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Sunday, July 6, 2025

Kambon calls for removal of Christopher Columbus statue

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1434 days ago
20210802
Khafra Kambon

Khafra Kambon

 

For­mer head of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee Khafra Kam­bon has called the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to re­move the stat­ue of Christo­pher Colum­bus that’s fixed in the heart of the cap­i­tal city of Port-of-Spain.

Kam­bon, dur­ing his vir­tu­al Eman­ci­pa­tion ad­dress yes­ter­day, made the call not­ing that the world have been re­mov­ing mon­u­ments of those who cre­at­ed atroc­i­ties to many around the world.

“So there are those in au­thor­i­ty who wor­ship them even de­spite what is go­ing on around all over the world with the de­struc­tion of mon­u­ments, they are pulling down the mon­u­ments in their coun­try of those of their fore-par­ents whom they felt went be­yond any stan­dards of hu­man­i­ty in bring­ing op­pres­sion to oth­ers in the world and they are break­ing those stat­ues and we in T&T right in the heart of our City are still pre­serv­ing Colum­bus,” Kam­bon said.

In 2020, there was a pe­ti­tion call­ing for the re­moval of the Christo­pher Colum­bus stat­ue which grew to over 8,000 sig­na­tures in less than a week in June. There was al­so an in­ci­dent were some ea­ger ac­tivists took the call a step fur­ther by de­fac­ing the mon­u­ment in Port-of-Spain.

The stat­ue was cov­ered in red “Dan­ger” tape, the bust was cov­ered with a black garbage bag and a sign with the word “Mur­der­er” was hung on it.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment then (in 2020), Port-of-Spain may­or Joel Mar­tinez called for cool­er heads to pre­vail un­til a for­mal de­ci­sion can be made on whether the stat­ue should be re­moved or not.

“This is one of the things we try to tell peo­ple, this is not the way to do it and we are cur­rent­ly hav­ing a dis­cus­sion if you have a view, we are lis­ten­ing to your view but you are not go­ing to force me to make a de­ci­sion by do­ing this. As a mat­ter of fact, this may even de­ter my de­ci­sion,” Mar­tinez said.

He said al­though the stat­ue is con­tro­ver­sial, it has been in that spot since 1881 and to van­dalise it is against the law.

This year’s cel­e­bra­tion marks 183 years of cel­e­bra­tions.


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