Why are Commonwealth leaders asking the UK for reparations?
Calls for the UK to pay slavery reparations have grown louder in recent years.
Soon after the Second World War, former British colonies across Asia, Africa and the Caribbean started gaining their independence.
This independence movement led to some countries demanding financial compensation for all they had suffered under British rule.
More recently, social media, the Black Lives Matter movement, changes in the monarchy, and the challenges posed by climate change have seen the campaign for reparations build momentum.
This week, both the King and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer are in Samoa for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) where they both face renewed calls for reparations.
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King on ‘painful’ Commonwealth past
What are reparations?
In 1661, Barbados became the first British colony to operate under a “slave code”.
This gave Britain the legal right to take people from its colonies in Africa on deadly ship journeys to the Caribbean, where they were treated as property and made to work for no money.
They grew sugar, cotton, and tobacco, among other produce that was then sold for profit, bolstering Britain’s economy and infrastructure.
The Royal Family was also heavily connected to the slave trade.
Slavery was abolished by the UK in 1834, with the British Empire only formally coming to an end with its handing back of Hong Kong to China in 1997.
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Following abolition, the British government paid former slave owners compensation – for loss of “property” – that totalled £20m (the equivalent of £300m today).
No compensation or offer of relocation was offered to the former slaves themselves or their families. This is what Commonwealth countries are asking for now in reparations.
The King and Queen visit a Samoan village. Pic: Reuters
How are the royals involved?
As head of state, British kings and queens were heavily implicated in slavery.
Starting in the 16th century, Elizabeth I sold a ship to one of the country’s biggest slave traders John Hawkins.
Both James I and Charles I granted monopolies on the trade of slaves in Africa to merchants connected with the royals.
In 1663, Charles II founded the Royal African Company, which took more slaves to the Caribbean than any other institution. He also appointed judges to bolster the legal framework for the system – effectively making it a state enterprise.
Successive monarchs then defended slavery and used its power to defend British slave bosses.
Before he became king, William IV, then the Duke of Clarence, boasted of time spent in the Caribbean befriending planters and contracting a sexually transmitted disease. Before the trade was abolished in 1834, he claimed enslaved people were “comparatively in a state of humble happiness”.
Sir Keir Starmer with Samoan Prime Minister Afioga Fiame Naomi Mata’afa (centre). Pic: PA
What is being asked for?
Fifteen Caribbean governments, which form CARICOM (Caribbean Community), have created a 10-point plan for “reparatory justice”.
This includes a formal apology for slavery, a development programme, which helps nations with their economies, increasing difficulties caused by climate change, and to move out of poverty.
It begins: “Over 10 million Africans were stolen from their homes and forcefully transported to the Caribbean as the enslaved chattel and property of European.
“This trade in enchained bodies was a highly successful commercial business for the nations of Europe.
“The lives of millions of men, women and children were destroyed in search of profit. The descendants of these stolen people have a legal right to return to their homeland.
“A repatriation program must be established and all available channels of international law and diplomacy used to resettle those persons who wish to return.”
It argues that “European colonial rule is a persistent part of Caribbean life” and the repercussions are the “primary cause of development failure in the Caribbean”.
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Reparations: How could it work?
Why £205bn?
As the reparations movement has gained pace, experts have tried to put a figure on how much Britain and other former colonial powers should pay.
Earlier this year, Reverend Dr Michael Banner, Dean of Cambridge’s Trinity College, claimed Britain owed £205bn in reparations.
In 2023, a report carried out by an American consultancy firm, the American Society of International Law, and the University of the West Indies, concluded the UK owes 14 countries a total of $24trn (£18.8trn).
The report was led by leading International Court of Justice (ICJ) judge Patrick Robinson.
Some UK institutions have offered reparations for their role in the slave trade – including the Church of England, parts of the NHS in Scotland, and the University of Glasgow.
The King and the prime minister chat in Samoa this week. Pic: PA
What has the UK said?
Both the King and Sir Keir have avoided directly addressing the subject on their trip to Samoa.
In a speech on Thursday, the King said he understood how “the most painful aspects of our past resonate” and how “history [can] guide us to make the right choices in our future”.
He referred to the “wrongs of the past” and said his family would commit to “learning lessons and finding creative ways to right inequalities that endure”.
Previously, he expressed his “profound sorrow” over the slave trade, with his son Prince William describing it as “abhorrent” last year.
Although the royals have failed to go any further – the King has suggested he would support research into his family’s links with slavery.
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Meanwhile, Sir Keir has said reparations are still off the table.
“On the question of which way we’re facing, I think we should be facing forward,” he told reporters.
“I’ve talked to a lot of our Commonwealth colleagues in the Commonwealth family and they’re facing real challenges on things like climate in the here and now.
“And in all the conversations I’ve had with them, what they’re most interested in is can we help them working with international institutions, financial institutions on the sorts of packages they need right now in relation to the challenges they’re facing right now.”
World
‘Widespread sexual violence’ took place during Hamas’s 7 October attacks, report by Israeli experts says
A newly released report led by Israeli legal and gender experts presents detailed evidence alleging “widespread and systematic” sexual violence during the Hamas-led terror attack on 7 October.
Warning: This story contains descriptions of rape and sexual violence
The findings, published by the Dinah Project, argue that these acts amount to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), and assert that “Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war”.
The report draws on 18 months of investigation and is based on survivor testimonies, eyewitness accounts, and interviews with first responders, morgue personnel and healthcare professionals.
According to the Dinah Project, the documented patterns – such as forced nudity, gang rapes, genital mutilation, and threats of forced marriage – indicate a deliberate and coordinated use of sexual violence by Hamas operatives during the attack.
Reported incidents span at least six locations, including the Nova music festival, and several kibbutzim in southern Israel.
A destroyed car near the police station in Sderot, following the 7 October attacks by Hamas. Pic: AP
One section of the report describes victims “found fully or partially naked from the waist down, with their hands tied behind their backs and/or to structures such as trees and poles, and shot”.
At the Nova music festival and surrounding areas, the investigators found “reasonable grounds to believe” that multiple women were raped or gang-raped before being killed.
The report’s findings are consistent with earlier investigations by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
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The UN’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict previously concluded that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” CRSV took place during the attack.
Destroyed vehicles near the grounds of the Supernova electronic music festival. Pic: AP
Significantly, the Dinah Project urges the international community to officially recognise the use of sexual violence by Hamas as a deliberate strategy of war and calls on the United Nations to add Hamas to its list of parties responsible for conflict-related sexual violence.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The nature and scale of sexual violence on 7 October have been a subject of intense controversy, with some accusing parties of weaponising the narrative for political ends.
This report seeks to confront what its authors call “denial, misinformation, and global silence,” and to provide justice for the victims.
Hamas has denied that its fighters have used sexual violence and mistreated female hostages.
World
Israeli soldiers ‘psychologically broken’ after ‘confronting the reality’ in Gaza, UN expert says
A UN expert has said some young soldiers in the Israeli Defence Forces are being left “psychologically broken” after “confront[ing] the reality among the rubble” when serving in Gaza.
Francesca Albanese, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was responding to a Sky News interview with an Israeli solider who described arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza.
She told The World with Yalda Hakim that “many” of the young people fighting in Gaza are “haunted by what they have seen, what they have done”.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Ms Albanese said. “This is not a war, this is an assault against civilians and this is producing a fracture in many of them.
“As that soldier’s testimony reveals, especially the youngest among the soldiers have been convinced this is a form of patriotism, of defending Israel and Israeli society against this opaque but very hard felt enemy, which is Hamas.
“But the thing is that they’ve come to confront the reality among the rubble of Gaza.”
An Israeli soldier directs a tank near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel. Pic: AP
Being in Gaza is “probably this is the first time the Israeli soldiers are awakening to this,” she added. “And they don’t make sense of this because their attachment to being part of the IDF, which is embedded in their national ideology, is too strong.
“This is why they are psychologically broken.”
Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesman who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said he believes the Sky News interview with the former IDF solider “reflects one part of how ugly, difficult and horrible fighting in a densely populated, urban terrain is”.
“I think [the ex-soldier] is reflecting on how difficult it is to fight in such an area and what the challenges are on the battlefield,” he said.
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Ex-IDF spokesperson: ‘No distinction between military and civilians’
‘An economy of genocide’
Ms Albanese, one of dozens of independent UN-mandated experts, also said her most recent report for the human rights council has identified “an economy of genocide” in Israel.
The system, she told Hakim, is made up of more than 60 private sector companies “that have become enmeshed in the economy of occupation […] that have Israel displace the Palestinians and replace them with settlers, settlements and infrastructure Israel runs.”
Israel has rejected allegations of genocide in Gaza, citing its right to defend itself after Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023.
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‘Israel has shifted towards economy of genocide’
The companies named in Ms Albanese’s report are in, but not limited to, the financial sector, big tech and the military industry.
“These companies can be held responsible for being directed linked to, or contributing, or causing human rights impacts,” she said. “We’re not talking of human rights violations, we are talking of crimes.”
“Some of the companies have engaged in good faith, others have not,” Ms Albanese said.
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The companies she has named include American technology giant Palantir, which has issued a statement to Sky News.
It said it is “not true” that Palantir “is the (or a) developer of the ‘Gospel’ – the AI-assisted targeting software allegedly used by the IDF in Gaza, and that we are involved with the ‘Lavender’ database used by the IDF for targeting cross-referencing”.
“Both capabilities are independent of and pre-ate Palantir’s announced partnership with the Israeli Defence Ministry,” the statement added.
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