United Nations, New York – 31 August 2025
Today, 31st of August, we celebrate the International Day of African People and their Descendants— a day that uplifts the spirit, heritage, and enduring strength of Africans and their descendants across the world.
I, James Finies, stand as both a son of Africa and an Indigenous Caribbean. My lineage tells a story of survival against centuries of oppression: my grandfather's ancestors, proud Black men taken from Africa; my grandmother and her ancestors, an Indigenous Caribbean woman whose people were stolen from Bonaire to Hispaniola by Spanish colonizers. On my father’s side, my family bore the cruel weight of mixed European bloodlines, African descendants, and Indigenous survivors — all bound together by suffering under the brutality of colonial rule.
Our African ancestors were kidnapped, brought to Bonaire, and forced into the salt mines where many lost their eyesight and their lives at an early age. This truth was hidden from us; in school we were taught not about our own heroes or our island’s history, but about Dutch rivers, Dutch victories and murderers of our ancestors as heroes.
Even today, while many Caribbean nations celebrate Emancipation, we in Bonaire remain under colonial domination and are denied justice and to Right of Self-Determination. Our laws are still dictated and made in The Hague — the very city that hosts the International Court of Justice and claims to defend human rights. What hypocrisy.
To be of African descent is to embody survival, strength, and unbroken dignity. But it is also to continue the struggle — for recognition, for justice, and for true freedom. On this day, we honor the memory of our ancestors by carrying forward their fight and ensuring that their suffering was not in vain.
We celebrate not only who we are, but to continue to fight for human rights to freedom and justice, we are determined to secure for generations to come.
Bonaire Human Rights Organization
Pueblo Progresivo I Uni
Muhernan Fuerte Bonaire
Movement for Change
We Dare to Care Foundation
www.bonairehumanrights.org
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