The chairman of the National Task Force on Reparations, David Comissiong, says it will to develop new self-help reparatory justice projects modelled on the landmark 46-year-old law that enabled plantation and urban tenants to buy the land they rented.
“My research tells me that over 40 000 Barbadians have over the years… been impacted by the provisions and at the price of 10 cents a square foot. And, 6 000 households would not only have impacted 6 000 people, but also the members of the household,” he said.
Comissiong told the online publication Barbados TODAY that more than 40 000 former plantation and urban corridor tenants in Barbados now own the land they occupied for years under the provisions of the Tenantries Freehold Purchase Act, introduced in November 1980.
The law gives tenants on plantation land the right to buy the land they rent for 10 cents (US$0.5 cents) per square foot, addressing longstanding land injustices during British colonial rule.
“In the urban tenantries some 4 000 renters utilised the provisions of the act, to purchase the land they were renting at BDS$2.50 per square foot, the government putting in the additional cost of the land; they have made the transition from being renters to being land owners.
“And so collectively, those 10 000 persons who made the journey from being renters to land owners whether on the plantation tenements or in the urban tenements, they, collectively, have brought along another 30 000 people with them. So, the total figure of Barbadians who have benefited from the Act, is actually 40 000 Barbadians,” Comissiong said.
He said the recently re-established national task force would explore other self-help reparatory justice initiatives inspired by the Act.
“One of the terms of reference of the task force is to use the Tenantries Freehold Purchase Act as an example to come up with similar projects that could advance a self-help reparatory justice agenda. And so, that is a challenge that we have now.”
Comissiong said the Tenantries Freehold Purchase Act is seen as a gold standard of a self-help, self-repair, reparatory justice project and that the project would be a challenge, it is a task the 15 members of the national task force are prepared to undertake, encouraged by plans to create a category of associate membership for people who would assist with its work.
“The task force recognises that it does not have all of the talent, and all of the ideas, and all of the intellectual power with the 15 full members of the task force; and so, what we proposed to do is to develop a category of associate member… that is, Barbadians who wish to be associated with the task force, to work with the task force, to assist the task force. So, we are going to put that in place.” (CMC)