Kingston. The Jamaican government wants to draft a new constitution and hold a referendum on self-determination in 2024. This quit the Minister for Legal and Constitutional Affairs, Marlene Malahoo Forte. Your government wants to gain complete independence from the British monarchy and have its own head of state.
“The time has come. Jamaica belongs in Jamaica’s hands,” Forte told international media on Friday. “My government says we have to do it now”, added she added.
Britain now has the coronation of King Charles III. celebrated, but this only applies to the United Kingdom. Although most Jamaicans are supporters of the republic, “many liked and identified with Queen Elizabeth II very much,” Forte said. “But you don’t identify with King Charles. He’s very alien to us. Plain and simple.” For Jamaicans ‘time to say goodbye to British Crown’
Creating a republic is about “saying goodbye to a form of government associated with a painful past of colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade.” London never did sorry or reparations made, according to the minister.
According to the National Library of Jamaica, Britain forcibly transported 600,000 people from Africa to this Caribbean country and was one of the largest slave traders in the 18th century.
A British colony since 1655, the Caribbean island gained independence in 1962. The political leadership of the time decided to become part of the Commonwealth, which includes Great Britain and almost all of its former colonies, with Elizabeth II as head of state.
In mid-April this year, the Constitutional Reform Committee decided to transform the country into a republican state and secede from the British monarchy agreed, provided that this is decided in a referendum. “Once we remove the constitutional monarchy from the composition of our form of government, it will be replaced by the Republic of Jamaica,” Forte said.
According to media reports the plan also the Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda, Belice, Grenada, San Cristóbal and Nieves and St. Vincent and the Grenadines respectively referendums. Barbados had already deposed the Queen of the United Kingdom as head of state in November 2021, becoming the youngest republic in the region.
Before the coronation ceremony on Saturday, representatives of indigenous groups from Australia, several Caribbean countries, Canada, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea had written to the heir to the throne to recognize “the terrible effects and legacy of the genocide and colonization of the indigenous and enslaved peoples”. . They are also demanding a formal apology and the initiation of a “restorative justice” process.