Reparations and the Bicentennial of the Abolition of the Slave Trade

Posted on July 3, 2008
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Reparations and the Bicentennial of the Abolition of the Slave Trade

Anthony Gifford

The 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade has been commemorated on both sides of the Atlantic. In Britain the emphasis was on the achievement of the abolitionists. It is perhaps not surprising that more attention was paid to the virtue of those who campaigned to end the trade, than to the wickedness of those who practiced it for hundreds of years. Even less was said about the courage of the thousands who rebelled and gave their lives for freedom.

On the positive side, the Mayor of London apologised for slavery on behalf of the city at a ceremony attended by Jesse Jackson and Rex Nettleford. And in Liverpool, the International Slavery Museum was inaugurated, supported by the City Council which had made its apology in 1999 for that city’s premier role as the premier slave trading port. The museum, situated in the very docks from which the trading vessels set forth, may be the most lasting memorial when other events have been forgotten.

In November 2006 Tony Blair had set out the British Government’s position. The transatlantic slave trade, he said, “stands as one of the most inhuman enterprises in human history”. “It is hard to believe that what would now be a crime against humanity was legal at the time.” The bicentenary offered a chance to “express our deep sorrow that it ever happened.” He went on to explain how the challenges facing Africa and the African and Caribbean diaspora were being tackled through debt cancellation, increased aid and legislation against discrimination. (1)

His statement was made to the New Nation newspaper, whose editor revealed that “the Prime Minister personally led from the front on the issue from the moment it was put in front of him and deliberately went out of his way to say as much as he could without contravening the legal advice he received from the Foreign Office, that ruled out an outright apology for slavery on the ground that it would open up the government to possible legal action for reparations.”

The question of reparations was scarcely mentioned in the commemorations in Britain. It is an issue which the government wants to avoid, but it has a legal logic and a moral force which, I believe, needs to be deployed by African and Caribbean governments whose people still suffer from the damage which slavery and colonialism have caused.

I have advocated the cause of reparations since delivering a paper entitled “the Legal Basis of the Claim for Reparations” at the First Pan African Conference on Reparations in Abuja in 1993. The conference was planned by Chief Abiola of Nigeria and Ambassador Dudley Thompson of Jamaica, two formidable champions of the reparations cause. The essence of the argument was that the transatlantic slave trade and the institution of slavery in the Americas were crimes against humanity, then and now. The Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal declared mass enslavement and deportation of civilian populations to be crimes against humanity “whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.”

International law recognised that those who commit crimes against humanity must make such reparation as will as far as possible “wipe out all the consequences of the illegal act and re-establish the situation which would, in all probability, have existed if that act had not been committed.” (2) There is moreover no legal barrier to prevent those who continue to suffer the consequences of a crime against humanity from claiming reparations, even though the crimes were committed against their ancestors.

However logical and correct these propositions may be, the reality of course is that there is no simple way of putting them into effect. There is no court in which African descendants can make a claim which has any prospect of success. For that reason many have found the case for reparations to be divorced from reality.

For me, the sound legal basis of the claim underpins the moral and political demand which, if made with serious resolve by the affected nations and peoples, could lead to a massive redistribution of resources, as well as healing and reconciliation between the white and black races. Add together the scale and brutality of the crime; the failure to compensate any of the victims (while the slave owners were paid massive sums for the loss of their “property”); and the blatant inequality and discrimination which is the lot of most Africans and their descendants around the world. Establish the historical link, which I believe to be evident, between today’s poverty and yesterday’s crimes against humanity. You then have a case for justice which is far more potent than a plea for aid.

In a debate on reparations which I introduced in 1996 in the British House of Lords, there was a powerful intervention from Lord Wilberforce, the law lord whose ancestor has been so much praised in this bicentennial year. He said that “the case now is not one of guilt but morality”. He drew attention to the debt burden which was bringing about “a state of economic slavery in many areas”. He traced the causes of poverty and wars in Africa today to the history of the western powers and their “development” of Africa and its resources in the past. (3)

Slowly, this cause is gathering momentum. It was placed firmly on the world agenda by African nations at the World Conference against Racism in Durban in 2001. (4) Reparations activists in the United States have persuaded city councils to insist that business contractors reveal their links with slavery, and as a result have shamed a number of companies into setting up programmes of redress. And in the Caribbean, the nations which were created out of the suffering of slavery are beginning to stir.

In August 2007 the African Diaspora Global Conference was held in Barbados. Sponsored by the governments of Barbados and South Africa, and by the African Union, it was one of a series of meetings between Africa and its descendants in other countries. Kingston in 2005 had seen another historic gathering in this series.

The focus was on business partnerships, cultural and academic exchanges – and on the issue of reparations. Prime Minister of Barbados Owen Arthur called on the conference to take “the first concrete steps to begin in earnest to systematically repair the mortal wound inflicted on Africa and her Diaspora by the Trans-Atlantic trade in Africans during the era of chattel slavery”. If this were done, “history will not forget us”.

It was the strongest statement yet made by a leader of the English-speaking Caribbean. He pointed out that while the former white slave-masters were granted £20 million for the loss of their so-called property, and while Jews, Native Americans, Japanese internees in the US, and Maoris in New Zealand have all received some measure of reparations, “mankind has yet to properly make amends for the crimes committed against Africa and her children”.

He was followed by Dudley Thompson, who brought the conference to its feet in a powerful address, in which he said that as he approached his 91st year he longed to see the achievement of reparations, which he described as “a reconciliation, a healing process, not a confrontation.”

A Caribbean Caucus on Reparations was formed to work out the response to the Prime Minister’s call. It issued a declaration which was presented to the opening session of the conference. This reviewed the work done by previous activists and reaffirmed the fundamental justice of the reparations claim. It defined reparations as a process through which the governments and people of the enslaving states admit that their forbears committed crimes against the people of Africa, and agree to take appropriate actions to repair the damage caused, with the ultimate goal of human reconciliation.

The declaration noted that the movement had entered a new stage, in which specific claims are being discussed and formulated. It called for “the formulation now of a particular claim on behalf of the peoples of the English speaking Caribbean to be presented to the government of the UK for negotiation and settlement.”

This should spur other governments to take the reparations issue seriously. In Jamaica, Mike Henry MP has raised the issue in Parliament (5), and Portia Simpson-Miller, when Prime Minister, promised “a series of roundtable discussions to see if we can arrive at a national position on the matter.” (6) Little more has been said or done. Many Jamaicans are sceptical, or fear to offend the former colonial master. But if the whole region unites, the moral force of the reparations argument can prevail.

The new phase will require discussion of the contents of a Caribbean reparations package. Many elements have already come to the fore, such as debt cancellation; support for the UWI and other educational programmes; assistance to those who wish to return to Africa; subvention for an airline flying between the Caribbean and West Africa. After a history which brought so much injustice, I would like to see the reform of the justice system as one reparations project. All this and more becomes possible if the region rallies behind the call from Barbados.

Anthony Gifford is an attorney-at-law in Jamaica and barrister-at-law in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

 

(1) New Nation (UK) 27th November 2006

(2) Chorzow Factory Case, Germany v Poland, Permanent Court of International Justice, 1929

(3) House of Lords, Official Report, 14th March 1996

(4) Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, at www.unhcr.ch/pdf/Durban.pdf

(5) Jamaica Gleaner Online, 14th February 2007

(6) Budget Speech, 9th May 2007, at www.jis.gov/jm

Comments

4 Responses to “Reparations and the Bicentennial of the Abolition of the Slave Trade”

  1. MUHIBU on November 13th, 2008 2:33 am

    I REALLY ENJOY FOR YOUR DONE WORK.FROM TANZANIA

  2. muhibu on November 13th, 2008 2:36 am

    vERY FANTASTIC WORK ON SLAVERY

  3. DegreeGirl on January 30th, 2009 7:00 pm

    There is no doubt in any intelligent, civilized person’s mind that reparations should indeed be made. Apologies are well and good, and should be made, but reparations should be made as well. Yet how could this ever be done? So many thousands of descendants, so many thousands dead during slavery and on the passage from Africa with no possible way to trace their families means there is simply no practical way to make reparations even if the slave holding countries wanted to and were financially able to do so.

  4. Eric Mutua on June 3rd, 2009 11:44 am

    Your two articles made me soldier on with my theses(LL.M) on reparations for colonialism in kenya.

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