Jamaica demands compensation for slavery from the UK | outside football

The government of Jamaica’s Caribbean territory plans to demand compensation from the United Kingdom for the centuries-old slave trade, a figure that could run into billions of dollars.

Local media collected, on Wednesday, statements by the Minister of Sports, Youth and Culture in Jamaica, Olivia Grange, in which he expected that the Executive Kingston plans to request this compensation from London, as a way to fix what nearly 600,000 Africans suffered. taken from their country.

The island, which has been under the sovereignty of Spain since 1494, came under the control of the English in 1655, the date when the slave trade developed to work on plantations of sugar cane and other crops. Grange said Jamaica is waiting for justice to repair the damages its ancestors suffered.

drawn by force

He denounced: “Our African ancestors were forced from their homes and subjected to unprecedented atrocities to perform forced labor for the British Empire.” Jamaica, a British colony until its independence in 1962, is a country of about 3 million people, in which the King of the United Kingdom is the head of state, represented by the Governor-General. Although the United Kingdom banned the slave trade in 1807, it did not formally abolish the practice until 1834. At the end of slavery, the British government compensated slave owners.

Claim $10,000 million مليون

Take Grange’s words as reference for a claim by Jamaican lawmaker Mike Henry, who created $10 billion in reparations for the United Kingdom, based on the change, over what London once paid to slave owners to end the practice. . However, Grange did not give a figure that came close to the number required in the UK. The process now requires approval from the National Compensation Board before the attorney general can send it to Queen Elizabeth of England. The petition also coincides with increasing efforts by some social sectors in Jamaica to sever official ties with the United Kingdom.

movement against british monasticism

Opposition MP Michael Phillips submitted a request in December to remove the British monarch from the presidency of Jamaica. The Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Motley, already asked European countries and the United States in July 2020 an economic rehabilitation plan for the Caribbean countries as compensation for the damage the region suffered centuries ago due to slavery and colonialism. Thus Motley highlighted the historical claim of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries for economic reparations for the transatlantic slave trade. Motley noted that as a direct result of the fallout from the slave trade and colonialism, the region was now one of the most indebted places in the world.

As a result, he advocated an economic rehabilitation plan funded by Great Britain, France, Holland, and the United States to correct the imbalance, as large sums of wealth in the region were used to build those countries, as he denounced. On June 17, 2020, the United Nations Human Rights Council urged states to confront the legacy of slavery and colonialism, including official apologies and reparations in various forms.

EFE