Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Foreign Trade

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Howard Dodson (left), Executive Director of the Schomburg Centre for Research in Black Culture, Harlem, explains aspects of the trans-atlantic route (middle passage) to United Nations (UN) Secretary General, H. E. Ban Ki Moon (right). The Secretary General recently declared open an exhibition commemorating the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade at the UN Headquarters, Manhattan. The exhibition is entitled; 'Lest We Forget - The triumph over Slavery', and will last until March 30 in the visitors' lobby at 46th Street/First Avenue during regular business hours of the UN.

Vice Chancellor Emeritus of the University of the West Indies, Professor Rex Nettleford, will deliver the keynote address at Monday's (March 26) meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Abolition of the Trans Atlantic Trade in Slaves.

The session will also be addressed by several ranking diplomats from the UN, who are expected to echo the sentiments of Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, who noted recently that the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade was a blight on the world.

Denzil Douglas, Prime Minister of St. Kitts & Nevis and Chairman of CARICOM is expected to address the session on behalf of the region that was most profoundly impacted by the trade in human cargo from the shores of Africa 200 years ago.

The scheduled two-hour morning session, which will be presided over by President of the General Assembly, Her Excellency Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, will hear statements from key groups with the UN.

Ambassador Raymond Wolfe, Jamaica's Permanent Representative to the UN and a co-author of the UN Resolution to commemorate the bicentennial anniversary of the Slave Trade on March 26, told JIS News that high points of the ceremony would be the observance of a minute's silence in memory of those who suffered from the horrors of slavery and the launch of an international fund for the erection of a permanent memorial to slavery.

"We should not forget," Ambassador Wolfe said, in reference to those who were exploited under brutal conditions during the height of the slave trade.

Some 200 years ago this month, the United States Government and the British Parliament signed legislation banning the slave trade throughout the United States and the British empire.

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