Historian: T&T should exit Commonwealth to push reparations cause

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

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A his­to­ri­an feels Trinidad and To­ba­go must con­sid­er with­draw­ing from the Com­mon­wealth and im­pos­ing eco­nom­ic pres­sure on coun­tries that refuse to pay repa­ra­tions for the trans-At­lantic slave trade.

Dr Jerome Teelucks­ingh’s com­ment fol­lows British Prime Min­is­ter Andy Burn­ham’s in­di­ca­tion that Britain is pre­pared to apol­o­gise for its role in the transat­lantic slave trade but will not con­sid­er fi­nan­cial repa­ra­tions.

Burn­ham’s com­ment came as King Charles III is sched­uled to meet with Caribbean lead­ers at this week’s Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM) in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da.

Sev­er­al Caribbean lead­ers have al­so in­di­cat­ed that they in­tend to raise the is­sue of repa­ra­tions at the sum­mit.

Teelucks­ingh told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that Caribbean coun­tries must be pre­pared to take a stronger po­si­tion, rather than re­main­ing with­in in­sti­tu­tions where their his­tor­i­cal griev­ances con­tin­ue to be dis­missed.

“What we should con­sid­er is with­draw­ing from the Com­mon­wealth. It’s as ex­treme as that. Once you with­draw from the Com­mon­wealth, you are send­ing a mes­sage. We can­not stay with­in the Com­mon­wealth fam­i­ly and be treat­ed in this man­ner,” he said.

He al­so called for visa re­stric­tions on British na­tion­als vis­it­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go and a halt to trade with Eu­ro­pean coun­tries re­fus­ing to pay repa­ra­tions, in­clud­ing Britain and France.

How­ev­er, Teelucks­ingh ar­gued that the Caribbean must first ad­dress its con­tin­ued po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic de­pen­dence on for­mer colo­nial pow­ers be­fore de­mand­ing repara­to­ry jus­tice.

“We can­not tru­ly be Caribbean, or we can­not tru­ly be West In­di­an, if we still are shack­led. Some of our Caribbean is­lands, some of our Caribbean ter­ri­to­ries, are still shack­led to the Unit­ed States and to Eu­rope. So, we need to break those shack­les first, and then put out our hands for repa­ra­tions. We can­not be still in Mas­sa’s house and beg­ging Mas­sa,” he said.

He ar­gued that repa­ra­tions should not be lim­it­ed to fi­nan­cial pay­ments but should al­so ad­dress the lin­ger­ing ef­fects of colo­nial­ism and the re­gion’s re­la­tion­ship with for­mer colo­nial pow­ers.

How­ev­er, Cari­com Repa­ra­tions Com­mis­sion chair­man Sir Hi­lary Beck­les has de­scribed Burn­ham’s will­ing­ness to en­gage in dis­cus­sions as a sig­nif­i­cant de­vel­op­ment in the decades-long cam­paign.

“At least now, there is a prime min­is­ter who has said let us talk about it. Let’s have a di­a­logue of de­cen­cy about it. He must there­fore be com­mend­ed for tak­ing this his­toric step,” Beck­les said.

He main­tained that the ab­sence of repa­ra­tions from the of­fi­cial agen­da of dis­cus­sions be­tween Caribbean and British lead­ers at this week’s CHOGM did not di­min­ish the im­por­tance of the is­sue.

“What our gov­ern­ments will be tak­ing in­to the con­fer­ence is the will and the de­sire of the peo­ple. The peo­ple have spo­ken and their gov­ern­ments are in full sup­port. So, we have no dif­fi­cul­ty with the mat­ter not be­ing of­fi­cial­ly on the agen­da,” Beck­les said.

“But im­por­tant­ly, the prime min­is­ter of Britain has said ‘I will have that con­ver­sa­tion. I will have that con­ver­sa­tion.’ And he is re­spond­ing to what we have been call­ing for, a di­a­logue of de­cen­cy. The end to the dis­re­spect that we have had to ex­pe­ri­ence from British prime min­is­ters over the many, many decades. Mr Burn­ham is there­fore al­ready an his­toric fig­ure. We wel­come him.”

Beck­les has al­so ar­gued that dis­cus­sions must not be­gin and end with an apol­o­gy or ex­clude fi­nan­cial repa­ra­tions from con­sid­er­a­tion.

He point­ed to the com­pen­sa­tion paid to en­slavers fol­low­ing the abo­li­tion of slav­ery in 1833, while for­mer­ly en­slaved peo­ple re­ceived no com­pen­sa­tion for gen­er­a­tions of stolen labour.

Lo­cal­ly, Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee chair Za­kiya Uzoma-Wada­da wel­comed the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a British apol­o­gy, say­ing it could strength­en the re­gion’s case for repa­ra­tions.

“I do think that by apol­o­gis­ing, he is ac­cept­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and there­fore that gives us even a lot more cur­ren­cy in or­der to con­tin­ue to de­mand that repa­ra­tions are due and should be paid,” she said.

How­ev­er, she said an apol­o­gy must be ac­com­pa­nied by ac­count­abil­i­ty and called on T&T to demon­strate its own com­mit­ment to repara­to­ry jus­tice.

“We can­not be call­ing for repa­ra­tions and ask­ing oth­er coun­tries to as­sist us to do their du­ty. You un­der­stand? And grant us the jus­tice that is de­serv­ing. And we have a mem­ber of Cari­com, Haiti, hav­ing to get visas to trav­el with­in its own re­gion. You un­der­stand?

“So we have to be­gin to show that we are se­ri­ous about re­pair­ing be­cause repara­to­ry jus­tice is about self-re­pair and al­so atone­ment and com­pen­sa­tion by those who have harmed us. But there are things that we can do for our­selves to as­sist in that re­pair,” she said.

Uzoma-Wada­da al­so crit­i­cised the fail­ure to re­in­state T&T’s na­tion­al repa­ra­tions com­mit­tee fol­low­ing its dis­band­ment in 2025.

She said the coun­try was not for­mal­ly rep­re­sent­ed at a re­cent Cari­com Repa­ra­tions Com­mis­sion con­fer­ence in Bar­ba­dos and called for greater in­volve­ment in re­gion­al dis­cus­sions, in­clud­ing at the CHOGM.

She ar­gued that repara­to­ry jus­tice must in­volve both com­pen­sa­tion from for­mer colo­nial pow­ers and ef­forts by Caribbean coun­tries to ad­dress in­equal­i­ties and di­vi­sions that per­sist with­in the re­gion.