Caribbean Countries seek slavery reparations

from three European Countries

by Ben Fox, Associated Press | July 25, 2013 at 5:46 PM

A Rastafarian priest leads a chant during the celebration of reggae music icon Bob Marley's 68th birthday in the yard of his Kingston home, in
Jamaica, Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013. Marley's relatives and old friends were joined by hundreds of tourists to dance and chant to the pounding of drums
to honor the late reggae icon who died of cancer in 1981 at age 36. (AP Photo/ David McFadden)

MIAMI (AP) Leaders of more than a dozen Caribbean countries are launching a united effort to
seek compensation from three European nations for what they say is the lingering legacy of the
Atlantic slave trade.
The Caribbean Community, a regional organization that typically focuses on rather dry issues such
as economic integration, has taken up the cause of compensation for slavery and the genocide of
native peoples and is preparing for what would likely be a drawn-out battle with the governments of
Britain, France and the Netherlands.
Caricom, as the organization is known, has enlisted the help of a prominent British human rights
law firm and is creating a Reparations Commission to press the issue, said Ralph Gonsalves, the
prime minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, who has been leading the effort.
The legacy of slavery includes widespread poverty and the lack of development that characterizes
most of the region, Gonsalves said, adding that any settlement should include a formal apology, but
contrition alone would not be sufficient.
The apology is important but that is wholly insufficient, he said in a phone interview Wednesday
with The Associated Press. We have to have appropriate recompense.
The notion of forcing the countries that benefited from slavery to pay reparations has been a
decades-long quest. Individual countries including Jamaica and Antigua and Barbuda already had
existing national commissions. Earlier this month, leaders from the 14 Caricom nations voted
unanimously at a meeting in Trinidad to wage a joint campaign that those involved say would be

more ambitious than any previous effort.

Each nation that does not have a national reparations commission agreed to set one up, sending a
representative to the regional commission, which would be overseen by prime ministers. They
agreed to focus on Britain on behalf of the English-speaking Caribbean as well as France for the
slavery in Haiti and the Netherlands for Suriname, a former Dutch colony on the northeastern edge
of South America that is a member of Caricom.
In addition, they brought on the British law firm of Leigh Day, which waged a successful fight for
compensation for hundreds of Kenyans who were tortured by the British colonial government as
they fought for the liberation of their country during the so-called Mau Mau rebellion of the 1950s
and 1960s.
Attorney Martyn Day said his first step would likely be to seek a negotiated settlement with the
governments of France, Britain and Netherlands along the lines of the British agreement in June to
issue a statement of regret and award compensation of about $21.5 million to the surviving
Kenyans.
I think they would undoubtedly want to try and see if this can be resolved amicably, Day said of
the Caribbean countries. But I think the reason they have hired us is that they want to show that
they mean business.
Caribbean officials have not mentioned a specific monetary figure but Gonsalves and Verene
Shepherd, chairwoman of the national reparations commission in Jamaica, both mentioned the
fact that Britain at the time of emancipation in 1834 paid 20 million pounds to British planters in the
Caribbean, the equivalent of 200 billion pounds today.
Our ancestors got nothing, Shepherd said. They got their freedom and they were told Go
develop yourselves.
British High Commissioner to Jamaica David Fitton was quizzed on the issue Wednesday during
a radio interview and said that the Mau Mau case was not meant to be a precedent and that his
government opposes reparations for slavery.
We dont think the issue of reparations is the right way to address these issues, Fitton said. Its
not the right way to address an historical problem.
In 2007, marking the 200th anniversary of the British prohibition on the transportation of slaves,
then British Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed regret for the unbearable suffering caused by his
countrys role in slavery. After the devastating Haitian earthquake in January 2010, then French
President Nicolas Sarkozy was asked about reparations for slavery and the 90 million gold francs
demanded by Napoleon to recognize the countrys independence. Sarkozy acknowledged the
wounds of colonization, and pointed out that France had canceled a 56 million euro debt to Paris
and approved an aid package that included 40 million euros in budget support for the Haitian
government.
Gonsalves said far more needs to be done and he hopes to begin an honest, sober and robust,
discussion with the European governments soon and intends to champion the issue when he
becomes the chairman of Caricom in January. You have to seize the time, he said.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Related Posts

Modern slavery still thriving internationally

US sex offenders seek sanctuary in Caribbean sun
Rare anti-slavery booklet acquired by U.Va.
Henry Louis Gates lets US off the hook in 'slavery blame game'

Object 1

Smithsonian to host exhibit on Jefferson, slavery

Press release 147/2013 (06 July 2013)

Heads agree on reparations follow-up action

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Heads of Government of the
Caribbean Community (CARICOM), on the final day of their Thirty-Fourth Regular Meeting
agreed on follow-up action on the matter of reparations for native genocide and slavery.
The Meeting agreed to the establishment of a National Reparations Committee in each Member
State with the Chair of each Committee sitting on a CARICOM Reparations Commission. The
Heads of Government of Barbados (Chair), St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Haiti, Guyana,
Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago will provide political oversight.
The decisions were taken followed presentations by Member States, led by St. Vincent and the
Grenadines, and their unanimous support of the road map.
Chair of the Community, the Hon. Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Prime Minister of Trinidad and
Tobago, at an end-of-Meeting Press Conference at the Hilton Hotel, described progress on the
subject as a very positive outcome.
Earlier in the day, during his contribution to the discussions, Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer
said he conceptualized the call for reparations as an integral element of the Communitys
development strategy. The legacy of slavery and colonialism in the Caribbean severely impaired the
Regions development options.
We know that our constant search and struggle for development resources is linked directly to the
historical inability of our nations to accumulate wealth from the efforts of our peoples during
slavery and colonialism. These nations that have been the major producers of wealth for the
European slave-owning economies during the enslavement and colonial periods entered
Independence with dependency straddling their economic, cultural, social and even political lives,
Prime Minister Spencer said.
Reparations, he added, had to be directed toward repairing the damage inflicted by slavery and
racism.!
We, as political leaders, must encourage our various reparation agencies to continue the
education of our Caribbean people and our Diaspora, and enhance their awareness of the
reparations issue. It is important that there is solid people and multi-party support for our efforts
and we must impress on our colleagues in both Government and Opposition that this is not an issue
we should use as party-politics fodder. Our various reparation organizations must see the forging of
bi-partisan political support and civil society consensus for reparations as one of their main
objectives, the Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister added.
CONTACT: piu@caricom.org; caricompublicinfo@gmail.com 2011 Caribbean Community (CARICOM)
Secretariat. All Rights Reserved. P.O. Box 10827, Georgetown, GUYANA.
Tel: (592) 222 0001-75 Fax: (592) 222 0171 | E-mail your comments and suggestions to: registry@caricom.org | SiteMap