St. Kitts and Nevis (WINN)—The debate over reparations is expected to continue for years to come as leaders across the Caribbean and beyond renew calls for countries that profited from slavery to be held accountable.
Momentum has grown following the recent adoption of a United Nations resolution describing slavery as a grave injustice and calling for reparatory justice.
However, the move has been met with resistance from several developed nations, many of which have pushed back on ongoing discussions about reparations.
The issue took centre stage on Tuesday during a press conference where regional officials reaffirmed their stance. Among those speaking was Sir Hilary Beckles, who chairs the region’s reparations committee.
“We celebrated this historic moment because what took place at the United Nations was, in fact, the majority, the majority of humankind on this planet was in agreement that this was the gravest crime and should be treated as such. We recognise, of course, the significance of this going forward for all persons who are committed to the highest level of human engagement, civil society, and how to put the steps we need to take to put this horrendous experience once and for all behind us. This was a joint resolution. The African Union and CARICOM have been working steadfastly on this matter for many, many, many years. And of course, we know the background to all of this taking place 25 years ago in Durban when the resolution that chattel slavery, racialised slavery should have been a crime. And we have now moved from should have been a crime to indeed the gravest crime.”
While Caribbean leaders have expressed a willingness to engage in dialogue, the push for reparations has drawn sharp criticisms from several political figures, particularly in countries linked to the transatlantic slave trade, including the United Kingdom.
Still, advocates argue that reparatory justice is not limited to financial compensation. Beckles emphasised that the legacy of slavery continues to shape the social and economic realities of Caribbean societies today.
“Our human development is placed within the right context. We wish to express gratitude, of course, to the joint leadership in Ghana and CARICOM. We’re very proud of the leadership provided by President Mahama of Ghana and his team. We’re very proud of the leadership provided by Prime Minister Mayor Moxie of Barbados, who is the chair of the reparations commission’s prime ministerial leadership of the CARICOM reparations commission. This has been a reality that we have been calling upon the world to endorse since 2001. CARICOM has every good reason to be satisfied that we have been able to bring the best of humanity along the trajectory so that we can recognise this crime as it certainly was. We did decide in 2001 at Durban that the reparatory justice movement is going to be the greatest political movement of the 21st century. It is indeed on its way to being so. This has to do with the fact that the vast majority of the world that has been colonised, that have had their people enslaved, that have had their resources plundered and extracted and driven into underdevelopment by this extraction of slave-owning nations, that all of these nations are now looking for their development, for their place in the post-modern world. And each way they turn, they are finding that this crime against humanity is still a dominant legacy in their everyday lives, in their economic planning, in their political vision, in their social upliftment, the legacy of this very immediate crime.”
He also challenged arguments that came to justify slavery on legal grounds at the time, noting that laws created to legitimise the ownership of human beings only deepened the severity of the injustice.
“Because they made it so. Indeed, adds to the criminality of the situation and the gravity of it. Because what these apologists are suggesting is that yes, we made it legal, and therefore it was. And those people who were the victims of it, who had the humanity denied, the humanhood denied in the process of this horrendous crime, had no say in the conversation. But the history shows very clearly that there were always people in Britain, there were always people in Europe who were saying from the very beginning that this is wrong, this is a crime, this is not only a religious sin, but it’s an abomination, and it has to stop. But the governments who framed this system, the governments who created this system, who enabled their private sector to accumulate wealth using this system, those institutions, the civil society, who benefited financially from this system, all of those persons were in harmony with their governments because their governments took the decision that the chattel enslavement of African people was in their national interest. And when the government declares and legislates that a system is in the national interest, then the state has to be held accountable because the state knew that what they were doing was criminal, unprecedented in human history. And so we are calling for the dialogue to continue. We are calling for the best possible minds to be gathered to discuss.”
Against this backdrop, Beckles reiterated the region’s position, insisting that the time has come for meaningful action.
“What is taking place all around us? Humanity is indeed in need of a reset. And we believe that the reparatory justice movement will indeed be the foundation and the basis for a new 21st-century vision about human development. From that perspective, then, we are absolutely convinced that this is the moral thing to do. This is the legal and ethical thing to do. And so we remain steadfast. What is required now is a dialogue. CARICOM has been calling for a summit.”
Sir Hilary Beckles was speaking during Tuesday’s press conference.
