- Charles has spoken of sorrow over slavery
The tour runs from October 27 to November 4. Last month, CARICOM, the Caribbean Community, a group of 23 member and associate member states which includes the Bahamas, Barbados and Jamaica, said it would push for reparations to be on the CHOGM agenda.
“The Caribbean has consistently asserted that reparations is fundamentally about justice,” CARICOM’s Secretary-General Carla Barnett said in a speech last month. Charles and his wife Queen Camilla will first visit the Bahamas and Guyana, before heading to Antigua and Barbuda for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting , the biennial get-together of the international organisation which he heads.
Shirley Botchwey, the secretary-general of the Commonwealth, which encompasses some 2.7 billion people, said last week the time had come for discussions about reparations, be they financial or in some other form such as the return of artefacts.
he would not formally apologise for it as some have wanted, in keeping with British government policy which also excludes making any financial reparations While Buckingham Palace has said the monarch would not shy away from Britain’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade during his tour. “It is important to note here the work his majesty himself has done over many years both to acknowledge the wrongs of the past and to find creative ways to right inequalities that endure,” a palace spokesperson said. “It is about recognition, accountability and transformation, and about building a just and equitable future for the descendants of those who, as the chattel of colonial owners, endured untold suffering, loss of life and freedom.
