Eight reasons why Garifuna people should have citizenship

Wellington Ramos, in an article titled ‘Denying Garifuna people citizenship of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines will be difficult for their Prime Minister to justify,’ gives eight reasons why he thinks the Garinagu diaspora qualify for citizenship:

1. Yurumein was a nation state prior to the French and British unlawfully invading and destroying the nation.{{more}}

2. In treaties signed with the French they acknowledge the rights of the citizens of Yurumein to their territory.

3. The unlawful removal of a citizen or citizens from their place of birth, does not in anyway hamper those persons and their descendants from retaining their citizenships. Unless, they choose not to attain their citizenship or give it up voluntarily.

4. All persons born in St Vincent & the Grenadines are citizens of St Vincent & the Grenadines and so are their children and grandchildren if they chose to acquire the citizenship of their parents, grandparents and ancestors.

5. Under the constitution of Saint Vincent & the Grenadines, people who were not born in St Vincent & the Grenadines have been granted Economic Citizenships. To grant strange people Economic Citizenships for money and then deny the Garifuna descendants their legitimate citizenships whose ancestors are the origins of the nation is an insult to their ancestors.

6. There are United Nations Proclamations on behalf of the Garifuna indigenous people outlining their rights and privileges.

7. Even though the Garifuna people were removed from St Vincent & the Grenadines, they were seen by the British and the Spanish as autonomous people and were granted their separate territories in the diaspora countries to govern their own communities. (A Nation Living Within A Nation).

8. For all the pain and sufferings that our people have endured in the last 219 years since we were removed from our motherland, granting us citizenship will bring closure to our living and dead.