BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Mar. 3, 2022– During the press conference at the conclusion of the 33rd Inter-sessional Meeting of the Conference of CARICOM Heads of Government, Prime Minister of Barbados, Hon. Mia Mottley announced that the Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee of Reparations, which she chairs, has drafted a letter to reengage European nations on the unresolved issue of reparations for the region. The countries in the Caribbean region were subjected to generations of resource-extraction and dehumanization of their people in order to fund the economic growth of European countries which colonized those nations. As PM Mottley stated, this is not the first such letter to be sent out to the European nations, but it seeks to rekindle a conversation that has been downplayed by those European countries.
“I chair the Prime Ministerial sub-committee on reparations. Last year we took a decision that we would write to the African Union before we wrote to the European nations who were responsible for colonizing our territories and for the enslavement of our forefathers. Today, we share a draft letter that will go to the heads of different European nations, and we will weigh the comments of our colleague heads with respect to that actual draft letter,” said PM Mottley.
She noted that this is not the first letter sent from the region to the European nations, but said that this most recent letter is being sent at this juncture in an attempt to start a more mature engagement on the topic.
PM Mottley added, “I think a predecessor of mine sent a letter in 2016, and there was a response to it, and while it was noted that it was a dark period in the history of our countries and theirs, there was not an acknowledgment of the need for reparations. Since then, however, we’ve had the George Floyd and Black Lives Matter, we’ve had a recognition by the global population, especially younger people, that there is a need for climate justice, and I think that we are dealing with a world that is generally intolerant of the kind of inequity, and poverty and discrimination that has come to characterize too much of the last three to four decades in particular of global activity and development.”
She noted that while almost 47 million pounds was paid to former slave owners, no development compact was given to Caribbean nations when they received independence, and this has led to the systemic shortfalls we see commonly across CARICOM nations.
“We had no development compact given to us at the point of independence, but there was a compensatory package for those who were slave owners, and there was a further package for the apprenticeship system, I think that my officials and advisors count it at about 20 million pounds for the British planters who had slaves and another 27 million pounds as a result of the apprenticeship system, so that 47 million pounds was given in the middle of the 19th century. Fast forward now, 130 years to Jamaica becoming independent, Trinidad becoming independent, Guyana becoming independent, Barbados and we go down the line, none of us were given a development compact. We had to start providing for our people without the benefit of any sort of development funding; we had to deal with lack of housing, lack of educational opportunities, lack of healthcare facilities, and we had to do this in spite of the fact that substantial wealth were extracted from our countries, for centuries, in spite of the fact that substantial wealth was extracted not only by the governments but also by the private players who were the owners of the plantations of the owners of the enterprises doing business and trade in our part of the world, and whether we like it or not it is regrettable that the region to which we belong effectively was the modern crucible for racism in the Americas and in the Western world, “ PM Mottley said.
The issue of reparatory justice ties into that of climate justice. It is widely known that the capital acquired from the extraction of resources in the Caribbean funded the Industrial Revolution in European countries; it is equally widely accepted that the period marks the start of the increase in global temperature, which began around 150 years ago at the height of the said Industrial Revolution. This creates a direct nexus between the profits gained from the enslavement of the ancestors of those currently living in the Caribbean and the impacts of uncontrollable emission of greenhouse gases that continues to fuel the climate crisis.
PM Mottley said it is no different from any conversation in respect to persons doing wrong: “In private law, you can do wrong through breach of contract, or tortious interference. In development there has been an act regrettably that has left us suffering, and we hope that we can engage with the European countries to ensure that there is an appropriate framework to fuel our development in this difficult time in history,” she said.