Dear Mr. President,
As you approach the celebration of the first anniversary of your esteemed Presidency, the echoes of your Inaugural Address on January 22, 2024, when you mentioned the arrival in Liberia of 346 Barbadians in 1865 and their immense contributions to nation-building are reverberating. In addition to producing three presidents, the group and its descendants made substantial nation-building contributions in many spheres.
Barbados’ long-standing Visa-Waiver policy for holders of Liberian passports has facilitated travel there for many decades. Last May, the policy enabled almost 400 Liberians to travel to Barbados to participate in what Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley called the “successful staging of the Sankofa Pilgrimage to Barbados.”
Barbados’ visa waiver list, expanded in 2022 to include 43 additional countries, is intended to enhance business and investment opportunities and facilitate tourists’ ease of travel.
I applaud the decision of your government to host the auspicious commemoration of the 160th anniversary of the Founding of Crozierville in May 2025, as well as your invitation of Honorable Mia Amor Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, for a State Visit during those celebrations. Your administration will go down in the annals of Liberian history as the first to have received a Head of Government of Barbados, a country with whom Liberia shares such unique and abiding historical ties.
The enthusiasm, warmth, and vitality of the Sankofa Pilgrimage to Barbados combine to ensure that Barbadians from the island and the global diaspora, not to mention diaspora-Liberians, plan to make the 2025 Crozierville Funders’ Day celebration a historic “Sankofa Return” moment.
To ensure maximum and incident-free entry to Liberia for our Barbadian friends and relatives, I implore the government to consider introducing a reciprocal Visa Waiver policy. Such a move would align with and enable Barbados’ agenda for deeper cooperation, investment, business, heritage, and cultural ties with Liberia.
Thank you, Mr. President, for entertaining my suggestion.
Respectfully yours,
Ambassador Lorenzo Llewellyn Witherspoon HGB-HOAR
