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While we build our history in our past,We build our progress in our future.
April 25, 2000
News Release
The World Garifuna Organization Inauguration General Assembly was fantastic. Full delegations came from Yurumein (3) Honduras (3) Guatemala (3) United States (7) and Belize (12). But the best about the Assembly was the vigour, the level of brain power, and manifestation of commitment to its cause.
From the very beginning there was an atmosphere of seriousness. The inaugural mass was not just good but it was very beautiful and the seriousness and beauty was maintained to the very end of the Assembly.
The opening presentations: “The Right to Reparation in International Law and Practices” by Lord Anthony Gifford and “The Garifuna/English Encounter” by Dr Adrian Fraser were both very informative and well presented.
The WGO is thus organized (with elected officers), Constitution adopted and symbols and logos under discussion. The WGO is therefore off and after Reparation.
Lord Gifford and Paramount Chief, Dr. Theodore Aranda, are on the initial steps and procedures of launching the claim for Reparation proper. Given that the WGO is following the route of political settlement, it is after which organizations, governments, NGO’s and pressure groups to approach and how to approach them. Furthermore, the newly formed organization is faced with the need of financial assistance to meet professional fees, travel costs, wages and office maintenance.
April 26, 2000
News Release
The Garifuna People (also known as Black Caribs) from all five (5) countries of United States, Guatemala, Honduras, St. Vincent and Belize have established the World Garifuna Organization to pursue their rights, freedoms and advancements.
The Organization is pursuing a Reparation claim from the British Government for damages and injuries when the British massacred them during the Carib Wars, the appropriation of their homeland, St. Vincent, and their expulsion from their homeland to foreign lands without a possibility of returning home.
The British had mounted a vicious campaign of dehumanizing the Garifuna People and so justify the massacre and expulsion from their homeland by describing them as warlike, savage and cannibalistic. The campaign was indeed successful, and so successful that today, 203 years afterwards, the Garinagu are still suffering the consequences.
The Garinagu are now pursuing Reparation and are telling their story. The compensation from the claim will be used for developmental programs in social and skill enhancement, economic empowerment and historical and cultural retrieval.
***The Monument is the symbol of our Oneness***
***Victory
with our Reparation will be the triumph of our Unity***
Joseph R. Flores