One of the key outcomes of the recent “historic” reparations conference in Ghana was the launch of the Caribbean’s manifesto outlining the “moral, ethical and legal case for reparations” for the enslavement of African people.
The Caribbean Community Reparations Commission (CRC), which created the document, says it is a strengthening of an existing Caribbean Community (Caricom) 10-point plan for reparations from the UK and other former colonial powers, and a response to feedback from the public, organisations and political leaders.
The commission, which leads the Caribbean’s slavery reparations movement, says the manifesto addresses concerns that repair is about extracting wealth from European nations. It adds that it is a chance for the world to address the political and economic systems that promote racism and inequity.
While retaining points such as a “full and formal apology” from Britain and other colonisers, key updates include strengthened legal arguments, and a greater focus on the disproportionate impact of enslavement on girls and women. It also addresses climate justice, which the document asserts is “inextricably linked” to slavery reparations.
The manifesto also focuses on the Indigenous people who were in the Caribbean when Europeans arrived and were the subject of genocides, and those who were brought to the region from Asia to work after the abolition of slavery and faced extreme exploitation.
The document stresses that it will evolve to respond to new evidence on the “crimes against humanity”, and “is not meant to determine the details of a negotiating strategy but rather represents a collective vision for an approach to the pursuit of reparatory justice”.
The update has been approved, with amendments, by a subcommittee of Caribbean leaders, chaired by the Barbados prime minister, Mia Mottley.
The Guardian spoke to Prof Sir Hilary Beckles, the chair of the CRC, about what is new in the manifesto and how it will shape the fight for reparations.
1. Challenging the 'politics of racism'
Beckles says the manifesto is not “about extraction of resources from the colonising countries”. He adds, that in a time of nuclear threats and political crisis, it is an opportunity for humanity to “reset” and “purge itself of the politics of racism”.
“Our position was always clear … yes, we are doing this because we believe that there has to be justice for this crime committed. But we were always clear that this is really about the future of humanity.”
He adds that this is an opportunity to address a “residual legacy of slavery” caused by colonial-era legislations, which suggested that “black people were not human beings, that we were nonhuman or subhuman”.
Beckles says this is often at the root of the resistance to the idea of reparative justice for black people, because many institutions “are still dealing with the question, are they deserving of it?”
He adds: “The 10-point plan now has a subtitle … ‘a manifesto for the coming enlightenment’, because we believe that reparatory justice is about enlightenment. It’s about how humanity can commit to not committing these kinds of crimes again.”
2. Acknowledging that black women bore the brunt of enslavement
One of the most notable changes in the plan is a specific call for compensation for “gender-based violence and assault on family”. The manifesto references data that suggests “women represented approximately 30% of the estimated 20 million Africans forcefully transported across the Atlantic Ocean”. It also mentions estimates that at least 1.2 million enslaved women experienced sexual violence.
“The women of the world have said, listen, we need to foreground the issue of gender much more,” Beckles says.
“A child at birth took the status of slavery from the mother. Only a black woman could give birth to a slave child. In our archives, for example, we have several documentations of white women who had babies with enslaved black men … but those babies were born free because the baby did not take the status from the father, it took the status from the mother.
“And since the white woman could not give birth to a black child, no matter who the father was, it was clear that the black woman, in law, was the conduit through which slavery became intergenerational. So the black female womb was the incubator of slavery.”
Beckles says women were considered the “perfect property”, because each child they bore was a “profit”.
“By the time [the first] child was 12 years old, the child was worth more than the mother. So the first child she gave was, in fact, the repayment of the capital investment. And each subsequent child was pure profit.”
The woman, he says, also brought “social benefits”.
“When you bought a black woman, you were buying labour, you were buying future babies, and you were also purchasing sex because she was your property,” he says.
He adds that “the black family was not recognised” and was “suppressed … by the laws of slavery”, destroying “long traditions of family life”.
3. The question of compensation
On compensation, the document makes it clear that, in addition to other forms of repair, Caricom is demanding “monetary compensation as reparations from enslaving nations, monarchies, churches, institutions, corporations and families, for loss of life and uncompensated labour, loss of liberty, personal injury, mental pain and anguish and gender-based violence, for the victims of Indigenous genocide, the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans and chattel enslavement of Africans, which constitute grave crimes against humanity”.
The question of compensation is expanded to demonstrate that enslaved people, at emancipation, asked for compensation and were denied, Beckles says.
“If the slave owners were getting reparations, why were the enslaved people not getting reparations? They called for it … the British parliament told us, you cannot get compensation because you should see your freedom as compensation.”
He adds that the leaders of newly independent Caribbean nations also asked for compensation and assistance, but that Britain and other governments said no, “if you want independence, you can have it, but you’re on your own. We owe you nothing”.
“So we try to show that the conversations [about] our justice continue today because there are still colonies in the Caribbean,” he says.
4. The legal case for reparations
The revised 10-point plan takes into account the “maturity” of the movement, including the UN’s adoption of a landmark resolution declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans as the gravest crime against humanity.
Framing reparations as a global human rights imperative, the document stresses that crimes against humanity “are not subject to a statute of limitations”, meaning no matter how much time has passed since the crime happened, “legal proceedings for accountability and justice can still be initiated”.
“Chattel slavery, the gravest crime, [the] United Nations have declared, and we have a legal right to have a programme of action … We believe that the legal case has been made. We are now into phase two, which is the programme of reparatory action,” Beckles says.
“We shall be seeking all legal avenues available to strengthen the negotiations around reparatory justice.”