A Full and Formal Apology for Slavery and Native Genocide!

REPARATIONS advocates in Commonwealth Caribbean states being visited by members of the Royal Family to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee continue to make their voices heard during the Royals’ second stage of the latest regional charm offensive.

The first round that saw Prince Charles and Prince William express words of sorrow and regret about Slavery ended with the royal couple on the first round of visits to The Bahamas, Belize and Jamaica, instead of welcoming pleasantries regarding Queen Elizabeth II’s historic achievement of 70 years on the throne, heard and saw more reminders about governments’ plans to proceed to republicanism, CARICOM’s eight-year-old call for Reparations and calls for the royal family and British government to apologise.

The current second phase of the royal Caribbean visits involving the Queen’s youngest son Edward and his wife Sophie (Earl and Countess of Wessex) started in Saint Lucia on Friday (April 22), where the royal couple will be based for the week-long engagement.

But because of and despite tailoring the second leg to avoid direct exposure to protests and to ensure all engagements fit the main purpose of celebrating the monarch’s jubilee, the current royal tour started with serious hiccups, leading to cancellation of the Grenada leg by postponement, on the advice of the multi-island state’s Governor General and Government.

The Grenada leg was clipped after it emerged that the government-appointed Grenada National Reparations Commission (GNRC) had a week earlier requested of Governor General Dame Cecile La Grenade, as the Queen’s representative, an invitation for an audience with the visiting royals.

The GRSC, headed by Grenada’s Ambassador to CARICOM and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Senator Arley Gill, had indicated they wanted to question the royals on why Buckingham Palace and the UK Government continued to refuse to offer genuine full and formal apologies for slavery and native genocide, to remind them of CARICOM governments’ calls for reparations first made in 2013 and to provide them copies of two seminal books on reparations for their edification, if needed.

The books are ‘Britain’s Black debt’ and ‘How Britain Underdeveloped the Caribbean’ by Chairman of the CARICOM Reparations Commission (CRC) Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, who is also Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies (The UWI).

The GNRC had also planned demonstrations around Grenada’s support – as one of the 14 CARICOM member-states – for the regional governments’ outstanding reparations demands, especially following recent exposure that the Bank of England benefitted from ownership of over 500 enslaved Africans on two Grenada estates at the height of the TransAtlanic Slave Trade.

The royal household, unwilling to risk awkward images recalling traditional colonial royal visits to the British West Indies before independence, opted to cancel the Grenada leg before the royal couple left London.
The Earl and Countess arrived in Saint Lucia on Friday without any of the traditional colonial fanfare of students lining streets waving the Union Jack and was also devoid of the people-to-people contacts that opened them up to awkward video moments and access to protesters.

The handlers of the trip also ensured that meetings were held with Governors-General in every host country to ensure that the programme reduced any likelihoods of facing or seeing protests.
They sought — and most likely got — assurances the final programmes included meetings with women and youth, business and civil society, Commonwealth Youth leaders and teams preparing for the upcoming Commonwealth Games.

The Royal Couple’s first engagement – the weekend visit to neighbouring St. Vincent starting Saturday – also started with another unforeseen and unplanned snag: the absence of Prime Minister Dr ralph Gonsalves, who left the mainland Sunday, April 17, to seek medical attention abroad following complaining of feeling ill on Thursday, April 14.

Deputy Prime Minister, Dr Camilo Gonsalves, son of 75-year-old Dr Gonsalves — who is also CARICOM’s longest-serving elected government leader – was due to welcome the royal couple to St. Vincent and The Grenadines.
But just like with the first leg of the royal Caribbean visits that started with Prince Charles in Barbados last November and continues with Prince William and Kate Middleton’s visits to The Bahamas, Belize and Jamaica, there was no getting away from the Reparations Message and calls for a Full and Formal Apology from both Buckingham Palace and the British Government.

The Saint Lucia National Reparations Committee (SLNRC) issued a statement on Thursday, April 21 (coinciding with the Queen’s 96th birthday) “welcoming the public interest generated over the visits” and “the opportunity to continue our Reparations advocacy, during and after the visit…”
The NRC said it “will explain why the Royal family and the British Government owe Apologies and Reparations to Caribbean descendants of enslaved Africans” and “the intrinsic historical relationship between the Royal Family and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.”

The CARICOM Reparations Commission (CRC), established by regional governments in 2013 and of which the BNRC and SLNRC are members with similar committees in the other 12 member-states, holds that the Royal Family and Britain owe every former West Indian colony “A Full and Formal Apology” for their roles in slavery.
Never mind Princes Charles and William’s expressions of Royal sorrow and regret, CARICOM’s leaders insist such words don’t represent the equal will to repair that comes with an apology.
“A Full and Formal Apology” is indeed Number 1 in the CRC’s 10-point Plan for Reparatory Justice outlining objectives expressed when they first called on the UK and the European Union (EU), 180 years after supposed Abolition in Britain, for which plantation owners were compensated for loss of land and human property, with 20 million pounds (Sterling), but not-a-cent for the enslaved, who also ‘legally’ provided six years of free labour through ‘Apprenticeship’.

According to the SLNRC, “Britain, the Royal Family and the European nations that built empires from off the backs of enslaved Africans are avoiding making full and formal apologies because they don’t still want to plead guilty, despite the United Nations declaring Slavery a Crime Against Humanity in 2001 and because they are simply not committed to Atonement and Repair.”
The SLNRC said, “CARICOM leaders must now press Buckingham Palace to lead the way — with The Queen making the first apology for the Royal family’s role in the TransAtlantic Slave Trade — and then urging the British Government to follow suit…”

It also welcomed “the ongoing discussion on republicanism sparked by the Royal Visit” and the opportunity to “better explain the differences between Independence and Republicanism, within The Commonwealth.”
Same with Antigua and Barbuda, to be visited on Monday (April 25).
Ahead of their arrival, the Antigua and Barbuda Reparations Support Commission (ABRSC) called in a public statement on Wednesday, April 20 for the Royal Couple to avoid repeating expressions of sorrow and regret, calling on the Royal Household to atone for slavery and for Britain to engage ex-colonies impacted by slavery, neocolonialism and existing global inequalities.
The ABRSC recalled that Prince Charles and Prince William had on recent Caribbean visits to Barbados and Jamaica, respectively, lamented that slavery was “an appalling atrocity” that was also “abhorrent” and “should not have happened”.

However, the commission appealed to the royal couple “not to repeat such a mantra,” but to instead tell Antiguans and Barbudans “Why is it so hard for you to sincerely apologise for your nation’s role in slavery, like decent human beings do when they offend…”

Noting that “acknowledging and accounting for wrongs is deeply enshrined within both British law and society,” the ABRSC asked: “Why then, is it, that you cannot apologise for your nation’s demonstrated historical wrong?”
It called on “Britain and other enslaving countries of Europe” to engage in a “partnership in a constructive strategy… to meet the social and economic gaps in the region…”
The ABRSC identified the gaps as “those imposed through slavery and colonialism and those that are perpetuated through the incredibly unjust existing neocolonial international order, which Europe and the United States champions[sic].”

In Antigua and Barbuda, the royal couple will participate in several activities, meeting women and youth, business and civic leaders, local teams preparing for the Commonwealth Games, and legendary Antiguan cricketers, many knighted by The Queen.

The final leg of the visit will be in Saint Lucia on April 27 and 28, where the SLNRC has indicated it will, before the Royal Visit ends, publish a ‘100-Day Action Plan’ to continue its public education programme through to August celebrations of Emancipation Day (August 1) and Marcus Garvey’s Birthday (August 17), ahead of the 2nd African Union-CARICOM Summit on September 7.
The NRCs in all islands to be visited are expected to elaborate on the CRC’s 10-Point Plan that’s also CARICOM’s Blueprint for the economic and developmental aspects of Reparations, penned by Sir Arthur Lewis in his seminal 1939 book, ‘Labor in the West Indies’ and adopted as the template for ensuring Reparations reach all CARICOM citizens.

Meanwhile, the fading of colonial royal charm in the remaining Commonwealth member-states being visited to celebrate the British monarch’s record as the longest-serving head of state and who’s still Queen (and head of state) of the over-50 former British colonies in the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) regions, as well as Australia and New Zealand, Canada and the United States, is also being keenly observed in the states not being visited.
Barbados, Guyana and Dominica are Republics with their own Presidents, but the Federation of St Christopher and Nevis (independent St. Kitts and Nevis) is also not included.
All four nations, however, are signatories to CARICOM’s 2013 call on the UK and EU member-states that designed, implemented, benefitted from and built empires from TransAtlantic Slavery to deliver on outstanding Reparations for Slavery and Native Genocide.