Dear Editor,
His Majesty (HM) King Charles is in Guyana and the Caribbean and as hospitable we are, he is most welcome.
It is important to note from the outset that Britain’s contribution to the abolition of slavery cannot extinguish its responsibility for establishing, protecting and profiting from that system. Ending an injustice creates an obligation to confront its consequences. It cannot reasonably serve as a certificate of innocence for everything that preceded emancipation.
This principle strengthens the position advanced by President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali and CARICOM: historical acknowledgement must lead to meaningful reparatory engagement. In this regard I strongly believe that their demand deserves support because it connects the dignity of those whose humanity was denied with practical measures to address the consequences of their exploitation.
In my letter published in the Guyana Chronicle on October 24, I argued that enduring institutions cannot inherit wealth, authority and prestige while treating historical responsibility as something that disappears with the passing of generations. That remains central to the Caribbean’s case. Institutional continuity must carry obligations alongside its advantages.
President Ali has given this argument practical direction. In his interview with ITV News correspondent Robert Moore, he advocated a framework addressing development inequalities through preferential financing, debt relief and investment in education, healthcare, mental health and climate resilience. He also identified a formal apology as the next step beyond expressions of regret. These proposals demonstrate the seriousness with which Guyana is approaching the issue.
The President’s approach offers a credible basis for negotiation. No financial settlement can restore the lives lost, reunite families destroyed or return generations of stolen freedom. Nevertheless, the impossibility of complete restitution cannot justify refusing every achievable form of repair. Where an injury cannot be fully reversed, justice still requires an earnest effort to address its consequences.
The argument that Britain helped abolish slavery therefore requires careful examination. British abolition deserves recognition. However, recognising that achievement does not require accepting the suggestion that the state’s earlier conduct has thereby been settled. Moral judgment can acknowledge reform while examining the responsibility arising from the injustice reformed.
Britain’s own records reveal why that examination remains necessary. The Bank of England documents approximately £20 million in compensation paid to slave owners following abolition. The formerly enslaved received no compensation. The Bank also explains that the associated debt entered the national debt and that its final repayment occurred in 2015.
This history exposes a profound inequality in the recognition of loss. The state mobilised substantial resources to compensate those deprived of ownership over human beings. Those human beings, deprived of liberty, wages, family security and control over their futures, received no equivalent settlement.
The question confronting Britain is consequently unavoidable: why was the financial interest of the enslaver considered compensable while the stolen life and labour of the enslaved were left without compensation?
The apprenticeship arrangements accompanying emancipation further complicate any account of immediate and complete liberation. As the British Parliament’s historical account acknowledges, formerly enslaved people remained bound to work for their former masters for a period after the abolition legislation. Freedom emerged through a settlement that continued to accommodate planter interests.
A persuasive reparations argument must also resist reducing this debate to the ancestry or complexion of its opponents. A Black politician’s rejection of reparations as we have seen in the British Parliament deserves the same scrutiny as anyone else’s argument. That said MP whose name I will not repeat, her identity neither validates her reasoning nor establishes her motives. The stronger response examines the historical evidence, the consistency of the argument and the responsibilities of the institutions concerned.
The Caribbean does not need to question anyone’s racial authenticity to establish that abolition leaves unanswered questions of repair. Its case rests on documented conduct and enduring consequences.
Nor can that case be dismissed by highlighting the support of Russia, China or Iran. The merits of reparatory justice do not depend on the political character of every government supporting it. On March 25, 2026, the Ghana-led United Nations resolution received 123 votes in favour, with three against and 52 abstentions. The UN’s account makes clear that the resolution supported reparations as a means of addressing historical wrongs. Its significance therefore extended beyond acknowledgement alone.
That international support strengthens the diplomatic case for engagement. It does not remove the need to negotiate responsibility, appropriate remedies and implementation. Serious advocacy should welcome those tasks. A demand becomes more persuasive when its proponents can explain how principle will become policy.
CARICOM has provided an institutional foundation for precisely that work. Its Heads of Government approved a revised Ten-Point Plan for Reparatory Justice in July 2026, reaffirming a collective regional approach to redress for African enslavement and the genocide of Indigenous peoples. The regional framework places historical accountability within a wider development agenda.
The next phase should translate that foundation into proposals capable of public examination. Negotiations should identify responsible states and institutions, assess documented benefit and harm, establish financing commitments and specify the communities and programmes intended to benefit.
Education, research, healthcare, cultural preservation and productive capacity offer practical areas for agreement. Any reparatory financing should provide additional resources and opportunities. Existing assistance should not simply acquire a new label while leaving the underlying relationship unchanged.
Transparency must accompany these arrangements. Independent oversight, public reporting, community participation and measurable objectives would help ensure that negotiated commitments improve lives. Those seeking justice have every reason to insist that implementation meet the standards of accountability on which the claim itself depends.
The familiar objection that present-day British citizens did not personally enslave anyone also fails to resolve the institutional question. Personal guilt belongs to individuals for their own actions. Public responsibility concerns the continuing state and institutions whose decisions, assets and obligations extend across generations.
Citizens today are entitled to debate how their government meets such responsibilities. That democratic entitlement does not establish that the responsibilities themselves are imaginary. The appropriate discussion concerns evidence, fairness, proportionality and workable remedies.
Equally, the Caribbean’s case does not require attributing every contemporary difficulty to slavery. Domestic governance, policy choices and subsequent economic developments matter. A careful assessment can recognise these influences while examining the lasting effects of colonial extraction. Historical precision strengthens the claim by making responsibility more clearly identifiable.
Guyana’s own development ambitions do not weaken this principle. A society’s growing capacity to finance its future cannot retrospectively justify the exploitation of its ancestors. Progress should give Guyana greater confidence to pursue justice on the strength of evidence and principle.
President Ali’s position also demonstrates that diplomacy can accommodate difficult truths. Guyana can maintain constructive relations with Britain while asking it to address the history that helped shape both societies. A friendship capable of confronting responsibility is stronger than one dependent on avoiding it.
An authorised formal apology would help establish that foundation. Its value would lie in a clear acceptance of wrongdoing, followed by credible commitments to engagement and repair. Words acquire lasting meaning when institutions act upon them.
President Ali and CARICOM are right to insist that the discussion advance. The Caribbean has presented a principled case and an organised framework. Britain and other responsible institutions should now meet that effort with substantive negotiation.
Abolition ended the legal ownership of human beings, the audacity Reparatory justice asks what responsibility remains for the lives, labour and opportunities taken from them. Answering that question honestly would honour the achievement of emancipation and begin addressing the injustice it left unresolved.
Yours truly,
Jermaine Figueira
Former Member of Parliament
