CAMPAIGN GROUPS from Caribbean countries have sent a joint letter to King Charles demanding a formal apology for slavery and reparations, ahead of the coronation.
The statement co-authored by 12 Commonwealth countries including Jamaica, Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize and St Vincent and the Grenadines, say it is time for the British Monarch to begin “a process of reparations for stolen wealth”.
In the letter, the collective Indigenous Rights Organisations also say it is time for the King to”redistribute the wealth that underpins the Crown back to the peoples from whom it was stolen.”
“We, the undersigned, call on the British Monarch, King Charles III, on the date of his coronation being May 6, 2023, to acknowledge the horrific impacts on and legacy of genocide and colonisation of the Indigenous and enslaved peoples,” the letter reads.
The Advocates Network in Jamaica is one of the groups behind the letter, along with First Nations, Indigenous Peoples, and other Advocacy Groups from 11 other Commonwealth countries.
“Our shared experience with British colonial exploitation and crimes against inhumanity have brought us together in creating this joint statement to amplify our voices so that our just demand can no longer be ignored. We shall never forget our painful past, but we have an opportunity to repair the wrongs of the past and write a new narrative for an inclusive, just, and more humane future,” co-chair of the Advocates Network, Professor Rosalea Hamilton, said in a statement.
The letter to the King was also written and signed by leading representatives from St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, The Bahamas, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Australia, Canada, Papua New Guinea, just days before the coronation on Saturday.
Within the document there is also a specific demand for the repatriating of human remains and sacred artefacts of Indigenous peoples still being held in British museums and institutions.
Crimes Against Humanity
The representatives say centuries of racism, oppression, colonialism and slavery, has now
rightly recognised by the United Nations as “Crimes Against Humanity” and they are seeking a formal apology and want the process of reparatory justice to commence.
Five key demands have been made in the letter, including for the King to begin conversations about “slavery’s enduring impact” and commit to starting discussions about reparations.
The campaigners wrote they also want the King to “immediately commit to the repatriation of all remains of our collective peoples that reside in UK museums and institutions and that represent our family histories, genealogies, cultural history and spiritual ancestry.”
Cultural treasures and artefacts are also listed as items which should be returned as they are “stolen
from our peoples throughout the hundreds of years of genocide, enslavement, discrimination, massacre, and racial discrimination by the authorities empowered by the protection of the British crown.”
Last Month, The Vatican rejected the “Doctrine of Discovery”, a historic concept which was used to justify European colonialists’ seizure of Indigenous lands in Americas and Africa.
Now, the collective Indigenous Rights Organisations want the King to commit the Royal Family to formally reject the “Doctrine of Discovery” and begin talks and reparations for “First Peoples who suffered the consequences of Native Genocide in fulfilment of that doctrine in the name of God.”
United
The groups from 12 different Commonwealth nations – where King Charles is Head of State – say they are “united” in the process of righting the wrongs of the past.
The groups added: “We remain committed to truth-telling about our past, justice for our Indigenous peoples and a future built on democracy, merit, inclusion and unity.
“We are united in our struggle to create a world free of the vestiges of racism and oppression that still pervade today and are a direct legacy of the dehumanisation of our First Peoples and enslaved peoples that has occurred throughout the colonial era.”
The demand for reparations continue to grow across the Caribbean.
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I explained to Jamaicans in 2023, that I consider myself to be one of His Majesty’s African-Caribbean English born Subject.
The wide range of Jamaicans I encountered described their heritage with one word, JAMAICANS.
When challenged, the Jamaicans would weakly admit their African-heritage; but report, they have been taught “nothing about their African-heritage.”
I believe the African-heritage, dark-skinned majority Jamaicans are treated as second-class citizens by Jamaica’s largely brown skinned elites today.
Since independence, Jamaica’s Elected Parliamentarians have offered poor economic and cultural leadership; to the point whereby much of Jamaica’s natural resources have been sold, and the majority of Jamaicans do not acknowledge their African-heritage.
“We, the undersigned, call on the British Monarch, King Charles III, on the date of his coronation being May 6, 2023, to acknowledge the horrific impacts on and legacy of genocide and colonisation of the Indigenous and enslaved peoples,” the letter from Campaign Groups from the Caribbean reads.
This letter is a cleverly constructed humbug.
African on the African Continent; African-heritage people in the Caribbean, African-Americans, and African-Caribbean heritage English Subjects care nothing to honour; remember, cherish, teach, and learn from our historical experienced of being slaves for a thousand years to Semitic Arabic Muslims; from three hundred years of slavery to western Caucasian, Catholic, Protestant and Caucasian-Jewish people during the transatlantic slavery.
Slavery to Western Caucasian people was replaced by one hundred years of Western Caucasian colonial rule on the African continent; and second-class status for African-heritage people, who lived in the United States; England and Western Europe.
Despite the skin-colour oppression, we African-heritage people have endured for the last thousand years.
African people must be thoroughly condemn for refusing to worthily honour the savage suffering of our ancestors during Muslim and Christian slavery.
Indeed today, most African-heritage men; women and youth are ashamed of our collective historical experience of slavery to Muslim and Christian; and to our experience of colonial rule, and to the second-class treatment African-heritage people endured in Caucasian nations.
African people need to take more responsibility for our collective failure to worthily honour our ancestors’ suffering; rather than singularly blaming the Monarch for our own neglectful honouring of our African Ancestors: whose lives were made short by the nasty; brutish and savage experience of Christian and Arabic slavery.