Sobers: Govt to appoint national committee on reparations in ‘due course’

SOURCE: Caribbean Me­dia Cor­po­ra­tion (CMC)

The Trinidad and To­ba­go gov­ern­ment Fri­day said that a new Na­tion­al Com­mit­tee on Repa­ra­tions will be ap­point­ed in “due course”.

CARI­COM For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers told Par­lia­ment that the “mat­ter of repara­to­ry jus­tice is of ut­most im­por­tance to the gov­ern­ment, and the pol­i­cy to fur­ther ad­vance this is­sue will be guid­ed by the Cab­i­net in due course”.

Asked by Op­po­si­tion Leader Pene­lope Beck­les what is the gov­ern­ment’s plan for the re­in­state­ment of the Com­mit­tee that was dis­band­ed in Oc­to­ber last year, Sobers replied that the Op­po­si­tion Leader “be­ing a sea­soned prac­ti­tion­er here in this Ho­n­ourable House, would well be au courant with the mea­sures that have to be adopt­ed be­fore such a de­ci­sion is tak­en, and as I in­di­cat­ed in my orig­i­nal re­sponse, the Cab­i­net will do so in due course”.

Beck­les had asked the ques­tion in Par­lia­ment af­ter in­di­cat­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go was one out of 123 coun­tries that vot­ed in favour of a Unit­ed Na­tions mo­tion that was moved on March 25 this year de­clar­ing chat­tel en­slave­ment as the gravest crime against hu­man­i­ty.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Com­mit­tee on Repa­ra­tions was orig­i­nal­ly es­tab­lished un­der the 2010-15 Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship coali­tion gov­ern­ment led by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, but it was lat­er dis­man­tled un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) when it came in­to of­fice.

Cab­i­net lat­er reap­point­ed a re­con­sti­tut­ed Na­tion­al Com­mit­tee on Repa­ra­tions head­ed by chair­man Dr. Claudius Fer­gus in Sep­tem­ber 2023, which op­er­at­ed un­til its sub­se­quent dis­band­ment in Oc­to­ber 2025. —PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC)