By Kimberly Ramkhalawan
June 9, 2023
A sum of $107.8tr dollars is the figure owed to the world in reparations for the Trans-Atlantic Chattel Slave Trade. The grand figure was presented in Jamaica this week, as part of the launch of the Report on Reparation for Transatlantic Chattel Slavery in the Americas and the Caribbean, prepared by Judge Patrick Robinson of the International Court of Justice and the American Society of International Law.
The report goes beyond the Caribbean region but identifies 31 countries across the world that suffered at the hands of the slave trade. Compiled by the Brattle Group, an internationally recognised group of valuators, under the guidance of David Marsden, a Jamaican and a former deputy director and chief risk officer at the IMF charged with preparing the payment summaries, the figures disclosed puts into perspective the value of the slave trade.
And while the figures were disclosed according to each European nation that colonized states, Judge Robinson sought to make it clear that reparations should not be in forms of monies, stating that “not a cent go into the hands of people, but instead developmental services be provided”.
According to the report, reparations have been defined as compensation for the “process of chattelization of Africans that included the following phases capture and sale of Africans in Africa, the forced track to the slave dungeons on the coast and the ships in the harbor’s followed to their retirement in the slim dungeons and their shipment across the notorious middle passage as well as the traffic between Brazil and Africa” It also includes their sale in the Americas and the Caribbean, and their forced and unpaid labor on the plantations added to that list”.
And though many countries like Great Britain still argue that slavery was not a matter of ‘moral considerations’, but ‘primarily economic’, Judge Robinson reminded those gathered publications by Caribbean sons of the soil, including Former TT Prime Minister Dr Eric Williams book titled ‘Capitalism and Slavery’, as well as whom he credits reparations talks standing on the shoulder on, St Lucian born and Nobel Laureate Sir Arthur Lewis, who wrote “Labour in the West Indies” which argued that the British owed reparations to African ancestors since then, and something to which Great Britain’s wealthy still feed off today.
Laleta Davis Mattis, Chair the National Commission on Reparations in Jamaica reminded those gathered also in her contributing statements of a scenario which played out in the British Parliament earlier this year, when its Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak refused to apologise for Britain’s role in slavery, despite the Durbam Declaration Article 100 which states the “regret the untold suffering and evils inflicted on millions of men, women and children as a result of slavery, the slave trade, the transatlantic slave trade, apartheid, genocide and past tragedies. We further note that some States have taken the initiative to apologize and have paid reparation, where appropriate, for grave and massive violations committed”;
However, European countries like the Netherlands, France, Britain still have colonies in the Caribbean that exist today.
The report shows when calculated, Britain owes a sum of US $24tr to 14 countries that it had colonized, of that sum, it owes Jamaica, US $9.5tr. While Spain as a former colonizer owes US$17tr, to which US$1-2bn is also owed to Jamaica.
The Netherlands is required to pay about US$5tr, of which US$3tr is owed to Suriname and US$52bn to Guyana in an aggregate sum of reparations to be paid by all the former slave holding States.
The report made special mention of Haiti and the unjust fate met upon them by the French who demanded a repayment for their freedom. Judge Robinson says France is required to return to Haiti the sum of 90m francs, the equivalent of about 1.4bn in today’s money that it extracted from Haiti as compensation.
This was something the Judge lamented, as one of the saddest moments in the history of the transatlantic chattel slavery, citing the problems Haiti had suffered over the years as being all too well known, and whether the question that such an “unjust extraction of wealth from a newly independent country is part of the explanation for the difficulties that our Caribbean neighbor has faced over a very long time”, prompting him to quote the famous David Rudder song, ‘Haiti, I am Sorry’, apologizing profusely to Haiti.
To Judge Robinson, reparations ought to come in three different forms, restitution compensation and satisfaction, which he notes are reflected in the International Law Commission articles. And while restitution is not practicable in relation to this, as it involves the return of the descendants of the enslaved to Africa, he calls for the former slaveholding States to “provide compensation for any financially accessible”. The damage caused by TCS, he says is “so deeply rooted that it cannot be made good by restitution or compensation in which case they must give what is called ‘satisfaction’ according to ILC’S Article 37, which states that “Satisfaction may consist of an acknowledgment of the breach and expression of regret have formal apology or some other appropriate mortality”
However, he warns that he “would be weary of requiring an apology as the first form of reparation because the apology may be given, but not followed by restitution or compensation which is what ought to be really demanded”.
The report clearly maps out that the effects of slavery have been far reaching and damaging across the generations, with the advisory committee identifying several heads of damages, the “psychological damage reflected in the total disregard for the humanity and the dignity of enslaved Africans, trampling over their identity destruction of their culture, language, religion and families, loss of personal autonomy and self-worth.”
For this he says “Satisfaction will form an important component of reparations for transatlantic chattel slavery because neither restitution or compensation will ensure that descendants of the enslaved are made aware of the history of TCS.
His second major lament being the lack of Caribbean history taught at secondary schools, much less not mandatory for their first five years pre-CSEC examination levels, and called for Jamaican activist, Marcus Garvey to be made the diet of study morning, noon and evening.
Former Jamaican Prime Minister, P.J. Patterson, stateman in residence, at the Institute for Africa-Caribbean Advocacy at The University of the West Indies, called for justice to be served, in the similar manner in which the Jews were compensated for the atrocities of the holocaust. He says “Slavery the concomitant exercise of genocide has so far been” excluded from any such “penalty or redress”
Nevertheless, Patterson said “on the sound foundations of our prophetic leaders, political philosophers, writers, and creative artists, there were now emerging encouraging glimmers of hope for a painting full of freedom and agency, with the ripe fruits of Justice which have so far illuded us”. Going back to some “thirty years in Abuja, the organization of African Unity declared that the damage sustained by African peoples is not a thing of the past, but it’s painfully manifested in the damaged lives of contemporary Africans from Harlem to Harare, in the damaged economies of the black world from Guinea to Guyana to from Somalia to Suriname.”
Patterson went on to underscore the need to “impel all its European partners and the United Kingdom the follow the lead of the Netherlands even if we have to meet them in the court. Justice, a sacred maxim is where there is a right, there must be a remedy. We have the right to liberty, not captivity. We have the right to assert our dignity as persons no longer to be regarded as anyone else’s property. we have the right to assert our common humanity on a single planet that all mankind must be inhabited. I’m the most unhappy make no mistake about it. We are the legacies who still suffer the indelible harm of chattel slavery”.
He went on to add that “a full and encompassing apology” in needed, but noted that alone could not “suffice for the anguish pain and iniquities of the black experience worldwide and throughout the ages”. We demand monetary compensation as Bob Marley says for being stolen from Africa and not mere words but substantial sums of money to remove the conditions of poverty and punitive deprivation to which we have been condemned to all the Americas and the Caribbean”.
Patterson described the symposium’s report as “exposing us to a multi display presentation of the pecuniary damages which we the descendants of those enslaved are entitled according to the Headings and the calculations of almost everyday economists an eminent jurist, reflecting an awesome masterpiece of the financial world and the law”. He also took the opportunity to thank Judge Robinson and all those responsible for working “assiduously in providing this masterpiece”, that reflects money be it “intellectual diligence in order to illumine the path for us to realize our true destiny at last, for we want justice too”.
According to Judge Robinson, the advisory committee believes that the form that ‘satisfaction’ should take is a matter that should be left to the country entitled to reparations in consultation with, that being the former slaveholding country. The report adds that following consultation with the former slaveholding countries that reparations may be paid over a designation period ranging from 10-, 15-, 20- or 25-year period, while a payment scheduled in respect of these periods are to be attached either as “health, housing, technology, and other areas of which generally the descendants of the enslave have all been deprived”, while he says that all reparations be overseed by independent committees, be it sacred and separate from other governmental funds and administered by a body that is insulated from politics.