Caribbean delegation travels to Europe to discuss slavery reparations

Leaders in the reparations movement from across the Caribbean region will be in Europe next week for a series of political engagements. The delegation will be in Brussels today, where they will brief MEPs from across Europe. They will then travel to London, where they will meet with Parliamentarians tomorrow, a release from The University of the West Indies states.

The visit comes amid rising calls from Caribbean governments for the UK and other European nations to engage with formal demands for reparations for slavery and its enduring impacts across the region.

The European trip is being organised by ‘The Repair Campaign’, a movement for reparatory justice in the Caribbean, guided by the CARICOM Ten Point Plan for Reparatory Justice. It aims to amplify Caribbean voices and foster meaningful dialogue, and has engaged the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES) at The University of the West Indies to develop 15 country-specific reparatory justice plans to address the enduring effects of slavery and colonialism.

The delegation comprises:

Professor Don Marshall, University Director of the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES), the University of the West Indies; Dr Halimah Deshong, the University of the West Indies; Professor Jean Marie Théodat from Haiti, Director of the Caribbean delegation of the AUF (Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie), a federation of more than 700 universities worldwide and also a member of Haiti’s National Committee for Restitutions and Reparations (attending for the Brussels engagements only); Uriel Sabajo, Member of the National Reparations Committee for Suriname; Carla Astaphan, Chair of the National Reparations Committee for St Kitts & Nevis (attending for the London engagements only); Dr Michael Banner, author and Dean and Fellow of Trinity College, University of Cambridge; Fiona Compton, artist and Caribbean historian, founder of ‘Know Your Caribbean’, the number one online platform for Caribbean history and culture worldwide, with a global monthly reach in its millions; Denis O’Brien, founder of The Repair Campaign. An Irish businessman with 25 years’ experience of working in the Caribbean, with the company he founded in 2001, Digicel, employing 5,000 people and servicing 10 million customers across 25 countries. He also set up three Foundations in Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago and Haiti focusing primarily on education.