The Vice-Chair of the CARICOM Reparations Commission (CRC), Professor Verene Shepherd on Tuesday announced that the Commission is expanding its list of countries to be targeted for reparations.
According to a release issued by CARICOM on behalf of the CRC, the Vice-Chair made the statement at a press conference held at the Regional Headquarters of The University of the West Indies (UWI) on June 10. It was also revealed that the CRC was in the process of preparing a new round of letters-of-demand to be presented to additional countries identified as participants in the trafficking of enslaved Africans to the Caribbean.
The press conference was called by the Centre for Reparation Research (CRR) at the UWI to share with the Caribbean public, findings from the 2018 expanded Slave Voyages Database created by Prof David Eltis and his team of researchers. This database 2.0 created in 1999 and updated in 2008 and 2018, has revealed 1,000 additional voyages undertaken by slavers from European states that were participants in one form or another in the trade in Africans to CARICOM member states and Cuba and or slavery. Among the less-publicised names are Sweden, Switzerland, Russia, Norway, Hanse Towns, Brandenburg and the Duchy of Courland (Latvia).
