Garifuna’s painful experience Environmental migration
Caribbean L Q ife, Aug. 9-15, 2019 11
OP-EDS
its removed citizens but has never condemned
the way how their citizens
are being treated in Honduras and the
other diaspora countries. This is not the
way for a nation to treat our sons and
daughters from our soil. The only way
for this problem to be resolved, is for
our brothers and sisters in St. Vincent
and The Grenadines to apply public
pressure on their government to grant
us our citizenship rights in our motherland.
Visiting St. Vincent and The Grenadines
is no remedy for the ordeal, pain
and suffering we have endured in the
countries where we currently reside.
For me it was seeing many people
who look like me and did not know how
we were related to each other. Visiting
the cells up in the hill where they were
imprisoned before they were removed to
the isolated island of Baliceaux. Also, to
visit Baliceaux and see some of my ancestors
human skeletal remains surfacing
from their burial ground as if they were
animals. My people at home have lost
their history, language and culture and
some of them believe most of the lies that
the British taught them in their schools
after they committed genocide against
us. Let us all come together as one people
to reconnect for justice on behalf of our
Garinagu people. We must commit ourselves
to ensure that this heinous crime
they committed against us must not go
unpunished.
Our people in St. Vincent and The
Grenadines along with our people who
live in the diaspora, must all come
together to seek justice for this gross
human rights violation. Including in the
resolution must be a proposal to make
Baliceaux a Garifuna Memorial Site with
an ongoing cultural exchange program
among the Garinagu people from the
diaspora countries to meet their annualy.
This will give our people the opportunity
to reconnect with themselves, and our
ancestors’ spirits for healing. Proposing
to sell or to sell this historical site, will
bring more problems to the people and
nation of St. Vincent because our ancestors
are unhappy with the way they were
treated prior to their deaths. Some of
our people must stop engage themselves
in trivial activities and plan real fundamental
and significant activities, to tell
and live the true story of our resilient
Garifuna nation. How much more longer
must we wait for this injustice to end? We
have gone from being an independent and
resilient self-sufficient nation of people, to
a people who are now dependent of some
of our governments.
Continued from Page 10
their homes and give them the means
to adapt to changing environmental
conditions. This approach aims to
avoid instances of desperate migration
and its associated tragedies.
However, where climate change
impacts are too intense, another priority
put forward in the Compact is to
“enhance availability and flexibility of
pathways for regular migration. States
are thus looking at solutions for people
to be able to migrate safely and through
regular channels, and at solutions for
those already on the move. A last resort
measure is to conduct planned relocations
of population – this means organizing
the relocation of entire villages and
communities away from areas bearing
the brunt of climate change impacts.
Humanitarian assistance and protection
for those on the move already,
are also tools states can use. Finally,
states highlight that relevant data and
knowledge are key to guide the decision
making process. Without knowing
more and analyzing better, policies
run the risk of missing their targets
and fade into irrelevance.
Solutions to a complex problem
Responding to the challenges of
environmental migration in a way
that benefits both countries and
communities, including migrants
and refugees, is a complex process
involving many different actors.
Solutions can range from tweaking
migration practices, such as visa
regimes, to developing human rightsbased
protection measures. Most
importantly, they involve a coordinated
approach from national governments,
bringing together experts
from different walks of life:
There is no one single solution
to respond to the challenge of environmental
migration, but there are
many solutions that tackle different
aspects of this complex equation.
Nothing meaningful can ever be
achieved without the strong involvement
of civil society actors and the
communities themselves who very
often know what is best for them and
their ways of life.
I also think that we need to
stop discourses that focus only on
migrants as victims of tragedy. The
bigger picture is certainly bleak at
times, but we need to remember that
migrants demonstrate everyday their
resilience and capacity to survive and
thrive in difficult situations.
Continued from Page 10
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