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SAN JUAN: Barbados stopped pledging allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II on Tuesday because it shed one other vestige of its colonial previous and have become a republic for the primary time in historical past.
A number of leaders and dignitaries, together with Prince Charles, attended the ceremony that started late Monday in a preferred sq. the place the statue of a well known British lord was eliminated final yr amid a worldwide push to erase symbols of oppression.
Fireworks peppered the sky at midnight as Barbados formally grew to become a republic, with screens arrange throughout the island so individuals might watch the occasion that featured an orchestra with greater than 100 metal pan gamers and quite a few artists. It was additionally broadcast on-line, prompting a flurry of excited messages from Bajans dwelling within the U.S., Canada and past.
“Completely happy Independence Day and freedom to all,” wrote one viewer.
The drive to develop into a republic started greater than 20 years in the past and culminated with the island’s Parliament electing its first-ever president final month in a two-thirds majority vote. Barbados Governor Normal Sandra Mason was scheduled to be sworn in earlier than daybreak on Tuesday because the island marked its fifty fifth independence from Britain.
Mason, 72, is an lawyer and decide who additionally has served as ambassador to Venezuela, Colombia, Chile and Brazil. She is going to assist Prime Minister Mia Mottley lead the rich Caribbean island of greater than 300,000 individuals that’s depending on tourism, manufacturing and finance.
Barbados didn’t want permission from the U.Ok. to develop into a republic, though the island will stay a member of the Commonwealth Realm. It’s an occasion that the Caribbean has not skilled for the reason that Seventies, when Guyana, Dominica and Trinidad and Tobago grew to become republics.
Barbados grew to become impartial from the UK in November 1966, greater than three centuries after English settlers arrived and turned the island right into a rich sugar colony primarily based on the work of a whole bunch of 1000’s of African slaves.
In latest a long time, the island has begun distancing itself from its colonial previous. In 2005, Barbados dropped the London-based Privy Council and selected the Trinidad-based Caribbean Courtroom of Justice as its remaining court docket of attraction. Then in 2008, it proposed a referendum on the problem of changing into a republic, nevertheless it was pushed again indefinitely. Final yr, Barbados introduced plans to cease being a constitutional monarchy and eliminated a statue of British Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson from Nationwide Heroes Sq., the situation of the occasion to rejoice changing into a republic.
Barbados’ flag, coat of arms and nationwide anthem will stay the identical, however sure references will change, in keeping with Suleiman Bulbulia, a columnist for the Barbados Right this moment newspaper. He wrote that the phrases “royal” and “crown” will now not be used, so the Royal Barbados Police Pressure will develop into the Barbados Police Service and “crown lands” will develop into “state lands.”
“It’s the starting of a brand new period,” he wrote. “Any Barbadian can aspire now to be our Head of State.”
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