THE SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE COMMONWEALTH VISITS

Secretary General of the Commonwealth Shirley Botchway pays a courtesy all on Prime Minister Philip Davis

Shirley Botchway is the new Secretary General of the Commonwealth, the aggregation of mainly former British colonies, now formed into an association of value based initiatives. The Heads of Government of the Commonwealth meeting will take place in Antigua in November of this year. As part of the preparation for that meeting, the Secretary General is touring the CARICOM area and Nassau was her first stop. She was hosted to a series of meetings with the Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell and the Prime Minister Philip Davis and the Leader of the Opposition. The major topic of this year’s meeting will be that of the call for reparations for slavery. The British have been stalling on the issue. The call for reparatory justice is getting louder, however. The other looming question is the health of the Head of the Commonwealth King Charles. The king is to make a stop in The Bahamas for three days in October. This is expected to be the last time he will be able to do that and his last as Head of the Commonwealth given the reports of his health. When his mother died, she arranged for the head of the Commonwealth title to pass to him. The question is what happens after him in an organization that many consider an anachronism of the colonial past.