Venezuelan Opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez left for Spain and was seeking asylum after Mad Maduro’s troops violated the sanctity of the Argentinian Embassy controlled by Brazil.
We should denounce this persecution in the strongest terms – and demand that fair-weather friend Ralph Gonzalves do likewise!!
…Sonny Boy
So Sridath “Sonny” Ramphal will be getting a state funeral. Everyone seems to be beside themselves for his role in fighting racism in South Africa, Zimbabwe and across Africa. They forget he said not a word here!!
