Caribbean Emancipation Day Celebrated in Cuba CUBA, 02 August 2011.- The Embassy of Trinidad and Tobago in Cuba today celebrated Caribbean Emancipation Day, to commemorate the end of British colonial slavery in the region. During the ceremony, the first of its kind in the country, the representative of Trinidad and Tobago in Cuba, Jennifer Jones-Kernahan, said that the celebration is a tribute to those who died for the independence of the area. Today we celebrate the life and work of those who fought for the freedom of our people, she told Prensa Latina. Emancipation Day recalls the signing of the act that eliminated slavery in the colonies of the United Kingdom on August 1, 1833. The diplomat also stressed the importance of the freed blacks that year in the shaping of regional identity. The soul of the Caribbean and Africa is of the same struggle, one hope, one faith, one victory, she said. By an odd coincidence of the calendar almost every island in the area celebrated the anniversary on Monday, because traditionally the celebrations occurs days apart. While Trinidad and Tobago, Bermuda, Barbados, Guyana and Jamaica commemorate the anniversary on August 1, Anguilla, Turks and Caicos and the British Virgin Island make it the first Monday of the eighth month. The member of the Scientific Committee of the Slave Route Project in Cuba, Jesus Guanche, said the release which occurred in 1833, was not enough, but became a starting point for the definitive independence. With the decree of abolition, only those Africans under six months old were freed, while the rest continued to serve their owners for years. Also, the British rule created a new form of serfdom, in which former slaves were forced to work over 40 hours a week and live in subhuman conditions. (Cubaminrex-PL)
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