By Navendra Seoraj

PRESIDENT David Granger Friday evening stressed the need for Guyanese and Caribbean people to join the fight for compensatory payments from those who had enforced the Trans Atlantic slave trade.

“What was done during the colonial times go to the heart of our existence.

“Thus, Guyanese and members of the Caribbean must have a vested interest in reparatory justice,” Granger said at a Youth Reparations Rally at Parade Ground in Georgetown, where, in 1823, the heads of over 200 African-Guyanese freedom fighters were decapitated and placed on poles as a warning to others not to rebel.

The rally was staged by the Guyana Reparations Committee. Guyana and other member nations of the regional trade and integration bloc, CARICOM, are pressing for reparations and have written several European governments requesting talks.

To start Friday’s rally, young runners, leaving with a specially made baton, started off at Stabroek where slaves were undocked, and touched several historical stops (Parliament Buildings, The Square of the Revolution (Cuffy Square) and the Sea Wall) before stopping at the Parade Ground.
President Granger described the slave trade as the largest forced transportation of human beings and could be classed as one of the greatest unnatural disasters of all time.
“Most Africans in the Caribbean are the descendants of persons who were involved in systematic capture, illicit transportation, sale and enslavement of their ancestors, which started in the year 1441,” the President noted.
The world conference against racism held in Durban, South Africa, some time ago acknowledged that “slavery and the slave trade are a crime against humanity and should have always been so.”
However, though the damage was inflicted through the horrendous crime, there was no punishment or justice for what was done, highlighted Granger, who said that the enslavement of Africans, decimation of the indigenous population and oppression of indentured immigrants all add up to the perpetration of crimes against humanity.
The President stressed that the descendants of once colonised nations are correct in their call for reparations, because they are the victims who have been deprived of an apology and reparative justice for the “abominable crimes that resulted in the loss of millions of lives, the expropriation of wealth and property and the legacy of underdevelopment that still bequests us all in the Caribbean.”
The Caribbean Community (CARICOM), at its 34th Heads of Government meeting in Trinidad and Tobago from July 3-6 2013, came to a unanimous agreement to establish a series of reparation committees across the Caribbean and to appoint a high-level committee to oversee the work.
As this move progressed, the CARICOM Heads of Government in 2014 accepted, as the basis for further action, to draft a regional strategic plan for a Caribbean reparatory justice programme, showing that they have taken a firm and irreversible stand to call for reparations.
President Granger iterated that the plan was prepared by the Regional Reparations Committee, and proposed a 10-point reparations plan, which he said, is an analogy to the Ten Commandments, however, not in its religious form but, as regulations for the United Kingdom (UK) and Europe.
The 10-point plan includes a call for a full formal apology from the countries who colonised the Caribbean states; repatriation; an Indigenous People’s Development Programme; the establishment of Cultural Institutions; a solution to the Public Health Crisis; Illiteracy Eradication; African Knowledge Programme; Psychological Rehabilitation; Technology Transfer and Debt Cancellation.
“Out of the 10, the most important is the psychological rehabilitation, because if you go to any part of the world you will see that something terrible has happened to people of African descent,” said Granger, who declared that the plans is a holistic and carefully thought out one which will in time bear fruit.
President Granger went on to say that the case for reparative justice can be established in respect to three claims, given that for enslavement and genocide, which are crimes against humanity, victims ought to be recompensed because, Europe’s enrichment came through the wealth of exploitations and deprivations of enslaved persons.
The first basis for reparative justice rests on the fact that crimes against humanity are punishable under international law and persons, organisations or even institutions who commit the act do not enjoy the protection of any statute of limitations or immunity.
The convention on the non-applicability of statutory limitations to world crimes and crimes against humanity adopted by the United Nations (UN) provides that “no statutory barrier shall apply to crimes against humanity whether in time of war or peace.”
Apart from that fact, reparative justice can be claimed since, the evidence of the huge wealth which was generated during the time of slavery, by expropriation and transfer, is visible in Europe and the UK.
“Colonisation allowed for the unjust enrichment of Europe…the vast wealth extracted through forced labour, impoverished those who generated those fortunate,” lamented the President.
Meanwhile, the third basis of reparative claims is that the Caribbean, even after gaining independence, is yet to shake off the legacy of colonialsm, which left it underdeveloped due to consequence of European conquest and conflict.
To date, real-estate in some parts of the Caribbean is owned by the UK, the region is still fragmented and bares stamps of a plantation economy.
Thus, the victims who have been deprived are yet to be compensated, said President Granger, as he called on all Caribbean countries to continue their fight for reparations and unite as one.
Chairman of the Caricom Reparations Commissions, Sir Hilary Beckles in a message which was presented by Deputy Chairman of the Guyana Reparations Committee, Jonathan Adams, related that through the Guyana leg of the CARICOM reparations relay and rally, “cleansing fires are beginning to burn in the hearts across the Caribbean nations, which will ignite the souls as we move forward.”
He said it is important that Guyanese recognise and honour the sacrifices made in order to build Guyana by the enslaved Africans brought here against their will and forced to toil in horrible conditions.
According to Sir Beckles, the valiant and timely struggles across the Caribbean can be viewed as the next step to consolidate the nations’ independence and sovereignty, while creating an avenue for equity, political democracy, economic equality and social justice.
In essence, strengthening independence and reparatory justice are part and parcel to enhance cohesion of the Caribbean civilisation.
“Our ancestors are calling on us to make this struggle an imperative one of our time…and acclaim for the restitution for the unspeakable injustices and brutal system of chattel slave labour, which claimed over 450,000 African lives,” he outlined.
Repairing the horrendous damage of colonialism and imperialism is pivotal for growth, so it must never be placed behind by members of the Caribbean nations.
Sir Beckles added, “Black and brown lives continue to matter all over, given that we in the Caribbean concern ourselves with the challenges of budget deficits and burdensome national debts. But, in our search for a solution we must recognise and analyse the situations that the deficits we have were inherited.”
He said CARICOM awaits a positive response to letters sent to France, Britain Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden, requesting that they meet with the heads of CARICOM to engage in talks of reparations.
This, he said, needs to be addressed quickly because, “a legacy of white supremacy is still prevalent in our region and continues to be impediments to the full realisation and practice of democracy, racial equality and access to various economic opportunities in our respective nations.”
The Baton from Guyana’s leg of the Youth Reparations Rally will then be sent across the country when activities are cloncluded here at the end of the month.

Guyana has produced three replicas of the Baton, in beautiful Mahogany, representing each of the three original counties of Essequibo, Berbice and Demerara.