By Michael Holden
LONDON, Oct 27 (Reuters) – King Charles heads to the Caribbean this week on a tour which comes against the backdrop of increasingly vocal demands from the region that Britain pays reparations for its role in the slave trade.
Charles and his wife Queen Camilla will first visit the Bahamas and Guyana, before heading to Antigua and Barbuda for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), the biennial get-together of the international organisation which he heads. The tour runs from October 27 to November 4.
At a previous meeting in 2022 of the leaders of the Commonwealth — a group of 56 nations which were mainly former British colonies — Charles expressed deep personal sorrow over slavery, and the issue is certain to be prominent once again.
Last month, CARICOM, the Caribbean Community, a group of 23 member and associate member states which includes the Bahamas, Barbados and Jamaica, said it would push for reparations to be on the CHOGM agenda.
“The Caribbean has consistently asserted that reparations is fundamentally about justice,” CARICOM’s Secretary-General Carla Barnett said in a speech last month.
“It is about recognition, accountability and transformation, and about building a just and equitable future for the descendants of those who, as the chattel of colonial owners, endured untold suffering, loss of life and freedom.”
While Buckingham Palace has said the monarch would not shy away from Britain’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade during his tour, he would not formally apologise for it as some have wanted, in keeping with British government policy which also excludes making any financial reparations.
“It is important to note here the work his majesty himself has done over many years both to acknowledge the wrongs of the past and to find creative ways to right inequalities that endure,” a palace spokesperson said.
Shirley Botchwey, the secretary-general of the Commonwealth, which encompasses some 2.7 billion people, said last week the time had come for discussions about reparations, be they financial or in some other form such as the return of artefacts.
As for an apology from the king, who remains the head of state of a number of Caribbean nations including both the Bahamas and Antigua and Barbuda, she told Sky News: “It wouldn’t hurt to have that.”
From the 15th to the 19th century, at least 12.5 million Africans were abducted and sold into slavery by European merchants, with Britain responsible for transporting an estimated 3.2 million people, making it the second most active European nation after Portugal.
(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Xevi Fontdegloria)
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