Forget Reparations Eliminate Government Corruption/​bureaucracy Tackle Crime And Jamaica Will Be Okay

In an Article writ­ten today on the issue of David Cameron’s vis­it to Jamaica yes­ter­day I high­light­ed what I char­ac­ter­ized as “idio­cy” on the part of Jamaica and indeed the entire Caribbean in believ­ing that the British Government will pay repa­ra­tions for slav­ery. In address­ing the Jamaican Parliament today Cameron said what I thought he would say.
Quote : Slavery was “abhor­rent in all its forms ‚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.” 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. Cameron 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.

There you have it !!!
According to the BBC​.com David Cameron rules out slav­ery repa­ra­tion dur­ing Jamaica visit

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.

Conversely Caricom and more local­ly in Jamaica the argu­ments have been that Britain should pay repa­ra­tions to the Islands for the injus­tice of slavery.
National com­mis­sions set up to con­sid­er the issue of repa­ra­tions has cal­cu­lat­ed sums could run into tril­lions of dollars.
Does any sane per­son believe Britain is about to pay out Trillions of dol­lars to the Caribbean for the ignominy of slavery?
Bert Samuels, a mem­ber of Jamaica’s National Commission on Reparations, appeared more or less, less ine­bri­at­ed, telling local media that Cameron needs to atone, to apol­o­gise per­son­al­ly and on behalf of his country”.

Wider afield in Caricom’s repa­ra­tions com­mis­sion chair­man Sir Hilary Beckles wrote in an open let­ter in the Jamaica Observer that the UK must “play its part in clean­ing up this mon­u­men­tal mess of Empire”.
Hilary, Hilary, Hilary if you are seri­ous about Caricom issues please drop the con­found­ed Colonial “Sir” from your name .
That way your argu­ments against the region’s for­mer colo­nial mas­ters will res­onate with more credibility.
Clearly Hilary Beckles is not one of my favorite Beckles. (no relation).
As I have said before the British Government will not pay out repa­ra­tions for Slavery . The Caribbean region would prob­a­bly have a chance on col­lect­ing on that bill if the region had a pow­er­ful mil­i­tary which could seri­ous­ly threat­en Britain through force of arms. Then and only then would they seri­ous­ly con­sid­er pay­ing for their crimes.
In the absence of that Caribbean lead­ers are bet­ter served by elim­i­nat­ing cor­rup­tion from their ranks.
In Jamaica’s case, eschew­ing gar­ri­son pol­i­tics, strength­en­ing edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions, elim­i­nat­ing gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion and bureau­cra­cy and attack­ing crime will invari­ably lead to a bet­ter way of life for all Jamaicans.