Reparative justice is a necessary cause that must be steadfastly pursued
… President Granger says at National Rastafarian Conference
President David Granger said public education is essential in order to heighten awareness at the personal, national, regional and international levels with regard to the calls for reparative justice, which he described as a just and necessary cause. “The world needs to know about, and people need to be conscious of, the crime of enslavement,” he said. The Head of State made these remarks at the National Rastafarian Conference which opened on Friday in collaboration with the Guyana Reparations Committee at the University of Guyana’s Turkeyen Campus.
He explained that awareness and education will allow for greater solidarity which
Members of the Rastafarian community setting up craft display booths at the University of Guyana’s Turkeyen Campus
will serve to bolster the region’s collective advocacy at the international level; implant in the public mind, the legal and moral bases of the region’s demand for reparations; indicate the precedents in support of reparative justice and lay the foundation for international advocacy and agitation.
“Reparative justice’ is not a ruse for development finance or international handouts. It is a demand aimed at ensuring recompense for crimes against humanity, enslavement and native genocide, and for the atrocities of indentured immigration. The demand for ‘reparative justice’ must not be confused with developmental assistance,” the President said.
Noting that reparative justice is not an alien concept to Europe and the rest of the
President David Granger was greeted by members of the Reparations Committee and the Rastafarian community upon his arrival at the University of Guyana’s Turkeyen Campus
world, the President pointed out that Britain compensated sugar planters for the loss of their ‘property’ (slaves) in 1838 as well as the victims of torture during the Mau-Mau uprising in Kenya. Further, Germany paid reparations to its allies after the first and second World Wars and even agreed to pay reparations to Israel for the ‘Holocaust’. However, there has been no recompense for the dispossession and underdevelopment of the Caribbean as a result of slavery, native genocide and indentured immigration.
“The descendants of the colonised peoples of the Caribbean, therefore, are correct in their call for reparative justice to right these wrongs. The victims of these crimes against humanity have been deprived of an apology. They have been deprived of ‘reparative justice’ for the abominable crimes that resulted in the loss of millions of lives, the expropriation of wealth and the legacy of underdevelopment,” President Granger said.
The aim of the National Rastafarian Conference is to bring together leaders and members of the Rastafarian community to discuss the issue of repatriation.
Guyana, like the other Caribbean countries, remains steadfast in its calls for
Members of the Rastafarian community seated in the George Walcott Lecture Theatre at the University of Guyana’s Turkeyen Campus
Britain to make its due payment to the descendants of those who suffered in the massive slave trade which spread between the 16th and 19th centuries.
The Caribbean Diaspora was called upon to support the Caribbean Community’s (Caricom) calls for the UK to pay reparations as compensation for its involvement in slavery and the slave trade. So far, there has been no definitive outcome of the reparation issue to date, as regional leaders are still awaiting answers from Britain authorities concerning reparation for slavery. The Region recently pushed their campaign further, when, on behalf of the 15-member countries of Caricom, Barbados’ Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, who is also the Chairman of Caricom Reparation Commission formed in 2013, wrote and sent a formal letter of complaint to the British Foreign Office seeking reparation. Stuart called on London to formally acknowledge the Region’s demands for payment for the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The Caricom Reparations Commission, which was launched in July 2013, had set a number of demands to the former European slave trading nations. Caricom Reparations Committee Chairman, Sir Hilary Beckles had said that the plan was also to set out areas of dialogue with former slave-trading nations including the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The claims are being channelled through the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and processed with the help of the London law firm Leigh Day.
The economies of Caricom Member States reportedly total close to US$78 billion in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which would place the Region 65th in the world if it were a single country.
Reports are the Region cannot claim much in the way of the economic blow. However, after having suffered over 400 years of slavery and colonialism at the hands of European powers, its demands for reparations possess enormous moral authority. The Transatlantic Slave Trade brought over 10 million captured Africans to work as chattel slaves in sugar and cotton plantations throughout the Caribbean and the Americas. It was the largest forced migration in human history. Today, Caricom nations have a population of 16 million, and the Diaspora in the United States, Canada and Europe totals about five million people.
