what other race of people celebrates the criminal sellouts that came from amongst them?
what exactly has baroness amos ever done for guyana?
keep the fire live elton mcrae
she might be a baroness to guyanese but i wonder what margaret thatcher called her
Dear Editor;
I simply felt insulted when I read in the press of April 21st (Kaieteur News), that The Guyanese community in New York has invited Baroness Amos to be a guest of honour of The New York celebrations. The Baroness and I are both born of parents identified by their birth certificates, as Negro Natives of British Guiana. In today’s terminologies that would mean sons and daughters of descendants of formerly enslaved Africans, who lived on the land mass now known as Guyana. We are also contemporaries of sorts, born in a pre-independent Guyana, when personalities like Martin Carter, Sydney King and Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow felt it necessary to challenge the colonials’ right to perpetual domination of our lives.
massa we is sick
Now 50 years later enjoined in the battle for reparations, a struggle to free ourselves of the impact of the years of colonial/racial domination, I am confronted with the fact of Ms Amos’ existence. From newspapers reports since the mid-60s it appeared that Ms Amos was sucked into a being British syndrome. She gained acceptance to the point where her name is linked with many first. FIRST BLACK BRITISH PEER, FIRST BLACK WOMAN TO HEAD A BRITISH UNIVERSITY, etc. Over the years among the things associated with her name is that she lead the British team to the United Nations Anti-racism Conference in Durban South Africa in 2001. At that conference her most significant contribution was to denounce an attempt to declare the Enslavement of Africans by European nations “a crime against humanity”.
Fifteen years later I am reading that this person who has an issue with declaring what happened to her greatgreat-great grand-parents a crime is now being honoured by persons whose great-great-great and great-greatgreat-great grand-parents like mine were robbed of their freedom to make persons like the Baroness comfortable today. Do I do like the trees in the forest when they saw the axe, I shall not. The trees recognised the handle of the axe as one of them, I say ‘de Baroness barn yah, but shi na wan awe”. In my view it is an insult to honour her as part of our independence anniversary.
This is primarily because that independence struggle is in part due to my great-great-great grand-parents and others who were sacrificed along the way, and whose efforts the Baroness dismissed when she argued that African Enslavement is not deserving of an apology from the British nor is it worth being considered “a crime against humanity”.
Thus Mr Editor I am hoping that you publish this letter and it would be seen by those organising the New York celebrations of our Independence Anniversary. It is my hope that they take wise council and find a way to inform the Baroness that she would no longer be a guest of honour. I would also like to alert them that from information on the ground in NY, many are considering boycotting
Elton McCrae
simple farmer 
And if they do not rescind her invitation we will just have to organise a noisy, embarrassing and rude demonstration against her.
I would have to agree that Valerie Amos should not be a special guest at the Guyana Jubilee celebrations in New York.
Below are the links to what was actually said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6493507.stm
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/nov/26/race.immigrationpolicy
SENSELESS UTTERANCES AND ACTIONS BY SOME ON THE SCANDALOUS ISSUE OF REPARATION FOR THE ATROCITIES OF SLAVERY IN THE WEST INDIES…
BY: Wil-a Pluck (Social Critic).
The senseless utterances by Kay Johnston on the issue of reparation may be described as pure ‘hog wash.’ In these days of enlightenment…especially when every other race and ethnic group who reside even in the darkest jungle in Europe, Asia or Australia, is demanding…as their legitimate entitlement of that which they and their fore-parents have, hither to, been denied. Why then should anyone expect Guyanese of African descent to naively accept the singular position taken by Guyanese born – Baroness Valerie Amos in Britain would most certainly be a travesty.
And in in the face of such an obvious collusion with the British power structure, she must be forcefully made aware of the descendants of Afro-Guyanese who endured the horrors and humiliation of slavery, are certainly not prepared to accept such a betrayal. Whatever likely protest actions may be staged in the streets of Georgetown during Amos’ likely visit for the 50thanniversary, is a matter that she would have to deal with as best as she could. And whatever related embarrassment such actions are likely to bring it is exactly that which she would have partly brought upon herself by her clandestine actions against the interest of her native Afro-Guyanese ethnicity…in the guise of ‘representing their collective interest in London on the issue of reparation for the injustice endured by their African fore-parents and the unspeakable horrors of slavery.
REFERENCE TO A KAY JOHNSTON’S UTTERANCES:
Now…in light of the stated concerns, there is a compelling need to offer an appropriate response to the misleading utterances by a Kay Johnston on line, in her brand of seemingly ‘highfalutin logic’, as far as many Afro Caribbean descendants are concerned. The fact of the matter is that they too are equally legitimate descendants of Africans who were enslaved and also, have an equally legitimate space and voice in the heat of this vocal exchange, in such a delicate and sensitive issue of reparation…without the unnecessary ‘convoluted logic,’ there are rational answer with historical underpinnings. Those on whose shoulders the burden of repayment of reparation to descendants of slaves rests, are the beneficiaries of the spoils of the wretched business of slavery are direct targets in light of the reparation entitlement and their pampered off-springs who continue to enjoy the ill-gotten spoils – either by way of better and more affordable schooling, domestic living with more freely inherited estate lands to last for generations yet unborn. Also, the pageantry and pomp of power that still afford them the ‘authority’ to relegate others to a state of perpetual poverty and dependency and hopefully too… on their continued ‘sense of compassion,’ on their ‘inferior mortals’…with their wrath of vengeance as a restrictive warning or reminder, ever ‘hanging in the balance.’
CENTURIES ON…YET FRANCE STILL DEMANDS COMPASATION FROM SUCCESSIVE HAITIAN GOVERNMENTS FOR THE DEFEAT OF NAPOLEON’S ARMY:
Let Kay Johnston try selling her brand of ‘simplistic lecture’ to the white French hierarchy who…unto this day still demand legitimate repayment from the Haitian successive poppets who repeatedly confiscate political power and refuse to challenge the French status q who for these many centuries on, are still peeved at the Haitian descendants (who were not the ones who actually committed the slaughter of over slaughtered the French invading forces some centuries ago) for their humiliation of the mighty French army. What a disgraceful claim of compensation for the shameful defeat of Napoleon’s General – his Brother-in-law – General Charles Leclerc in his might when he was stopped and had many of his men slaughtered by the unmatchable force of Toussaint L’Ouverture and his successor – General Jean Jacques Dessalines (also a former black slave) who took charge of the battles against 43,000 French troops, sent by Napoleon to re-establish French rule and slavery after Toussaint’s capture, imprisonment and death in France in 1803.
Today all self-respecting Haitians support and understand the ousted President Bertrand Aristide’s bold and defiant letter to the French political directorate…demanding entitled reparation… in turn, from the present-day– Haiti’s ‘Colonial Masters.’ This is what soft core’ apologists like Kay Johnston must know that such actions being upheld even today by successive generations of French Political elite still see as a pay-back for their humiliating defeat by Toussaint L’Ouverture and his successor – General Jean Jacques Dessalines. Co-incidentally…this commentary, also serves to enlighten the uninformed as to some of the fundamental problems that beset Haitians in their present struggles to grapple with their massive financial burden, while many of the descendants of the aristocrats in the French society still enjoy the pampered privileges of a highfalutin life style.
LACK OF RESPECT…LOSS OF ETHNIC IDENTITY AND SENSE OF RATIONAL REASON:
Baroness Amos and the likes of any Kay Johnston must come to their sense of rational reason to know that decisions on reparation for ‘Black People’ in present-day Guyana is not a matter only for what they alone perceive in their brand of ‘rational reason’ as being a true reflection of a ‘a greater good’ or ‘most logical actions’ that should adequately fulfil the wishes of all our collective desires as Afro-Guyanese descendants. On this issue of reparation, the most appropriate, sincere and morally wholesome representation should come…not from Afro-Guyanese who have lost their sense of ethnicity, racial and even national identity over the years by an obvious Colonial infliction of an impairment of their sense of rational reason that triggers an impairment of their mental acumen on the issue. Or likewise…by anyone who would be inclined to compromise on the legitimate expectations of their fellow Afro-Caribbean descendants, so as to be more favoured for acceptance to an elevated social status among the nobility within the hierarchy of a British political and social power structure.
Rather…true representation for reparation should be articulated by persons whose day-to-day activities, writing, professional engagement and social focus reflect and transcend hypocrisy or any likely deception that compromises the integrity in the on-going Afro-centric struggle on ‘black interests’ and more particularly…the whole scandalous history of the Africans enslavement during their Plantation life in the West Indies and the Americas, from which this ‘ugly chapter’ of reparation has emerged with a disturbing and nagging persistence that others like Valarie Amos and Kay Johnston now seek to distort and trivialize with a disturbing sense of naivety. – Wil-a Pluck (Art & Social Critic – May 12th. 2016).