CAAP welcomes Government’s decision on Palestine

The Caribbean Against Apartheid in Palestine (CAAP) says it is pleased that the government has signalled its intention to recognise Palestine as a state.

In a brief statement, attorney-at-law and secretary of the group Lalu Hanuman said that while it took a long time for this moment to come he was satisfied it would become a reality.

“It was a long time in coming, but we have at last reached the mountain top,” he said. “The Caribbean Against Apartheid in Palestine has been lobbying for this since its inception in 2014. The Palestinian people have been struggling for their freedom from a racist colonial settler movement since Britain’s Balfour Declaration in 1917. They have endured countless massacres over the years from the Zionists, culminating in the current genocide in Gaza.

Barbados cannot claim to be genuinely independent unless it has an independent foreign policy free from the dictates from London and Washington.”

On Friday Minister of Foreign Affairs Kerrie Symmonds announced that the government had officially begun the process of recognising Palestine, following up on discussions both nations had a month prior to the ongoing  Israeli-Hamas war, which began last October.

“Barbados has always maintained at the United Nations that there should be a two-state solution that goes back again as far back as 1967 or thereabouts,” Symmonds said during a press conference. 

“But ironically, despite having said to the world that we would like to see a two-state solution, Barbados itself has never recognised the state of Palestine. Therefore, there is an incongruity and inconsistency because how can we say we want a two-state solution if we do not recognise Palestine as a state?”

Symmonds said a paper outlining the measure is now before the Cabinet in a bid to correct an “error that we have made through the years”.

Symmonds made the announcement a month after CAAP urged the government to reexamine relations with Israel and recognise Palestine as a state. It also came a day after the United States effectively blocked the United Nations from recognising a Palestinian state by casting a veto in the Security Council to deny Palestinians full membership in the world body. (SZB)