THE Jamaican government will use the anniversary of a slave ship massacre to petition King Charles on reparations from Britain.
Olivia Grange, Jamaica’s culture minister, told her nation’s parliament that a delegation would be sent to the UK monarch in September, The Guardian reported.
Last June, Jamaican officials confirmed three “legal questions” they would ask for King Charles to take to the Privy Council – the formal body that advises the British monarch.
The monarch will be asked to take advice on whether the forced transport of African people from their homelands to enslavement in Jamaica was lawful, whether the transportation and slavery of people of African descent can be considered “crimes against humanity”, and whether the UK “is under an obligation to provide a remedy to the Jamaican people for the unlawful transport and subsequent enslavement of African people in Jamaica under British rule”.
Grange said that Jamaica had the full support of the Caribbean Community (Caricom).
She said: “We intend to petition King Charles on 6 September – an historic day. On this date in 1781, the Zong slave ship departed West Africa for Jamaica with 442 enslaved Africans.
“Throughout the journey the ship ran into trouble and the captain kept throwing enslaved Africans overboard in order to claim insurance for loss of cargo. One hundred and forty enslaved Africans were killed. The ship finally arrived in Black River on December 21, 1781.”
Laleta Davis Mattis, the chair of Jamaica’s National Council on Reparations (NCR), told The Guardian: “This petition reflects the collaborative work of the NCR operating through its legal sub-committee, chaired by Bert Samuels, attorney-at-law, working alongside a team of UK lawyers.
“On behalf of the council, I extend particular thanks to Frank Phipps KC, whose legal acuity in proposing this route – turning the very vestiges of our colonial legal past to the service of reparatory justice – gave shape to the strategy we have now brought to fruition.”
