New group of whites join reparations efforts

King Charles of the United Kingdom will in early May formally be crowned as the monarch replacing his mother, Queen Elizabeth who died last year after decades on the throne.

Many events and ceremonies are planned for the coronation including the big finale on May 6 when he will formally become king of the UK and countries in the Commonwealth, which are not yet republics and have their own presidents or head of state.

And as expected, many royal monitors and rights activists around the globe say they will be watching to see if Charles formally apologized for Britain’s role in the trans Atlantic slave trade or will be any reference to it at all.

Britain’s Dutch neighbors have already upped the pressure on fellow European nations by formally apologizing for its role in the slave trade. This was done in late December and was primarily aimed at, and targeted to, former and existing Dutch colonies in the region including Suriname, Aruba, Curacao, and St. Maarten among others. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte made it clear that the apology was just the beginning of Dutch plans to make up for the horrors of the slave trade as he left the door open for future talks with Caribbean governments.

The Dutch and Britain are among several European governments, which have been asked to consider a summit with the Caribbean to discuss slavery and reparations in a formal way. No firm reply has been sent to the region and hopes are fading that such a conference will ever occur but pressure on governments are coming from all quarters.

On Monday of this week, some very prominent British citizens have not only said they will join the reparations movement but have also set up a group called “heirs of slavery.” They said that the time has come for them to get involved in correcting a grave injustice to people of African descent even as they called on the British government to begin long-demanded talks with the region.

Announcing the establishment of the group on Monday, it said that its members include descendants of many families who are easily able to trace their history back to that era and the role their ancestors played in enslaving Africans. It includes writers, journalists, businessmen and women, members of the British aristocracy and other figures. The plan is to support “the ongoing consequences of this crime against humanity. British slavery was legal, industrialized and based entirely on race,” said member Alex Renton. Britain has never apologized for it and it. Its effects still harm people’s lives in Britain as well as in the Caribbean countries where our ancestors made money,” the group said.

Recently retired BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan, author Richard Atkinson and journalist Alex Renton, reputed to be the son of a former British cabinet minister are among group members. The group says it wants the world to know that a significant portion of their family wealth had come from slave plantations and the trade in general in the Caribbean.

Britain has been under increasing pressure to own up for its sins of slavery as Prince William and his wife found out on a three-nation regional tour last year. The royal party was met with protests and objections in every country and Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness surprised everyone when he told the visitors that Jamaica was planning to dump whoever is the British monarch as its head of state and become a republic.

Since then, a constitutional reform team has been established and just last week recommended to cabinet and parliament that the switch to a republic should be made very soon.

Then Prince Charles, soon to become King Charles, did speak about the horrors of slavery during a ceremony in Barbados in late 2021 when the island became a republic, ditched then Queen Elizabeth as its head of state and installed a local as president. Other Caribbean nations have been making similar rumblings in recent months.

“We encourage the hundreds of thousands of people in Britain with similar family history to explore and acknowledge them. Until the painful legacy or slavery is recognized by the descendants of those who profited from it, there can never be healing,” said member Richard Atkinson. “I joined this group in an attempt to begin to address the appalling ills visited on so many people by my ancestor, John Gladstone,” said descendant Charles Gladstone.

Caribbean governments have already hired a British law firm which had won millions for Kenyan tribesmen who were slaughtered by British soldiers in the colonial era to represent them. The attorneys say the region has a strong case even as the umbrella reparations commission is continuing its years of research as it builds its case against Britain and other European countries.