Dear Sir:

Whilst Caribbean Net News must be congratulated for its efforts as a source of news on the Caribbean region, the National Garifuna Council (NGC) notes with great concern the articles you have published which are a one-sided, disparaging and unsubstantiated view of one individual of our organisation and people.

Our intent is not to discredit the contributor as he has tried to do to the NGC but simply to state what we are about what our organisation has accomplished and hopes to accomplish for our people in the past and into the future.

NGC is a membership-based, non-profit, voluntary organization, whose primary objective is the preservation of the Garifuna cultural heritage to posterity and the social and economic well being of our people and communities. The organisation is governed by its articles of organisation and officers are elected by the people every two years at Conventions, which are held annually.

Our Officers serve freely and vluntarily and use their own resources in service of the organisation. We have no paid Secretariat and no firm or reliable source of revenues rely on the good name, which NGC has developed over the years, the integrity and accountability which we have established both nationally and internationally and the representational power of persuasion when we speak on behalf of the people to achieve the many things which we are justly proud of on behalf of our people. 

High among our achievements in 2007 is the opening of the first ever Bicultural Bilingual School in Belize, the Gulisi Community Primary School where young children are taught in Garifuna, English and Spanish.

Now that you have hopefully gained a better understanding of what the NGC is really about we hope that you can now appreciate the grave injustice that is being committed against our organisation and people when you publish these unfounded and untruthful personal opinions about us.

We hope that you will do what is right and proper and ethical and desist from publishing any more of these articles about us.

We invite you to visit our website at www.ngcbelize.org. NGC is celebrating its 26th annual convention in the Garifuna village of Georgetown in Belize March 9-11, 2008 and we would be happy to have one of your correspondents visits with us and document the dynamic, rich social, cultural and democratic process for your readers.

Michael Polonio
President NGC