BRIDGETOWN, Barbados — The Barbados government has condemned a vote that expelled whites and other non-African peoples from a conference on reparations for slavery in Bridgetown, and some regional delegations and leading black Caribbean personalities have also voluntarily withdrawn from the meeting.

“(The Barbados government) does not support segregation in any form or racism in any guise,” said the island’s attorney general and home affairs minister, Mia Mottley in a statement late Thursday night.

She called for a reversal of the controversial resolution, passed on Wednesday.

At the same time, Barbadian academic and principal of the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI), Professor Hilary Beckles withdrew from the conference, saying the resolution was “a sad day in the history of Barbados”.

The Cuban and Haitian delegations also threatened to walk out of the conference, following Wednesday’s decision by the Martiniquan group, after their white interpreter was excluded because of the resolution.

On Thursday a group of high school students who were invited to attend a session of the conference stayed away in protest. Three of the students were white Barbadians.

The Bridgetown African and African Descendants World Conference, although not an official meeting of world governments, was being seen as a important follow-up to last year’s anti-racism conference in Durban, South Africa when the issue of reparations was among the most controversial issues.

The Barbados government is one of the sponsors, but not a participant, and the conference was officially opened by Mottley.

But it ran into problems Wednesday when the British delegation called for the removal of whites and non-Africans from the conference and won enough support, with strong backing from the Americans, for a resolution to effect the expulsion.

In one case, a white European who lives in Barbados was asked to leave while her daughter, whose father is a black Barbadian, was told she could stay. The young woman walked out with her mother.

Local organisers were hoping to salvage something out of a meeting that has gone badly awry before its closes tomorrow and were highlighting a compromise that would permit whites, non-Africans and their descendants of the Diaspora to participate in the remaining plenary sessions, sitting separately among themselves but not involved in workshop sessions.

This has been dismissed by opponents of the exclusion motion as a further insult to them and racist in character. There were strong calls for a clear reversal of the resolution.

Spearheading these demands was the Martiniquan Mayor of St Anne, Malsa Garcin, who branded the motion as “divisive”.

“We are committed in the fight against racism, exclusion, xenophobia and committed to the fight for reparations in the spirit of Durban,” she said.

But given that the resolution was passed by a decisive majority there seemed little chance it would be rescinded.

Further complications were likely to arise today when Miriam Morales, an Afro-Cuban, who, speaking through a white interpreter, Margot Tuach, made clear Cuba’s opposition to any exclusionary motion.

Morales warned that unless the motion was rescinded, then no Cuban delegate would have any further involvement in the conference since this would violate basic principles of the Cuban government and people and also international conventions.

Morales said Cuba was aware that neither the government nor people of Barbados, nor the conference organisers “feel that this conference should go down in history as one of exclusion, because exclusion is a manifestation of racism”.

Chairperson of the central organising committee, Dr Jewel Crawford, said yesterday that the conference was proceeding with its agenda and was looking forward to the approval of “Bridgetown Protocol” that would reflect the spirit and decisions of the six-day event for delegates to take back to their respective countries for further action.