Caribbean leaders back Jamaica petition to King Charles for slavery reparations
St. Vincent PM Ralph Gonsalves is among Caribbean leaders backing Jamaica’s petition to King Charles for reparations as the region prepares to step up its pursuit of reparative justice for slavery, Prime Minister Andrew Holness has said.
The petition asks Charles to use his authority to request legal advice from the judicial committee of the London-based Privy Council, the final court of appeal for UK overseas territories and some Commonwealth countries, on whether the forced transport of Africans to Jamaica was lawful, if it constituted a crime against humanity, and whether Britain was under obligation to provide a remedy to Jamaica for slavery and its enduring consequences.
Gonsalves, one of the founding members of the Caricom reparations movement, said, “We are not giving up the reparations fight.”
“In the Caribbean [we] have a specific primary concern and primary responsibility to address reparations for native genocide and the enslavement of Africans,” he said, adding that the region needed allies. He said the issue would be on the agenda at the Africa-Caricom summit, scheduled for September in Ethiopia.
During the centuries-long transatlantic slave trade, more than 12.5 million Africans were kidnapped and forcibly transported to the Americas, including Jamaica, where they were sold into slavery.
