SVG to host UN seminar on Eradication of Colonialism

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines will play host to a major United Nations seminar this week, as approximately sixty participants descend on Kingstown for the 2011 Caribbean Regional Seminar concerning the Third International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism.{{more}}

The seminar, which will run from today, 31 May, to 2 June, 2011, is being held under the auspices of the United Nations Special Committee on the Situation with Regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (the “Special Committee”).

2011 marks the beginning of the Third International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism. The eradication of colonialism was made an international priority 50 years ago, with the UN’s adoption of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. That Declaration proclaimed the right of all peoples to self-determination and stressed that the subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation is an impediment to the promotion of world peace and cooperation.

In the past, over 750 people lived under colonial rule. Today, the efforts of the international community have reduced that number to 2 million people, living in 16 remaining Non-Self-Governing Territories. Many of those 16 territories are in the Caribbean region.

The Special Committee continues to grapple with the thorny political issues of countries and territories that still remain under some degree of foreign control. Within the Caribbean region, issues related to Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat, Turks and Caicos Islands, United States Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico all occupy the agenda of the Special Committee. Further afield, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar and Western Sahara, among others, will also be discussed by the Special Committee.

The Special Committee hopes to use the Saint Vincent and the Grenadines seminar to assess the progress and set new benchmarks for the eradication of colonialism in this Third Decade.

The Caribbean Regional Seminar takes place every other year. This is the second time that the seminar is being held in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. In 2005, former UN Ambassador Margaret Ferrari, the then-President of the Special Committee, was instrumental in steering the Seminar to Canouan. This year, Ambassador Camillo Gonsalves played a pivotal role in ensuring that the Seminar was held in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

The current President of the Special Committee H.E. Francisco Carrion-Mena of Ecuador expressed his “sincere appreciation to the Government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines for hosting . . . the Caribbean Regional Seminar.” In a letter to Ambassador Gonsalves, Carrion-Mena said that “this gesture of solidarity with the Peoples of Non-Self-Governing Territories, particularly in 2011, the first year of the third Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism, will strengthen the mandate of the Special Committee on Decolonization.”

The seminar will be held in Kingstown, at the conference facilities of the National Insurance Scheme Building.