GENEVA – Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries yesterday reiterated their call for reparatory justice for the trans Atlantic slave trade saying their position is grounded in responsibility and equity.
Guyana’s Minister within the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, Steven Jacobs, speaking on behalf of the 15-member regional integration grouping, expressed “strong support” for the Fifth Session of the Permanent Forum of People of African Descent as the panel discussed Reparations, Sustainable Development and Economic Justice.
“We meet at a moment when the pages behind us are well known, but the next chapter remains unwritten,” Jacobs said, adding that the story of people of African descent has often been shaped by injustice, chapters of dispossession, chapters of exclusion, chapters whose consequences continue to dictate present realities.
Jacobs said the recent recognition by the United Nations General Assembly of slavery and the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans as the gravest crimes against humanity, places an essential truth on record.
“But acknowledgment alone does not resolve injustice. If left unaddressed, its effects will continue to shape opportunity, access, and development,” Jacobs said, noting that for the CARICOM states, this is a lived reality. (CMC)
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