The 10-point compensation plan proposed by the Caribbean Community (Caricom) has the endorsement of delegates at the first United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent in this city and has been called for universal acceptance.
The priorities for Caricom were highlighted by Bahamian Gaynel Diana Curry, one of the five experts chosen earlier this year to serve on the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent. These priorities include reparatory justice, climate justice, systemic racism, and socioeconomic opportunities faced by vulnerable and marginalized groups of people of African descent, particularly women, children, migrants, and LGBTQI individuals.
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Matthew Wilson, the ambassador of Barbados and the country’s designated permanent representative to the UN and the WTO, stated, “what we have collectively launched today is for our ancestors and for our descendants still to come. It is brave. It is necessary. It is a long time coming.
“In the Caribbean, there was a long history of advocating, articulating, and agitating around issues of racism and the injustices inherent in post-colonial societies. In Caricom, these issues have been placed very high on its agenda, with the prime ministerial sub-agenda on reparations being chaired by Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley, with its core members Guyana, Haiti, St Vincent, and Suriname.”
According to the Caricom Reparations Commission (CRC), European governments owned and traded enslaved Africans, ordered the genocide of indigenous peoples, and established the legal, regulatory, and fiscal frameworks required for the slavery of Africans.
After serving as chair from 2012 to 2014 and as a member of the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent from 2010 to 2015, Professor Verene Shepherd, head of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, expressed her happiness that the forum had been established. During that period, she assisted in drafting the schedule of events for the UN’s International Decade for People of African Descent, which runs from 2015 to 2019.
She expressed optimism that the Durban declaration’s unmet provisions for ongoing action with regard to the pursuit of reparatory justice will be implemented, drawing inspiration from the pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey.
Patricia Hermanns, the Bahamas’ ambassador, urged the permanent forum to have sufficient funding and to strive toward leveling the scales of justice so that no one is left out.
The United Maroon Indigenous Peoples’ representative from Trinidad and Tobago, Akilah Jaramogi, also made reference to the Caricom 10-point plan, which calls for a Maroon community member to be included on the forum’s working committee and acknowledges Maroons as African descendants of indigenous people.
The Permanent Forum on People of African Descent was operationalized as “a consultative mechanism for people of African descent and other relevant stakeholders” and “as a platform for promoting the safety, quality of life, and livelihoods of people of African descent” by the General Assembly in August 2021, two years before the International Decade for People of African Descent came to a conclusion.
