Guyana will engage Holland and England for reparations

Mar 25, 2014 News

---

By Zena Henry
The idea of reparations was not a popular one in Guyana; but with the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) recent announcement to vigorously pursue European countries for compensation on African slavery and indigenous genocide, it’s now a race against time for the recently commissioned Guyana Reparations Committee to gather the necessary information that will be presented against the culpable First World nations.
Guyana is nonetheless moving full speed ahead, to meet the June deadline; when Caricom, with letters of demand from every member-state will engage the respective European governments.

Guyana will be engaging both England (British) and Holland (Dutch) governments for the part they played in the crimes against the indigenous people and later, African slavery in Guyana. The Europeans are also being asked to take responsibility for the modern day dilemmas these people faced as a result of historic events.
Chairman of Guyana Reparations Committee Mr. Eric Phillips said that specific guidelines have to be followed by all countries in relation to claims. He related that Guyana as well as the other nations will have four components and 10 action plans that they will be working with.
While the legal process for reparations involve an apology from the European countries, their admission of wrong doing; commitment to reasonable reparatory actions and commitment to non-repetition, Caribbean nations will have to provide the nature of historical discrimination, link discrimination to present day inequality, define and prove the nature of modern inequality and denote policies adopted by Europe in the continuation of these processes.
The 10 point action plan which will be presented to the eight former slave owning countries addresses repatriation, an indigenous people development program, development of cultural institutions, public health crisis, illiteracy, African knowledge programs, psychological rehabilitation, technology transfer and debt cancellation.
The Terms of Reference (TOR) by each national committee of Caricom- member states are measures to develop a national strategy to pursue reparations; undertake historical data, national public education campaigns and developing civil connections among other things.
Phillips said however, that despite time constraint and scattered information, the local 15 member committee must make the June deadline. He said that while reparations had been a topic in several other Caribbean countries such as Jamaica and Suriname, Guyana had not been swift on the issue. As such, some Caribbean countries already have reparations committees in place and had to merely inculcate Caricom’s guidelines while Guyana only last year commissioned a committee, with President Donald Ramotar appointing Phillips as chairman.
Phillips explained that there are two levels of finance through the Ministry of Culture for the local committee; and additional measures by all Caribbean Culture Ministries will facilitate the regional effort in engaging Europe. The local committee meets once a week at the African Museum, Barima Street while members are actively engaged in research to amass Guyana’s reparations presentation.
Suriname for instance, has already completed their reparation package with a demand of several billions of Euros from Holland. This, he said, is because the Dutch kept very good records; “We are currently gathering our information to be submitted by June. We must have a correct historical narrative of both indigenous genocide and African slavery. We need to know how many Amerindians were killed, how many Africans were killed; we have to go through the whole history from 1633 to 1838.”
“We don’t have the kind of detail that the Surinamese have, they have a formula and in their calculations they came up with $65.3B Euros. They can say how much sugar was taken, how much coffee, cotton; the Dutch kept very good records, the British didn’t.”
The letters of demand will however, be the first phase to engage Europe in discourse. The English law firm Leigh, Day& Company will guide Caricom through the process, but if Europe refuses to acknowledge the claims, then Caricom will seek the intervention of the international court and Europe will be slapped with a lawsuit.
The local 15 member committee includes the Rastafarian community, the Pan-African Organisation (Guyana), University of Guyana’s Law, History and Economics departments, Ministry of Amerindian Affairs, Amerindian Peoples Association, Berbice, Linden and Essequibo reparations committee among other relative groups.
Mid last year, Caricom took a firm decision to pursue compensation for genocide and slavery; “crimes against humanity.”    The regional body is adamant that the actions of Europe directly contributed to the slothful growth in health, physiological, economical and financial development within the Region. Caricom reparation representatives are expected to meet in coming weeks for further discussions in preparation of the June meeting.

---

---