July 19, 2021

PRESS RELEASE: Criticism Remains Despite Suspension of Excavations at Caribbean 18C Graveyard




 
 UCF CARIBBEAN RESPONDS TO SUSPENDED EXCAVATION ST. EUSTATIUS
 
 
 
TILBURG / ST. EUSTATIUS / 19 July 2021 / -- Ubuntu Connected Front
 
 
"One Step Forward – Let’s Work Towards Memory, Repair and True Descendant Engagement" - Says UCF Caribbean Chair
 
 
Despite suspension of archaeological excavations carried out on enslaved ancestors on the small Dutch Caribbean island of St. Eustatius, objections are still being raised. Protest organizers, Ubuntu Connected Front (UCF) Caribbean, Brighter Path Foundation, and SEAD applaud this change in approach by the government, but “We still have many questions and concerns”, says UCF Caribbean chair Kenneth Cuvalay, “it is one step forward, but we are not quite there yet.”
 
Kenneth Cuvalay, "It is smart that our unelected administrators on St. Eustatius have suspended their soulless digging and are going to set up a St Eustatius Heritage Research Commission," Cuvalay points out. "Suspension does not mean discontinuance. Does this mean scientific suspension and discontinuation of our ancestral remains in laboratories outside of St Eustatius? Many people on St Eustatius do not trust the work of SECAR, the local archaeological society. The same organization secretly disturbed graves on the West side of the island and left them in a deplorable state."
 
True transparency and community engagement
 
“And who will be on this commission? Friends of SECAR? More parachuted civil servants from the Dutch mainland? The local government talks about this "group of experts". We have no conservation experts on St. Eustatius – apart from the very self-proclaimed experts who decided to poke around, remove hallowed human remains and artifacts if only to declare that it was scientific work. None of them were born on St Eustatius and yet they broke the faith of their own international archaeological codes.”
 
We have raised concerns, have written letters, and have almost a thousand signatures under the petition. Still no response from the government. From what we read in the government’s press release, our urgent call for more transparency and structural engagement with the descendant community is still not guaranteed. We want a seat at the table; we want to have an input in e.g. knowledge production and the decision-making process; we want our voice included in research planning, design, and interpretation as well. The announced decisions of the government all sounds nice, but is in fact a farce to appease the growing public pressure we made through our letters, the online petition, and media exposure.
 
Objectives still not met
 
“We still would like to get a response to our initial letter to the St. Eustatius government”, the protest organizers state. Questions asked in that letter were:
  1. A written plan on the excavation and commemoration with input from the descendant community and scientists from the Afrikan diaspora;
  2. Establishment of a scientific research protocol including a definitive timeline for completion;
  3. Establish a commemorative proposal that is distinctive and rooted in the history and culture of the Afrikan and Afrikan diaspora. This memorial proposal should include plans for: (a) A respectful treatment of these ancestral remains; (b) Plans for their reburial at the original site of rediscovery; (c) Plan for appropriate Afrika-focused ceremonies as selected by the offspring community; (d)Placement of a permanent memorial on the site of sacred ground (at the airport).
In addition to the above listed questions, we ask:
  1. Input into who will be on the committee of experts, and the Research Commission;
  2. A research and memorialization agreement established between the descendant community and SECAR/St. Eustatius Government;
  3. For SECAR to restore the burial site on the Godet plantation and return the human remains;
  4. All remains of the Golden Rock burial ground to be returned to the island, since the project is now suspended;
  5. Investigation on the granting of taxpayers' money for public relations activities carried out by the wife of the former Commissioner of St. Eustatius for the SECAR digging. It is a matter of record, and we have the records. The souls of the enslaved are tortured twice by this graft.
  6. Make a stand for protecting slave burials, walls, and all monuments that are testimony to heritage.
 Decolonize Archaeology
 
We hold the researchers of the excavations accountable for not to have followed common practices of community archeology. Structural engagement with the public is a common practice in modern archeology. The research team has failed to properly implement this. Especially considering that it concerns a burial ground of our Afrikan ancestors who were victims of horrendous crimes committed against humanity, we regard this as evidence of deep contempt and academic misconduct. It reflects the hundreds of years of racism and white supremacy that we are not prepared to deal with any longer. We therefore want the research team to be replaced and have more Afrikan centered archeologists in charge.
 
Call to the Research Community
 
We need a more collaborative and participatory archaeology in the Netherlands, that has the ethics and sensibility to go into dialogue with us, as the Afrikan descendant community. We need to start an urgent debate on decolonizing Dutch archaeological regulations and practices. Moreover, we need to extend that debate to a global level for there are many more African Burial Grounds at risk in the Americas.
 
 
 
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Further Information: Kenneth Cuvalay
Press Release agreed and approved by:
  • Xiomara Balentina - President Brighter Path St. Eustatius
  • Derrick Simmons - Coordinator Ubuntu Connected Front (UCF) St. Eustatius
  • George Berkel - Vice-president of grassroots movement St. Eustatius Awareness and Development Movement (SEAD)
  • Kenneth Cuvalay - Chair Ubuntu Connected Front (UCF) Tilburg & Caribbean
 
UCF Black Agenda
 
Ubuntu Connected Front (UCF) won an absolute majority (50,5%) on St. Eustatius in the elections to the House of Representatives this spring. It is a grassroots community-based movement. Decolonization is on her Black Agenda as part of the party program calling for the decolonization and transformation within structures and systems in the Kingdom to combat systemic racism. The recognition of the impact and legacy of the Dutch transatlantic slave trade and colonization is subject of debate in the Netherlands. Dutch Afrikans in the diaspora are asking the government for apologies for the slavery past, calling for reparatory justice and declaring 1 July (Emancipation Day) a national holiday.
 
Our 'Black Agenda' can be found in the "Manifest for NL Transformation" at the UCF website (Chapter 5).
 
Ubuntu means "humanity" in Afrikan Bantu languages. It is often translated as "I am because we are", or "humanity towards others". It is Ubuntu Connected Front’s core belief that all people have rights, which promotes equality of treatment and eliminates marginalization and deprivation.