CARICOM at slavery forum

Caribbean countries seeking reparations for slavery and colonial domination in the past now have the full backing of CARICOM who sent representatives to Switzerland for the first conference to discuss these issues.

Delegates attending the inaugural United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent in Geneva earlier this month have supported the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) ten-point reparation plan, calling for its adoption globally.

Gaynel Diana Curry, a Bahamian, was one of the five experts appointed earlier this year to serve on the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent. She outlined the priorities for CARICOM, including reparatory justice, climate justice, systemic racism, and socio-economic opportunities, faced by vulnerable and marginalised groups of people of African descent, especially women, children and migrants, and LGBTQ+ people.

Matthew Wilson is the Barbados Ambassador and Permanent Representative-Designate to the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation. He said: “What we have collectively launched today is for our ancestors and for our descendants still to come. It is brave. It is necessary. It is a long time coming.

“In the Caribbean there was a long history of advocating, articulating, and agitating around issues of racism and the injustices inherent in post-colonial societies. In CARICOM these issues have been placed very high on its agenda, with the prime ministerial sub-agenda on reparations being chaired by Barbados’ Prime Minister, Mia Mottley, with its core members, Guyana, Haiti, St. Vincent, and Suriname.”

The CARICOM Reparations Commission (CRC) states that European governments were owners and traders of enslaved Africans, committed mass genocide, and created the legal, financial, and fiscal policies necessary for the enslavement of Africans.

Professor Verene Shepherd, chair of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, said she is pleased that the forum had been created after serving with various pro-African organisations at the UN in recent years.

Using the Pan Africanist Marcus Garvey as an inspiration, Shepherd said she hopes that the Durban declaration for permanent action will finally be implemented in the search of reparatory justice.

The forum came two years shy of the International Decade for People of African Descent coming to an end and follows the General Assembly that in August 2021, adopted a resolution to create “a platform for improving the safety and quality of life and livelihoods of people of African descent”.

Throughout the four days of meetings, the forum repeatedly acknowledged the commonality between the climate crisis, poverty, disability, racism, the Sustainable Development Goals, food justice and gender inequalities and has called for a holistic approach to addressing the lives of people of African descent. There was also recognition and appreciation for the work of faith-based organisations like the World Council of Churches in supporting people of African descent.