UK slavery reparations must be top issue at Commonwealth summit, says former Caribbean leader

It is “inconceivable” that reparatory justice from Britain for the transatlantic trade of enslaved Africans will not be “front and centre” of the next Commonwealth leaders’ meeting, the former prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines has said.Ralph Gonsalves was in Jamaica to discuss the next steps of the “alive and growing” movement to advocate for reparations for hundreds of years of chattel slavery.The opposition leader was recently appointed an elder and adviser for the Repair Campaign, a social movement for reparatory justice founded by the Irish telecoms tycoon Denis O’Brien.Gonsalves was instrumental in setting up the Caribbean Community’s (Caricom) reparations commission to support Caribbean governments’ call for recognition of the lasting legacy of colonialism and enslavement, and for reparative justice from former colonisers.He said the leaders of the 56-country Commonwealth grouping, which includes 33 Caribbean and African nations, could not ignore the strong momentum towards a reparations resolution.Between the 15th and 19th centuries more than 12.5 million Africans were kidnapped, forcibly transported to the Americas and sold into slavery.The issue dominated headlines during the last Commonwealth heads of government meeting (Chogm), held in October 2024, when the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, resisted pressure from member states to include reparations in the summit’s agenda.Gonsalves said: “In the light of what transpired last time at Chogm, and the progress which has been made since then, and the activist agenda for the reparations movement, both in the Caribbean and Africa … it would be absolutely inconceivable that you wouldn’t have this being front and centre of the summit.”In March this year, the UK was one of several European countries that abstained from voting for a UN general assembly landmark resolution that described chattel slavery as the gravest crime against humanity. The resolution was passed after an overwhelming majority of 123 nations voted in its favour, with only the US, Israel and Argentina voting against it.Before the Commonwealth meeting in Antigua and Barbuda in November, a series of milestone events will be held across the Caribbean, Africa and the UK, Gonsalves said.Ghana, which led the March UN resolution, will host a reparations conference in June to agree coordinated next steps for the global movement.He added that, in the run-up to a Caribbean leaders’ meeting in St Lucia in July, the prime ministerial reparations subcommittee, chaired by the prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, is likely to meet to agree updates to Caricom’s 10-point plan for reparatory justice.Gonsalves said that across the region there was a strong commitment to addressing the legacies of colonialism.On Saturday, the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who also played a key role in setting up Caricom’s reparatory commission, announced that she would rename Nelson Island in honour of indentured immigrants from India, who were sent there by Britain between 1866 and 1917, in what she described as an “unjust and inhumane system” of human trafficking.Trinidad and Tobago’s prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, has been praised for her commitment to reparatory justice. Photograph: Andrea De Silva/EPAGonsalves said Persad-Bissessar had done “very good work” during her first term.“She was then chair of Caricom when I took the matter of reparatory justice to heads in 2013, 2014, and she supported it fully,” he said.“I expect her to continue that support in her second term because it’s a matter on which she has spoken, not just with passion, but more importantly with commitment, and I don’t think that that commitment has waned.”During his visit to Jamaica, Gonsalves met the country’s culture and gender minister, Olivia “Babsy” Grange, who is leading its reparation movement.Last year Caricom backed Jamaica’s decision to petition King Charles – its head of state – to request legal advice on reparations from the judicial committee of the privy council, the final court of appeal for UK overseas territories and some Commonwealth nations.Gonsalves said he hoped the king would support the Caribbean and Africa.He said: “To quote the current head of the Commonwealth, King Charles, this issue, reparations, is one whose time has come for a serious conversation.“Now, I don’t know what side of the conversation he would end up on. Knowing him, I am satisfied that he would come [down] on the side of the conversation which is in the interest of the bulk of the people in the Commonwealth, and which will be a progressive direction.”