
 
        
         
		Caribbean L 26     ife, Sept. 27 - Oct.3, 2019 
 Barbados Prime Minister, Mia Mottley addressing Bajan New Yorkers Sunday. 
   Mia Amor Mottley Facebook 
 Barbados heading  
 back to Africa 
 By George Alleyne 
 Barbados  is  changing  direction  for  
 foreign trade and cooperation from the  
 traditional north American and Europe  
 to  the  African  continent,  some  middle  
 eastern states and China. 
 The  thrust  into  Africa  is  seen  as  a  
 reversal of the Middle Passage of the  
 triangular slave trade that saw millions  
 of Africans some 400 years ago captured  
 and shipped across to the Atlantic to  
 the Caribbean to become slaves whose  
 descendants now represent the majority  
 population of the region. 
 “We are going to claim our Atlantic  
 destiny,” Barbados Prime Minister Mia  
 Mottley told the New York Barbadian  
 diaspora last Sunday, adding that adopting  
 an easterly outlook, “does not in any  
 way compromise our Caribbean-ness.” 
 Mottley made the declaration as she  
 and a few of her Cabinet ministers met  
 New York Bajans  in  the Leon M. Goldstein  
 Performance Center at Kingsborough  
 Community College, where the  
 diaspora was updated on government  
 policies and changes. 
 Describing Bajan New Yorkers as the  
 island’s 31st constituency in addition  
 to  the  30  that make  up  Barbados’  parliament, 
  Mottley bemoaned the fact of  
 her country’s singular focus on North  
 America and Europe since it attained  
 independence in 1966.  
 The Barbados new thrust is consistent  
 with what appears as a Caribbean  
 movement, and presidents of Ghana and  
 Kenya have visited the region earlier  
 this year.   
 She indicated too that during the  
 Barbados leg of a Caribbean visit by  
 Kenya’s President, Uhuru Kenyatta, she  
 undertook to arrange a CARICOM-Africa  
 summit  next  year  to  coincide with  the  
 Commonwealth  Heads  of  Government  
 meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, in June next  
 year. 
 “The  time  has  come  for  us  to make  
 sure that the bridges and the dollars and  
 the science and the conversation and  
 everything to doesn’t only go north but  
 it can go east and come back west to us,”  
 she said. 
 One of the ministers accompanying  
 Mottley was, Jerome Walcott, who holds  
 the portfolio for Foreign Affairs. 
 He spoke of Barbados since independence  
 in 1966 having a blinkered view in  
 foreign relations and trade with a strictly  
 northern outlook. “we stuck slavishly to  
 relations with North America, United  
 Kingdom, with Europe.” 
 Explaining the new direction, he said,  
 “having left Africa 400 years ago we  
 thought that it was time that we needed  
 to look, retrace that Atlantic journey.” 
 He  said  that mindful  of  the  region’s  
 history of persons being brought from  
 the west coast of Africa primarily across  
 to the Caribbean and North America,  
 Barbados believes “it was time that we  
 recognising the growth of African countries  
 that it was time for us to make that  
 transition to go back to the African coast  
 again.” 
 “We thought that it was very important  
 that  we  establish  relations  with  
 Africa,  recognising  that  Africa  has  54  
 countries and that the average growth  
 rate of African economies is about six  
 per cent; recognising that  African has  
 almost 500 billionaires, and we’ve been  
 avoiding this massive continent for  several  
 years.” 
 He said Barbados will establish a diplomatic  
 mission in Ghana later this year  
 and a commercial mission in Casablanca, 
  Morocco, also in 2019 or early 2020.