Caribbean nations to seek $51 trillion in slavery reparations

A bloc of 15 states hopes to begin negotiating with Britain, France, Spain and Denmark over a 10-point plan.

Caribbean nations to seek $33 trillion in slavery reparations Bloc of 15 countries will demand formal apology from European governments.

Caribbean nations will seek $US33 trillion ($51 trillion) from European governments and an apology for their role in the transatlantic slave trade as part of a new push for reparations.

A bloc of 15 Caribbean states hopes to begin negotiating with Britain, France, Spain and Denmark over a 10-point plan to include a formal apology, funding for health and education and cancellation of debt and direct payments to their governments.

Britain owes $US19.6 trillion, Spain $US6.3 trillion and France $US6.5 trillion, according to a report produced by an American consulting firm that sought to ­calculate legal damages for the enslavement of 19 million people over four centuries.

Verene Shepherd, a Jamaican professor of history and vice-chairwoman of the reparations commission for Caricom, a political and economic union of the 15 states, said while it was almost impossible to calculate the true extent of the damage caused by the slave trade, the figures provided a starting point for negotiations.

“The crime is huge,” she said. “The responsibility for what happened is huge.”

Caricom established a reparations commission in 2013 and began making approaches to former colonial powers on reparations. “We didn’t get a positive response to our letters,” Professor Shepherd said.

Despite that, support for the idea has strengthened in the ­Caribbean.

Some have suggested reparations be pursued through the courts in the countries targeted.

A London firm was consulted, but Professor Shepherd said ­Caribbean leaders had instructed the reparations commission to first seek negotiations.

A second round of letters to European governments has been drafted but not yet sent.

“We are trying negotiations. We are trying lobbying, through the UN,” she said.

Professor Shepherd said the group had also chosen to seek “a development approach” rather than cash payments to people whose ancestors were enslaved, the path taken by reparations campaigners in the US.

After Britain abolished slavery in the 1830s, it paid £20m in compensation to 46,000 former slaveholders, a colossal sum at the time. Peter Espeut, dean of studies at a seminary college in Kingston and a columnist for the Jamaican newspaper The Gleaner, said: “By giving slave owners compensation for the loss of their property, they set a precedent. If you compensated owners for the loss of property, surely you should also compensate the slaves for the loss of their freedom.”

He was sceptical of the idea that reparations should be paid to Caribbean governments, including that of Jamaica, said to be owed $US9.5 trillion.

“When Jamaica became independent, the British government handed us a national debt of zero,” he said. “Any debt Jamaica may currently have is arguably not the result of slavery or colonialism but malfeasance on the part of the Jamaican government.”

If the reparations were to come in the form of cash for development, Britain and the EU could argue that they had been “paying reparations for decades” in the form of development aid, he added.

Professor Espeut remains an advocate of reparations but says the money is owed to the descendants of former slaves, not to the government, which was “trying to steal poor black people’s money by making this claim”.

Most European governments have resisted the idea of reparations. Asked in the House of Commons in April whether he would agree to reparatory justice, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said no, as “trying to unpick our history is not the right way forward”.

Professor Shepherd said development aid did not count as reparations as the money often came in the form of loans, or with conditions attached. Britain had left its former colonies in a parlous state at independence, she said.

Most European governments had not offered more than a “statement of regret”, she said. The king of The Netherlands offered a formal apology recently, and members of the Gladstone and Trevelyan families had donee the same.

Some European groups had sought to help, Professor Shepherd added. A group in Switzerland “are sending information to us about how Switzerland was involved” by selling navigational instruments used by slave ships, while a group in Sweden was contributing evidence of how the country provided iron for man­acles used on plantations.

The Times