KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, Sept 14, CMC – Less than two months after Caribbean Community (CARICOM) governments gave the green light to pursue reparation for the slave trade, St. Vincent and the Grenadines will host the first ever Regional Conference on Reparations from Sunday.
Noted Caribbean academics, Sir Hilary Beckles and Professor Verene Shepherd, as well as famed Jamaican reggae artiste, Bunny Wailer, are among those who will make presentations at the three-day conference.
Presentations will also be made by the chairpersons of the various national reparation committees.
The conference is the first major event on reparations following the decision by regional leaders at their summit in Trinidad and Tobago in July to agree to the establishment of a national reparations committee in each member state with the chair of each committee sitting on a CARICOM Reparations Commission.
Barbados, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Haiti, Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago were identified to provide political oversight to the committee.
Barbados Culture, Sports and Youth Minister, Stephen Lashley, said the meeting in St. Viuncent and the Grenadines will provide regional participants with an opportunity to discuss reparations, and “to establish commonalities for the commensurate compensation for the atrocities perpetrated against people of African descent”.
He said that ideas generated at the conference would also help CARICOM prepare a unified case for reparations, which would be considered by the Regional Heads of Government before being submitted to the appropriate international body.
“It is hoped that this will accelerate the process,” he said, adding that a presentation of the legal strategy for reparations was also on the agenda.
Sir Hilary, the Principal of the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI), will address the conference on the case for Caribbean reparations.
Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves told reporters earlier this week that the conference would be an historic event.
“I am told that people are coming from Cuba, people who are involved in the reparation movement in Holland, they have asked to be invited, people are coming out of the US….So that there are a number of important personalities coming,” he added.