IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 7 ENGLISH | Page 61

Mexico, Chile, Paraguay, and Cuba.
Three Meetings for Afro-Descendant
Parliamentarians in the Americas and
Caribbean have been held since 2003.
The last one was celebrated in 2005, in
Costa Rica. It was there that the recently
formed Black Parliament of the Americas established an essential network, for
Afro-Descendant Legislators. This organized, Afro-descendant movement won a
great, symbolic victory when 2011 was
declared the International Year for People of African Descent (UN General
Assembly Resolution No. 64/169). In
2015, the UN approved the start of the
International Decade of People of African Descent (Resolution No. 6/237),
with a view to the Durban Action Plan
and in an attempt to reinforce the protection and promotion of Afro-descendants’
rights.
Critical view
If the launching of the aforementioned
Decade could mark the beginning of real
change regarding our search for state
affirmative actions, the regional panorama in 2015 is noteworthy for the similarity of all its news and national realities, in this regard. The World Forum for
Afro-Descendants and Human Rights
should take place in Malabo, Equatorial
Guinea in November, but it was postponed until mid January. Meanwhile, a
little covered (without so many cameras)
Summit of Afro-Descendants was held
in Harlem (NY) at the same time the UN
General Assembly’s 70th session was
taking place. Venezuelan President
Nicolás Maduro attended the first, and
ended his talk by saying that he would

include objectives approved there in his
government’s plan. Among the outstanding regional events, some that stand out
are the First Latin American Summit for
Afro-Descendant Women Leaders (in
Managua, Nicaragua). Its final declaration requested the social inclusion of
Afro-descendant women. On the subject
of culture, the regional efforts of 15
countries to preserve Latin America’s
Afro-Descendant Patrimony became a
reality. Their meeting took place in Arica, Chile, and produced documentaries
about music and dance. Their distribution will begin in March 2016. Regarding culture, UNESCO declared the marimba instrument an intangible patrimony for humanity, in early December
2015, as well as songs and dances of the
Colombian South Pacific and Esmeraldas, Ecuador, and the Colombian vallenato. The issue of “Afro reparations” is a
sensitive one for Afro-descendants. The
most outstanding thing that took place
along those lines in 2015 is, perhaps,
was the call for reinforced justice, with
the arrival of the International Decade
and a will to compensate slave descendants for 500 years of slavery and disgrace. CARICOM’s campaign was promoted as of 2013, which took place over
most of the year, but without great success. Even so, there is talk of new opportunities with the two world summits that
will take place in the Caribbean (2016)
and Europe (2017).
More visible progress
Perhaps Ecuador is the country where
the most progress has taken place regarding affirmative action in 2015. In

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