Greetings!!

The Free Montserrat United Movement must add its voice to this message
Coming from the Anguilla Independence Movement. However, we feel we have to
take it one step further.

The British government has gone out of its way over the years to ignore the Decolonization Committee's meetings with regards to its remaining colonies. This year, the meeting is being held in Anguilla and coincidentally, this year for the first time ever, the Chief Ministers of the British remaining colonies in the region will be giving presentations. The British intent is
to have the remaining colonies de-listed. In my presentation to the decolonization committee in Cuba in 2001 the British intent was clearly pointed out. Dr. Phyllis Fleming-Banks of Anguilla also clearly showed the British intent to further control and micro-manage the territories affairs with closer scrutiny.

The international community must be made aware of the fact that the remaining colonies and especially the island of Montserrat are under severe stress and constraints because they are burdened with a document called a "constitution" that governs them. This "constitution" gives complete discretionary powers to a British civil servant who carries the title, 'His Excellency the Governor', to govern the colony.

Montserrat's added stress factors are economic, as Montserrat has been living with a live active volcano for the past eight years. Its economy is
in shreds, its population has been coerced into seeking shelter in England and the policies for its reconstruction are completely dominated by DFID the British funding agency.

Under these circumstances, it is extremely difficult for the Chief Minister
of Montserrat, who is dependent on budgetary aid just to pay his recurrent expenses to speak at a decolonization committee meeting and articulate the hopes, aspirations and visions of a People who are still experiencing first hand, the ravages of slavery and colonialism.

To this end, I hope that the international community recognizes that whatever comes out of this meeting, will have been well choreographed by the colonial Administering Power to get a result that they can use as documented
evidence to de-list the remaining colonies. It should be noted, that even though we seek the most positive outcome from these presentations, the activists in the movements for the right to be a Self Determined People have
been tactfully eliminated from making presentations.

- By Haydn Hughes

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