In another break with Britain, Barbados to remove Nelson's statue

CNN April 28, 1999 In another break with Britain, Barbados to remove Nelson's statue

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (AP) -- Adm. Horatio Nelson lost the battle of
Trafalgar Square on Wednesday.

                  For 186 years, the British naval hero's statue has stood in the square in the
                  Barbados capital of Bridgetown, an island known as "Little England" for its
                  adherence to old British customs.

                  But in a symbolic break Wednesday, officials changed the name of Trafalgar
                  Square to National Heroes' Square and announced that Nelson's bronze,
                  life-size statue soon would be removed.

                  It will be replaced by one of Errol Walton Barrow, who led this Caribbean
                  nation descended mainly from African slaves to independence from Britain in
                  1966.

                  "It is not our understanding or contemplation that (the statue's) source is
                  hereby diminished or that those who treasure his memory should lose faith or
                  heart," Arthur said at the renaming ceremony.

                  The statue in Bridgetown is older than London's towering Nelson monument.
                  It escaped removal after Barbados' independence, though a later
                  government turned it 180 degrees so that the admiral no longer looked down
                  on the square and Broad Street shopping district.

                  "This National Heroes Square is for our citizens and visitors, who should be
                  aware that we own an indigenous culture of human achievement that stands
                  tall with the whole world," Arthur said.

                  It was the latest move by Arthur's government to eliminate the trappings of
                  the former British empire. The government is considering replacing Queen
                  Elizabeth II as symbolic head of state and severing its ties to the British Privy
                  Council in London, which serves as the supreme court for several former
                  British colonies in the Caribbean.

                  Nelson led forces that defended British interests in the Caribbean during the
                  colonial heyday of sugar plantations and slavery. He married the heiress to
                  West Indian fortune on the island of Nevis.

                  Nelson became a British national hero in 1805 when he defeated the French
                  and Spanish in a naval battle off Spain's Cape Trafalgar, saving Britain from
                  a planned French invasion.

Arthur has formed a committee to decide what to do with the statue, which
was designed by English sculptor Sir Richard Westmacott.