Reparations are about much more than simply handing out money to descendants of slaves, says main crusader for human rights David Comissiong.
The Pan Africanist and attorney at law was speaking yesterday at a Pan African Coalition of Organizations (Barbados) conference on reparations in the Henry Fraser Lecture Theatre, University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus.
While calculating the amount owed to the descendants of slavery was in the hundreds of billions of pounds, Comissiong described the idea of just handing money over to individuals as “nonsense”.
“Unlike what some people naively think, reparations can’t be about individuals receiving some kind of cash payment – that is nonsense. It has to be about using the compensation payments to put in place developmental projects, programmes and institutions,” he said.
However, Comissiong said there had to be a body put into place by the people to determine what and how much went where. (CA)
