244 Appendixes
the diaspora, who continue, with an acute consciousness of their history, to bear
witness to the originality and vital strength of black African cultures and values.
Unesco is, moreover, planning in the years to come to lay particular stress on
the study of Caribbean cultures. This will involve the framing and implementation
of a complete research and publication programme concerning the Caribbean cultures
in all their component parts—autochthonous or Amerindian, Asian, European and
African.
In the context of African contributions to cultural identity and the struggle
for freedom in the Caribbean, it is impossible not do commemorate those leaders
of independence movements and protagonists of human dignity, Toussaint Louver-
ture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the incarnation of the will and aspirations of all
those peoples uprooted from Africa who were none the less able, despite their oppres-
sion, to create new nations out of the strength which they found by drawing on their
ancestral values.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, I hope that with these brief remarks I
have been able to indicate the importance of the meeting that is opening today. The
meeting is made up of the contributions and the whole accumulated experience of
specialists from the Caribbean, Africa and other regions of the world. I also wish to
welcome members of the diplomatic corps, the observer from the Holy See and the
representatives of the Gulbenkian Foundation and the International Council for
Philosophy and Humanistic Studies, which contributed to the organization of this
meeting. I also welcome among us the representatives of the Ménil and Leopold
Sedar Senghor Foundations, and of the African Culture Society, who have been good
enough to join us in our work.
In conclusion, I reiterate my gratitude to the host country, to the Haitian
people, to its government, and in particular to H.E. Jean-Claude Duvalier, President
of the Haitian Republic, who, by granting his patronage to this meeting, has given
it still deeper significance.
To you who are the experts, I wish to say that, through your study of the moda-
lities and consequences of the slave trade, you will not only be helping to throw further
light on a historical problem: you will be making a personal contribution to thought
on a scandalous practice contrary to the most elementary human and national rights.
In this way, your work will be a factor in the awakening of concern about
injustices and inequalities which still in our time oppress many peoples and which
can only be brought to an end as the result of a real determination to establish a
world of justice, solidarity and peace in which progress would, in a spirit of redis-
covered fraternity, be guaranteed for all countries and all men.
It is with this hope that I give you my warmest wishes for the complete success
of your work.
Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow
Director-General of the United
Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization