Fifth Assembly of Caribbean Peoples

Fifth Assembly Of Caribbean Peoples

CALL TO THE ASSEMBLY
(Barbados, August 3 - 8, 2010)
"CARIBBEAN PEOPLE, SEIZE THE TIME!"


Now that the fraudulence of the international oligarchy and its inhuman system of subordinating people and nations to the narrow interests of financiers and elites has become manifestly clear, the time has come for the Caribbean people to assert themselves and to boldly step forward and take firm control of the future agenda of our Caribbean region!


We, the ‘Regional Executive Committee’ of the Fifth Assembly of Caribbean Peoples are therefore issuing a CALL to the Caribbean’s social movements of farmers, workers, women, artistes, students, intellectuals and youth, and to the people centred political parties, trade unions, non-governmental organisations, cooperatives, credit unions and community based institutions of our region to SEIZE THE MOMENT and come together in a mighty PEOPLE’S ASSEMBLY dedicated to the singular purpose of clarifying and agreeing upon an immediate, concrete and practical programme of action for solving the many critical existential and developmental problems of the Caribbean people.


Against the background of four previous Assemblies of Caribbean Peoples -Trinidad (1994; Dominican Republic (2001); Haiti (2003); Cuba (2008) - in which considerable intellectual work was done in analysing the predicament and development challenges of the Caribbean, we now take great pride and pleasure in sending out an INVITATION to all authentic Caribbean organisations and to the patriotic sons and daughters of our region to attend and participate in the historic FIFTH ASSEMBLY OF CARIBBEAN PEOPLES, which will be held in the Island of BARBADOS between the 3rd and the 8th of August 2010.

The Fifth Assembly Of Caribbean Peoples will constitute a coming together of activists and popular organisations from across the Spanish, English, French and Dutch speaking regions of the Caribbean focussed on designing Caribbean solutions to such challenges as:-

the international financial, economic and debt crisis that is threatening to devastate the Caribbean;

the prevailing balkanisation, fragmentation and colonial domination in the Caribbean;

our persistent failure to harness the resources of the Caribbean for our own collective industrialisation and development;

the many severe environmental challenges that threaten the long term survival of the Caribbean and its people;

our lack of food security and the manifestly unsustainable food import burden that the region is bearing;

the terrible scourges of crime, illegal drugs and racial disharmony that bedevil several Caribbean countries;

the many cultural and political factors that continue to retard the development of our identity as a Caribbean people belonging to a
unique Caribbean Civilization.

The historic FIFTH ASSEMBLY OF CARIBBEAN PEOPLES will consciously and deliberately endeavour to include in our convocation specialists who have carried out relevant research into the targeted subject areas, as well as regional policy-makers who, now more than ever, need to sit down and reason with popular and grass-roots activists.


There will also be caucuses of what are perhaps the three most important segments of the population of the Caribbean - our women-folk, our youth and our farmers. Indeed, we, the Regional Executive Committee, have determined that the unique ideas and perspectives of these three critical, but often marginalized, segments of our population, must be accorded a place of pre-eminence in the several deeply considered solutions that will emerge from our Fifth Assembly.


The Caribbean people should rest assured that the Fifth Assembly of Caribbean Peoples has been consciously designed to produce solutions to the problems of the Caribbean! We, the Regional Executive Committee, are not interested in staging yet another academic conference that is full of long, learned academic papers, but short on concrete solutions and mechanisms for follow-up action. We assure you - the Caribbean people - that the constant watch words of this Assembly will be - "solutions, solutions, solutions"!


We now look forward to our gathering at the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies in Barbados, from the 3rd to the 8th of August 2010, as we come together in powerful formation to SEIZE THE TIME.


For further bobbyclainformation please contact Robert ‘Bobby’ Clarke or David Comissiong at clementpaynechambers@gmail.com