Category: Portugal

The reparations debate has long simmered in the Caribbean where many blame slavery for modern ills, ranging from economic weakness to health epidemics such as diabetes and hyper-tension allegedly caused by their ancestors’ poor diets.

Caricom is pushing for increased technological assistance as it says European powers shackled the region during the world’s industrialisation by confining it to producing and exporting raw materials such as sugar.

The plan also demands an increase of aid for public health and educational and cultural institutions such as museums and research centres.

And it calls for the creation of a “repatriation programmes” to help resettle members of the Rastafarian movement in Africa. Repatriation to Africa has long been a central belief of Rastafarians.

Martin Day, of Leigh Day, said he would request a meeting with European officials to seek a negotiated settlement, but would pursue a legal complaint if Caribbean nations are not satisfied with the outcome of any talks.

It has been 180 years since Britain abolished slavery but the demand for an unqualified apology remains as controversial as the calls for financial damages.

In 2007, Tony Blair, the then prime minister, expressed “deep sorrow and regret” for the “unbearable suffering” caused by Britain’s role in slavery but stopped short of a formal apology. His words angered many in the Caribbean as inadequate and resonating of legal caution.

The British government, which currently contributes about £15million a year in development to the Caribbean, said that it has not been presented with the demands, but has consistently signalled opposition to financial reparations.

“The UK has been clear that we deplore the human suffering caused by slavery and the slave trade,” a Foreign Office spokesman said. “However 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 twenty-first century.”

But Professor Verene Shepherd, the chairman of Jamaica’s reparations committee, told The Daily Telegraph last month that British colonisers had “disfigured the Caribbean”, and that their descendants should now pay to repair the damage.

“If you commit a crime against humanity, you are bound to make amends,” she said. “The planters were given compensation, but not one cent went to the freed Jamaicans”.

The Caricom nations highlighted the region’s enduring troubles as well the suffering of the victims of the trade in humanity and the profits made by the slaving powers.

“The transatlantic slave trade is the largest forced migration in human history and has no parallel in terms of man’s inhumanity to man,” their claim reads. “This trade in enchained bodies was a highly successful commercial business for the nations of Europe.”

www.telegraph.co.uk, 11 Mar 2014