A two-day summit for 56 heads of government, including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, ended with leaders calling for a formal dialogue about reparations for Britain's role in the transatlantic slave trade.
The Commonwealth of Nations' statement on Saturday at the end of its biennial summit, which was hosted this year in Apia, Samoa, concluded "the time has come for a meaningful, truthful and respectful conversation towards forging a common future based on equity."
The international organization of mostly former British colonies will hold "inclusive conversations addressing these harms, paying special attention to women and girls, who suffered disproportionately from these appalling tragedies in the history of humanity."
Its "Samoa Communique" reflects the views of leaders for 2.7 billion people in member nations, "the majority of which share common historical experiences in relation to this abhorrent trade, chattel enslavement, the debilitation and dispossession of Indigenous people, indentureship, colonialism, blackbirding and their enduring effects."
King Charles III, speaking as the organization's symbolic head, indirectly acknowledged the leaders' calls for a historical reckoning over the mass atrocities – Britain once was the world's leading slave-trading country – but stopped short of mentioning financial reparations.
“None of us can change the past but we can commit with all our hearts to learning its lessons and to finding creative ways to right the inequalities that endure,” he told the summit, his first as king.
'Vast' harm that lives on to this day
Reparations to countries where people were kidnapped as slaves could include a mixture of cash payments, debt relief, formal apologies, and investments in educational programs, health care, and hospitals.
Boston-based Brattle Group found 31 countries that enslaved people between 1510 and 1870 owe US$77 trillion to US$108 trillion in reparations for enslavement, and US$22.9 trillion for post-enslavement harms. These include loss of life and liberty, uncompensated labor, personal injury, mental pain and anguish, and gender-based violence.
"The harm caused by transatlantic chattel slavery was vast, and its repercussions resonate in the lives of descendants of the enslaved to this day," the group's 2023 analysis says.
"By our estimates, these harms were inflicted on 19 million people over the span of four centuries. These 19 million include those Africans kidnapped and transported to the Americas and Caribbean and those born into slavery."
