Four more names are expected to be added to the list of National Heroes in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves said recommendations will be made to the Governor General to have Ebenezer Theodore Joshua, Robert Milton Cato, Dr JP Eustace and George McIntosh ” join Chatoyer in the Pantheon of National Heroes”.
The Prime Minister, speaking at the Emancipation Rally On Friday said a committee has been established to also consider the names of women as National Heroes.
“We have talked about this enough, it is time to act…and I intend to and the Cabinet intends to because we have done it in the proper consultative manner”, Gonsalves said.
Dr Gonsalves said this is critical to the process of decolonisation and the move towards real Independence. This move, he says, continues with the renaming of places with colonial names and a strategic push toward reparations for native genocide and slavery.
The Prime Minister noted that St. Vincent and the Grenadines have led the way since 2014 in the call for Reparations for Native Genocide and the Enslavement of African Bodies and it continues to be on the Caricom agenda going forward.
Gonsalves stressed that the history of genocide and slavery by the Europeans has left this country “with a legacy of underdevelopment and you (the Europeans) have to make payments to help us deal with the legacy of underdevelopment today”.
