(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) It is a pleasure and honour for me to deliver these remarks at this Opening Ceremony to mark 2011 as the International Year for People of African Descent, as proclaimed by the United Nations.

As we gather across the globe to mark this important Year, we come with the realisation that equality in treatment of all people, and respect for their right to a life free from discrimination and poverty, is essential to international peace and security and to building stable communities and nations.

This observance has provided the international Community of Nations with yet another opportunity to redouble their efforts to eradicate discrimination against people of African descent, and to build an awareness and respect for their diverse heritage and culture.

We recall a previous opportunity when, in 2007, the United Nations observed the 200th Anniversary of the Abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, in which Member States of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) played an active role in instigating the commemorative event. Twenty-Fifth March 2007 was designated the International Day to mark the Abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade through the adoption of a resolution by the 61st General Assembly of the UN which was co-sponsored by our Region.

On this occasion of the International Year for People of African Descent, it is important that the Community of Nations first acknowledge the many ways in which discrimination, injustice, deprivation, and psychological trauma have been both imposed on and experienced by people of African descent, and which have been perpetuated to the present. Poverty, underdevelopment, racism and social exclusion continue to affect people of African descent disproportionately all over the world and with deleterious effects on this ethnic group and the wider societies in which they live.

Too many persons of African descent in the world do not have access to basic services in health and education and thereby have difficulty in realising their full potential and contributing meaningfully to the advancement of their families, communities and nations. Too many persons of African descent in the world are caught in a cycle of persistent poverty from generation to generation, and too many in 2011 are no better off economically or in their quality of life than our 18th century fore bearers who were enslaved.

These are the harsh realities which result in significant measure from pervasive and systemic injustice and discrimination, for which the international community needs a “wake up call” in order to accelerate regional and international cooperation, to ensure people of African descent have full enjoyment of their rights to participate in all the political, economic, social and cultural facets of society.

On an occasion such as this, however, it is also important to highlight and celebrate the many achievements of persons of African descent, and their significant contributions, especially to national and regional development in CARICOM.

Our Region’s highly respected international reputation as being intolerant of inequality and discrimination was built partly on the foundation of the unrelenting resistance of enslaved Africans, embodied in martyrs and leaders of the slave revolts such as Toussaint L’Overture in Haiti; Nanny and Tacky in Jamaica; Codjo, Mentor and Present in Suriname; Bussa in Barbados and Cuffy and Damon in Guyana, among countless others.

It was built on the shoulders of our many heroes of African descent – most notably the great Pan-Africanist, Marcus Mosiah Garvey, National Hero of Jamaica, ardent advocate of black racial pride, and who had a profound impact on the consciousness of a mass movement of Diasporic Africans in the United States, the Caribbean and Central America in the 1920s and ‘30s.

The Rastafarian religious, cultural and social movement has revolutionised the consciousness of Caribbean people and many others outside our Region, through its uncompromising advocacy for self reliance and hard work, equal rights and justice, racial pride and peace.

In addition to the myriad ways in which people of African descent have and continue to make a sterling contribution to the development of Caribbean civilisation in all spheres of life, highly acclaimed regional cultural icon,- the late Professor the Honourable Rex Nettleford of Jamaica, in his address to a special session of the UN General Assembly on 26 March 2007, to mark the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, asserted that, in the Caribbean:

“the African presence continues to make the impact where it most matters, in the enduring areas of language, religion, artistic manifestations and even kinship patterns, as well as in areas of ontology and cosmology rooted in the creative diversity that is now the global reality of our Third Millennium and has been the lived reality of the Caribbean and the wider Americas of which the Caribbean is an iconic integral part.”

Indeed the African presence is strong in the creation of a distinctive Caribbean brand, a unique identity and self liberating ideology, proclaimed to the world in the creative genius of Marley, Sparrow, Rudder, Arrow, Machel, Shaggy, Boukman Esperans, Kassav, Gabby, Walcott, Harris, Lovelace, Lamming, Rodney, Fanon, Nettleford -- and the list goes on; and in the creation of the steel pan, our diverse carnival arts, the iconography of Rastafari and a profusion of other forms of cultural expression.

In closing, I leave with you the words of Aime Cesaire, regional cultural icon from Martinique, who reminds us in his widely celebrated poetry, “Return to My Native Land”, that:

“No race holds the monopoly of beauty, of intellect, of strength, And there is a place for all at the Rendezvous of Victory”.

And may this historic year continue the journey to that rendezvous for our brothers and sisters of African Descent.

Thank you.

CONTACT: piu@caricom.org