In my opinion CARIFESTA XV was a successful event. I attended several of the Big Conversations hoping to have a conversation on reparations. Some panellists were concerned that the public were not more enthusiastic about reparations. This difficult conversation may explain why.
I believe that reparations is a valid legal claim for the estates of the enslaved. Therefore, every descendant of enslaved Barbadians has the right to pursue a legal claim in court. To avoid clogging up the court with masses of similar claims, one individual may petition the court and if successful, the defendant may settle with everyone else.
To my knowledge, not one Barbadian has petitioned the court as the estate of their enslaved foreparents, despite the National Archives having authentic ancestral records that the court should recognise. If the individual was successful, the reparations judgement would be paid directly to the descendants of the enslaved – not the Government.
DIFFICULT AND COMPLEX ROUTE.
Rather than go on this simple route, we are told that reparations is a highly complex and difficult work that requires the long-term dedication of activists organisations and Caribbean governments. Quoting Marcus Garvey, one noted that we must remain committed even if it took 200 years.
I cannot see how individual Barbadians can benefit from this complex approach. The government, as an institution, was complicit in enslaving our foreparents and activists have no standing before the courts. Therefore, this complex approach is likely to fail in the courts.
Activist organisations have tried to shame British politicians, businesses and churches into paying reparations, with threats of going to court if they do not pay. However, it is unlikely that the Barbadian public will directly receive any of the funds received from this complex approach. This view is supported by the fact that the public has not directly benefitted from the reparation payments the government has already received on our behalf.
BROKEN PROMISES.
Haitians fought and died for their land. When they defeated the French military, the Haitian people expected to be given some land in return. They must have been disheartened when their new political leaders told them that they would get no land and forcibly sent them back to work on the plantations.
When the US enslaved were emancipated, they were promised 40 acres and a mule and some received that payment. However, after President Lincoln was assassinated, his successor broke that promise. The descendants of the US enslaved are still owed reparations by their government.
When we received our Independence from Britain, we did not ask for reparations. Had we done so, the country’s assets, including all crown lands, would have been quantified and subtracted from the sum owed. Therefore, the crown lands are indisputably part of the reparations that the Government already received on our behalf.
Guyana received its independence from Britain in 1966, the same year as Barbados. That government was also given the crown lands. The government then gave citizens a plot of land. If citizens had already purchased a lot, then they were reportedly given another one. The Guyanese public may have a higher-confidence that they would benefit from any successful reparations claims their government may pursue on their behalf.
In Barbados, we were not given any crown land. Instead, we had to purchase land at market costs and then pay burdensome land taxes on the land and any house we built on it. It is burdensome because the tax is not calculated as a percentage of the construction cost, but the price at which a buyer is willing to purchase it. The land tax is capped at $60,000 (US$30,000) per property per year.
GENERATIONAL BURDEN.
To force compliance, our post-Independence Land Tax Act allows the Commissioner to sell our land and house by public auction to recover any tax due, if the land tax is not paid within approximately five months of the date of the annual Tax Demand Notice for that year (Section 34). This annual tax burden must be paid by our descendants and their descendants etc forever, or until Jesus returns, whichever comes first.
This behaviour with the reparations that have already been received on our behalf suggests that any remaining reparations received will be treated in a similar manner – despite the public taxes that are used to fund the complex reparations route.
Since no Barbadian, not even our activists, have pursued a court claim, I have decided to follow the straightest and simplest way to reparations by petitioning the court. If I am successful, I will donate the full judgement to the surviving Indians along the Putumayo river in Peru, as reparations for the genocide inflicted on them by our foreparents a century ago.
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