Protesters in Jamaica on Tuesday raised their fists as they donned T-shirts emblazoned with a pair of shackled black wrists surrounded by the phrases “Seh Yuh Sorry” and “Apologize now” as they demonstrated just hours before Britain’s Prince William and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, arrived.
The protest in front of the British High Commission in Kingston comes a couple of days after dozens of prominent leaders in Jamaica publicized a letter demanding that the UK apologize and award its former colony slavery reparations.
They also decried the weeklong Central American and Caribbean tour that the royal couple embarked on on Saturday, which coincides with the 60th anniversary of Jamaica’s independence and the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation.
Photo: AFP
“Kings, Queens and Princesses and Princes belong in fairytales, NOT in Jamaica,” read one poster held aloft by a young girl who joined the protest.
The royal couple’s trip, which began with a stop in Belize followed by scheduled visits to Jamaica and the Bahamas, was organized at the queen’s behest as some countries debate cutting ties with the monarchy as Barbados did in November last year.
Mike Henry, a veteran Jamaican lawmaker, said in a telephone interview that while the topic has been discussed, he worries that demands for an apology and reparations would be rendered moot if the island stopped pledging allegiance to the queen.
Photo: Reuters
University of the West Indies senior lecturer Maziki Thame said that Jamaicans have been seeking reparations for decades.
“This is not a new cause,” she said in a telephone interview as she prepared to join the protest. “The question is whether it will get any traction ... whether the British are ready to contend with their history.”
The British empire controlled Jamaica for more than 300 years and forced hundreds of thousands of African slaves to toil on the island under brutal conditions.
Sugar replaced tobacco and cocoa as the main crop, with about 430 sugar estates reported by the mid-1700s, up from 57 nearly a century prior, according to Jamaica Information Services, a government agency.
The group protesting the royal visit said in its letter that the British raped and killed thousands of slaves as it sought an apology for 60 reasons, including “for refusing to acknowledge the historic trade in Africans as a crime against humanity,” and for “pretending that the British led the abolition movement, when our ancestors worked, prayed and fought hard for this.”
Prince William and Kate are scheduled to spend two days in Jamaica. On Tuesday, they began a tour of Trench Town, the gritty birthplace of rocksteady and reggae where Bob Marley grew up.
Ahead of their trip, Jamaican singer Beenie Man told TV show Good Morning Britain that the UK still controls the commonwealth of Jamaica: “It’s all about the queen, and the queen serve and the queen this and that, but what are they doing for Jamaica? They’re not doing anything for us.”
The monarchy has said that Britain and Jamaica have a strong trade relationship, with the island exporting goods including rum and raw cane sugar to the UK, and noted the creation of programs targeting poverty, security, natural disaster management, social issues and the economy.
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