The president of Guyana has called on descendants of European slave traders to offer to pay reparations to right historical wrongs.
Irfaan Ali also demanded that those involved in the transatlantic slave trade and African enslavement be posthumously charged for crimes against humanity.
The South American leader’s comments come in advance of Friday’s official apology by the descendants of Scottish 19th-century sugar and coffee plantation owner John Gladstone, father of four-time prime minister William Gladstone.
Ali, 43, said reparations were “a commitment to righting historical wrongs”.
He added: “The transatlantic slave trade and African enslavement were an affront to humanity itself. The heinousness of this crime against humanity demands that we seek to right these wrongs.”
Caricom nations, including Guyana, have hired a British law firm to examine their case for financial compensation from Britain and other European nations. The trade bloc has said it was advised that its case is strong and should be pursued.
“The descendants of John Gladstone must now also outline their plan of action in line with the Caricom … plan for reparatory justice for slavery and indentureship,” Ali said.
Six of Gladstone’s descendants, including several historians, arrived in Guyana on Thursday as the country commemorated the 200th anniversary of the 1823 slave rebellion that historians say paved the way for abolition.
The family will participate in a brief ceremony at the University of Guyana on Friday. The university itself is founded on plantation lands “where the revolutions were enacted”, the higher education institution said.
Ali welcomed the apology from Gladstone’s family, describing it as “an acknowledgment of the cruel nature of African enslavement and indentureship in Guyana and an act of contrition that paves the way for justice”.
He added: “The Gladstone family has admitted that it benefited from African enslavement and indentureship on the Demerara and other plantations owned by its patriarch, John Gladstone.”
At the ceremony, the university will also be launching its International Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies in collaboration with Guyana’s national reparations committee and Heirs of Slavery, a lobby group created by British families who can trace their ancestors back to the enslavement of Africans.
Other families at the ceremony include former BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan, whose family earlier this year apologised to slave descendants in Grenada because her ancestors owned hundreds of enslaved people in that eastern Caribbean island.
After the ceremony, the university will host “an inter-generational dialogue” between students and members of the Gladstone family, as well as an exhibition of scholarly work on the subject matter.
While a handful of countries have made formal apologies for slavery, including the Netherlands, in April UK prime minister Rishi Sunak refused to apologise for the UK’s role in the slave trade or to commit to paying reparations.
But, earlier this week, Judge Patrick Robinson, who presided over the trial of the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević, said the international tide on slavery reparations was quickly shifting and urged the UK to change its current position on the issue.
“I believe that the United Kingdom will not be able to resist this movement towards the payment of reparations: it is required by history and it is required by law,” said Robinson, who is Jamaican.
