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World News: Reparation movement at a new and more cirtical stage
A Caribbean Reparations Caucus which has presented a 17-point declaration to the meeting in Bridgetown says the movement has clearly established the legal basis for reparations for the damage caused by slavery.
As a result of this they say the immediate task is formulating and submitting a package of claims that will be the tangible basis for redress from former enslaving nations.
“We are moving into a new phase,” said British Barrister Lord Anthony Gifford, whose seminal work on the legal basis for reparations gave new impetus to the movement in the 1990s.
“(We are) moving from the phase where people are talking about reparations, talking about it as a good idea in principle, to a second phase where people are formulating claims for reparations.
captures African endured horrific conditions onboard slave ships
And that phase is full of difficulties, but difficulties have never daunted those who have campaigned for reparations.” he said.
The Caucus, chaired by the eminent Pan-Africanist Ambassador Dudley Thompson, has called on Caribbean governments and the African Union to collaborate on a formulating the reparations claims for African descendants.
Definition of reparations
>a process, through which the governments and peoples of the former colonizing and enslaving states:
>admit that their forbears committed crimes whose devastating impact, physically, psychologically and culturally, continues to this day to blight the lives of African descendants, and
>agree to take appropriate actions to repair the damage in all these aspects; with the ultimate goal of human reconciliation.”
In presenting the declaration, Dr. Ikael Tafari, the Director of Barbados’ Commission for Pan-African affairs said reparations are due from different governments to African descendants of different regions and language groups.
repatriation
However he noted that that the caucus was urging “the formulation now of a particular claim on behalf of the people of the English-speaking Caribbean to be presented to the Government of the United Kingdom for negotiation and settlement”.
Repatriation of those who wish to return to Africa – a cause championed for decades by the Rastafari faith – is to be “an essential element in any reparations settlement”, the declaration noted.
For Ras Miguel Lorne, a Jamaican attorney, repatriation “is the core of it [reparations].”
“This has always been our cry as Rastafarians,” he said.
“You need to open the gates. Let all of I-and-I who wish to return to the land of our mothers and fathers be given that opportunity.”
The declaration has also called for the establishment of a Caribbean Research Institute for Reparations to support the formulation of the Caribbean claim, and to foster education and debate about the claim among Caribbean people.
Note: David Williams
Bridgetown, Barbados
Posted on Wednesday, September 05 @ 15:42:13 UTC by jcohen
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