London, Thanasis Gavos

Caribbean countries are renewing their call to King Charles III to apologize for the role of his ancestors and the institution of the monarchy in general in the slave trade, as well as to pay reparations.

“The king has an opportunity not only to apologise, but also to have time to create the architecture of change and the architecture of negotiation that could get things moving,” Eric Phillips, vice-chairman of the Compensation Committee, told Britain’s Sky News of Caricom (Caribbean Community of Nations), made up of 20 states in the region.

“I think now is the time, given what’s going on globally in terms of justice, with the Black Lives Matter movement, human rights – it’s the right thing for him to do,” Mr Phillips added.

The Caribbean reparations movement has intensified in recent years, with Charles last year addressing Commonwealth leaders saying: “I cannot begin to describe the depths of my personal sorrow for the suffering of so many as I continue to deepen the my own understanding of the lasting impact of slavery.”

However, he did not apologize as many demanded. Prince William did the same when he said in a speech in Jamaica in 2022: “Slavery was abhorrent and should never have happened.”

Buckingham Palace has announced that the king supports the investigation that has been launched into the links of the British crown with the transatlantic slave trade.

The National Archives and research by historians and journalists have documented these links, such as the establishment of the Royal African Society with the help of Charles II in the mid-17th century. This organization transported almost 200,000 slaves from Africa to America.

It has also emerged from archival documents that a few years later, at the end of the same century, William III of Orange received a donation of one thousand pounds in shares in the Royal African Company from the notorious slave trader Edward Colston, whose statue was torn down by protesters in Bristol in 2020 and was dragged to the port of the city to be thrown into the sea.

The pressure on Charles is intensified by the movement of aristocratic families as well as King William-Alexander of the Netherlands to apologize for the role of their ancestors in slavery.

The shake-up of the issue comes ahead of the annual Commonwealth Day on March 11. At the regular Mass for the day at Westminster Abbey, Charles, who continues his cancer treatment, will be represented by Queen Camilla.