“Conflicts over colonies constitute the major source of war in the modern world.”
In the summer of 1940, as war raged in Europe, foreign ministers of the American hemisphere convened in Havana for the Pan-American Conference on the Defense of the Americas. Led by the United States, the conference aim was to hammer out a mutual self-defense agreement in case any of the territories in the region were taken over by the Axis powers. There was an urgency here. Originally planned for October, US Secretary of State Cordell Hull moved the conference to July after France fell to the Nazis and there were fears of imminent Nazi designs on the Panama Canal.
After a week of discussion, debate, and pressure from the United States, the "Declaration of Reciprocal Assistance and Cooperation for the Defense of the Nations of the Americas" was agreed to. Effectively codifying the rhetoric of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, the declaration stated that an attack on any nation in the Americas was an attack on all nations of the Americas while pledging to a principle of mutual self-defense. It also codified the rhetoric of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine – while strengthening the United States hegemony over the region – by asserting a “no transfer” doctrine that would disallow the transfer of any territory in the Americas to a power outside the region, and pledging to govern European colonies collectively, through a temporary form of “Pan-American trusteeship.”
There was opposition to the plan and to the conference. Argentina initially refused to attend for fear of offending the Axis powers. Newspapers in France and Germany accused the conference of enabling US imperialism while unions and radical labor organizations in Mexico protested their government’s involvement for the same reason.
Meanwhile, activists and organizers from the Caribbean refused both the US assertions of control over the Americas and any plan for rule of the Caribbean via trusteeship. An organization called the West Indies National Emergency Committee (WINEC) presented a document of protest to the Havana conference titled “Declaration of the Rights of Caribbean Peoples to Self-Determination and Self-Government.” Based in New York, and counting among its members the Jamaican socialist W.A. Domingo and Bajan radical Richard B. Moore, the (WINEC) argued that the time had come for the colonies of the Caribbean region to take their independence, assert their national sovereignty, and break away from the colonial fetters of Europe – and the neocolonial chains of the United States. They understood that wars between colonial powers were ultimately wars about colonies; as such, the pathway to peace was through self-determination and self-government for the colonies.
To read the “Declaration of the Rights of Caribbean Peoples to Self-Determination and Self-Government” today is to be reminded of the radical energies that fueled the Caribbean nationalist and anti-imperialists of the early decades of the twentieth century. But it is also to be reminded of the dismal state of sovereignty of the contemporary Caribbean – as the United States breathes a new, terrible life into the Monroe Doctrine; as supposedly independent Caribbean states both capitulate to US imperial designs while doing nothing as their citizens are murdered by the US in the Caribbean Sea; as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands remain colonies while Haiti endures a deathly neocolonial stranglehold by the United States; and as Cuba’s sovereignty is under the tightening death grip of genocidal sanctions.
We reprint the West Indies National Emergency Committee’s “Declaration of the Rights of Caribbean Peoples to Self-Determination and Self-Government” below.
Declaration of the Rights of Caribbean Peoples to Self-Determination and Self-Government
West Indies National Emergency Committee
There comes a time in the affairs of every people when it becomes imperative for them to examine their conditions of existence and to take such steps as they deem necessary for the protection of their vital interests and for the enjoyment of their inalienable rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
The war now raging in Europe has brought to the fore the causes of basic political and economic adjustments for the peoples of the West Indies and of both American continents. The grave situation has compelled the democratic and peace-loving nations of the Western Hemisphere seriously to consider various possible collective measures for their mutual defence, peace, and welfare.
The existence of strategically placed and economically important European colonies in the New World constitutes, and will always constitute, a basis for aggression and a threat to the security of the nations of Pan-America.
For many years responsible statesmen of the Americas have asserted the doctrine that this hemisphere should be kept immune from the rivalries and wars of the Old World. The vital interests of the inhabitants of the Caribbean region, as part of the Americas, are indissolubly bound up in the practical establishment and actual maintenance of this basic principle.
The political control of the peoples of these territories by non-American powers is now recognized to be a menace to the safety and security of All American nations. Opinion is being developed in the United States of America appealing to this sentiment and advocating the sale, transfer, forcible seizure of, or establishment of trusteeship or mandate over these Caribbean areas. But any such menace can best be removed only by the integration of the West Indian peoples into the Pan-American family of nations strictly on the basis of the right of self-determination. Only thus will it be possible to create an enduring foundation for genuine “Good Neighbour” relations.
Taking full cognizance of the grave nature and the serious implications of these proposals for change of sovereignty, the West Indies National Emergence Committee regards it as its solemn duty to present the case and the cause of the poles most directly involved to the Pan-American nations and to the entire world.
The Committee identifies itself with and whole-heartedly supports every effort honestly directed towards keeping the continents of America out of war. It realizes and submits that conflicts over colonies constitute the major source of war in the modern world. Therefore, the assurance of the right of self-determination and self-government to the West Indian people is unquestionably necessary to remove this major danger of war from the Western Hemisphere. Reflecting and expressing the profound sentiments of the peoples of these Caribbean areas, this committee declares that it is firmly and irrevocably opposed to any sale, transfer, mandate, trusteeship, or change of sovereignty of these peoples without the exercise of their inalienable humankind democratic right of self-determination.
On behalf of the people of the West Indies and the adjacent Caribbean areas concerned, whose human aspirations and political interests it expresses, the Committee solemnly protests against any action on the part of Britain, France, and Holland or any other power that would in any way abridge or deny them their indefensible right to a dominant voice in the shaping of their own destiny. The Committee insists that the will of these peoples must be fully ascertained, in accordance with genuinely democratic principles and processes, in respect to any change whatever in their political status.
Fully conscious of the fundamental justice of their cause and reposing confidence in the democratic sentiments of the Pan-American peoples, the peoples of the West Indies and the adjacent Caribbean territories involved openly proclaim their right to untrammelled self-determination. Any denial of this right to them will be opposed by every legitimate means and any attempt at such denial will constitute irrefutable evidence of imperialistic motives and designs on the part of every power involved in any change of sovereignty or establishment of military, naval, or aerial bases in these territories without the consent of the peoples immediately and most vitally concerned.
Moreover, any abridgement or denial of this fundamental democratic right of self-determination would be none other than a flagrant violation of the principles democracy so long proclaimed by the nations of Pan-America. It is self-evident also that any such denial would weaken, undermine, and destroy the democratic structure which must underlie and sustain all Pan-American nationalist and concert for defence.
It is unquestionable, furthermore, that any refusal to recognize and to respect the national aspirations of the Caribbean peoples would be clear denial and an unmistakable repudiation of the very principles of democracy and the rights of small nations for which the sympathies of the American and Latin American peoples are being solicited in the present crisis. This grave crisis in world affairs only raises more sharply the basic question of self-determination and self-government which had already been raised by the peoples of these territories.
The West Indies National Emergency Committee recognizes the imminent probability of changes of sovereignty in colonial territories in the New World and presents its case for the rights of the peoples, whose just cause it advocates, to autonomous national existence. The Committee draws attention to the fact that every nation in the New World developed from the status of a colony or colonies to its present position as an independent nation and declares that this historical circumstance should justly render every Pan-American nation sympathetic to the aspiration of the West Indian and Caribbean peoples to self-government.
The Committee points to the fact that the inhabitants in these areas have long since reached that stage in historical evolution where they have demonstrated their capacity for practical administration of government in accordance with modern democratic technique. West Indians participate in every department of government — legislative, executive, judicial — to such an extent that only a few posts are administered by Europeans solely because of the existing imperial connections.
The Committee further points to the fact that the peoples of these areas exhibit all the characteristics of nationality and that vigorous movements for self-government have existed for a considerable period and have now reached a stage for full realization. Evidence of this is adduced in several instances and representations cited in the statement hereto.
The recent world-shaking military events in Europe and the resulting critical situation for the West Indian peoples have heightened their insistent demand for self-determination and self-government. The declaration heater quoted, made by elected members of the Jamaica Legislative Council as reported I the press of that country on May 27, 1940, is typical of the prevailing sentiment of the Caribbean peoples on this crucial question of sale, transfer, mandate, or change of sovereignty: “Should circumstances ever arise as to include the possibility of such a change when the people of this island would claim the right to determine their own identity, and not be handed over as a piece of chattel to any foreign nation.”
Such a realization of self-government has long been recognized as the goal towards which all Pan-American nations should inevitably move. In a message delivered to the Congress of the United States of America on December 6, 1869, President Ulysess S. Grant, speaking on the future of European colonies in the Western Hemisphere, declared: “These dependencies are no longer regarded as subject to transfer from one European power to another. When the present relation of colonies ceases they are to become independent Powers, exercising the right of choice and of self-control in the determination of their future condition and relations with other Powers.
At the recent Inter-American Conference held at Panama, in September, 1939, Foreign Secretary Eduardo Hay of Mexico presented the statement hereinafter quoted.
“Because of the war, some regions of America controlled by non-American states may cease depending on the authorities of those countries.
“That if it appears that some change in sovereignty is about to occur, a consultation meeting should be convoked in order to aid that region freely to determine its own political destiny.
“That it would be unjust to consider the American subjects of non-American nations simply as merchandise.
“That they should be given an opportunity to decide their own political destinies.”
A resolution adopted by official delegates of all the Pan-American nations at the American Scientific Congress, held in Washington in May, 1939, solemnly affirmed that the American republics were “all adherents to the principles of the right of each nation to determine its own destiny.”
In pursuit of this high purpose of self-determination, self-government, and the democratic concern of the peoples of the Western Hemisphere, the West Indies National Emergency Committee wholeheartedly subscribes to every sincere effort for the extirpation of all forces hostile to democratic institutions. It solemnly pledges its fullest cooperation with all the American nations in every action necessary to defend, to preserve, and to extend democracy in the Western Hemisphere and to uphold democratic principles throughout the world.
The Committee appeals to all who uphold democracy and to every true lover of liberty in all the Americas and indeed through the world to support the rightful claims and just cause of the peoples of the West Indies and the adjacent Caribbean areas to self-determination and self-government.”
West Indies National Emergency Committee
JAMAICA: W.A. Domingo, F. Theodore Reid, M.D., J. Norman Clunie, Stanley Bethune, Eustace V. Dench, Atty., R. Samuel True, Rev. E. Ethelred Brown, Archbishop Wm. Ernest.
TRINIDAD: C.A. Petioni, M.D., Cyril Philip, Arnold Donawa, D.D.S., Lionel Francis, M.D., C.M., Charles E. Skinner, Rev. Theophilus Alcantara.
Barbados: Richard B. Moore, Reginald Pierrepint, Fitzgerald Phillips, Atty., Horace I. Gordon, Atty.
WINDWARD ISLANDS: Vernon H. DuBois, D.D.S. Cuthbert E. Langage Thomas Jones.
British Guiana: Arthur E. King, Charles Osborne, P.M. H. Savory, M.D.
U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS: Emile G. Thomas.
British Honduras: Arthur S. Taylor, Frederick Burgess.
LEEWARD ISLANDS: Trystam E. Chalwill, Reginald H. Clyne.
MARTINIQUE: Joseph Desebson, M.D.
Hope R. Stevens is chairman; Mrs. Ivy Bailey Essien, vice chairman; H.P. Osborne, secretary.
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