Indigenous representatives from 12 Commonwealth nations called on the 74-year-old British monarch to start a process toward “a formal apology and for a process of reparatory justice to commence” in a letter sent to him just three days prior to his luxurious coronation celebration in London despite the country’s record cost-of-living crisis.
The signatories of the letter, which could sour the build-up to this weekend’s coronation, also called for financial reparations by redistributing the wealth of the British crown and the return of stolen cultural treasures and human remains.
The letter — titled “apology, reparation, and repatriation of artifacts and remains” — has been signed by representatives of Antigua and Barbuda, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Australia, the Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
In Australia, Indigenous people were massacred by British colonizers and driven off their lands, as well as several Caribbean nations once plundered for slaves.
“We, the undersigned, call on the British Monarch, King Charles III, on the date of his coronation being May 6, 2023, to acknowledge the horrific impacts on and legacy of genocide and colonization of the Indigenous and enslaved peoples,” the letter read.
The signatories, who said they had banded together to help their people “recover from centuries of racism, oppression, colonialism and slavery”, noted that King Charles III had told the Commonwealth heads of government meeting back in June 2022 that acknowledging wrongs of the past was a “conversation whose time has come.” The letter asks that the king “immediately start the conversation about slavery’s enduring impact.”
They also asked the British monarch for an immediate commitment to discussions about reparations for “the oppression of our peoples, plundering of our resources, denigration of our culture and to redistribute the wealth that underpins the crown back to the peoples from whom it was stolen.”
The British Museum is home to around 8 million objects. The reality that many of these artefacts – around 99 percent of which are not placed on public display, but hoarded away in the institution's private archives – were forcibly taken has led to decades-long demands for their restitution.
Anonymous
1 comment:
The Anglo Saxon Whites and Japanese will never admit their crimes, precisely over the fear of reparations and compensations. The Whites will never admit genocides of the Native American Indians and Aborigines among others. That is why it was never written in the history books. The Japs will never admit their crimes during WW2 as well.
The USA never would admit that Agent Orange is causing all the deformation in babies born in Vietnam. Neither would they admit to using Uranium tainted casing shells against the North Vietnamese and in Iraq, also causing the same deformation in babies. The USA will just call those atrocities as collateral damage, so no reparations or compensation is needed.
If India alone were to ask the British for reparations and compensation during their colonisation of India, the Brits would not be able to do that, even if they sell their backsides. 45 trillion pounds and 156 million deaths is beyond the capability of the Brits to do so.
Ironically, the reverse colonisation of Little Britain by India may be token compensation in some way. So Sunak becoming PM of Little Britain does serve a little purpose after all. But get rid of that parasitic Royal Family.
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