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Caribbean Community Requests Meeting With European Nations to Discuss Reparations

Caribbean Community (Caricom) assembly.

Caribbean Community (Caricom) assembly.

GEORGETOWN, Guyana  — A Caribbean trade bloc has requested a meeting with European nations that engaged in the Atlantic slave trade to talk about reparations.

CARICOM made the announcement Friday at the end of its four-day regional summit held in Antigua.

Leaders are working with the British law firm Leigh Day and expect to soon submit a report about slavery and its lingering effects on the region’s 15 million people. Leigh Day previously obtained about $21.5 million in compensation for surviving Kenyans who were tortured by the British colonial government during a rebellion in the 1950s and 1960s.

CARICOM also pledged to raise the issue at upcoming United Nations General Assembly sessions that are scheduled to start soon.

Caribbean leaders adopted a 10-point plan in March that seeks a formal apology and debt cancellation from former colonizers such as Britain, France and the Netherlands. It also demands that Europe help strengthen the Caribbean’s public health, educational and cultural institutions, as well as help boost the region’s technological sector.

In 2007, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed regret for the “unbearable suffering” caused by his country’s role in slavery, but he issued no formal apology.

Likewise, in 2010, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy acknowledged the “wounds of colonization” and noted that his country canceled a 56 million euro debt owed by Haiti and approved an aid package.

 

Source: news.yahoo.com

What people are saying

3 thoughts on “Caribbean Community Requests Meeting With European Nations to Discuss Reparations

  1. I'm rooting for them to get it. It would set an amazing precedent.

  2. Mark Anthony Williams says:

    Reparations is fine, how about getting these European nations out of these African nations? Yeah they gave Kenyan 21 mil, they probably extracted that in resources last week. Africa and the Caribbean continue to be the tit that feeds the world yet can't sustain healthy lives for millions if Africans who live in the region.

  3. Our potential is limitless as individuals, as a collective words cannot express this potential, in all aspect of physicality, and most important of all spirituality, our natural place of residency,
    we should vociferously demand our right to Reparations, any thing less would make our ancestors turn in their GRAVES, and cause a grievance against all natural LAWS

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