Slavery monument to open at UN HQ

Slavery monument to be erected in March at UN

(CNS): A permanent memorial to the victims of the transatlantic slave trade is to be erected in March on the grounds of the United Nations headquarters in New York. The UN initiative to erect the monument, entitled ‘The Ark of No-Return’, was Jamaican-inspired and has been endorsed by CARICOM. The monument, designed by Haitian-American artist, Rodney Leon, will be triangular in shape and made from gleaming white marble panels supported by a stainless steel structural frame, UN officials said.

It is scheduled to open on 25 March, which marks the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The memorial will invite people everywhere to contemplate the legacy of the slave trade and to fight against racism and prejudice today. The design was selected from an initial 310 entries by an international panel of five judges. The trust fund established to build the Permanent Memorial has to date raised US$1.4 million.

Meanwhile, CARICOM leaders are currently in the Bahamas for the organization’s 36th annual summit, and the issues of reparations for native genocide and slavery are on the agenda. CARICOM is seeking payment from European countries and has hired the British law firm Leigh Day, which won compensation for hundreds of Kenyans tortured by the British colonial government during the Mau Mau rebellion of the 1950s.

In its lawsuit, CARICOM has stated that slavery condemned the region to poverty, which still afflicts it today. Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, is leading the charge but CARICOM members have been asked to establish national committees as the region seeks an out of court settlement from Britain and other European powers whose economies all benefitted from the “awful legacy”.