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Jamaica revives slavery reparations commission
“It’s not about saying that there has to be a financial settlement. But getting an estimate of the financial damage of slavery is important because it gives you an idea of the magnitude of this crime against humanity,” she said.
A financial estimate will also give an idea of “what will be necessary to fix these countries that have suffered,” Shepherd said. She said the legacy of slavery has impaired Caribbean nations’ ability to advance and compete globally.
Reparation advocates have previously estimated the damages “owed” to descendants of African slaves in the trillions of U.S. dollars.
Commission member Anthony Gifford, a prominent Jamaican-British lawyer, said he hopes the Jamaican panel’s work will spur a combined reparations effort across the region. “I would like to see it approached on a Caribbean-wide basis,” he said.
Last year, Antigua Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer called for reparations at the United Nations.
In 2004, a coalition of Rastafarian groups in Jamaica said European countries formerly involved in the slave trade, especially Britain, should pay GBP£ 72.5 billion (US$ 116 billion) to resettle 500,000 Jamaican Rastafarians in Africa. The British government rejected the claim, saying it could not be held accountable for wrongs in past centuries.
