It seems that nature has decided to intervene in removing the Christopher Columbus statue which stands in South East Port-of-Spain.
There have been calls for the 119-year-old statue to be removed.
Shabaka Kambon of the Cross Rhodes Freedom Project organised a petition which received over 8,000 signatures. He was supported by the Warao Nation and other interested parties that have associated the statue with colonization.
They submitted the petition to Mayor Joel Martinez who has since submitted the information to the Central Government to deal with the matter.
During a mini freak storm last Wednesday, a tree fell on top of the statue.
When workers from the Port-of-Spain Corporation visited the site to clear away the debris on Tuesday, they saw that both of his hands were missing.
Although the hands have not been found, the workers believe it will be retrieved once the debris is removed.
The statue is in a poor state- the sword that Columbus wielded had been stolen and the statue had been vandalized many times as there is still red paint on it, thrown by an angry protestor.
Mayor Martinez said that he did not know that the statue was damaged; he also could not say if it would be repaired by the POS Corporation.
COMMENTS