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Maximum respect, Garinagu

EditorialMaximum respect, Garinagu
When UBAD first travelled as an organization to Dangriga April of 1969, the place was still Stann Creek Town and the Garinagu were still “Caribs.” In those days, driving on the Hummingbird Highway was an adventurous proposition. Four decades ago, today’s two-hour trip from Belize City would often take three times that.
         
Griga provided authentically African culture for UBAD, whose leadership came mostly from the Europeanized Creoles. In return, UBAD brought the message that Africa’s time had come. You must remember that in 1969, the Carib people were emphasizing their South America/St. Vincent origins.
         
Today, there is a strong element amongst the Garinagu, led by Dr. Theodore Aranda, which is emphasizing the African origins of the Garinagu. But the most powerful Garifuna organization, the National Garifuna Council (NGC), is, to a manifest extent, in conflict with Dr. Aranda’s approach. Thus it was that in September of 2003, when the first and only Belize Black Summit was held, Dr. Aranda was one of the summit’s organizers and the NGC boycotted the event.
         
On Friday, November 19, the Garifuna people, and indeed all Belizeans, will celebrate Garifuna Settlement Day to mark their arrival on these shores in the first part of the nineteenth century. The leader of the effort to celebrate Settlement Day was the late Thomas Vincent Ramos, who achieved his objective in 1941. The great T.V. Ramos was a prominent member of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), which had a branch in Stann Creek Town.
         
It seems to us that some of the historical/philosophical differences amongst Garifuna intellectual leadership has to do with internal People’s United Party (PUP) politics. The PUP’s Musa/Fonseca leadership disrespected Dr. Aranda and forced him out of the PUP after his 1998 to 2003 term of office as PUP area representative for Dangriga. The long time NGC powerhouses, Roy and Phyllis Cayetano, are considered Musa loyalists.
 
Peoples all over the world have their historical/philosophical differences amongst themselves. On Friday, all differences will be set aside. The Garifuna people are a spectacular people in so many respects, and their story in and since St. Vincent has been heroic and dramatic. Maximum respect from Kremandala, Garifuna brethren and sistren.
  
Power to the people. Power in the struggle.
 

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