Reparatory justice now!” King Charles and the UK prime minister, Andy Burnham, will be greeted with messages as they travel through Antigua’s capital, St John’s, to attend meetings at the Commonwealth leaders’ summit next week. On billboards, placards and T-shirts, in letters and at a candlelight vigil for the thousands of Africans trafficked to Antigua and Barbuda during the transatlantic slave trade, the message from the Caribbean will be pervasive: slavery reparations is not an issue they “are going to be able to dodge”. James Knight of Citizens for Reparatory Justice, which is organising some of the demonstrations, said the king and UK government had made protest necessary.
On Friday, Burnham went further than any previous British prime minister in an article for the Guardian, writing: “We are offering a structured dialogue with those affected by the transatlantic slave trade. Listening to calls for a formal apology on behalf of the British state will form an important part of this process and I am open to them.” While that does not pass the threshold that Knight set out, it will be viewed by some as a significant development. The Commonwealth heads of government meeting (Chogm), usually a collegial gathering of leaders from the bloc’s 56 member countries, will be surrounded by reparations events.
Though outside the official agenda, protests, a beach vigil to remember the enslaved and the launch of a “global reparations caravan” – described by organisers as an international movement combining reparations advocacy, demonstrations and culture – are intended to ensure the issue is difficult to ignore. For campaigners, this Chogm is the culmination of more than a decade of calls from Caribbean leaders for Britain to acknowledge its role in the enslavement of millions of Africans and the colonisation of African and Caribbean countries, and to address the enduring consequences. Last week, the chair of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) reparations commission, Hilary Beckles, emphasised that the absence of a dedicated official event did not mean reparations would remain peripheral.
He described the gathering as “the Chogm of reparations” and the “first round of reparations negotiations”. The Guardian understands that organisations and groups supporting the reparations movement, including representatives from the Repair Campaign, the UK law firm Leigh Day, the Open Society Foundations, the African philanthropic organisation TrustAfrica and the UK’s all-party parliamentary group for Afrikan reparations, will get together outside the main meeting to discuss the issue. Caribbean leaders are also expected to push the issue during closed-door meetings.
But while the reparations movement views the summit as a potential turning point, successive British prime ministers have maintained that the UK will not pay slavery reparations, a position Burnham stuck to in his article, writing: “I do not think that British people today can be held liable for historical wrongs”. The Caricom reparations commission has also revealed that the Caribbean was unable to secure unanimous Commonwealth agreement for foreign ministers to advance discussions on historical harms from the transatlantic slave trade through “structured, inclusive, and good faith dialogue”. Meanwhile, Buckingham Palace has sought to draw a line between the monarch and government policy.
In a letter, seen by the Guardian, to the ambassador Dorbrene O’Marde, the chair of the Antigua and Barbuda reparations support commission, the palace said questions relating to the UK’s position on reparations were for the British government. The response followed a letter from O’Marde describing “blanket ‘no apologies’ statements from both government and monarchy” as “shameful” and a refusal to accept historical responsibility. O’Marde said that despite strong declarations about the suffering caused by slavery and the monarch’s own calls for conversation and acknowledgment of the past, there had been no progression towards action.
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