The leaders of 14 Caribbean nations have agreed to sue their former European colonizers for damages they argue are the lingering results of slavery, the Associated Press reported.
Great Britain, France and the Netherlands are among the countries named in a 10-point plan drafted Monday by the Caribbean Community. The plan calls for the former colonizers to apologize, pay for slavery's lingering "psychological trauma," and cancel debt owed by the Caribbean nations, according to Leigh Day, a British human rights law firm hired by the community.
Though the slave trade has long ended, the Caribbean nations see the "persistent racial victimization of the descendants of slavery and genocide as the root cause of their suffering today," the Caribbean Reparations Commission said Monday according to the AP.
The plan presents a "fair set of demands on the governments whose countries grew rich at the expense of those regions whose human wealth was stolen from them," said Leigh Day lawyer Martyn Day, the AP reported.
The Caribbean nations and European officials are to have a meeting in the near future which "will enable our clients to quickly gauge whether or not their concerns are being taken seriously," Day said, the AP reported.
There are no reports yet as to when the meeting will take place.
The plan seeks European assistance to help improve the Caribbean's technology industry, which was left out during Europe's age of industrialization. The plan also asks for help to improve the Caribbean's infrastructure, including health and education and cultural institutions like museums, the AP reported.
On top of that, the community calls for a "repatriation program" involving diplomatic efforts to relocate those who follow the Rastafari belief to Africa. A combination of Old Testament doctrines and Pan-Africanism, the Rastafarian movement has long believed in repatriation to Africa, the AP reported.
Leigh Day is the same law firm that was able to win a case on behalf of Kenyans who survived torture by the British colonials during the Mau Mau rebellion in the '50s and '60s. They were awarded $21.5 million in compensation.
