Barbados, July 6, 2026 (SPS) - A group of prominent figures and leaders from pan-Africanist, anti-colonial, and human rights movements in Barbados has established the Committee "Barbados with Western Sahara", an initiative aimed at "raising awareness among Barbadian society and institutions about the cause of the Sahrawi people and strengthening solidarity with their legitimate aspirations to self-determination and independence," according to the Committee's founding charter distributed to the press.
The creation of the Committee is "inspired by Barbados' long-standing historical commitment to the eradication of colonialism, both in the Caribbean and in Africa, as well as by its firm defense of the principles of self-determination, sovereignty, and equality among peoples, as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and international law."
The Committee's members emphasized that the question of Western Sahara remains one of the 17 Non-Self-Governing Territories on the United Nations agenda pending decolonization, several of which are located in the Caribbean. They recalled that Western Sahara has been on that list since 1963 and is regarded as Africa's last colony. They also noted that the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) is a founding member state of the African Union and maintains diplomatic relations and embassies in numerous countries across Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
The Committee will organize information, awareness-raising, dialogue, and exchange activities with civil society organizations, academic institutions, trade unions, youth organizations, and other national stakeholders, "with the aim of contributing to a greater understanding of the reality of Western Sahara and of the inalienable right of the Sahrawi people to freely determine their future, in accordance with the relevant resolutions of the United Nations and the African Union."
Finally, the Committee "Barbados with Western Sahara" called on "all sectors of Barbadian society to join this effort of solidarity with the Sahrawi people and to support a just, peaceful, and lasting solution that brings the decolonization process of Western Sahara to a close through the free and democratic exercise of the right to self-determination, in accordance with international law."
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