Jamaican delegation to travel to UK to lodge formal slavery reparations petition with King Charles

Jamaican officials will travel to the UK in September to formally lodge an unprecedented petition with King Charles to seek legal guidance on their slavery reparations claim from Britain, the country’s government announced on Tuesday. Speaking in the parliament of the Caribbean nation, Olivia Grange, the culture minister, confirmed that the trip was planned for 6 September, and was intended to take Jamaica’s mission for reparatory justice to the next level. The petition, first announced in June last year, asks King Charles to use his authority to request legal advice from the judicial committee of the London-based privy council, the final court of appeal for UK overseas territories and some Commonwealth countries, on whether the forced transport of Africans to Jamaica was lawful, if it constituted a crime against humanity, and whether Britain was under obligation to provide restitution to Jamaica for slavery and its enduring consequences. The request is being made to King Charles “in his capacity as head of state of Jamaica and from whom we expect protection”, Grange said, adding that the country had full support of the Caribbean Community (Caricom). “We intend to petition King Charles on 6 September – an historic day,” she said. “On this date in 1781, the Zong slave ship departed West Africa for Jamaica with 442 enslaved Africans. …