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Caricom states suing for reparations for slavery
10:58 pm, Thu October 10, 2013
Britain’s Daily Mail on Thursday reported that 14 Caricom countries were suing the United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands for reparations for the wrongs of slavery. The amount being demanded could reportedly run into hundreds of billions of pounds.
Caricom decided earlier this year to establish a commission on reparations to put the region’s push for compensation on a sounder footing. Now, the grouping of 12 former British colonies, along with Haiti, formerly a French colony, and Suriname, once held by the Dutch, is demanding pay for the injustices of slavery and its impact on these former colonies.
LAW FIRM
The regional body has hired the British law firm Leigh Day, which recently won compensation for hundreds of Kenyans tortured by the British colonial government during the Mau Mau rebellion of the 1950s.
Caricom has not said precisely how much money is being sought but senior officials have pointed out that Britain paid slave owners £20 million when it abolished slavery in 1834. That would be the equivalent of £200 billion today.
In its lawsuit, Caricom claims slavery condemned the region to a poverty that still afflicts it today.
GONSALVES AT UN
Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves of St. Vincent & The Grenadines, in his address at the UN General Assembly on September 27, said: "The genocidal oppression and suffering of my country's indigenous Callinago, the Garifuna, and enchained Africans have been rightly adjudged to have been a horrendous crime against humanity. Accordingly, the collective voice of our Caribbean civilisation ought justly to ring out for reparations for native genocide and African slavery from the successor states of the European countries which committed organised state-sponsored native genocide and African enslavement."
Accordingly, he said "the awful legacy of these crimes against humanity - a legacy which exists today in our Caribbean, ought to be repaired for the developmental benefit of our Caribbean societies and all our peoples. The historic wrongs of native genocide and African slavery, and their continuing contemporaly consequences, must be righted, must be repaired, in the interest of our people's humanisation."
The Daily Mail article quotes Professor Verene Shepherd, Chairman of Jamaica’s National Commission on Reparations, saying the region’s slave ancestors got nothing when they were freed.
“They got their freedom and they were told ‘Go develop yourselves’”, she said.
TONY BLAIR
Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed regret for the “unbearable suffering” caused by Britain’s role in slavery in 2007 but made no mention of financial compensation.
Britain has said that paying reparations for slavery is the wrong way to address 'an historical problem'.
Caricom is hoping to reach a settlement with the European countries and has said it will only take legal action if talks collapse.
The Caricom reparations commission, led by Barbadian historian, Professor Hilary Beckles, has been asked to determine who should be paid and how much.
Sir Hilary has said that the commission is focusing on Britain because it was the largest slave owner in the 1830s.
'The British made the most money out of slavery and the slave trade - they got the lion’s share. And, importantly, they knew how to convert slave profits into industrial profits,' he said.
Martyn Day, the British lawyer who is advising Caricom, told the Daily Mail he hoped the claims can be resolved amicably “rather than having to take matters through the courts.”
He said his team’s advice to the Caribbean states is that they “should be claiming in relation to the impact of the slave trade on the Caribbean today rather than looking for reparations related to what happened to the slaves, historically.'
Caricom states suing for reparations for slavery
10:58 pm, Thu October 10, 2013
Britain’s Daily Mail on Thursday reported that 14 Caricom countries were suing the United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands for reparations for the wrongs of slavery. The amount being demanded could reportedly run into hundreds of billions of pounds.
Caricom decided earlier this year to establish a commission on reparations to put the region’s push for compensation on a sounder footing. Now, the grouping of 12 former British colonies, along with Haiti, formerly a French colony, and Suriname, once held by the Dutch, is demanding pay for the injustices of slavery and its impact on these former colonies.
LAW FIRM
The regional body has hired the British law firm Leigh Day, which recently won compensation for hundreds of Kenyans tortured by the British colonial government during the Mau Mau rebellion of the 1950s.
Caricom has not said precisely how much money is being sought but senior officials have pointed out that Britain paid slave owners £20 million when it abolished slavery in 1834. That would be the equivalent of £200 billion today.
In its lawsuit, Caricom claims slavery condemned the region to a poverty that still afflicts it today.
GONSALVES AT UN
Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves of St. Vincent & The Grenadines, in his address at the UN General Assembly on September 27, said: "The genocidal oppression and suffering of my country's indigenous Callinago, the Garifuna, and enchained Africans have been rightly adjudged to have been a horrendous crime against humanity. Accordingly, the collective voice of our Caribbean civilisation ought justly to ring out for reparations for native genocide and African slavery from the successor states of the European countries which committed organised state-sponsored native genocide and African enslavement."
Accordingly, he said "the awful legacy of these crimes against humanity - a legacy which exists today in our Caribbean, ought to be repaired for the developmental benefit of our Caribbean societies and all our peoples. The historic wrongs of native genocide and African slavery, and their continuing contemporaly consequences, must be righted, must be repaired, in the interest of our people's humanisation."
The Daily Mail article quotes Professor Verene Shepherd, Chairman of Jamaica’s National Commission on Reparations, saying the region’s slave ancestors got nothing when they were freed.
“They got their freedom and they were told ‘Go develop yourselves’”, she said.
TONY BLAIR
Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed regret for the “unbearable suffering” caused by Britain’s role in slavery in 2007 but made no mention of financial compensation.
Britain has said that paying reparations for slavery is the wrong way to address 'an historical problem'.
Caricom is hoping to reach a settlement with the European countries and has said it will only take legal action if talks collapse.
The Caricom reparations commission, led by Barbadian historian, Professor Hilary Beckles, has been asked to determine who should be paid and how much.
Sir Hilary has said that the commission is focusing on Britain because it was the largest slave owner in the 1830s.
'The British made the most money out of slavery and the slave trade - they got the lion’s share. And, importantly, they knew how to convert slave profits into industrial profits,' he said.
Martyn Day, the British lawyer who is advising Caricom, told the Daily Mail he hoped the claims can be resolved amicably “rather than having to take matters through the courts.”
He said his team’s advice to the Caribbean states is that they “should be claiming in relation to the impact of the slave trade on the Caribbean today rather than looking for reparations related to what happened to the slaves, historically.'
