LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th September, 2020) David Commissiong, Barbados' ambassador to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), told Sputnik on Sunday that the government's decision to remove the Queen of England as the head of state of the small island nation and seek full sovereignty is part of the country's natural evolution.
"This is part of our natural evolution. As we take full control of our sovereignty, we express full confidence in our own ability to totally manage our national affairs," Commissiong said.
Plans to remove Queen Elizabeth II as Barbados' head of state and become a republic by November next year were announced by the island's Governor General Sandra Prunella Mason as she delivered the Throne Speech before the Barbadian parliament on Wednesday.
According to Commissiong, those plans are long overdue, as they were first pushed forward 20 years ago, but were then halted by a small, but still economically strong, white minority population and some older black Barbadians.
"The pushbacks forced the political class to put this on holds, but the last 20 years there has been an evolution in Barbados," he said.
The Barbadian ambassador also considers "incongruous" that Barbados holds on to symbols like the Queen of England as its head of state, while working together with the CARICOM in trying to develop a Caribbean civilization.
Commissiong said that the government of Prime Minister Mia Motley has also made the decision to remove British admiral Lord Nelson statue from its pedestal in front of the Barbadian parliament and have it confined to a museum.
"It will be treated as a historical artifact, rather than as a statue through which we are celebrating Lord Nelson and what he stood for. Basically, he stood for the British Empire and the maintenance of its system of slavery and those are not our 21st century Barbadian values that we want to hold up," he said.
David Denny, the general secretary of the Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration (CMPI), also celebrated the governor's announcement on Barbados becoming a republic by November 2021 as a long-awaited step.
"This is a very progressive move. It is a move that we have been fighting for and we are happy to know that the government of Barbados will work towards that," Denny told Sputnik.
The CMPI general secretary also encouraged the government to set up a commission that would create the conditions for the Barbadian people to discuss the type of republic they want, and allow working class people to participate in that process.
If the plans announced by governor Mason are fulfilled, Barbados would join Trinidad and Tobago, Dominica and Guyana as fully independent Caribbean republics.
