CASTRIES, St. Lucia - Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley Wednesday dismissed as “asinine” a suggestion by United Kingdom parliamentarians with threats to impose visa bans on countries asking for reparations.
Prime Minister Mia Mottley speaking at news conference (CMC Photo) Former UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman sparked major controversy by suggesting former colonies should pay Britain for its historical “investment” in response to Jamaica’s petition for slavery reparations.
But, speaking at the news conference following the four-day Caribbean Community (CARICOM) summit here, Mottley told reporters she is “not sure that you want me to reply to things that really are asinine and certainly the notion that we should pay the United Kingdom for oppressing us, for enslaving us and for treating us as chattel and that is the difference.
“Slavery existed before but this was the first time that human beings were defined as chattel and I’ve been very clear all along that the 1661 slave code of Barbados which predated the code noir which the French have just repealed less than two months ago, all distinguished themselves and all of the slave laws that followed the 1661 slave code of Barbados by the treatment of human beings as chattel”.
Mottley said that the Caribbean was not asking for charity, adding “we are asking to be able to ensure that justice can be done”.
She said that in 1834 the British Parliament did not need to be persuaded (2:03) of that fact with respect to the loss of property “because we were chattel and the compensation of the slave owners of 20 million pounds.
“I would like to advise that those who have not yet read sufficient to understand the history do so before making comments that really do not reflect well on them.”
The regional leaders during their summit approved the “CARICOM Ten Point Plan for Reparations: A Manifesto for the Coming Englighment” and agreed on several initiatives to advance the region’s reparations agenda.
These include strengthened collaboration with the African Union, a strong CARICOM presence at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting to be held in Antigua and Barbuda in November this year and the unveiling of the Newton Enslaved Burial Ground Memorial in Barbados where the remains of 570 West African slaves were uncovered through a LIDAR study.
Mottley told reporters that with respect to the reparatory movement, it had now become global, and that the Caribbean had been represented at a conference in Accra in Ghana “and as you know the United Nations passed the resolution that Ghana brought in March of this year.
“ We have seen Pope Leo make comments in this year of our Lord. We have seen President Emmanuel Macron recognise that the conversation for reparations just as his majesty King Charles when he was Prince Charles at the opening of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Rwanda stated clearly that reparations was a conversation whose time had come.
“I have no doubt that there are British parliamentarians who want to distract people from the domestic politics of the United Kingdom at this point in time but the Caribbean should not be used as a prop in those circumstances,” she added.
