Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has con­grat­u­lat­ed the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee for its con­tin­u­ing ef­forts to have eman­ci­pa­tion cel­e­bra­tions ob­served not on­ly in T&T but else­where. The Prime Min­is­ter said so in her Eman­ci­pa­tion Day mes­sage to cit­i­zens yes­ter­day. She said T&T had been in the "fore­front in rais­ing the con­scious­ness of peo­ple lo­cal­ly, re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly about the im­por­tance that we need to at­tach to eman­ci­pa­tion and we wish to con­grat­u­late, most sin­cere­ly, the con­tin­u­ing ef­forts of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee which has stead­fast­ly caused this event to be cel­e­brat­ed not on­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go but else­where." Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the sto­ry of eman­ci­pa­tion be­gan with the abo­li­tion of slav­ery which had im­pact­ed on the so­cial, psy­cho­log­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, cul­tur­al and re­li­gious free­doms of those who were orig­i­nal­ly in­volved but equal­ly on their de­scen­dants, who still bear the scars of this most heinous and in­hu­man trade in hu­man be­ings.

"To­day, we must all re-ded­i­cate our­selves to en­sur­ing that such an event must nev­er again oc­cur in hu­man his­to­ry to ful­ly lib­er­ate, in all as­pects, those who con­tin­ue to lan­guish in the trau­mas of this se­ri­ous degra­da­tion to hu­mankind," she said. "We are all vic­tims, di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, of this hu­man tragedy and we should be very proud that Trinidad and To­ba­go op­er­ates as a mod­el na­tion where we cel­e­brate the suc­cess­es and fail­ures, the pain and the plea­sures of all our cit­i­zens." The Prime Min­is­ter said the free­doms "we en­joy as a di­rect re­sult of our African his­to­ry can nev­er be over-em­pha­sised since they help us to for­ev­er cher­ish what we cel­e­brate as a free peo­ple."