David Cameron Rules Out Slavery Reparation During Jamaica Visit

David Cameron has ruled out mak­ing repa­ra­tions for Britain’s role in the his­toric slave trade and urged Caribbean coun­tries to “move on”. The prime min­is­ter acknowl­edged that “these wounds run very deep” dur­ing his vis­it to Jamaica, where he faced calls to apol­o­gise from cam­paign­ers. He said Britain’s role in wip­ing slav­ery “off the face of our plan­et” should be remem­bered. Jamaican PM Portia Simpson Miller said she had raised the issue in talks.

‘Obvious sensitivities’

Addressing MPs in Jamaica’s par­lia­ment, Mr Cameron said slav­ery was “abhor­rent in all its forms”. He added: “I do hope that, as friends who have gone through so much togeth­er since those dark­est of times, we can move on from this painful lega­cy and con­tin­ue to build for the future.” Mr Cameron also announced £25m in British aid for a new Jamaican prison and a £300 mil­lion devel­op­ment pack­age for the Caribbean which will pro­vide grants for infra­struc­ture projects, includ­ing roads and bridges. He said his vis­it — the first by a British prime min­is­ter in 14 years — was to “rein­vig­o­rate” ties between the coun­tries, and that he want­ed to con­cen­trate on future rela­tions rather than cen­turies-old issues. Mrs Simpson Miller said while she was “aware of the obvi­ous sen­si­tiv­i­ties”, Jamaica was “involved in a process under the aus­pices of the Caribbean Community [Caricom] to engage the UK on the mat­ter”. During Mr Cameron’s speech, a small group of pro­test­ers with plac­ards that read “repa­ra­tions now” gath­ered out­side parliament.

For more than 200 years Britain was at the heart of a lucra­tive transat­lantic trade in mil­lions of enslaved Africans. According to ship records it is esti­mat­ed about 12.5 mil­lion peo­ple were trans­port­ed as slaves from Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean — to work in often bru­tal con­di­tions on plan­ta­tions — from the 16^th cen­tu­ry until the trade was banned in 1807. In 1833, Britain eman­ci­pat­ed its enslaved peo­ple and raised the equiv­a­lent of £17bn in com­pen­sa­tion mon­ey to be paid to 46,000 of Britain’s slave-own­ers for “loss of human prop­er­ty”. University College London has com­piled a data­base of those com­pen­sat­ed. Among those list­ed is General Sir James Duff, who it is claimed is a first cousin six times removed of David Cameron. He was award­ed com­pen­sa­tion worth around £3 mil­lion in today’s terms. Others who received com­pen­sa­tion include the ances­tors of nov­el­ists George Orwell and Graham Greene, as well as dis­tant rel­a­tives of Arts Council chair­man Sir Peter Bazalgette and celebri­ty chef Ainsley Harriott.

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The issue of for­mer slave-own­ing nations com­pen­sat­ing for­mer colonies is a con­tentious one in the Caribbean, where nation­al com­mis­sions have cal­cu­lat­ed the sums could run into tril­lions of dol­lars. One sug­ges­tion has been that the mon­ey could be pro­vid­ed in the form of debt relief. BBC News cor­re­spon­dent Elaine Dunkley, who spe­cialis­es in African Caribbean social affairs, said: “There real­ly has been an issue with repa­ra­tion in Jamaica, we can’t say that the recep­tion there [to Mr Cameron’s vis­it] has been uni­ver­sal­ly warm. “Correcting the wrongs of the past is not only cost­ly but com­pli­cat­ed and David Cameron has said that he does­n’t feel repa­ra­tion is the way for­ward in this case.” Mrs Simpson Miller told the United Nations in 2013 there should be “an inter­na­tion­al dis­cus­sion in a non-con­fronta­tion­al man­ner” and its par­lia­ment had passed a motion back­ing repa­ra­tions. One Jamaican MP, Mike Henry, threat­ened to boy­cott Mr Cameron’s speech at the coun­try’s par­lia­ment if he did not engage on the issue.

Campaigners also called on Mr Cameron to make a per­son­al apol­o­gy, say­ing one of his own ances­tors was paid com­pen­sa­tion for the loss of his slaves in 1834. Bert Samuels, a mem­ber of Jamaica’s National Commission on Reparations, told Television Jamaica “he needs to atone, to apol­o­gise per­son­al­ly and on behalf of his coun­try”. Sir Hilary Beckles, chair­man of Caricom’s repa­ra­tions com­mis­sion, wrote in an open let­ter in the Jamaica Observer that the UK must “play its part in clean­ing up this mon­u­men­tal mess of Empire”. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who lived in Jamaica for two years in his youth, said that, as prime min­is­ter, he would be ready to apol­o­gise for the slave trade. Speaking at Labour’s annu­al con­fer­ence in Brighton, Mr Corbyn said it was “the most bru­tal part of our his­to­ry and the his­to­ry of Jamaica”.

During his two-day vis­it, Mr Cameron revealed the UK will spend £25m on build­ing a prison in Jamaica so that for­eign crim­i­nals in the UK can be sent home to serve sen­tences in the Caribbean. More than 600 Jamaican nation­als are in UK jails but can­not be deport­ed because of Jamaica’s poor prison con­di­tions. Officials say the for­eign aid-fund­ed deal could save tax­pay­ers £10m a year when trans­fers begin in 2020. The Howard League for Penal Reform crit­i­cised the plan, say­ing it was “the wrong use of for­eign aid” and would fail to address the real issue of over­crowd­ing in British prisons.See sto­ry here : David Cameron rules out slav­ery repa­ra­tion dur­ing Jamaica visit