Caribbean leaders are intensifying their push for reparatory justice, insisting that direct dialogue with former colonial powers is non-negotiable in their quest for historical accountability and compensation for centuries of slavery and exploitation.
“The Heads agreed that the Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on Reparations will meet, but that without prejudice to this, we were settled on the need for an apology and the need for compensation remains absolutely important to us,” declared CARICOM Chair and Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley during the closing media conference of the 48th Regular Meeting of the Conference last Friday in Barbados.
In what may signal a hardening stance, Mottley emphasized that while public apologies and financial offers have been made by entities like the Church of England, the absence of direct engagement undermines any meaningful resolution.
“If you can’t see me or hear me, it is not appropriate to be able to make a judgment as to who or what I am and what I should receive,” she stated pointedly.
The Caribbean bloc appears prepared to escalate the matter beyond diplomatic channels if necessary. Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis revealed that CARICOM is “looking now at the legal avenues that we could engage to ensure that we can have perhaps a judicial response or answer if the negotiations fail.”
Davis also worked to contextualize the reparations demand within historical precedent, countering potential criticism that such claims represent novel or opportunistic grievances.
“Reparations for wrongdoings and similar situations are not new,” he explained, citing Germany’s $50 billion Holocaust reparations program, Japan’s billion-dollar compensation to South Korean “comfort women,” and the United States’ 1988 reparations act for Japanese-Americans detained during World War II.
“This is information that we have to put forward to ensure that people don’t think that this is some new aberration by the African descendants,” Davis emphasized.
The Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on Reparations, established under Mottley’s chairmanship, includes the CARICOM Chair and the Heads of Government of Guyana, Haiti, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Suriname.
This committee oversees the work of the CARICOM Reparations Commission (CRC) and will be tasked with refining the region’s negotiating mandate. (WiredJA)
