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Rastafarians Want Looser Marijuana Laws, Reparations
Associated Press | Jamaica Observer | 08/05/2005

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) - Dozens of Rastafarians from across the Caribbean and North America gathered in Guyana yesterday for a conference calling on governments to decriminalise marijuana, pay slavery reparations and repatriate followers of the faith to Africa.

About 60 Rastafarians from the United States, Canada and the Caribbean were attending the five-day meeting of the Caribbean Rastafari Organisation, said the group's chairman, Ras Frank I.

Frank said Rastafarians continue to be arrested, jailed and sometimes deported for using small amounts of marijuana, which the faith considers a holy sacrament.

"This practice by Caribbean governments should end," he said from the meeting in the coastal town of Golden Grove Village, about 17 miles (27 kilometres) east of Georgetown, the capital.

Frank also denounced what he said was a practice of cutting the hair of Rastafarians in prison or jail. Many followers of the faith grow their hair into long, matted strands called dreadlocks to express a oneness with nature.

"Some of us have grown those locks ... for over 30 years," he said.

The conference will also focus on ways of boosting economic opportunities for Rastafarians by seeking funds for mostly rural development projects from international aid groups, Frank said.

Guyana's government has already donated 500 acres (202 hectares) of coastal land to the group to be used for organic farming, he said.

The biennial conference plans to present petitions to the government and the 15-member Caribbean Community seeking assistance in winning reparations from European countries that participated in the slave trade. It also plans to ask the African Union for help in returning to Africa, a key tenet in the Rastafarian faith.

The religion emerged in Jamaica in the 1930s out of the anger over the oppression of blacks and spread throughout the region. It was popularised in the 1970s by its most famous adherent, late reggae legend Bob Marley.

Followers worship late Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie as their god, and preach a philosophy of moving back toward African roots.

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