European nations should pay reparations for the horrors of the slave trade, Guyanese President Bharrat Jagdeo said on Monday, denouncing as mere lip service recent comments condemning slavery.
"Now that some members of the international community have recognized their active role in this despicable system, they need to go one step further and support reparations," Jagdeo said.
His apparent swipe at British Prime Minister Tony Blair came in an address to mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Britain.
The Guyanese leader called on the international community to recognize that there was not only a Jewish Holocaust, but also an African one.
"Otherwise, their remarks about the horrors of the slave trade and slavery become meaningless and platitudinous and such remarks may be expressed merely to absolve guilt," Jagdeo said.
Blair on Sunday expressed "deep sorrow and regret" for Britain's role in the slave trade, but stopped short of offering a full apology despite repeated calls to do so in the run-up to the bicentenary.
Jagdeo, a descendant of indentured laborers brought from India at the end of slavery to work on sugar cane plantations, noted that Europe has "shown little inclination" to offer reparations.
And he charged that European nations were even now supporting an unfair world trading system that impoverishes, hurts and subjugates small poor and vulnerable countries in Africa and the Caribbean.
Preferential market access for African Caribbean and Pacific bananas, sugar and rice to Europe have been eroded through new global trade rules set up by the WTO.
Jagdeo told the gathering that included British High Commissioner Fraser Wheeler that he was not celebrating the "goodness" of the British parliament in passing the abolition of slave trade act on March 25, 1807.
Instead the slave trade and slavery were abolished thanks to slave revolts and an outcry led by church leaders and abolitionists such as British Member of Parliament William Wilberforce.
Nearly three million black people are thought to have been shipped across the North Atlantic Ocean in British slave boats between 1700 and the start of the 19th century.
Trade in black slaves was banned throughout the British empire by the 1807 law, imposing a fine of 100 pounds for any slave found on any British boat.
Slavery was completely outlawed in British colonies in 1833.
Importing slaves from Africa to the US became illegal under US President Thomas Jefferson on March 2, 1807, but it was not until 1865, during the US Civil War, that slavery was abolished.
US President Donald Trump on Friday said Washington was “locked and loaded” to respond if Iran killed protesters, prompting Tehran to warn that intervention would destabilize the region. Protesters and security forces on Thursday clashed in several Iranian cities, with six people reported killed, the first deaths since the unrest escalated. Shopkeepers in Tehran on Sunday last week went on strike over high prices and economic stagnation, actions that have since spread into a protest movement that has swept into other parts of the country. If Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
RSS