King Charles addresses summit as demands for slavery apology grow

King Charles has said that deepening his understanding of the horrors of slavery has made him more determined to address the wrongs of the past, as Caribbean leaders and campaigners intensified demands for an apology and reparations from Britain.“We cannot change the actions of those who came before us,” Charles told leaders at the opening of the Commonwealth summit in Antigua and Barbuda on Tuesday. “We can, however, learn from the past.“The transatlantic trade in enslaved persons still casts a shadow over these islands and other members of our Commonwealth,” he said. “That shameful chapter of history is one that fills my heart with horror and my soul with the most profound personal sorrow.”Charles said the more he had furthered his understanding “through listening, learning and looking”, the more committed he had become to building modern partnerships capable of addressing past wrongs.But the king stopped short of an apology or explicit support for reparations, instead pointing to education, employment, intra-Commonwealth trade and climate resilience as ways of tackling continuing hardship and disadvantage.“For, as any sailor navigating the seas knows, we cannot command the winds, least of all where the winds of yesterday have delivered us, but we can choose how we set our sail,” he said.Though speaking as head of the Commonwealth, and this speech would have been drafted by Charles personally along with his advisers, palace aides have indicated there would be “no surprises” in it for the UK government.Andy Burnham refused to be drawn on whether the UK might offer further financial contributions to the Commonwealth stopping short of direct reparations.The UK prime minister told reporters: “I’ve been very clear that we do not support reparations, and I made that quite abundantly clear in the piece that I wrote in advance of coming here.“But it’s not the case that we don’t support countries in the Commonwealth around development and helping them with debt issues that they’ve got, green finance. That’s what we’ve done under all governments, and in my view, we should continue to do as part of being a Commonwealth.”Andy Burnham walks to meet members of the waiting media on the sidelines of the summit at the American University of Antigua in Osbourn. Photograph: Kin Cheung/ReutersPressed on whether this could mean additional financial contributions that would weigh on the taxpayer, Burnham said: “Well, you’re getting ahead. What we need to have is that meaningful dialogue where we take time to listen, and let’s be clear: the Commonwealth is an important part of our trade too.“It’s a two-way arrangement. You know, trade is up between the UK and the rest of the Commonwealth in the last year quite significantly, actually. So you need to see it in that way as well. It benefits Britain to be here, listening to people, building that new partnership, and that’s good for growth in Britain.”Reparations are not formally on the agenda of the Commonwealth heads of government meeting (Chogm), where trade, climate resilience and finance, sustainable debt, democracy and opportunities for young people were among the stated priorities of the 56-member bloc.But sustained campaigning by Caribbean governments and a growing international reparations movement have propelled the issue to the centre of political debate surrounding the gathering.Opening the summit in St John’s, the capital of Antigua and Barbuda, the country’s prime minister, Gaston Browne, said “fairness” required an “honest engagement with our shared history” and called for meaningful and respectful dialogue on reparatory justice and the enduring consequences of slavery and colonialism.King Charles III speaks with students during the Commonwealth Youth Forum at the University of West Indies in St John’s, Antigua. Photograph: Chris Jackson/PABurnham had said he was open to Britain apologising for slavery, with officials holding talks with national leaders in Antigua about what that could entail.He has also proposed discussions on debt resets for smaller Commonwealth nations and announced £40m ($54m) for critical infrastructure in the Caribbean over the next three years.But Caribbean leaders have stressed that dialogue must extend beyond an apology. Philip J Pierre, the chair of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), described an apology as an “essential first step” but said an “apology without repair is incomplete”.He said any structured dialogue must allow consideration of the entirety of Caricom’s 10-point reparations plan, including public health, education, cultural restitution, psychological rehabilitation, debt cancellation and monetary compensation.Britain’s royal family benefited from the trade, but Charles is politically neutral and is not expected to offer an apology. A palace spokesperson said it would “not be appropriate” for the king to announce a change in government policy.According to the AFP news agency, Burnham discussed slavery with the Barbados prime minister, Mia Mottley, during a meeting on Monday, one of several bilateral meetings the prime minister is expected to have at the summit.They discussed how Britain was “offering a structured dialogue for communities impacted by the transatlantic slave trade”, including the “next steps”, Downing Street said.Burnham is said to have discussed the impact of slavery with Mia Mottley during talks on Monday. Photograph: Kin Cheung/PAOutside the heavily secured summit venue, protesters gathered with placards declaring: “We know what you did and we can see you,” and “You say appalling atrocity, yet you refuse to apologise.”One protester, Lenworth Johnson, said that if the king’s constitutional position prevented him from apologising, the British government should authorise him to do so. “We feel an apology is necessary,” he said.Another, Radcliffe Robins, said the wealth enjoyed by Britain and other western powers was built in part on enslavement. “It is absolutely necessary that his majesty the king and the royal family apologise for the brutality and the injustice that they have imposed on us,” he said. “And with that, we ask for reparations.”Another protester said the demonstration was intended to ensure those entering the summit knew campaigners were “watching them and listening to what they’re saying and what they’re doing”.Dorbrene O’Marde, chair of the Antigua and Barbuda Reparations Support Commission and one of the organisers, said: “One whose heart is filled with horror and whose soul bears the most profound personal sorrow must surely be moved beyond words – beyond repeated emotional expression without acceptance of responsibility.“Genuine moral consciousness demands apologies – the acknowledgment of wrong, the acceptance of responsibility and the commitment to pursue reparations. Unfortunately King Charles III does nothing of the sort. He has again failed the people who recognise him as king.”The demonstrations followed a reparations event on Monday hosted by the House of Commons’ all-party parliamentary group for Afrikan Reparations alongside campaign organisations.Delegates attend an opening ceremony for the summit on Tuesday. Photograph: Canadian Press/ShutterstockIts chair, the Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, welcomed debt relief but warned against presenting it as reparations.“Reparations was never about personal guilt. It is about the responsibility of states and institutions that still stand,” she said. “Aid is not reparations, because aid leaves the power with the giver. Agency was the crime. Agency has to be the remedy.”The meeting was followed by a candlelight vigil on an Antiguan beach commemorating enslaved Africans brought to the island. The Rev Bonnie Smith, president of the Antigua Christian Council, asked those gathered to remember people torn from their homes, separated from their families and forced across the Atlantic into enslavement.“Their names may be absent from our records, but they are not absent from your love,” she said. “Their voices may have been silenced, but their lives have never ceased to matter.”Prof Sir Hilary Beckles, chair of the Caricom Reparations Commission, meanwhile framed the campaign as part of a wider struggle for peace and justice.“We are concerned about the unleashing of terror and violence upon innocent people,” he said.“We believe that reparatory justice that calls for human decency, equality and justice for all is the philosophy that will hold us together as humanity going into this 21st century.”Ralph Gonsalves, a former prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines and a senior figure in the Repair Campaign, the reparatory justice movement, said he believed Charles’s expressions of sorrow over slavery were sincere, but was disappointed he had not gone any further than his previous remarks.“The apology hasn’t come. And there’s no talk about reparatory justice. So to that extent, this speech to me was a disappointment,” he said.The king’s reference to support for health, education and infrastructure, Gonsalves said, concerned subjects already covered in the agreements in the UN sustainable development goals.“What we are saying is that there has to be, additionally … a special carve-out in respect of reparatory justice,” he added.