Raphael John-Lall

Repa­ra­tions could pro­vide T&T and the Caribbean with re­sources to strength­en health­care, ex­pand ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties, sup­port re­search and make loans more ac­ces­si­ble, Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus Win­ston Suite has opined, as he called for a greater fo­cus on how any repa­ra­tions could be used to ad­vance the re­gion’s de­vel­op­ment.

Suite, who has writ­ten more than a dozen pa­pers on repa­ra­tions for de­scen­dants of the transat­lantic slave trade and has been in­volved in the is­sue for decades, said Eu­ro­pean coun­tries that were in­volved in and ben­e­fit­ted from the slave trade could make re­sources avail­able to Caribbean gov­ern­ments and in­sti­tu­tions to sup­port de­vel­op­ment.

In June, Suite pre­sent­ed on “Le­gal Im­pli­ca­tions of UN Res­o­lu­tion on Repa­ra­tions for the Trans-At­lantic Slave Trade” at the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (LATT) Bi­en­ni­al Law Con­fer­ence on June 13, 2026, at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel, Port-of-Spain.

A 2023 re­port com­mis­sioned in con­nec­tion with Ja­maica’s repa­ra­tions process, pro­duced by the eco­nom­ics con­sul­tan­cy Brat­tle based in Boston, es­ti­mat­ed to­tal repa­ra­tions for transat­lantic chat­tel slav­ery across more than 30 coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries at ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$130 tril­lion:

* US$107 tril­lion for the pe­ri­od of en­slave­ment:

* US$22 tril­lion for post-eman­ci­pa­tion harms rough­ly US$130 tril­lion to­tal

In an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian, Suite said what­ev­er mon­ey or fi­nan­cial re­sources T&T and the Caribbean may re­ceive should be giv­en to re­gion­al gov­ern­ments who will then dis­burse it to qual­i­fy­ing re­cip­i­ents.

He said repa­ra­tions could take sev­er­al forms.

“So, it can be in the form of ed­u­ca­tion, schol­ar­ship loans, the re­duc­tion in the lend­ing rates, the loans. Con­di­tions un­der which the Eu­ro­pean coun­tries have of­fered some mon­ey to­wards de­vel­op­ment. Health is just one.”

Suite al­so said ed­u­ca­tion­al sup­port could cov­er the en­tire ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, while re­search and fi­nanc­ing could al­so ben­e­fit Caribbean de­vel­op­ment.

“Ed­u­ca­tion from pri­ma­ry to uni­ver­si­ty lev­el, the de­vel­op­ment of re­search and as­sis­tance, re­duc­tion of in­ter­est rates. There are sev­er­al things that can be done and can be done through Cari­com and then through the Caribbean gov­ern­ments.”

Suite said the in­ter­na­tion­al repa­ra­tions move­ment had spent too much time fo­cus­ing on cal­cu­lat­ing pay­ments rather than ex­am­in­ing how re­sources could be used to sup­port de­vel­op­ment.

“The move­ment in­ter­na­tion­al­ly over the years has got caught up in com­put­ing how much should be giv­en, how it should be giv­en, and be­cause of that, we have got al­most nowhere.”

Ac­cord­ing to a Guardian Me­dia re­port in Sep­tem­ber, the T&T Gov­ern­ment said a new Na­tion­al Com­mit­tee on Repa­ra­tions will be ap­point­ed in “due course.”

Cari­com Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Sean Sobers told Par­lia­ment that the “mat­ter of repara­to­ry jus­tice is of ut­most im­por­tance to the Gov­ern­ment, and the pol­i­cy to fur­ther ad­vance this is­sue will be guid­ed by the Cab­i­net in due course.”

This comes as there has been a grow­ing call re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly for for­mer colo­nial pow­ers to com­pen­sate de­scen­dants of slaves and oth­er groups like in­dige­nous pop­u­la­tions for hu­man rights abus­es com­mit­ted dur­ing the colo­nial pe­ri­od.

De­bates con­tin­ue re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly on the pos­si­ble im­pact that repa­ra­tions could have on wealth dis­tri­b­u­tion.

Amer­i­can jour­nal­ist and au­thor Ta-Ne­hisi Coates wrote a pow­er­ful es­say, “The Case for Repa­ra­tions” for The At­lantic.

Repa­ra­tions, he af­firmed, would help close the widen­ing wealth gap be­tween white house­holds and black house­holds in the US—the re­sult of struc­tur­al racism root­ed in the en­slave­ment of mil­lions of black peo­ple.

The ar­ti­cle stat­ed that as much as US$10.7 tril­lion could be re­paid, ac­cord­ing to Duke Uni­ver­si­ty econ­o­mist William Dar­i­ty and his co-au­thor Kirsten Mullen. They sug­gest that amount could ei­ther be paid at once or stretched out over time to the de­scen­dants of en­slaved peo­ple in the Unit­ed States.

Use repa­ra­tions wise­ly

Repa­ra­tions for the de­scen­dants of en­slaved peo­ple should not be­come a one-time fi­nan­cial wind­fall that is quick­ly spent and for­got­ten.

In an in­ter­view with the Busi­ness Guardian, Pro­fes­sor Patrick Wat­son ex­pressed his con­cern with what could hap­pen to the mon­ey once it is re­ceived. For him, repa­ra­tions should cre­ate last­ing ben­e­fits through ed­u­ca­tion, health­care, com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment and op­por­tu­ni­ties that can im­prove the lives of de­scen­dants for gen­er­a­tions.

“I can think of, for ex­am­ple, schol­ar­ships. Schol­ar­ships for peo­ple. I think that it can be used to build schools. I think it could be used for fi­nanc­ing and health­care sys­tems and so on, where there is a di­rect ben­e­fit to the de­scen­dants.”

That, for Wat­son, should guide the use of repa­ra­tions: the mon­ey must pro­duce last­ing and di­rect ben­e­fits for de­scen­dants of en­slaved peo­ple.

Rather than dis­trib­ut­ing large sums of cash to in­di­vid­u­als, he be­lieves the re­sources should be in­vest­ed in ar­eas ca­pa­ble of cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties be­yond the ini­tial pay­ment.

He al­so raised the pos­si­bil­i­ty of repa­ra­tions funds be­ing di­rect­ed to com­mu­ni­ties rather than in­di­vid­ual de­scen­dants. In To­ba­go, Wat­son sug­gest­ed hy­po­thet­i­cal­ly, that funds could be made avail­able for the peo­ple of To­ba­go through the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA). He made clear, how­ev­er, that this is an idea for con­sid­er­a­tion rather than a set­tled pro­pos­al.

Wat­son is par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned about who would ad­min­is­ter such a fund. He warns that the his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of repa­ra­tions could be un­der­mined if the mon­ey is placed in the wrong hands.

“If you hand this mon­ey out in any form or fash­ion, or you try to then com­pen­sate in­di­vid­u­als for what would hap­pen, this may ap­pear as a wind­fall.”

His con­cern is that repa­ra­tions must not be­come an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty for cor­rup­tion, po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence or waste. Wat­son sug­gests an in­de­pen­dent group of trust­wor­thy and re­spect­ed peo­ple could po­ten­tial­ly over­see the funds rather than leav­ing every­thing in the hands of gov­ern­ment.

“You have to work out, one, the quan­tum. That shouldn’t be hard to do. Be­cause you can work out how much the British, in our case, ben­e­fit­ted from slav­ery in this part of the world. It’s not a hard thing to do. How wealthy Britain be­came. Dr Er­ic Williams wrote about it.”

Wat­son con­nects that wealth to British cap­i­tal­ism and in­dus­tri­al­i­sa­tion.

“Slav­ery con­tributed a lot to British cap­i­tal­ism. To cities like Liv­er­pool, Bris­tol, Man­ches­ter, all of these peo­ple. Lon­don it­self be­came ex­treme­ly rich. And peo­ple be­came ex­treme­ly rich be­cause of sug­ar. Which, of course, was done on the backs of slaves.”

Eco­nom­ic em­pow­er­ment

Econ­o­mist Dr Vanus James said the repa­ra­tions de­bate should be viewed through the lens of his­tor­i­cal claims for un­paid labour and wealth cre­at­ed dur­ing slav­ery and in­den­ture­ship, while al­so em­pha­sis­ing that re­sources alone can­not trans­form so­ci­eties with­out changes at the com­mu­ni­ty and gov­er­nance lev­els.

How­ev­er, James ar­gued that any in­jec­tion of re­sources through repa­ra­tions or de­vel­op­ment fund­ing must be ac­com­pa­nied by greater em­pow­er­ment at the com­mu­ni­ty lev­el.

“If we in­sist on run­ning an au­thor­i­tar­i­an sys­tem at all lev­els (home, school, church, com­mu­ni­ty, re­gion, coun­try) not much can be made of any large-scale in­jec­tions of in­vestible re­sources.”

He point­ed to past ex­pe­ri­ences in T&T and Ja­maica, where ma­jor re­source booms did not nec­es­sar­i­ly trans­late in­to last­ing trans­for­ma­tion.

“The wast­ed oil and baux­ite booms have proved that in T&T and Ja­maica and will do the same in Guyana.”

James said po­lit­i­cal em­pow­er­ment and com­mu­ni­ty-lev­el in­vest­ment should be pri­or­i­ties be­cause they would help house­holds and com­mu­ni­ties de­vel­op sus­tain­able en­ter­pris­es.

“How­ev­er, a pri­or­i­ty is po­lit­i­cal em­pow­er­ment and in­jec­tion of re­sources at the com­mu­ni­ty lev­el, be­cause that would boost the ca­pac­i­ty of house­holds and their com­mu­ni­ties to de­vel­op the en­ter­pris­es that would pro­duce last­ing trans­for­ma­tion con­sis­tent with our ad­van­tages and pro­duce sus­tain­able ris­ing liv­ing stan­dards.”

Box

In Sep­tem­ber, Ja­maica filed an his­toric repa­ra­tions pe­ti­tion to King Charles III, ask­ing him to re­fer three le­gal ques­tions re­gard­ing the transat­lantic slave trade to the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil (JCPC).

The ques­tions are:

* Whether the seizure, forced trans­porta­tion, and chat­tel en­slave­ment of Africans in Ja­maica were law­ful un­der Eng­lish com­mon law.

* Whether these ac­tions con­sti­tut­ed a breach of in­ter­na­tion­al law or a crime against hu­man­i­ty.

* Whether the Unit­ed King­dom has a le­gal oblig­a­tion to pro­vide a repara­to­ry rem­e­dy or resti­tu­tion to the peo­ple of Ja­maica.

A pre­lim­i­nary hear­ing be­fore the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil is sched­uled for the week of March 8, 2027.