{"id":10188,"date":"2017-08-01T05:46:14","date_gmt":"2017-08-01T09:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=10188"},"modified":"2017-08-01T05:46:14","modified_gmt":"2017-08-01T09:46:14","slug":"president-anthony-carmona-pay-for-slavery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=10188","title":{"rendered":"President Anthony Carmona: Pay for slavery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><I>By Sean Douglas<br \/>\nAugust 01, 2017 &#8211; <A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.newsday.co.tt\/news\/0,247114.html\">newsday.co.tt<\/A><\/I><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?tag=anthony-carmona\"><img src='http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blogimg\/acarmona.jpg' width='150' height='100' border='0' class='alignleft' alt='President Anthony Carmona' \/><\/a>PRESIDENT Anthony Carmona yesterday publicly supported a call to have European governments, whose countries benefited from slavery in the West Indies, to pay reparations to the descendants of African slaves.<\/p>\n<p>In his Emancipation Day message, Carmona said TT should support the efforts of Caricom governments as expressed by Sir Hilary Beckles, Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies and Chairman of the Caricom Reparations Commission, in an address to the British House of Commons on July 16, 2014.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nCarmona quoted Sir Hilary\u2019s address, saying, \u201cThat the Government of Great Britain and other European States that were the beneficiaries of enrichment from the enslavement of African people, the genocide of the indigenous communities and the deceptive breach of contract and trust in respect of East Indians and other Asians brought to the plantations under indenture, have a case to answer in respect of reparatory justice.\u201d \u201cAs a former judge and a firm believer in reparatory justice, I am of the view that as we celebrate Emancipation Day 2017, we must examine affirmatively the case for reparations as adopted by Caricom Governments and advocated by Sir Hilary and other spokespersons.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe in TT must view the call for reparations in the context of the duty we owe to our forefathers who made the ultimate sacrifice and whose contribution to our present well-being must be recognized in a world which now accepts that compensation and reparation are prerequisites in the dispensation of justice.\u201d Carmona recalled that the United Nations in 2007, declared March 25 as the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wish to call on all citizens to take time out during the Emancipation Holiday to focus on their life\u2019s journey: from whence they started, where they consider themselves to have reached and what is to be their life\u2019s achievement.\u201d Carmona said, \u201cEmancipation Day must therefore, be a moment of regeneration, to renew in our lives a purposefulness to lead a life of quality, of sustainable ambition, independence, personal self-worth and vision.\u201d He hailed those who laboured for Emancipation Day to be named a public holiday, as he referred to the National Joint Action Committee (NJAC) and the Emancipation Support Committee (ESC). <\/p>\n<p><I>Source: <A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.newsday.co.tt\/news\/0,247114.html\">www.newsday.co.tt\/news\/0,247114.html<\/A><\/I><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Sean Douglas August 01, 2017 &#8211; newsday.co.tt PRESIDENT Anthony Carmona yesterday publicly supported a call to have European governments, whose countries benefited from slavery in the West Indies, to pay reparations to the descendants of African slaves. In his Emancipation Day message, Carmona said TT should support the efforts of Caricom governments as expressed &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=10188\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">President Anthony Carmona: Pay for slavery<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,17,119,677,1,5,7],"tags":[508,359,1170,712],"class_list":["post-10188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-caribbean","category-caricom","category-england-international","category-general-tt","category-international","category-politics","tag-emancipation-day","tag-newsday","tag-president-anthony-carmona","tag-reparations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10188"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10189,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10188\/revisions\/10189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}