UN bureaucrats are leading calls for the British government and royal family to investigate their historical links to transatlantic slavery and take steps toward restorative justice.
The Scott Trust, which owns the Guardian, apologised on Tuesday for the role the newspaper’s founders had in transatlantic slavery and announced a decade-long, multimillion-pound programme of restorative justice.
The independent academic research into the Guardian’s past and the programme of restorative justice have been welcomed by UN experts and campaigners, who have called for other institutions to follow suit.
Prof Verene A Shepherd, the chair of the UN committee on the elimination of racial discrimination and director for the Centre for Reparation Research at the University of the West Indies, said: “I have read with interest that the owner of the Guardian has issued an apology for the role the newspaper’s founders had in the transatlantic trafficking in enslaved peoples and announced a decade-long programme of restorative justice.
“This is laudable; and my hope is that those who suffered the consequences of their past actions will benefit from the sums committed in a participatory, not a top down way.
“But although we have seen individuals and institutions stepping forward, admitting the wrongs of the past and offering reparation (albeit mostly in a top-down fashion) …the British state has refused to apologise to Africans and people of African descent for the role they played in the trafficking and chattel enslavement of millions of Africans in the Caribbean, simply uttering meaningless statements of regret, remorse, and deep sorrow, with a former UK PM even telling us to get over the past and move on.”
Shepherd, the co-chair of the National Reparations Commission of Jamaica, called on Britain to issue an apology and use the Caribbean Community’s 10-point reparation action plan to begin to repair the wrongs of the past.
She added: “I also call on non-state actors in the UK to join with the people of Africa and the Caribbean to lobby their government and the royal family to pay reparation. While individuals and institutions cannot escape blame for their role in what is now recognised as a crime against humanity, it was the state that provided the scaffolding that encouraged and facilitated their involvement.”
Unity News Network (UNN) Staff Writer | To find out more details about our staff, please head to the About Us section on our website.
