Barbados says goodbye to queen, transforms into republic

SAN JUAN – Barbados stopped pledging allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II connected Tuesday arsenic it shed different vestige of its assemblage past and became a republic for the archetypal clip successful history.

Several leaders and dignitaries, including Prince Charles, attended the ceremonial that began precocious Monday successful a fashionable quadrate wherever the statue of a well-known British lord was removed past twelvemonth amid a worldwide propulsion to erase symbols of oppression.

Fireworks peppered the entity astatine midnight arsenic Barbados officially became a republic, with screens acceptable up crossed the land truthful radical could ticker the lawsuit that featured an orchestra with much than 100 alloy cookware players and galore artists. It was besides broadcast online, prompting a flurry of excited messages from Bajans surviving successful the U.S., Canada and beyond.

“Happy Independence Day and state to all,” wrote 1 viewer.

The thrust to go a republic began much than 2 decades agone and culminated with the island’s Parliament electing its archetypal ever president past period successful a two-thirds bulk vote. Barbados Governor General Sandra Mason was scheduled to beryllium sworn successful earlier dawn connected Tuesday arsenic the land marked its 55th independency from Britain.

Ad

Mason, 72, is an lawyer and justice who besides has served arsenic ambassador to Venezuela, Colombia, Chile and Brazil. She volition assistance Prime Minister Mia Mottley pb the affluent Caribbean land of much than 300,000 radical that is babelike connected tourism, manufacturing and finance.

Barbados did not request support from the U.K. to go a republic, though the land volition stay a subordinate of the Commonwealth Realm. It’s an lawsuit that the Caribbean has not experienced since the 1970s, erstwhile Guyana, Dominica and Trinidad and Tobago became republics.

Barbados became autarkic from the United Kingdom successful November 1966, much than 3 centuries aft English settlers arrived and turned the land into a affluent sweetener colony based connected the enactment of hundreds of thousands of African slaves.

In caller decades, the land has begun distancing itself from its assemblage past. In 2005, Barbados dropped the London-based Privy Council and chose the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice arsenic its last tribunal of appeal. Then successful 2008, it projected a referendum connected the contented of becoming a republic, but it was pushed backmost indefinitely. Last year, Barbados announced plans to halt being a law monarchy and removed a statue of British Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson from National Heroes Square, the determination of the lawsuit to observe becoming a republic.

Ad

Barbados’ flag, overgarment of arms and nationalist anthem volition stay the same, but definite references volition change, according to Suleiman Bulbulia, a columnist for the Barbados Today newspaper. He wrote that the presumption “royal” and “crown” volition nary longer beryllium used, truthful the Royal Barbados Police Force volition go the Barbados Police Service and “crown lands” volition go “state lands.”

“It is the opening of a caller era,” helium wrote. “Any Barbadian tin aspire present to beryllium our Head of State.”

Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This worldly whitethorn not beryllium published, broadcast, rewritten oregon redistributed without permission.