The T&T Na­tion­al Com­mit­tee on Repa­ra­tions (TTNCR), which com­pris­es Africans and First Peo­ples, of­fers its deep­est sym­pa­thies to the fam­i­ly of George Floyd and the thou­sands of oth­er African-Amer­i­cans and First Peo­ples in Amer­i­ca who have suf­fered racism, dis­crim­i­na­tion, in­jus­tice and dom­i­na­tion in the Unit­ed States.

George Floyd was mur­dered on May 25 which is ob­served as African Lib­er­a­tion Day, the date which com­mem­o­rates the 1963 found­ing of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of African Uni­ty, now the African Union.

African Lib­er­a­tion Day has helped to raise po­lit­i­cal aware­ness in African com­mu­ni­ties across the world. It has al­so been a source of in­for­ma­tion about the strug­gles for lib­er­a­tion and de­vel­op­ment.

It is sig­nif­i­cant that this year is the 50th an­niver­sary of the T&T Rev­o­lu­tion of 1970 (Black Pow­er) which was led by the Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee. NJAC had its gen­e­sis as a re­ac­tion to racism against black stu­dents in Cana­da. That re­ac­tion was ex­ac­er­bat­ed by the West In­di­an gov­ern­ment’s in­dif­fer­ence to the lack of jus­tice and aroused 56 days of demon­stra­tions in T&T.

The TTNCR stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Amer­i­can cit­i­zens in over 75 cities and as well as peo­ple on oth­er con­ti­nents, in­clud­ing per­sons in the me­dia and cre­ative arts. We, too, say, that enough is enough.

The dy­ing cries from George Floyd (and Er­ic Gar­ner) have been tak­en up among the demon­stra­tors in the midst of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, mass un­em­ploy­ment and eco­nom­ic dis­lo­ca­tion. The cries re­mind us of the em­i­nent Mar­tinique-born an­ti-colo­nial philoso­pher and ac­tivist, Frantz Fanon, who once said, “When we re­volt it’s not for a par­tic­u­lar cul­ture. We re­volt sim­ply be­cause, for many rea­sons, we can no longer breathe.”

In that con­text we need to re­mind the Gov­ern­ment of T&T and oth­er Cari­com states that repa­ra­tions for a mul­ti­tude of in­jus­tices have nev­er been far from the con­scious­ness of Africans and First Peo­ples.

The Con­fer­ence of Heads of Cari­com, 2013 unan­i­mous­ly sup­port­ed a pro­pos­al to en­gage the for­mer colonis­ing na­tions on the is­sue of Repa­ra­tions for Caribbean peo­ple for the Crimes Against Hu­man­i­ty of na­tive geno­cide, the transat­lantic slave trade and a racialised sys­tem of chat­tel slav­ery.

The Cari­com Repa­ra­tions Com­mis­sion has adopt­ed a ten point plan of ac­tion which high­lights many mat­ters which are be­ing raised the cur­rent un­rest.

The TTNCR finds it iron­ic that the up­ris­ing in the USA takes place dur­ing the In­ter­na­tion­al Decade for Peo­ples of African De­scent which is com­mit­ted to look at is­sues of de­vel­op­ment, recog­ni­tion and jus­tice.

With re­gard to jus­tice the UN has stat­ed that states should take a num­ber of mea­sures, in­clud­ing, “pre­vent­ing and pun­ish­ing all hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions af­fect­ing peo­ple of African de­scent, in­clud­ing vi­o­lence, acts of tor­ture, in­hu­man or de­grad­ing treat­ment, in­clud­ing those com­mit­ted by state of­fi­cials.”

We al­so find it iron­ic that while the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has led to the deaths of a dis­pro­por­tion­ate num­ber of African-Amer­i­cans and oth­er mi­nori­ties, they are out, to­geth­er with Whites, en­dan­ger­ing them­selves in the protest demon­stra­tions, clear­ly not con­cerned with masks or so­cial dis­tanc­ing.

The TTNCR be­lieves that it is in­cum­bent on us to look at the cur­rent Amer­i­can sit­u­a­tion with a very clear un­der­stand­ing that it is very rel­e­vant to the Caribbean for all the above rea­sons.

The mil­i­taris­tic re­sponse of the un­sym­pa­thet­ic, in­com­pas­sion­ate Don­ald Trump-led Amer­i­can ad­min­is­tra­tion pos­es dan­gers to us who share the same con­cerns as this con­tem­po­rary coali­tion of African-Amer­i­cans, Lati­nos, the Amer­i­can First Peo­ples and Whites who have di­rect­ed their col­lec­tive strength against the evils of racism, dis­crim­i­na­tion, in­jus­tice and dom­i­na­tion.

The pres­ence of these plagues has been as vir­u­lent as the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and like the med­ical vac­cines that we seek we have to find our­selves crit­i­cal so­cial im­mu­ni­sa­tion so that fu­ture gen­er­a­tions do not have to suf­fer what the fam­i­lies of George Floyd and oth­ers had to ex­pe­ri­ence.

Aiye­goro Ome

Chair­man, TTNCR