The Coalition of the 1823 Parade Ground Monument has announced that African cultural groups have agreed to launch the International Decade for People of African Descent on January 24.
“At a meeting held on Friday 9th January, members of African cultural groups met and arrived at a consensus decision to have a national launch of the International Decade for People of African Descent.
This decision was arrived at primarily because of the need for African Guyanese to be actively engaged in the creation of the kind of society in which it is possible to realise the pillars on which the (United Nations) UN has structured the aims and goals of the decade,” the organisation said in a press release.
The launch will be held at Parade Ground, where, according to the statement, “the many souls of martyred ancestors dwell in limbo.”
The statement noted that the ‘Decade,’ which began on January 1, 2015, is the manifestation of efforts of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent. It said that recognition, justice and development are the pillars on which member states of the United Nations have agreed to promote the ‘Decade.’
The group alluded to a statement by eminent Caribbean Historian Professor Sir Hilary Beckles at the launch of the programme in New York on December 10 last year that “we are at the dawn of this 21st century, and once again humanity struggles to come to terms with the legacies of crimes committed against its African family. Aspects of these legacies are as alive today as they were two centuries ago.”
The statement said that Guyanese of African descent are all too familiar with the sentiments expressed by Professor Beckles since it is in sync with their experiences.
“Any serious student of Guyanese history and in particular the history of the African Guyanese would concur that there have been many obstacles, including legal and constitutional barriers that were deliberately or otherwise instituted to put the African in a position of disadvantage,” the statement said.
According to the group, those present at the meeting were fully cognisant that only Africans have a real interest in seeing that the African contributions to the development of Guyana is given the recognition it deserves; that reparatory justice is an absolute necessity; and that they develop themselves in all spheres.
