Richard Lord

The Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (NJAC) says it was re­spon­si­ble for mak­ing Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions in­ter­na­tion­al.NJAC's cul­tur­al of­fi­cer, Aiye­goro Ome, made the claim in the pres­ence of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and head of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee (ESC) Kafra Kam­bon at an Eman­ci­pa­tion Day lun­cheon at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann's, yes­ter­day.Among those in at­ten­dance was Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er.A spokesman for Warn­er had said on Mon­day that he would have at­tend­ed the event.Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter Win­ston Pe­ters was among the few min­is­ters seen chat­ting with Warn­er. Warn­er left be­fore the event end­ed.

In mak­ing his claim, Ome said he did not want to of­fend any­one.He said his com­ments were be­ing made in the wake of the Prime Min­is­ter's re­cent com­men­da­tion of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee-for the ob­ser­vance.Ome said NJAC would like the his­tor­i­cal records about Eman­ci­pa­tion Day to be made clear to the pop­u­la­tion and the world."If the wrong in­ter­pre­ta­tion is giv­en to the in­ter­na­tion­al­i­sa­tion of Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, it af­fects the in­tegri­ty of our or­gan­i­sa­tion," he said.He said the Prime Min­is­ter's ad­vis­ers "may have been giv­en the wrong im­pres­sion" about the mat­ter.

Ome said that in 1974, on the eve of the Pan African con­fer­ence, "Am­bas­sador (Makan­dal) Daa­ga ad­vised that we have Eman­ci­pa­tion Day through­out the Caribbean."Ome said Kam­bon, a for­mer mem­ber of NJAC, was present at that con­fer­ence.He said in 1996, af­ter host­ing events all through the years, NJAC mem­bers toured the Caribbean, Cana­da, the Unit­ed States and Ghana to pro­mote the event.He said T&T Am­bas­sador to Ghana, Nyahu­ma Obi­ka, "stayed in Ghana for nine months get­ting the Ghana­ians to ob­serve Eman­ci­pa­tion Day."

Ome said the his­to­ry of Eman­ci­pa­tion was well doc­u­ment­ed in a book he wrote in 1989 ti­tled The Sto­ry of Eman­ci­pa­tion.He lat­er pre­sent­ed a copy of that book to Per­sad-Bisses­sar.In her ad­dress, the Prime Min­is­ter thanked NJAC for its con­tri­bu­tion to the in­ter­na­tion­al­i­sa­tion of Eman­ci­pa­tion Day."I humbly apol­o­gise...But to­day you have set the records straight; you've been very in­stru­men­tal, so we thank you very much," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.She al­so re­it­er­at­ed her com­mit­ment to work­ing with the ESC to find a per­ma­nent home for the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

She said that place would be used "to pre­serve the African cul­tur­al tra­di­tions in our land...it will be a place of learn­ing (and) a place of his­to­ry."She stressed the fa­cil­i­ty "will al­so stand as an im­por­tant sym­bol of coun­try's his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al affin­i­ty to Africa and help to de­vel­op our trade and eco­nom­ic re­la­tions even fur­ther."Kam­bon, who spoke ear­li­er, said even though the cel­e­bra­tions got off to "a rocky start," it "worked out quite well in the end."He was re­fer­ring to the Gov­ern­ment's late al­lo­ca­tion of funds and the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah for the cel­e­bra­tions.