The leader of the Partido Pueblo Progresivo (PPP), Mr. James Finies, is taking Bonaire’s voice to the Caribbean region at the historic 3rd Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Reparations Commission Conference in Barbados. Mr. Finies is accompanied by Davika Bissessar Shaw, President of the Bonaire Human Rights Organization (BHRO), an Associate Member of the CARICOM Reparations Commission.
The four-day conference brings together prominent Caribbean and World leaders, scholars and reparations advocates, including Professor Verene Shepherd, Sir Hilary Beckles, Prime Minister Mia Mottley and former Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves and others.
The first regional conference was held in St. Vincent and the Grenadines in September 2013, followed by the second in Antigua and Barbuda in September 2014.
Barbados now hosts the third conference 17th - 19th , continuing the Caribbean region’s efforts to advance the international case for reparatory justice. Bonaire’s contribution made by Mr. Finies and Mrs. Bissessar Shaw to the CARICOM 10-Point Plan for Reparatory Justice, which will be relaunched during the conference. Finies and Bissessar contribution seeks to place existing colonialism clearly within the reparations framework, emphasizing that for territories such as Bonaire, reparatory justice cannot be separated from the unfinished process of decolonization.
During the conference, Mr. Finies will make a speech on Bonaire’s history and the experiences of its people of African descent, including enslaved Africans who were victims of the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans that the United Nations recently declared as the gravest crime against humanity.
His intervention will also highlight Bonaire’s historical importance to the Dutch colonial economy, particularly through its salt industry. Bonaire’s salt was a highly valuable commodity used by the Dutch, including in the preservation of herring, and was historically regarded as “white gold.”
Behind this economic wealth was the forced labour and suffering of enslaved Africans who worked under harsh inhuman conditions in Bonaire’s salt pans also known as " the white hell".
Their labour contributed to the colonial economy, while they were denied freedom, dignity and control over their own lives.
The BHRO and PPP believe that this history must form part of the wider Caribbean and international discussion on reparatory justice. Bonaire’s participation in the Barbados Reparations conference therefore brings together two interconnected issues: reparations for the historical injustices inflicted upon people of African descent and the continuing rights of peoples of Bonaire.
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