As the government mulls developing Baliceaux through a public-private partnership while retaining its sacredness and importance to the Garifuna people, Prime Minister Godwin Friday is canvassing the idea of turning it into a monument to anti-oppression and anti-imperialism.
Friday threw out the idea while addressing the formal opening ceremony of the 13th International Garifuna Conference in Kingstown on Wednesday.
Balliceaux is a small uninhabited island in the Grenadine chain to which British colonialists exiled about 5,000 Garifuna in the 1790s.
The exile followed the suppression of the Second Carib War under Chief Joseph Chatoyer in St. Vincent.
More than half of them died on Baliceaux due to starvation, disease, and sickness from exposure to the elements on the undeveloped island.
The British subsequently resettled approximately 2,500 survivors to the island of Roatan, Honduras.
“I do believe that out of that horrific experience, something positive can come. I believe that we can and should make Baliceaux more than a sacred graveyard of national importance,” the prime minister said.
“It can become a monument that stands against oppression, against imperialism and cultural genocide, as a visible reminder of man’s inhumanity to man.”
Friday said the island can help steer the future of St. Vincent and the Grenadines away from such savagery and cruelty.
“It can serve as a manifest expression of our commitment as a nation to always stand for human dignity and the recognition of people’s national sovereignty, for resilience in the face of overwhelming odds, for equality among people, no matter the race, culture or economic condition,” he said.
The prime minister said Baliceaux should be a sacred space and that anything that is done on the island “must be respectful and solemn as it reminds us of the attempted annihilation of the Garifuna people” there in 1797.
He said that the Garifuna people, having been shipped off to Roatan, “survived and thrived through their own efforts and they retained their unique culture and language,” such that in 2001, UNESCO declared it a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity.
“We now speak of Baliceaux as a place of great suffering and pain; as a graveyard. We have come to know its history of exile and genocide. How can we forget? The work that you as academics and researchers do will ensure that the event and its reverberations over time are never forgotten,” Friday said.
Friday said his government is willing to engage with other stakeholders to chart the way forward.
He said Minister of National Heritage Shevern John, whom he described as “a proud Garifuna woman”, will play a lead role “as we take the lead in conducting consultations with stakeholders”, including the Garifuna groups in exile, the Garifuna Heritage Foundation, the SVG National Trust and the Indigenous People’s Association, to determine what a sacred space on Baliceaux would look like.
“We look forward to working together to develop a plan for the creation of that sacred space in a manner that remembers it as a story of a people’s resilience and triumph,” he said, noting that indigenous people all over the world have been struggling for recognition of their legitimate rights.
Dr Friday, where is the half a billion dollars’ worth of cocaine your police recently caught? Also, I wonder how this Baliceaux move will help the SVG economy.
How do we know Joseph Chatoyea was real?