Rowley: UNC bolting to Trump’s racism, Rubio’s colonialism

For­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment over its po­si­tion on repa­ra­tions, say­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go is be­ing over­looked de­spite progress at the Unit­ed Na­tions.

This week, the Unit­ed Na­tions vot­ed to de­scribe the transat­lantic chat­tel slave trade as the “gravest crime against hu­man­i­ty” and called for repa­ra­tions as “a con­crete step to­wards rem­e­dy­ing his­tor­i­cal wrongs”.

In a Face­book post, Dr Row­ley said he played a role in ad­vanc­ing the repa­ra­tions agen­da along­side re­gion­al lead­ers with­in Cari­com. He ref­er­enced dis­cus­sions at a Com­mon­wealth of Na­tions meet­ing in Samoa, where Caribbean rep­re­sen­ta­tives chal­lenged ef­forts to ex­clude the is­sue from for­mal talks.

Dr Row­ley said lead­ers pres­sured UK Prime Min­is­ter Keir Starmer to en­sure the mat­ter re­mained un­der con­sid­er­a­tion, re­sult­ing in an agree­ment for fur­ther work and a re­port to be pre­sent­ed at a fu­ture meet­ing in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da.

He ac­cused the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion of sup­port­ing Unit­ed States poli­cies and re­main­ing silent on key in­ter­na­tion­al mat­ters.

He wrote: "‎This mat­ter at the UN is a gi­ant step, where Trinidad and To­ba­go—who first cel­e­brat­ed Eman­ci­pa­tion—is be­ing ig­nored by the UNC Gov­ern­ment as they bolt them­selves to Trump’s racism, and Ru­bio’s call to Eu­rope at the Mu­nich Se­cu­ri­ty Con­fer­ence that it is time for Eu­rope to awak­en and re­gain its colo­nial pow­er and be ‘great again’."

Dr Row­ley al­so crit­i­cised the Prime Min­is­ter for not ad­dress­ing the me­dia on is­sues af­fect­ing the coun­try, stat­ing that lead­er­ship on repa­ra­tions and for­eign pol­i­cy has weak­ened.

Be­low is a re­port from the As­so­ci­at­ed Press on the his­toric res­o­lu­tion at the UN on Wednes­day 25 March 2026.

UN calls for repa­ra­tions to rem­e­dy the ‘his­tor­i­cal wrongs’ of traf­fick­ing en­slaved Africans

Sto­ry by EDITH M. LED­ER­ER | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

UNIT­ED NA­TIONS (AP) — The U.N. Gen­er­al As­sem­bly on Wednes­day adopt­ed a res­o­lu­tion de­clar­ing the traf­fick­ing of en­slaved Africans “the gravest crime against hu­man­i­ty” and call­ing for repa­ra­tions as “a con­crete step to­wards rem­e­dy­ing his­tor­i­cal wrongs.”

The res­o­lu­tion al­so urges “the prompt and un­hin­dered resti­tu­tion” of cul­tur­al items — in­clud­ing art­works, mon­u­ments, mu­se­um pieces, doc­u­ments and na­tion­al archives — to their coun­tries of ori­gin with­out charge.

The vote in the 193-mem­ber world body was 123-3, with 52 ab­sten­tions. Ar­genti­na, Is­rael and the Unit­ed States were the three mem­bers vot­ing against the res­o­lu­tion. The Unit­ed King­dom and all 27 mem­bers of the Eu­ro­pean Union were among those that ab­stained.

While the Unit­ed States op­pos­es the past wrong­do­ing of the transat­lantic slave trade and all oth­er forms of slav­ery, it “does not rec­og­nize a le­gal right to repa­ra­tions for his­tor­i­cal wrongs that were not il­le­gal un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law at the time they oc­curred,” deputy U.S. am­bas­sador Dan Ne­grea said be­fore the vote.

“The Unit­ed States al­so strong­ly ob­jects to the res­o­lu­tion’s at­tempt to rank crimes against hu­man­i­ty in any type of hi­er­ar­chy,” he said. “The as­ser­tion that some crimes against hu­man­i­ty are less se­vere than oth­ers ob­jec­tive­ly di­min­ish­es the suf­fer­ing of count­less vic­tims and sur­vivors of oth­er atroc­i­ties through­out his­to­ry.”

In the Unit­ed States, sup­port for repa­ra­tions gained mo­men­tum in the wake of the mur­der of George Floyd by a Min­neapo­lis po­lice of­fi­cer in 2020. How­ev­er, the is­sue has been a dif­fi­cult one and has been caught up in a broad­er con­ser­v­a­tive back­lash over how race, his­to­ry and in­equal­i­ty are han­dled in pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions.

FILE - The United Nations logo is seen inside the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith, File)

Pamela Smith

Un­like U.N. Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil res­o­lu­tions, Gen­er­al As­sem­bly res­o­lu­tions are not legal­ly bind­ing but are an im­por­tant re­flec­tion of world opin­ion.

“To­day, we come to­geth­er in solemn sol­i­dar­i­ty to af­firm truth and pur­sue a route to heal­ing and repar­a­tive jus­tice,” Ghana­ian Pres­i­dent John Dra­mani Ma­hama, a key ar­chi­tect of the res­o­lu­tion, said be­fore the vote.

“The adop­tion of this res­o­lu­tion serves as a safe­guard against for­get­ting,” he said. “Let it be record­ed that when his­to­ry beck­oned, we did what was right for the mem­o­ry of the mil­lions who suf­fered the in­dig­ni­ty of slav­ery.”

Ma­hama not­ed that the vote was tak­ing place on the In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Re­mem­brance of the Vic­tims of Slav­ery and the Transat­lantic Slave Trade, hon­or­ing the mem­o­ry of about 13 mil­lion African men, women and chil­dren en­slaved over sev­er­al cen­turies.

Diplo­mats ap­plaud­ed and some cheered the adop­tion of the res­o­lu­tion.

The his­to­ry of slav­ery and “its dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences and long-last­ing im­pacts” must nev­er be for­got­ten, said British act­ing U.N. Am­bas­sador James Kar­iu­ki, speak­ing on be­half of main­ly West­ern na­tions, in­clud­ing some that en­slaved Africans.

West­ern na­tions are com­mit­ted to tack­ling the root caus­es that per­sist to­day, he said, point­ing to racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, racism, xeno­pho­bia and in­tol­er­ance. He said “the scourge of mod­ern slav­ery” al­so must be ad­dressed — traf­fick­ing, forced la­bor, sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion and forced crim­i­nal­i­ty.

Cyprus’ deputy U.N. am­bas­sador, Gabriel­la Michaeli­dou, speak­ing on be­half of the EU, echoed the U.S. and U.K. on con­cerns about “the use of su­perla­tives” that im­ply “a hi­er­ar­chy among atroc­i­ty crimes.”

Michaeli­dou al­so cit­ed the EU’s con­cern about the res­o­lu­tion’s “un­bal­anced in­ter­pre­ta­tion of his­tor­i­cal events” and le­gal ref­er­ences that are in­ac­cu­rate or in­con­sis­tent with in­ter­na­tion­al law, in­clud­ing “sug­ges­tions of a retroac­tive ap­pli­ca­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al rules which was non-ex­is­tent at the time and claims for repa­ra­tions.”

On Wednesday 25 March 2026, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans “the gravest crime against humanity” and calling for reparations as “a concrete step towards remedying historical wrongs.” The vote was 123-3, with 52 abstentions. [Image courtesy ASSOCIATED PRESS]

ASSOCIATED PRESS

The res­o­lu­tion “un­equiv­o­cal­ly con­demns the traf­fick­ing of en­slaved Africans and racial­ized chat­tel en­slave­ment of Africans, slav­ery and the transat­lantic slave trade as the most in­hu­mane and en­dur­ing in­jus­tice against hu­man­i­ty.”

In ap­prov­ing the res­o­lu­tion, the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly af­firms the im­por­tance of ad­dress­ing the his­tor­i­cal wrongs of slav­ery that pro­motes “jus­tice, hu­man rights, dig­ni­ty and heal­ing.”

The res­o­lu­tion calls on U.N. mem­ber na­tions to en­gage in talks “on repara­to­ry jus­tice, in­clud­ing a full and for­mal apol­o­gy, mea­sures of resti­tu­tion, com­pen­sa­tion, re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, sat­is­fac­tion, guar­an­tees of non-rep­e­ti­tion and changes to laws, pro­grams and ser­vices to ad­dress racism and sys­temic dis­crim­i­na­tion.”

It en­cour­ages vol­un­tary con­tri­bu­tions to pro­mote ed­u­ca­tion on the transat­lantic slave trade and asks the African Union, the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty and the Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States to col­lab­o­rate with U.N. bod­ies and oth­er na­tions “on repara­to­ry jus­tice and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion.”