Message from Professor Sir Hilary Beckles
Chairman, Caricom Reparations Commission
Emancipation Day, 1 August 2024
Emancipation Day is a magnificent occasion for celebration, thanksgiving and reflection for the people of this region. We celebrate the hard-won victory and triumph of our ancestors over those who denied the very essence of their humanity and subjected them to unimaginable suffering with the crimes against humanity of chattel slavery and the trans-Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans for over 300 years.
Together as a region, we have built a global reparations movement, to seek justice and compensation and restore the dignity of the victims and their descendants. The Caribbean is at the epicentre of this movement that began with the enslaved people themselves, who always knew that chattel slavery was a colossal violation of their human rights and put up unrepentant resistance with great courage and ingenuity.
I invite you to join me in reflecting on the progress of the Caricom Reparations Commission over the past decade, to fight for reparatory justice and development for people of African descent. The Commission has implemented a robust campaign of advocacy and public education through its symposia, public lectures, publications and media engagements. We have increased knowledge and understanding and raised consciousness about the yet unpaid debt owed to the people of this region, for loss of life and liberty, the right to economic independence and to generate wealth.
The Commission has and continues to advocate for the observance of Emancipation Day by all Caricom Member States and the teaching of history as compulsory in Caribbean secondary schools. We have called for the implementation of the regional renaming project where streets, monuments, parks and other public spaces bearing the names that reflect a colonial legacy, should be renamed or removed. And we continue to build strong coalitions with governments and civil society in Africa, so that we speak with one voice in our just claim for reparatory justice. The effectiveness of our advocacy is evident in the robust global response to our initiatives.
Emancipation Day is more than a day of remembrance; it is a call to action to ensure we study our history, we pass on our knowledge to future generations and recommit to ending the scourge of systemic racism, which is a major obstacle to the development of people of African descent wherever they are found.
I invite you to join the movement and never give up the fight for reparatory justice — we owe it to ourselves, our ancestors and to future generations.
The Commission recognises that the current political, economic and humanitarian crisis in Haiti has its roots in historical legacies; this beacon of resistance to African enslavement having been made to pay insurmountable and fiscally devastating indemnities to France for its own liberation. Reparations are due to Haiti as part of a comprehensive solution to address the development aspirations of the people of Haiti and restore peace and stability.
On this Emancipation Day 2024, as we honour the memory of those who fought for freedom, I again call on the relevant European nations to offer full, unreserved and unconditional apologies, accept responsibility for their role in perpetrating crimes against humanity of native genocide and chattel slavery in the Caribbean and repair the lasting consequences of early European expansion and growth.
Perhaps it would be first appropriate for Sir Hilary to acknowledge the almost comple genocidal anhilation of the Kalinago tribe(s) in the Eastern Caribbean. I am sure that he is aware that our tribe was exterminated from its homeland by the Europeans; that no compensation was offered to us; and that we should be first in line as recipients of reparations from our former colonial masters.
Finally, it would be more than appropriate for us to have a national and regional holiday as “Indigenous Peoples Day”.
Of course, I am sure that Sir Hillary would agree.