Reparations call will not go away, says PM Gonsalves

As many Europeans continue to make negative comments towards countries demanding reparations, Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves has doubled down, describing the call as a “just demand”.

“Undoubtedly, the genocide of native peoples and the enslavement of African bodies, committed by, and under the direction of, the British colonial state, have engendered historical legacies of underdevelopment…” the Prime Minister said during his Independence Day message on October 27, 2024 at Victoria Park.

Gonsalves, one of the main advocates in the call for reparations, said that slavery created severe, adverse contemporary consequences to the people in the Caribbean Community and the demand for reparations from Britain is in accord with international law, and public morality.

“Our demand for reparations will not go away. It will most assuredly intensify in the months and years ahead and it cannot be wished away by its opponents,” Gonsalves said.

“This is a great cause in which our government has long been in the lead, on this we will never falter nor waver.”

The Prime Minister also used his address to urge “our friendly ally”, Britain, with which he said we continue to have excellent relations, to come to the table reasonably.

He said the relationship between Britain and St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), is good despite the bigger country’s refusal, thus far, to “…countenance reparatory justice, to resolve this matter amicably, through a mature conversation, within the framework of CARICOM’s Ten Point Plan, as amended, for reparatory justice.”

Said the Prime Minister, “It is important that they have a conversation, we are not interested in confrontation, but a mature conversation, if not, recourse would be inevitable to the formal machinery of the United Nations’ system and the International Court of Justice for adjudication and resolution.”

He said it is simply unacceptable for Britain and other European powers engaged in native genocide and the enslavement of African bodies in the Caribbean, and Africa, to just walk away scotch free.

“Today Britain and Europe enjoy a legacy of richness and wealth derived from these crimes against humanity, and we in the Caribbean and Africa, continue to suffer from the associated legacies.

“These legacies of underemployment which endure today, of loss of innocent lives, plunder, exploitation, dispossession, suffering, pain, and underdevelopment.

“Those who committed native genocide and the enslavement of African bodies which set in train historical legacies of underdevelopment. It is only just and fair and moral that reparations be accorded to us and our brothers and sisters in the Caribbean and Africa,” Gonsalves stressed.

According to a widely used database hosted by Rice University, an estimated five million-plus Africans were forcibly brought to the Caribbean, more than 10 times the number sent to mainland North America, and nearly 40 per cent of the overall transatlantic slave trade from 1501 to 1866.

These figures, it is argued, put reparation figures into the trillions of dollars.