BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Prime Minister Mia Mottley has defended the decision of Barbados to observe the 50th anniversary of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) with a public holiday on July 31.
Many CARICOM countries are due to observe the occasion on July 4, CARICOM Day, the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Chaguaramas that established the 15-member regional integration movement.
Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, and St Kitts-Nevis have all announced that they will observe CARICOM Day as a public holiday.
But Mottley told a news conference on Thursday night that Cabinet had decided that the island would observe the occasion on July 31.
She said Cabinet had consulted with the Social Partnership and “indicated our preference to them that as a one-off, Barbados will celebrate 50 years of the Caribbean Community on July 31 as a national public holiday, on the eve of August 1, which remains sacrosanct for us as a former slave society as Emancipation Day.
“We felt that to do it on July 4 would have been a little too early,” she said, noting that the decision to allow the region’s people to celebrate the anniversary with a holiday was taken by CARICOM states earlier this year in the Bahamas.
“What we didn’t want to do was to offset anyone who has already announced something, and, therefore, I’ve paused and asked the Ministry of Culture to advise us as to what else there is on that day, but Barbados will have a regional CARICOM celebration on the night of July 31.
“In addition to that, I have asked to have the CBC [Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation], and I will ask the other media houses, to start to have on each weekend during July, something that will reinforce and reflect moments of the last 50 years in the integration movement,” Mottley added
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