CARICOM to write European nations on reparations

HEADS of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) are likely to send a second round of letters to Europe, seeking reparatory justice for centuries of slavery and the legacy it has had on peoples of African descent within the Region.
The topic is expected to be high on the agenda when the 39th Regular Meeting of CARICOM Heads is held in July.

Sources close to the regional reparations body told the Guyana Chronicle that the second round of letters is necessary, given the lukewarm response the first set of letters sent to the European countries had received.
The source noted that while he could not say that any European country has said “no” officially, the vibe from the former slave-owning nations is, “Let’s look to the future and let’s move on.” Certainly, the source noted, some of the nations are making it clear, informally, that they might not be interested in owning up to their historical crimes.
When former British Prime Minister David Cameron visited Jamaica in 2015, and was formally asked about reparations from Britain to the island nation, he told the Jamaican Parliament that it should, “move on from this painful legacy and continue to build for the future.”

‘STERNLY RESISTING’
On February 24, 2014, a report from the British daily, The Guardian, pointed out that the UK was “sternly resisting” reparation payments.  The article further quoted a Foreign Office spokesperson as saying, “We do not see reparations as the answer. Instead, we should concentrate on identifying ways forward, with a focus on the shared global challenges that face our countries in the 21st Century.”
While Britain had advantageously capitalised on slavery, it expressed “regret and condemned the iniquities of the historic slave trade,” but said those shameful activities belonged to the past, and governments today cannot take responsibility for what happened over 200 years ago.

This is despite European countries still benefitting from the legacy of slavery and the systems that were developed to maintain it. As recent as 2010, after the devastation a Magnitude 7 earthquake wreaked on Haiti that year, advocates were calling on France to return monies it had taken from that francophone Caribbean nation, one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, after they revolted and won their freedom in 1825.
And as recent as 2015, some British citizens found out they were still repaying debt to the families or estates of former slave owners, who had incurred losses as a result of the abolition of slavery around 1833.

The argument of the term “long ago”, CARICOM has argued, cannot be a factor when the legacy of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade remains real.
The Guyana Chronicle was told that while the first letter to Europe was one focused on informing and allowing Europe to acknowledge the issue of reparations, the second letter to the former slave colonies “will now focus on the historical specificity of the case.”
CARICOM is insisting that, “The historical and crippling legacy of centuries of enslavement, with its attendant de-humanising ideology of racism and blatant disregard for the human rights of African people, is at the core of the contemporary reality of persistent poverty among the majority of people of African descent.”

Apart from economics, Caribbean counties are also claiming compensation for poor health situations that would have arisen from changing the African diet, and poor education from discrimination, among other ills.

Former slave-owning nations of Europe, principally Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, are prime suspects in the CARICOM claim.

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