Europe's Sin: Caribbean States Call for Slavery Reparations

[unhappycamper]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/caribbean-states-want-reparations-for-western-europe-slave-trade-a-960109.html



The leaders of 15 Caribbean countries are calling for reparations from European countries relating to the slave trade that took place 200 years ago. A lawyer representing them says the legacy of slavery still plagues the region today.

Europe's Sin: Caribbean States Call for Slavery Reparations
Interview Conducted by Samiha Shafy
March 21, 2014 – 05:38 PM

Can countries be held responsible for crimes they committed hundreds of years ago? That's a question on the minds of some legal experts following an agreement last week between the heads of 15 Caribbean nations to hold former colonial powers, including the United Kingdom and France, accountable for the "lasting damage of slavery."

Martyn Day, a lawyer at London's Leigh Day who is representing Caricom, the group of Caribbean states, says the countries' initial aim is to negotiate for reparations.

The former colonies are demanding an apology for the slave trade as well as a repatriation program that would allow those of the "over 10 million Africans" who were "stolen from their homes and forcefully transported to the Caribbean as the enslaved chattel and property of Europeans" to return to Africa if they choose -- particularly those belonging to the Rastafari movement.

If the Europeans are unwilling to negotiate, the Caricom states are threatening to take legal action. Rather than seeking compensation for the treatment of slaves 200 years ago, Day, 57, says, "we want to address the problems of today that result from that era." He says little investment was made at the time in education and that the countries remain far behind even today. He argues that Europe has a "moral, political and legal liability" to help in addressing a history they created.

[dipsydoodle]

1. This goes back to the time of 9/11 and before that.

I know that because it was on my mind when I was mid-Atlantic 9/11. Following that day the subject disappeared from the media.

[cheapdate]

2. I've always thought that reparations were silly...

the past is the past. But when you think about it, the nation states that perpetrated these crimes still exist with all of their powers and legal and institutional structures still in place. The arrangements and "legal" structures that these states put into place those hundreds of years ago to claim ownership of land for themselves and their wealthy families are still in place.

There's no reason whatsoever that a nation-state should be allowed to recognize pacts and agreements made hundreds of years ago regarding claims of ownership of land and other matters, while at the same time ignoring and dismissing responsibility for crimes it carried out.

[truebluegreen]

3. Exactly. "The past isn't dead, it isn't even past."

Take the case of Haiti. The impoverishment of that country is directly traceable to the reparations France imposed upon it for the loss of their citizens' property--slaves. The debt took 122 years to pay off (1947):

"The debt was a crushing burden on Haiti’s economy. The government was forced to redirect all economic activity to repay it. A huge percentage of government revenues—80 percent in some years—went to debt service, at the expense of investment in education, healthcare and infrastructure. The tax code and other laws channeled private and public enterprise to export crops such as tropical hardwoods and sugar which brought in foreign currency for the bank but left the mountainsides barren, the soil depleted and the population hungry.

Haiti did not pay off the independence debt until 1947. Over a century after the global slave trade was eliminated as the evil it was, Haitians were still paying their ancestors’ masters for their freedom. After the debt was paid, Haitians were left with a chronically undeveloped economy, rampant poverty, and a spent land — today relatively minor environmental stresses like tropical storms cause catastrophic damage in vulnerable Haiti."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/haiti-independence-debt-reparations-for-slavery-and-colonialism-and-international-aid/5334619