Dear Editor,
I listened with great interest and growing concern to President Dr. Irfaan Ali’s recent CNN interview concerning the anticipated visit of King Charles III to Guyana, Britain’s historical involvement in slavery, the question of a formal apology, and the issue of reparations.
While I acknowledge the importance of engaging Britain in discussions about its historical responsibilities, I am increasingly troubled by the manner in which the President continues to frame the conversation surrounding African slavery and reparatory justice.
My concern is straightforward: Does President Ali fully recognize that the call for reparations for African slavery is fundamentally about Africans and their descendants, and not simply about Guyana as a geographical or political entity?
The transatlantic slave trade and the institution of chattel slavery were not injustices committed against a country in the abstract.
They were crimes committed against African human beings.
Africans were forcibly removed from their homelands, chained, transported across the Atlantic, bought and sold as property, stripped of their dignity, and compelled to provide generations of unpaid labour.
Their bodies, labour and suffering contributed enormously to the accumulation of wealth by European powers and plantation owners.
Even after emancipation, formerly enslaved Africans were not handed economic independence, generational wealth, or meaningful compensation for the centuries of exploitation they endured.
Instead, they were left to navigate a colonial system in which the foundations of economic power and ownership had already been established at their expense.
In British Guiana, our African ancestors pooled their limited resources, purchased abandoned plantations, established villages, and struggled to create the independence that emancipation alone had failed to provide.
This history matters because reparations are not merely about acknowledging that something terrible happened.
They are about recognizing who suffered, who benefited, and how the consequences of that injustice continue to manifest across generations.
During his CNN interview, President Ali suggested that the reparations conversation should focus on a development model incorporating concessional financing, soft resources, new loans, and support for healthcare, education, technology, and climate adaptation.
He further cautioned against viewing the conversation as countries seeking a financial payout.
However, this raises a fundamental question: At what point did reparations for the enslavement of Africans become a generalized financing and development arrangement for the entire country, without a clearly articulated framework addressing the specific descendants of those who were enslaved?
To be clear, I am not opposed to national development, nor am I suggesting that other Guyanese should be excluded from improvements in education, healthcare, infrastructure, or economic opportunity.
Every Guyanese citizen deserves the opportunity to prosper.
But there must be a distinction between the government’s responsibility to develop the nation and the specific obligation to pursue reparatory justice for the descendants of enslaved Africans.
These are related matters, but they are not interchangeable.
What concerns me even more is the apparent contradiction between the development framework President Ali is proposing to Britain and the economic realities that deserve examination right here in Guyana.
Why is the President asking the British monarchy to help correct development gaps, inequalities, and limited access to opportunities when his own administration possesses the authority, national resources, and responsibility to address these very issues domestically?
Guyana is experiencing an unprecedented period of economic transformation driven by petroleum production and expanding national revenues.
Yet important questions remain about how that wealth is distributed, who controls the commanding heights of the economy, who benefits from major investment opportunities, and whether historically disadvantaged communities are experiencing meaningful economic advancement.
In particular, what comprehensive assessment has this administration undertaken of the economic position of Afro-Guyanese communities?
What do the current figures reveal about their representation in major business ownership, access to capital, government contracting, senior economic decision-making positions, land ownership, and the accumulation of generational wealth?
Where is the publicly accessible, disaggregated data demonstrating whether the economic circumstances of Afro-Guyanese households are improving in proportion to Guyana’s expanding national wealth?
These questions should not be dismissed as racial division or political antagonism.
They are legitimate questions about economic inclusion, historical disadvantage, and the responsibilities of government.
Furthermore, pointing to a relatively small number of successful Afro-Guyanese individuals cannot, by itself, establish that the wider Afro-Guyanese population is benefiting equitably from national prosperity. Individual success stories, while important, should never substitute for an examination of the economic circumstances of an entire community.
We cannot claim that everyone is progressing simply because a few individuals are visibly prospering.
Nor can we assess genuine economic inclusion by looking only at national growth figures while ignoring disparities in ownership, opportunity, income, and wealth.
This is precisely why transparent data and measurable outcomes are essential.
I am also deeply concerned by the suggestion that concessional financing and new loans should feature prominently in a reparations framework.
Are we seriously proposing that the descendants of Africans whose ancestors were never compensated for generations of forced labour should now regard additional borrowing arrangements as an appropriate response to that historical injustice?
Certainly, development financing may have a role in broader international cooperation.
However, loans, even those offered on favourable terms, are not equivalent to compensation, restitution, or reparatory justice.
They generally create obligations that must eventually be repaid.
More importantly, if such financing is provided to the Government of Guyana in the name of African slavery, what safeguards would ensure that the descendants of enslaved Africans receive a distinct and measurable reparatory benefit?
Who would determine the priorities?
Would Afro-Guyanese communities have meaningful representation in those decisions?
Would resources be specifically allocated toward addressing the historical and contemporary economic disadvantages associated with slavery and its aftermath?
Or would these resources simply enter the wider national development framework, with no guarantee that the people whose history forms the basis of the claim would benefit in a targeted and meaningful way?
These are not unreasonable questions.
They go to the very heart of what reparations are intended to achieve.
President Ali has called for a mature and dignified discussion with Britain.
I agree that discussions of this nature must be serious and substantive.
But a mature discussion must also be willing to confront uncomfortable questions within our own society.
If the President believes that historical inequalities require targeted international intervention, then he must also explain what targeted domestic interventions his administration has implemented to address the continuing consequences of African enslavement.
What specific policies are in place to expand Afro-Guyanese participation in wealth creation?
What mechanisms exist to evaluate whether historical economic disadvantages are being reduced?
What commitments have been made to ensure equitable access to financing, entrepreneurship, education, land, and emerging opportunities in Guyana’s rapidly expanding economy?
And perhaps most importantly, have Afro-Guyanese communities themselves been meaningfully consulted about what reparatory justice should look like?
It is not sufficient to speak on behalf of the descendants of enslaved Africans while leaving their specific interests undefined in the proposed solution.
The struggle for African emancipation did not end with the legal abolition of slavery.
Freedom without economic opportunity, access to resources, and the capacity to build and transfer wealth remains an incomplete form of liberation.
This is not to suggest that contemporary economic exclusion is legally equivalent to chattel slavery, but rather to recognize that the historical denial of ownership and economic independence has consequences that deserve serious examination.
I would therefore urge President Ali to distinguish clearly between two separate responsibilities: the responsibility of the British state to confront and repair its historical involvement in African slavery, and the responsibility of the Guyanese government to ensure that Afro-Guyanese citizens are not left behind in the country’s present economic transformation.
One responsibility cannot be used to obscure the other.
To be clear, reparatory justice for African slavery does not require depriving any other ethnic community of its rights or opportunities. Nor does it diminish the importance of national unity.
A genuinely inclusive society should be capable of acknowledging the distinct historical experiences and claims of its communities without interpreting that recognition as a threat to others.
However, unity must not become an excuse for avoiding specific historical accountability.
Equality cannot be measured solely by the existence of general national programmes if significant disparities persist in who can access, control, and benefit from economic resources.
Mr. President, if you are asking King Charles III and Britain to acknowledge the historical injustice of African slavery and contribute toward correcting its consequences, then the people of Guyana are entitled to ask what your own administration is doing to address those consequences among Afro-Guyanese today.
Show us the framework. Show us the policies. Show us the allocations. Show us the data. Most importantly, show us the measurable results.
Because national development and reparatory justice, although they may intersect, are not synonymous.
African slavery was not an injustice inflicted equally upon every group that would eventually comprise modern Guyana.
It was the enslavement and exploitation of African people, whose descendants have a particular historical claim to recognition and repair.
Their experiences must not be generalized to the point where their specific claims become invisible.
I support the pursuit of an apology and meaningful reparations from Britain.
But I also believe that the Government of Guyana must demonstrate the same seriousness about addressing economic inequalities at home that it is calling upon Britain to demonstrate internationally.
Before asking the British monarchy to explain how it intends to confront the continuing consequences of African slavery, President Ali should be prepared to explain how his own administration is identifying and addressing those consequences for Afro-Guyanese.
That is not a rejection of national development.
It is a call for consistency, accountability, and justice.
Reparations for African slavery must remain centered on Africans and their descendants.
Anything less risks turning a specific demand for historical justice into another general development discussion, while leaving the fundamental question of reparatory justice unanswered.
Yours faithfully,
Nakisha Sinclair (Martian Nella)
Writer & Social Advocate
