Proud of my African Roots.

Dear Editor,
Let me deal with our African brothers and sisters who are here and some of whom
lost their lives in the recent boating tragedy.
I blame the world in turmoil and an uncaring world for this tragedy. Africans have
been taking rickety boats and risking their lives for many years to get out of Africa
to Europe. This is nothing new. Many have died. Africans do it every day. The
Haitians do it every day. The Cubans have been doing it for over 50 years.
Antiguans and Barbudans did it in the old days by boat to St. Thomas and St.
Croix.
The Antigua and Barbuda government in its naivety, established an air link to the
motherland, Africa. Naive because they did not take into account that Antiguans
and Barbudans do not love their skin, their colour or their own.  Just consider their
hatred of our black Caricom brothers and sisters, while we love the Arabs, Chinese
and Caucasians.
The idea was a good one. Who could have imagined that the Cameroonians, trying
to escape civil war and persecution, would see these flights as an opportunity, with
a direct flight to the Caribbean, as the first step to their determined destination, the
promised land of America.
But their timing was wrong. They arrived during the election period and the UPP
used their arrival to stir up resentment and suspicion by suggesting that the ABLP
brought these people here to vote. Our African brothers were bad mouthed and
ostracized by many of our citizens, who like the Republicans in the US after a
school shooting, are offering crocodile tears. As a result of all this negative
publicity, Barbados, Trinidad, Guyana and Suriname closed its doors, so our
African brothers and sisters became stranded and desperate. Antigua was never
their final destination. It was always America. They were here in-transit.
Had we as a people been more welcoming, this may have been avoided. But
desperate people do desperate things and now we have a tragedy.
There is enough blame for all to share.
Proud of my African Roots.