Caribbean: Charles’ succession prompts calls for reparations and removal of monarch as head of state

The enthronement of King Charles III to the British throne has renewed calls from politicians and activists in former colonies in the Caribbean for the monarch to be removed as head of state and for Britain to pay reparations for slavery.

Charles succeeds his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, who reigned for seventy years and died on Thursday, September 8.

The prime minister of Jamaica said his country would mourn Elizabeth, and his counterpart in Antigua and Barbuda ordered flags to be flown at half-mast until her funeral.

In some circles, however, there are doubts about the role a distant monarch should play in the 21st century.

Earlier this year, at a summit in Kigali, Rwanda, some Commonwealth of Nations leaders expressed unease about the transition of leadership of the 54-nation association of independent states from Elizabeth to Charles.

An eight-day trip in March that Prince William, now heir to the throne, and his wife Kate took to Belize, Jamaica, and the Bahamas was accompanied by calls for reparations and an apology for slavery.

“As the role of the monarchy changes, we expect this to be an opportunity to advance the discussion of reparations for our region,” Niambi Hall-Campbell, a 44-year-old academic who chairs the Bahamas National Reparations Committee, said Thursday.

Hall-Campbell offered condolences to the queen’s family and recalled that Charles acknowledged the “appalling cruelty of slavery” at a ceremony last year that marked the end of British rule and the establishment of the Republic of Barbados.

The Jamaican government announced last year it would ask Britain for compensation for the forced transportation of an estimated 600,000 Africans to work on sugar cane and banana plantations that made fortunes for British slaveholders.

“Whoever will take office should be asked to allow the royal family to pay reparations to Africans,” said David Denny, secretary-general of the Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration from Barbados.

“We should all work to remove the royal family as our nations’ heads of state,” he added.

Jamaica has signaled it may soon follow Barbados in abolishing royal rule. Both remain members of the Commonwealth.

A poll in August found that fifty-six percent of Jamaicans favored abolishing the British monarch as head of state.

Mikael Phillips, an opposition member of Jamaica’s parliament, filed a motion in 2020 supporting the removal.

“I hope, as the prime minister said in one of his remarks, that he will act more quickly when there is a new monarch,” Phillips said Thursday.

Allen Chastanet, former prime minister of St. Lucia and current opposition leader, told Reuters news agency he supports a “general” move toward republicanism in his country.

With information from Latina Press