THE PAN-AFRIKAN LIBERATOR

Agitate until we create a stable society that benefits all our people.

Instigate the nation until we remedy the injustices of society.

Motivate our people to set a meaningful path for the coming generations.

Educate our people to free our minds and develop an Africentric consciousness.

THE VOICE FOR AN INDEPENDENT MONTSERRAT

THE OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE CARIBBEAN PAN-AFRICAN MOVEMENT

VOL. 2 NO. 4    $2.00   Monthly Newsletter of KiMiT    November 1993

Published by Chedmond Browne, P.O. Box 197, Plymouth, Montserrat Phone: 809-491-6962 FAX: 809-491-6335

The headline for this issue came from a one on one conversation with the governor of Montserrat.

The governor said in a recent interview that he could not recall speaking with anyone local where the topic of independence came up.

He went on to say in the same interview, that he welcomed conversation from the local populace and appreciated being approached by the "man in the street."

The Pan-Afrikan Liberator has been printing monthly for 16 months. One of the central themes of the newsletter, is the necessity for our people to become aware of the effects that colonialism has had on our mentality.

Independence, we maintain, is an absolute necessity for any country that wants to make decisions in its own interest.

The headline for last month's newsletter stated in bold print:

Taking up the governor on his offer for frank conversation, I approached him flashing a copy of The Pan-Afrikan Liberator with its declaration of our desire.

The conversation began;

(P-AL) "Good day to you sir! Are you Mr. Savage, the governor?"

(Mr. Savage)"Yes, and are you Mr. Chedmond Browne?"

(P-AL)"Yes, I am, and I would like you to know that there is a significant sector of the society in Montserrat that earnestly desires independence for Montserrat, and are in fact, arduously working to insure that brit- ish colonial control of Montserrat will very soon be a thing of the past".

"Since you have openly stated that no one in Montserrat has brought this fact to your attention, I am taking this opportunity to do so with the hope that you will inform your home office that there is an active independence movement on island."

(Mr. Savage)"Yes, well I am very glad to hear that.

Let me tell you my position, or rather, HMG's position on independence.

Any time that the people of Montserrat express their wish to be independent and they do so constitutionally, HMG will be glad to grant them their independence."

(P-AL)"Yes sir, that sounds very good and the british have in fact been pushing that line for quite some time. However, the actions and presence of the british in Montserrat contradict that position."

(Mr. Savage)"Our presence here does not seem to be a problem for your elected officials.

Don't you think that they are articulate enough to represent Montserratians' needs?"

(P-AL)"I think they are quite articulate, but when it comes to issues with the british government, it is my opinion that the british have something holding over the head of some of our officials.

Because of this, you can easily coerce and manipulate them into doing your bidding."

(Mr. Savage)"Well, britain has no need for a useless colony like Montserrat.

The tax payers in britain are not pleased with how their tax money is spent on little colonies like Montserrat.

The sooner that Montserrat can move towards independence the better it will be for all."

(P-AL)"Those words, sir, are music to my ears. These are the sentiments that I would like my people to hear."

"I am going to insure that I get this information to them as quickly as possible."

"However, that still does not convince me that the british do not have ulterior motives for holding on to Montserrat."

(Mr. Savage)"HMG government has no ulterior motives for holding on to Montserrat, but if you are so convinced, I would be interested to hear about them."

"Why don't you make a list of them so that we can discuss them some time?"

(P-AL)"They have already been listed, and if you are truly interested just read the back issues of The Pan-Afrikan Liberator and you will see them all."

(Mr. Savage)"It's been nice speaking to you, but I do have an appointment. "There is a gentleman in my vehicle waiting for me." " I am sure we will get to discuss this matter again." " Oh, may I have a copy of your paper for the gentleman." "Thank you. Goodbye."

The british industrial and manufacturing industries stand to loose billions of pounds in contracts with China over their continued stand on Hong Kong.

China plans to build 25 new airports in the next five years. The british trade minister, Richard Needham, has already signed a memorandum with civic authorities in China for britain to supply personnel and material for this infra-structural expansion.

The jobs and money which would have a major impact on the sagging british economy is threatened by britain's insistence upon changing Hong Kong's constitutional and legislative structure before returning Hong Kong to China in 1997.

Hong Kong has a population of 6 million people. Less than 5% of the population speak english. The other 95% speak the language of mainland China.

Until 1985 about 5% of the population took part in the legislative process. That is, of 6 million people, about 1/4 of a million people were eligible to vote.

In 1985 the british increased the number of nominated and elected representatives and included about 18% of the population in the legislative process.

Hong Kong has the most primitive legislative process of all of britain's remaining colonies. It is still run and controlled through the governor and the nominated members.

It is ironic that even though the entire british economy stands ransom to the demands of China over Hong Kong, the foreign policy-makers are insisting that they will make this colony independent through the rewriting of its legislative process.

The same foreign policy makers, however, are maintaining and reinforcing their grip on britain's five remaining colonies in the Caribbean.

They continue to pretend that these countries can free themselves from britain. There is no governor in the caribbean colonies insisting on constitutional and legislative changes.

There is no one in the foreign office offering aid, assistance or encouragement for the move toward self determination.

It would appear that their civilizing, christianizing and educating burden for us is still incomplete.

The double standard of the european mindset continues to operate.

The Chinese will have Hong Kong exactly as they desire it.

The hypocrisy of the british continues to show itself.

They have run and controlled Hong Kong since they took it through military invasion in 1841.

Now, 152 years later, three years before it is taken back by China, they see the necessity for democratic reform and allowing the six million Chinese residents to have a say-so in the voting process.

The few remaining colonies of britain in the Caribbean will too, have their day in the sun as they wake up and throw off their colonial mentality and declare their right to determine their own destiny.

Tougher times face Hong Kong expatriate civil servants whose perks and allowances and cushy lifestyle are the envy of the colony.

"We can't deny that we have had it so good for so long and have to accept that all good things come to an end," said an engineer in Hong Kong's PWD headquarters who wanted to remain anonymous.

"In any case, with the Chinese taking over in four years it's time to get out. Although, how we will settle down in britain I can't imagine."

Many of the british expatriates in Hong Kong, and the apartheid rulers of South Africa are going to settle in Montserrat. They are going to bring with them their cultural baggage of "coolie" and "kaffir" mentality.

The remaining colonies of europe in the Caribbean met with a representative from the EEC to get a better understanding of their colonial position as europe's march towards unification continues.

Government officials from french, dutch and british colonies were able to compare for the first time how their individual "stepmother" countries treated them.

Montserrat's representative, Rueben Meade, was accompanied by governor Frank Savage.

At a press conference, Mr. Meade told the people of Montserrat that more than 90% of all the EEC funding went to dutch and french colonies.

The governor stated that he accompanied Mr. Meade so that Mr. Meade would have more say-so when the EEC representative recognised that he was accompanied by a british governor.

On Wednesday 23rd, November, a conference of europe's dependent territories was hosted in london.

The ethnicity, for the most part, of the islands represented was european.

Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, delivered the keynote address to representatives from Bermuda, Gibraltar, Falkland Islands, St. Helena, Netherland Antilles, Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands and Nouvelle Caledonia.

The one-day conference was chaired by the BBC foreign affairs editor. It is significant that most, if not all of the colonies that attended the EEC conference in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), were not present in london.

Montserrat's chief minister stated that the organizers of this meeting paid for his most recent trip to london.

He went on to say that initially he had no intentions of going because he considered the Overseas Caribbean Territories' (OCT's) meeting with the EEC representative in the BVI to be more relevant.

Even though Mr. Meade's trip was financed to attend the event, there was no indication from the news release that Montserrat was represented at the meeting.

Once again the double standards and the separate and control mentality of the european mindset continues to hold sway.

"A few years ago, the idea that anyone would have a logo and put up a notice about dependent territories would have been just about unthinkable.

Their status was so unfashionable. But since then the world has dramatically changed and the pressure to decolonize, which was so strong, has now become much more complicated.

The assumption that granting independence was the only way to make progress has evaporated.

The rhetoric which used to deafen the ears of those of us who went to the United Nations is now history.

Many members of the UN have populations smaller than the average small town in my constituency.

Not so long ago, these states would have been dismissed as not being capable of independence.

But independence is a wide concept and the UN has found room for San Marino as well as for China.

We have no doubt about our sovereignty over all the dependent territories. And the basis for that is not just legal.

All the british dependent territories are british because they want to be.

They have the right to self- determination and they have all determined that they should be british.

This manifestation of the right to self- determination varies with the circumstances but the primary principle here is that no territory remains british against its will."

Just who exactly is Mr. Hurd addressing in his speech?

People who are british andlive in colonised territories,will of their own determination desire to remain british.

Those of us, however, who are neither british nor colonialists will naturally seek our own identity.

No amount of the reversed rhetoric now coming out of british foreign policy, because they have an economic stranglehold on the remaining colonies, will impede that move away from britain.

It should be quite obvious by now that the vision of empire still exists in the minds of those who have inherited the remnants of the british empire.

Two scotland yard experts in fraud and money-laundering will be policing off-shore financial centers among british dependencies in the Caribbean.

According to a foreign-office minister there are at least 50 cases awaiting investigation. The two officers will work in the BVI, the Turks and Caicos, Anguilla, the Cayman Islands and Montserrat.

The understanding of "reparations" as it relates to Afrikan people on the continent and those in the diaspora has taken the campaign trail in england.

Mr. Bernie Grant, labour MP in london has begun a tour across the country to bring the Afrikan community up-to-date with the case that the Organisation of Afrikan Unity (OAU) has put into motion.

Representatives from the Pan-Afrikan community have been selected by the OAU to sensitize their respective countries about the case for reparations that will be taken to the United Nations.

Afrikan people throughout the world must be fully compensated for the holocaust that they have suffered and continue to suffer at the hands of european exploiters.

All countries throughout the world that benefitted from the arrested development of the Afrikan continent and the subsequent enslavement of Afrikan people and the colonisation of Afrika must fully compensate Afrika and Afrikans for the benefits that they have enjoyed at our expense for the past five hundred years.

Reparations, Repatriation, and the harnessing of Afrika's mental power scattered across the globe are all linked together.

Without a United Afrika, the industrialized countries of the world will continue to treat Afrika and its people like chaff in the wind.

Reparations will allow us to close the gap more quickly. Repatriation linked to reparations will allow Afrika to harnessboth the economic and the mental brain trust that she has scattered across the globe.

Afrikan expertise exists to solve Afrika's problems. Afrikans, however, must first realize that their security, their very existence as a people depends on their ability to come together.

Afrika has a case for reparations. The european community and those others who have benefitted from the exploitation of Afrika and its people will resist.

There is no PRICE for the Lives we have lost and continued to loose from the Genocidal treatment meeted out to US from europe and america.

Whatever Price We place on it at the end of the day, is Soley arbitrary, and can in no way compensate or justify the huge loss in Human resources that We have suffered.

Those that have gained from Our suffering, are fully aware that no amount of money in this world could ever compensate for the pain, suffering, death and destruction that continues to be the legacy of interaction between the Afrikan and the european.

Inconceivable as it may seem, the NPP has not yet satisfactorily put to rest the continuing rumours that it is still giving consideration to the establishment of a toxic waste treatment plant in Montserrat.

One would have thought that in this day and age the mere mention of the word "toxic" in connection with any form of recycling or treatment would have been rejected instantly without consideration.

This, however, is not the case. The NPP has said that it is giving consideration to the establishment of some sort of facility based on an environmental report that it expects to receive.

The Pan-Afrikan Liberator, along with the people of Montserrat is appealing to all environmental organizations for support, to insure that such a facility is not dumped into our fragile environment.

We also appeal to all Caribbean governments and people who will be directly affected if such a facility were to be established anywhere in the Caribbean.

Presently, our environmental health lies in the hands of three very short- sighted people. They must be told in no uncertain terms that we will not allow our region to be poisoned by the industrial waste of the united states.

They benefitted from it in america, let them clean up their own mess in america.

The review team engaged by the Overseas Development Agency to undertake a strategic review of Montserrat for the british government has completed its first draft.

The team spent three weeks in Montserrat speaking to government ministers, government officials, private sector businessmen and the governor.

Needless to say, the consultants, who are all british, received a very distorted and one-sided view of Montserrat.

The result is a draft report full of assumptions about Montserrat and Montserratians that only information coming from the elite sector of the society would allow one to draw.

The report deals with 3 sectors of society: Agriculture, Tourism and Export Manufacturing. A fourth report deals separately with the Airport. There is also an Overview.

Development plans usually cover a 3 to 5 year period. This report puts into place a projection that goes into the year 2006, a span of 12 years.

The reason the consultants could have projected a 12-year plan for Montserrat is because their three week exposure to our society allowed them to make the assumption that Montserrat will remain a colony of britain for at least another 12 years.

The consultants were able to conclude, in each sector that they studied, that whatever organized body traditionally ran that sector did not have the organizational know-how or ability to make the sector function.

Their solution, in each and every instance, was the creation of an external board with the accompanying foreign expertise to reorganize and run the sector in question.

What the report does, is to skillfully create for the british, a niche in our society. This was not done by chance as the british have manipulated and depressed the economic and industrial sectors of all its remaining colonies in the region.

Having depressed these sectors to the point of non-existence, they then come in and write a development plan that gives them easy entry into the sector of the society that affords them the most influence and control.

Even though an independent consultant was hired to do a social impact study on the implementation of the report not much was said on what is the most important issue.

The introduction of a british expatriate population at the top of our social structure is going to have dire consequences for the local populace.

Maybe now, we can begin to understand the british insistence that a new prison must be built.

The report, if accepted and implemented, will insure that Montserrat will remain a colony of britain, make the agriculture department non-existent, reduce the tourism department to a photocopying room, justify the destruction of the civil service and overwhelm the fragile and insecure private sector with british expatriates.

If present government chooses to have an airport it can rest assured that because it made that choice there will be no further aid coming from britain for another 6 or 7 years.

The report ties in readily with the ulterior motives of the FCO as it allows the british government to bring in a steady but consistent stream of british expatriates and their families into the island under the guise of needed expertise and consultants.

In the ever shrinking, once glorious british empire, the FCO must continue to find ways of employing and satisfying its career overseas servants and perpetuating itself as an institution.

The british continue to say that Montserrat can have its independence. Their imposing presence in our country and their projections for our future continue to show us just the opposite.

The Caribbean Center for Development Administration, CARICAD has returned its draft report for improved Public Sector management.

A team of three consultants spent four days in Montserrat speaking with worker representatives, government representatives, department heads, and the governor.

The report states that it endorses the recommendations of the Wood report which was submitted to government in December 1992.

The Wood report, however, appears to be a highly classified document. Very few people seem to have read it and the library was never given a copy of this report for public consumption.

The report says that it finds the public service to be relatively small. If this is the case, then why all the talk about reduction?

Most of the findings listed by the report point fingers at the inadequacy of top-level management to properly relate to and gain the trust and confidence of the people they are supposed to manage.

There are apparent deviations from normal operating procedures, poor team relationship among senior managers, destructive power relationships among senior management and dissent among the ranks, but especially between management and lower-level workers.

What does not seem to come out of any of these reports is the fact the civil service is a colonial organisation.

Initially it was put in place with its distinct class structure and its general orders to insure that the structure remained rigid.

That is, no one from beneath who invariably came from a different class could ever reach to the top.

The regulations and the attitude of those at the top insured that every one stayed in their proper place.

Times may have changed, and the faces at the top may also have changed. However, the rules and regulations and the attitude at the top remain just as archaic and anachronistic as the 18th century from which they came.

The civil service was never designed to have efficient managers. General orders give those at the top the authority to wield power whether or not they have the ability to handle it.

The system has fear and frustration built into in. These are all legacies of colonialism. Training people to keep a sick machine running won't make it well.

It is time for us to realize that we need a new machine. That machine, has to be designed by us and custom made to suit our needs.

"Each time you invite a stranger into your house to solve a problem for you, you must expect that the stranger will produce a strange solution for you." (MwongoziCB)

Over 500 years have passed since Columbus invaded the Caribbean and introduced slavery of our people here in the western hemisphere. 500 YEARS.

The time for a change in the system is now. It is time for our people to seek the total truth of our Creator, our history, and our enemy.

We must not allow ourselves to become satisfied with lies, hearsay and confusion anymore. We Afrikan women and men here in the west must realize that we are the descendants of the original people of the planet Earth.

The time for the white-washing and brain- washing is come to an end. In the era that we are living, the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth is revealing the truth of our past, the answers for the problems of the present and the direction that we should be heading in the future.

This is why he has sent to us such great leaders as Noble Drew Ali, Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Emperor Haille Sellassie I, Louis Farrakhan, Al Imaan Isa Al Mahdi and many many more.

My people, it is high time for us to take responsibility for ourselves and stop allowing our enemies to determine our destiny for us.

We must realise that we are not acting on our own will, but rather that we have been subliminally programmed with european concepts and immoral values by television, false religious dogma and misinformation in our schools.

Our future will be doomed if we continue to allow ourselves to be separated by the colonialists who want each of our island nations and the nations of Afrika to view each other as foreigners.

How can we be foreigners to one another, when we all look the same, and our foreparents originated from the same place?

This is illogical and non-sensical when analysed in the true light. If we continue with this attitude, the keys to our survival in the near future will be lost.

My people, we are the first and foremost daughters and sons of the Most High. No one will ever be able to take this away from us. It is a fact that our very souls bears witness to.

This being true, we must therefore submit ourselves to the Creator's divine laws, thus removing all evils and vices from our beings, our homes and our communities.

The first step to take in achieving this is LOVE. We must love the Most High with all our being. We must love each other as we love ourselves. In doing this, we will systematically shed all the evil and corruption that has seemingly embedded itself in our society.

Once we have learned to love our Creator, and one another, we will forever remove the shackles of colonialism, inferiority and slavery.

Once we begin to exercise Divine Love; wisdom, knowledge and power will quickly follow permanently eliminating evil from our presence.

This will be the day, (and not so far away as many think), when Afrikans will regain the glory of our ancestors.

THE END -