Social activist Atherton Martin believes that the pervading poverty in the Kalinago Territory was caused by the DLP government. He said there is a commissioned plan in place to develop the territory for the indigenous people of the Island, but the government failed to implement the plan and this has contributed to the poverty in the region.
Martin is specifically heaping the blame for the underdevelopment of the Kalinago Territory on the Kalinago Council, the local government, the central government, and the private sector. He said these sectors of the public failed to access and mobilize the development resources earmarked for the growth of the territory.
The social activist who organized a public walk for peace in Dominica in late 2022 also criticized the government for the dying indigenous languages of the Kalinago region. He said the Kalinago language is going into extinction because lesser people speak it, preferring to speak other languages that have now submerged indigenous mother tongues. He said unless native customs and virtues are brought back, the Kalinago ways of life and people will get eroded until they become extinct. He said the division at the centre will also spread to other parts of the society until the country gravitates to different directions and its people are no longer united by culture, language, and infrastructural development.
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