Caribbean leaders meet with UK representatives over slavery reparations News
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Caribbean leaders meet with UK representatives over slavery reparations

The Reparations Committee of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) met with Church of England clergy and British parliamentarians on Tuesday to discuss reparations for slavery. 

In their attempt to move from public advocacy to formal negotiations, CARICOM scheduled a visit to the UK from July 13 to July 16 to demand more than the previous apologies or memorials but actual assistance to the island nations of the Caribbean. Hilary Beckles, chairman of CARICOM’s reparations commission, urged King Charles III “to start the conversation of decolonization and reparatory justice for the crimes” endured on the islands. 

In their 50-page manifesto, the reparations commission requested development funding, support to assist the healthcare and education crisis, debt cancellation, monetary compensation for Indigenous peoples, and greater sovereignty for Caribbean territories that remain tied to Britain, France, the Netherlands or the United States.

CARICOM is an intergovernmental trade organization founded in the 1973 Treaty of Chaguaramas, dedicated to regional integration among 21 countries in the Caribbean, spanning from the Bahamas to Guyana. Jamaica, one of its founding members, will be petitioning King Charles III on September 6 to refer a set of legal questions to the Privy Council concerning reparations for slavery.

Suella Braverman, a former British home secretary and a member of the anti-immigration Reform UK party, responded to news of the petition by protesting: “The British Empire did so much good for the world.“ She further stated that the former colonies should be repaying Britain for its “historic investment” in them. In a now viral counter-response on July 9, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley strongly rejected the idea that “the descendants of the enslaved should pay for the machinery that oppressed them.” Mottley added: “The Caribbean does not owe Britain for slavery, for colonial extraction, or for laws that treated African people as chattel.” 

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