The People’s Progressive Party has joined with the international community in the observance today of the bicentenary of the abolition by Britain of the trans-Atlantic trade in captive Africans, executed by an Act of Parliament on March 25, 1807.

The PPP in a press statement asserted that the ending of that “iniquitous trade has had a resounding impact on every quarter of the world, including its repercussions as a forerunner to the eventual closure of slavery itself and its implications for the arrival of other immigrants to Guyana and the great nation that has emerged from and through our collective efforts.”

The party declared that it has even greater pride in sharing with all Guyanese, and with the Guyanese African community in particular, their distinguished history of achievement. “Because, through their resistance and sacrifice, Africans not only confronted and survived the notorious Middle Passage, but laid the foundation for a free nation beginning with the abolition of slavery,” the PPP said.

The party said further that it has the honour to share with the collective Guyanese people in general, and in particular, with the Guyanese African community, one single endeavour – the common struggle towards the establishment of a free nation.