UNITED NATIONS -- There are no shortages of challenges facing sun-soaked Caribbean countries — burgeoning unemployment, high crime, a chronic health crisis.
But for almost every Caribbean leader who took the podium at the world’s leading global forum in New York last week, one issue came up time and again: compensating descendants of enslaved and oppressed Africans in Europe’s former colonies for the generational and, arguably, irreparable damage of slavery.
“The legacy of slavery and colonialism in the Caribbean has severely impaired our development options,” Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer told leaders at the United Nations General Assembly. “Reparations must be directed toward repairing the damage inflicted by slavery and racism.”