WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Britain’s leaders will likely face uncomfortable questions about reparations for the trans-Atlantic slave trade at a summit of nations it once colonized, after Caribbean leaders said they would thrust the matter into the spotlight at the event in Samoa.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer had said that compensation for slavery wasn’t on the agenda at this week’s biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, or CHOGM, in the Samoan capital, Apia. But the issue threatens to boil over anyway, presaging an uneasy summit for Starmer and Britain’s King Charles III, who is battling cancer but is also attending.
The Commonwealth group of 56 nations has “taken on issues other people have always run away from” before, the organization’s Secretary-General Patricia Scotland told The Associated Press on Thursday when asked if financial reparations would feature in talks. She didn’t confirm BBC reports that a draft text of the statement to be issued by leaders after meetings on Friday and Saturday includes an acknowledgment of calls for “reparatory justice” over the slave trade.
The text of the statement could change before its release, and British officials reportedly vetoed a plan for a separate declaration on reparations, the BBC said. Caribbean and African leaders have led the push to address the reparations issue.
The summit should involve “a ‘come to Jesus’ moment where we truly look at one another in the eye and say, ‘look, this is what happened,’” Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis told Politico on Thursday. Davis confirmed that he is among the leaders who want their final joint communique to mention reparations and who hope to have a “frank” discussion of the matter with Starmer.
A handful of nations have apologized for their role in slavery, including the Netherlands. The U.K. has never formally apologized for its role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, which enriched many individuals and companies.
Britain outlawed the slave trade in 1807 but did not legislate to emancipate slaves in its territories until 1833. A growing list of British institutions, including the Church of England, have begun to own up to their historic involvement in slavery.
The British government had said reparations would not be on the Commonwealth summit agenda, though it acknowledged Thursday that the issue might be mentioned in the final communique.
Starmer said he wanted the summit to focus on the future, not the past, telling reporters as he arrived in Samoa that Commonwealth members had divulged to him they were “facing real challenges on things like climate in the here and now.”
He said he would rather focus on those matters than “what will end up being very, very long endless discussions about reparations on the past.”
“The Commonwealth countries are looking forward to talking about things which concern them and they’re interested in,” said Scotland, the secretary-general. “So this is Keir’s first CHOGM, and I know they’re going to love him.”
Starmer isn’t the only one who might have preferred to keep the matter off the agenda. The presence of King Charles could prompt uneasy questions - as it did in Australia - about the role of the British crown in the histories and aspirations of its former territories.
Charles and his eldest son, Prince William, have expressed their sorrow over slavery, but they haven’t acknowledged the crown’s connections to the trade, although the king last year endorsed a probe into the monarchy’s ties to the industry. Studies and analysts have estimated the total that Britain could owe the descendants of millions of people whose slave labor funded the nation for centuries to be in the hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars.
At this week’s gathering, political leaders will head on a retreat for hours of free-ranging discussions. Other matters are high on the agenda, too. Leaders are expected agree on a commitment to establishing permanent ocean boundaries, and Davis, of the Bahamas, said poor countries will also seek reparations for increasing extreme weather events from polluters such as Britain.
“The most important thing to know is that the Commonwealth heads will speak about absolutely anything they want to speak about when they go on the retreat,” Scotland said.
Jacqueline McKenzie, a partner at London law firm Leigh Day who is working on the reparations issue, said its inclusion on the CHOGM leaders’ communique would be “hugely significant.” “I think the time has come for this to be taken seriously. I’m not surprised at the response of the British government … because I think reparations is going to be hugely divisive in the U.K.,” she said. “Nobody expects people to pay every single penny for what happened. But I think there needs to be negotiations,” said McKenzie. “It has to be on the agenda.” Starmer, she added, was “going to have to face it.” The 75-year-old Commonwealth has a collective population of 2.7 billion people and a disparate range of member states - including some that don’t have historical ties to Britain. Observers will be assessing whether Charles can unify their purpose as his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, once did.
“The Commonwealth, I think he knows, was one of the most important things that his mother did,” said Anna Whitelock, professor of history of the monarchy at City, University of London. “Not only keeping this Commonwealth of countries together, but actually retaining a sort of spirit of community and cooperation and relevance in a world where there’s so many other power blocs and challenges.”
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Lawless reported from London.
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