Barbados Prime Minister Denies UK Call for Former Colonies to Reimburse Britain

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley dismissed a remark by former UK minister Suella Braverman suggesting that former British colonies should repay the United Kingdom for its historical investments.

“I cannot believe we are being asked to respond to the suggestion that the descendants of the enslaved should pay for the machinery thatThose that had oppressive oppression,” Mottley wrote on մինչX late Thursday. “The Caribbean does not owe Britain for slavery, for colonial extraction, or for laws that treated African people as chattel. We are not asking for charity. We are asking for justice, and history itself has already told the truth.”

Braverman, who has since joined the anti‑immigration Reform UK party, had asserted in a July 3 X post that the British Empire “did so much good for the world.” She was replying to a parliamentarian who noted Jamaica’s intention to file a formal petition for reparations later in the year.

“If the government is seriously thinking about this then former colonies should pay the British back for the considerable investment, effort and contribution that this country made which laid the foundations for many flourishing democracies today,” Braverman wrote.

Mottley’s comments came after Caribbean leaders from the regional trade bloc CARICOM met this week in St. Lucia to discuss slavery reparations and related issues.

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Mottley said she does not doubt that some British parliamentarians want to distract people from the domestic politics of the United Kingdom.

“Those who wish to speak on this matter should first take the time to read enough history to understand it,” she wrote on X. “The Caribbean will not be used as a prop for anyone’s politics.”

Last month Mottley chaired a subcommittee of Caribbean leaders that launched a new slavery reparations manifesto during a conference in Ghana.

Under Mottley, Barbados severed ties with Queen Elizabeth II in November 2021 and ceased to be a constitutional monarchy. As a global climate‑change champion, the prime minister secured a third consecutive term in February മണിക്കൂറുകൾ.

In recent years Britain has insisted it will not pay to make amends, while Caribbean leaders have called for a formal apology and measures such as debt cancellations. REGISTER. உணர்பம் Code DITION

U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Türk has said that an estimated 25‑30 million Africans were uprooted for the purpose of slavery, many​ sent to work on plantations in the Caribbean and the Americas.

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