Maroon chief fires back at PM

Head of the Accompong Maroons, Richard Currie, has hit back at Prime Minister Andrew Holness urging him to respect the human and indigenous rights of his people.

In a post on his Instagram account yesterday, Currie defended the sovereignty of the Maroons and suggested that Holness reflects on his stance. At a press conference yesterday, Holness dismissed rhetoric that the Accompong Maroons are a sovereign people. He reacted angrily to a question from The Gleaner during the conference about the decision by his Government to disengage with so-called 'sovereign' Maroons. Last month, the Government issued a directive to all ministries, departments and agencies prohibiting the allocation of funds to any area that has declared itself sovereign. Yesterday, Holness said that the Government was being asked to use taxpayers' money and grant funds to fund another 'government'.

But Currie asserted that Holness needs to be mindful of his position. He wrote that Jamaica is not a unitary sovereign state as Holness declared.

"Elizabeth II, of the House Windsor, is YOUR Queen and Sovereign. Jamaica is simply "fully responsible" in Elizabeth's Commonwealth per the legal language in the Charter for Jamaica," Currie wrote. He also pointed out that the island is a signatory to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

"Please go read this, you are an intelligent man," the post read. Currie also said that Jamaica had an "extensive external debt and is constantly begging".

"So you rely on other sovereign nations. In other words, you are receiving funding from others, so please consider human and indigenous rights before you end up de-funded as well," the post said. Currie also said that Jamaica, as a government entity, begged for "independence" whereas the Maroons waged war to maintain theirs.