Buoyed by a recent United Nations designation of slavery as a crime against humanity, the Caribbean’s umbrella reparations group was in London in the past week for a series of meetings with top officials as it steps up pressure on Britain to pay reparations for the TransAtlantic Slave Trade.
Noting that it has seen growing evidence of an uptick in international support for reparatory justice, the CARICOM Reparations Commission (CRC) said it had engaged British parliamentarians, government officials, and civil society advocates as it “underscores its commitment to building international alliances and fostering dialogue on reparatory justice, historical accountability[,] and socio-economic transformation.”
For most of the past decade, the commission has been building a case and researching the horrors of slavery committed by European nations, including the Dutch, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, among others, demanding they prepare to pay for enslaving Africans without any compensation for hundreds of years.
The commission, in a statement, said the regional effort has drawn significant encouragement from a recent U.N. General Assembly meeting in March in Ghana, where a resolution declared slavery and the trafficking of enslaved Africans, as well as chattel enslavement, as “the gravest crime against humanity and a historic turning point for Africans and People of African descent.”
Regional leaders say they have already sent demand payment letters to European capitals, asked for a Caribbean-Euro summit on the issue, and engaged a top British firm for an opinion about their chances if the matter is taken to court. The firm, which had won millions for [families of] Kenyan tribesmen who were slaughtered by racist British soldiers during the colonial era, had said it is anxious to get going because the Caribbean’s case is very strong. It is not clear what has prevented the region from moving forward, but the commission has said that while monetary payments are important, restoring dignity to people of African descent and forcing the Europeans to formally apologize are also important facets of the struggle. The reparations issue was discussed at length at this month’s regional leaders’ meeting in St. Lucia.
The London trip was undertaken as Antigua prepares to host the Commonwealth summit in November, when regional leaders will have a chance to confront Britain about its intentions regarding the issue. “This is our time, our duty, our responsibility to honor the legacy of all our ancestors who demanded justice,” Commission Chair Sir Hilary Beckles said recently.
The trip also comes just days after British, Indian-descended former Home Secretary Suella Braverman had said Britain should not pay for slavery because it had occurred years ago and those alive today should not be held responsible. “Of course, slavery was abhorrent, but to expect the British people of the 21st century to pay for actions that took place in the 18th century has no basis in law.”
In reaction, Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley said she had been flummoxed by Braverman’s remarks. “I cannot believe we are being asked to respond to the suggestion that the descendants of the enslaved should pay for the machinery that oppressed them. The Caribbean does not owe Britain for slavery, for colonial extraction, or for laws that treated African people as chattel. We are not asking for charity. We are asking for justice, and history itself has already told the truth. I am not sure that you want me to reply to things that are asinine, and certainly the notion that we should pay the United Kingdom for oppressing us, for enslaving us, and for treating us as chattel [is asinine],” Mottley said in response to questions at the Caribbean summit in St. Lucia earlier this month
The region, and the Commonwealth, Britain in particular, last faced off at the 2024 summit in Samoa where then-Prime Minister Keir Starmer again suggested that Britain has no intention of paying reparations for slavery. The summit did acknowledge in its final communique that “the time has come” for meaningful and respectful conversations regarding reparatory justice for slavery. The region says it is awaiting the Antigua summit to have another go at Britain.
