Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer
Dr. Ikael Tafari (right), director of the Commission for Pan-African Affairs in Barbados talks with Vincent Record, a Jamaican delegate, after the opening of the three-day South Africa/African Union Caribbean Diaspora Conference which ends at the Jamaica Conference Centre, in downtown Kingston today. - Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer
SOME DELEGATES at the South Africa-African Union Caribbean Diaspora Conference are disappointed that civil society and Rastafarians, have been left out of discussions at the three-day event which ends today at the Jamaica Conference Centre, in Kingston
The conference, which recognises the 10th anniversary of the end of apartheid rule in South Africa, is organised by the African Union, and the governments of South Africa and Jamaica. It has drawn Pan-Africanists from the Caribbean and Africa with the aim of establishing stronger ties between the regions.
TOO GOVERNMENT-FOCUSED
But according to Kahfra Kambon of Trinidad and Tobago, there are too many government officials on the panels which discuss a range of issues including economic co-operation and trade links between Africa and the Caribbean and the evolution of democracy.
"In the context in which the conference is being held, a specific effort should have been made to have civil society representation on the panels, it's too government-focused," he argued. "Civil society would have brought a different view because when you have so much government focus sometimes they have to be careful about the positions they take."
Kafra also believes the presence of a Haitian delegation would have been appropriate.
"I feel very strongly about that because we see what has happened in Haiti as a threat to all governments in the region. It's a long time that we have not had such bold-faced intervention in the CARICOM community," he said.
Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown in February 2004 in what many regional commentators believed was a coup backed by the United States government. After a two-month stay in Jamaica, he was granted political asylum in South Africa.
Myrta Desulme, a Haitian national who lives in Jamaica, is representing her country at the conference.
Kasate Birhanne from the House of Binghi in Dominica, also believes Rastafarians got the cold shoulder from organisers.
"We are appalled that Rastafarianism is not included in the agenda ... and civil society generally. There's no doubt that Rasta has done enough to warrant representation on a meeting between the African Union and the Caribbean about the relation between Africa and the Caribbean," he told The Gleaner.
Attempts by The Gleaner to get a comment from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday were unsuccessful. Although the Caribbean has contributed greatly to the Pan-African movement, mainly through Jamaica's Marcus Garvey and Trinidad and Tobago-born George Padmore, it isthe first time that the African Union has staged a conference in this region.
