Irfaan Ali also demands posthumous charges for crimes against humanity for traders and enslavers
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.
Continue reading...The Demerara Rebellion failed, but it was a step towards ending slavery in the British empire
• William Gladstone: family of former British PM to apologise for links to slavery
The Demerara Rebellion of August 1823 was a pivotal event in the abolition of slavery in the British Empire.
While the transatlantic slave trade, the largest forced migration in human history, was outlawed by Britain in 1807, slavery continued across the colonies. Conditions were brutal in Demerara, one of three provinces that made up British Guiana, where sugar plantations were among the most profitable in the world.
Continue reading...The great Victorian statesman’s glittering career was financed by huge profits made in the 1820s and 30s on Guyanese estates
• William Gladstone: family of former British PM to apologise for links to slavery
William Gladstone’s father, John, was an absentee landlord who never visited his estates in the Caribbean but became fabulously rich from the proceeds of slavery.
His pursuit of profit at the expense of free – and then cheap – labour in Guyana transformed the South American country for ever.
Continue reading...Charlie Gladstone on why the only way he can live with his family’s dark past is to turn it into something positive
• William Gladstone: family of former British PM to apologise for links to slavery
For Charlie Gladstone, the question is not what sort of ancestor he had, but what sort of ancestor he wants to be.
When he learned about John Gladstone’s involvement in slavery he was moved to tears. “I felt absolutely terrible. I really, really hated it. It was a shock and I felt absolutely sick.”
Continue reading...Descendants of PM, whose father’s wealth came from sugar plantations, travel to Guyana for 200th anniversary of rebellion by enslaved Africans
The family of one of Britain’s most famous prime ministers will travel to the Caribbean this week to apologise for its historical role in slavery.
Six of William Gladstone’s descendants will arrive in Guyana on Thursday as the country commemorates the 200th anniversary of a rebellion by enslaved people that historians say paved the way for abolition.
Continue reading...Scientists stunned by unprecedented heat-stress event say they can only hope it ‘motivates and unites people’
Corals across several countries are bleaching and dying en masse from unprecedented levels of heat stress, prompting fears that an unfolding tragedy in Central America, North America and the Caribbean could become a global event.
US government scientists have confirmed reefs in Panama, Colombia, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Mexico and six countries in the Caribbean, including the Bahamas and Cuba, are suffering significant bleaching, alongside corals in Florida that began turning white almost a month ago.
Continue reading...Package includes projects to extract minerals, electrify bus fleets and help protect Amazon rainforest
EU leaders in Brussels have announced €45bn (£39bn) in investments to Latin America and the Caribbean, some of which will speed the shift to clean energy, but made little headway thawing a frozen trade deal that critics say will further degrade the Amazon rainforest.
The EU-Celac summit, the first of its kind since 2015, aimed to bring the EU closer to Latin American and Caribbean countries. Disagreements over how to refer to the war in Ukraine in the final text soured negotiations.
Continue reading...Storm approaching eastern Caribbean Leeward and Windward Islands in aggressive weather pattern early in the season
Tropical Storm Bret is forecast to strengthen into a hurricane as it approaches the eastern Caribbean’s Leeward and Windward islands, with meteorologists noting that the weather pattern is unusually early and aggressive for the Atlantic cyclone season that formally began on 1 June.
It is only the second hurricane to form in the tropical Atlantic in June since record keeping began, according to forecasters. The previous June hurricane was the 1933 Trinidad hurricane.
Continue reading...Barring public access to beaches and other sites is not a model for development. Transparency and engagement are needed
Walk along a Caribbean beach, which may stretch for miles, and your stroll is guaranteed to be cut short by an angry hotel security guard. In recent years, the Caribbean has seen a worrying trend of governments readily selling off assets to foreign corporations and political financiers.
Prime real estate, protected land and valuable resources are being relinquished without consideration for long-term consequences. It raises questions about whether remnants of the colonial mindset still prevail in political ideologies and decision-making.
Continue reading...Ruling requiring ‘unlimited guarantee’ from oil firms to cover costs of spills could change offshore drilling throughout region
A ruling from Guyana’s high court could change the face of offshore oil drilling throughout the Caribbean, according to financial and legal analysts.
The ruling ordered the country’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to require an independent liability insurance policy from Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL) and an “unlimited guarantee” from its parent company, ExxonMobil, in the case of any damage caused by the company’s oil and gas development in the country.
Continue reading...Members of terrorised Port-au-Prince communities armed with rocks and machetes carry out wave of lynchings
As Vélina Élysée Charlier ventured on to the streets of her conflict-stricken city last week, she encountered scenes that will haunt her for many years to come.
Armed civilians dragging bodies through the streets. Smouldering corpses. Young men with machetes chasing suspected gangsters they planned to kill.
Continue reading...Labour MP says Rishi Sunak should talk to region’s leaders after Trevelyan family announcements
The Labour MP Clive Lewis has called on Rishi Sunak to enter negotiations with Caribbean leaders on paying reparations for Britain’s role in slavery, following the historic announcements by the Trevelyan family.
Speaking at a parliamentary debate on promoting financial security in the Caribbean, Lewis said the issue of reparations could not be dismissed as an obsession among a small group of “so-called woke extremists”.
Continue reading...Triple threat sees Caribbean country in worst crisis since 2010 earthquake, with young people bearing the brunt, warns Unicef
An escalation of gang violence, political instability and a deadly cholera outbreak in Haiti has left half its children relying on humanitarian aid to survive, Unicef says.
At least 2.6 million are expected to need immediate lifesaving assistance this year as the overlapping crises leave Haiti’s children in the worst position since the earthquake of 2010, Unicef’s Haiti representative, Bruno Maes, told the Guardian.
Continue reading...The Trevelyans were shocked to see their name in a slavery database and a journey to Grenada confirmed the continuing impact of their grim history
An aristocratic British family is to make history by travelling to the Caribbean and publicly apologising for its ownership of more than 1,000 enslaved Africans. The Trevelyan family, which has many notable ancestors, is also paying reparations to the people of Grenada, where it owned six sugar plantations.
Last weekend, the family met online and agreed to sign a letter of apology for its enslavement of captive Africans. Forty-two members of the family have so far signed and more signatures are expected.
Continue reading...Committee to Protect Journalist reports region accounted for almost half of the 67 deaths worldwide
More journalists were killed in Latin America and the Caribbean than in any other part of the world last year, including the Ukraine war zone, the press watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said.
In a report released on Tuesday, the group said that, globally, at least 67 journalists and media workers had been killed in 2022, nearly double the 2021 figure of 45.
Continue reading...The Caribbean territory plans to exterminate at least 450 of the invasive primates – but critics disagree with the proposal
The government of Sint Maarten in the eastern Caribbean has approved a controversial plan to cull its entire population of vervet monkeys, as the proliferation of the invasive species becomes an increasing nuisance on the Dutch island territory.
Authorities will fund the Nature Foundation St Maarten NGO to capture and euthanise at least 450 monkeys over the next three years in the territory which borders French St Martin.
Continue reading...Clerical leaders hope for ‘lasting legacy’ to serve places affected by past slavery trade, but fund may spread thinly across all of west Africa and Caribbean
The Church of England’s decision to set up a £100m fund for communities adversely affected by historic slavery is the latest – and biggest – step it has taken over the past few years to “address past wrongs” relating to its links to the slave trade.
The report on the origins of the C of E’s healthy £9bn-plus endowment fund correctly describes the 17th century slave trade as “abhorrent” and a source of misery and injustice.
Continue reading...Jamaican police say fatal shooting of Sean Patterson, 33, was ‘contract killing that emanated from Britain’
A British man who was shot dead in Jamaica this week was the victim of a contract killing ordered in Britain, according to local police.
Sean Patterson, 33, a personal trainer from west London, was found with gunshot wounds to his upper body and head at about midday on Monday in Bogue Hill, St James, police said.
Continue reading...Mark Rutte says Dutch state ‘enabled, encouraged and profited from slavery’ for centuries
Mark Rutte has offered a formal apology on behalf of the Dutch state for the Netherlands’ historical role in the slave trade, saying slavery must be recognised in “the clearest terms” as a crime against humanity.
In a speech at the national archives in The Hague, the Dutch prime minister acknowledged the past “cannot be erased, only faced up to”. But for centuries, he said, the Dutch state had “enabled, encouraged and profited from slavery”.
Continue reading...Richard Drax reported to have visited Caribbean island for meeting on next steps, including plans for former sugar plantation
The government of Barbados is considering plans to make a wealthy Conservative MP the first individual to pay reparations for his ancestor’s pivotal role in slavery.
The Observer understands that Richard Drax, MP for South Dorset, recently travelled to the Caribbean island for a private meeting with the country’s prime minister, Mia Mottley. A report is now before Mottley’s cabinet laying out the next steps, which include legal action in the event that no agreement is reached with Drax.
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