The Most Hon. P. J. Patterson, former Prime Minister of Jamaica, in a rousing address to the Opening Ceremony of the Second Regional Conference on Reparations in Antigua and Barbuda on Sunday night, gave the charge and entrusted the continuity of the pursuit of Reparations for Native Genocide and Slavery, to the Hon. Gaston Browne, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda.
“As
one who belongs to the older generation of Caribbean leaders, I am here today
to present that torch to a leader of the younger generation and to say: Never
let that torch be extinguished,” Patterson said.
Prime
Minister Browne at the start of his address accepted the charge and stated:
“Let me assure you Mr. Patterson that the current Caribbean leaders have
accepted the torch and will never allow it to be extinguished.”
Patterson
paid special tribute to the Rastafari brethren and ‘sistren’ in the audience
whom he said “ were among the first to carry on the struggle of indigenous and
slave ancestors for reparatory justice. In the post-colonial period they stoked
the embers and fanned the flames of the dying reparation fire. It has now
become an unstoppable conflagration.”
Patterson
focused his address on the issue of Africa’s role in the historic evil of human
trafficking. He challenged critics that assert that Africans should share
moral responsibility for the crime against humanity that was committed because
they were complicit.
“One
should not place on a victim the guilt for a crime; so we should stop putting
the guilt of the collaborator on the shoulders of the victim. The African
continent was the victim of imperial exploitation and slavery and suffered a
massive loss. It resulted in a major depopulation of Africa, with its heavy
male bias. It destroyed age old political traditions, undermined tribal
systems, corrupted both moral and civil practices. In short, it crippled the
potential for economic growth and social development,” he said.
Patterson
also pointed out that the infrastructure established to support the heinous
trafficking of Africans was not known in Africa before the mass exportation of
Africans to the West. These included fortified forts along the African coast
that directed the process of kidnapping; a booming shipping industry of
floating prisons that transported the captured human beings; a system of
production centres with forced labour plantations; the transport of the
products from these centres to Europe; a distribution infrastructure for the
consumption of these products and the banking and insurance sector to finance
the whole process.
Patterson
asserted that “The ideology of racism and the articulation of superiority and
inferiority linked to race and colour were absent in Africa before the
trans-Atlantic trade in Africans.”
He
also posited that the history also showed that some African leaders were
induced by intimidation or bribery or greed to collaborate in the capture and
transport of Africans destined for slavery. However, many African leaders
opposed vehemently the capture and trans-shipment of their people.
“There
is no principle in law which permits the organizers of a criminal enterprise to
escape responsibility because others collaborated in carrying out the
enterprise. Legal responsibility is not affected by any collaboration,”
Patterson said emphatically.
“It
was European nations who conceived the trade, put the enterprise into motion,
controlled its operation and were massively enriched by it,” he concluded.
The
Opening Ceremony also featured presentations from Prime Minister Browne,
Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, Chairman of the CARICOM Reparations Commission;
Dr. Douglas Slater, Assistant Secretary General, Human and Social Development,
CARICOM Secretariat; Mr. Stanley Liauw Angie, representative of the Indigenous
People’s Organisation in Suriname; and a feature address from Dr. Julius
Garvey, son of Marcus Mosiah Garvey, National Hero of Jamaica. `
The
opening was held at the Multi-Purpose Centre in Antigua and Barbuda and
attended by other Members of Parliament, Members of the diplomatic corps,
delegations from other CARICOM Member States and representatives of civil society
groups and organizations.
The
Second Regional Conference on Reparations is being convened under the theme
“Scientific Engagement and Community Mobilization.” The objective of the
Conference is civil society engagement by widening the dialogue and intensifying
scientific and popular discourse on the CARICOM Reparations Commission’s Ten
Point Reparatory Justice Plan. The Conference continues on 13-14 October.
The
Conference brings together a number of expert economists, lawyers, academics,
historians, faith-based leaders, community activists, scientists, journalists
and artists to further map out national and regional strategies to advance the
case for reparations from Europe. Delegations from Martinique, Guadeloupe, the
British Virgin Islands and representatives of civil society organizations from
the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom were also in attendance.
The
CARICOM Reparations Commission was established in September 2013 following a
mandate from the CARICOM Conference of Heads of Government at their
Thirty-fourth Regular Meeting held in Trinidad and Tobago in July 2013, to
establish national committees and a regional commission to pursue reparations
from the former European colonial powers for Native Genocide, the
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery.
Twelve
CARICOM Member States have established national reparations committees to date,
namely: Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas,
Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia,
St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.
The
First Regional Conference on Reparations was held in St. Vincent and the
Grenadines in September of 2013. Since that time, the action of the CARICOM
Member States has re-energized the reparations movements on the African
continent, the United States and the United Kingdom and has generated
tremendous international media attention and interest
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