King Charles Begins Nine-Day Caribbean Tour From Bahamas to Guyana and Commonwealth Summit, With Slavery Reparations Demands in Focus
The United Kingdom's King Charles III is travelling to the Bahamas on Tuesday, where he will begin a nine-day tour of the Caribbean. The tour will take him to the Bahamas, Guyana, and Antigua and Barbuda. It comes as demands for reparations over Britain's role in the slave trade grow louder, and as the monarchy faces questions about its future in the region.
His tour begins on Tuesday with the archipelagic country of the Bahamas, where he will be staying for three days. Then he will make his way to Guyana, a former British colony that had more than 100,000 slaves when the trade was abolished in 1807. After two days in Guyana, where he is expected to meet the president and elected leaders of Amerindian villages, he will head to Antigua and Barbuda for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
The meeting, from November 1 to 4, is expected to include discussions about the environment and trade and development, although the question of British reparations for slavery is also likely to feature. Leaders and representatives of 56 Commonwealth countries will be attending.
Government officials in the Bahamas and in Antigua and Barbuda, both of which are part of the British Commonwealth with King Charles as their ultimate head of state, have signalled that they want to become republics. Guyana gained independence from the UK in 1966 and has a president as its head of state.
Guyanese President Mohamed Irfaan Ali said in an interview with ITV News that while Charles 'rightfully' recognised slavery as the 'darkest days in human history' during a visit to Barbados in 2021 when he was still the Prince of Wales, an apology should be his next step. 'You exploited the region. You destroyed lives. You created underdevelopment,' Ali said, in a reference to the lingering legacy of the British Empire and the slave trade.
In 2023, a Lord Ashcroft poll revealed that 51 percent of surveyed respondents in the Bahamas wanted to become a republic, while 27 percent preferred to retain the British monarchy as head of state.
Niambi Hall Campbell-Dean, chair of the Bahamas National Reparations Committee, was critical of the king ahead of his arrival. 'Why do we still have a king? What does this person really represent to us? Why is he coming and how will that benefit us?' she asked.
Jamaica, which is not on the itinerary for this trip, made its stance clear in September, when it filed a 10-billion-dollar slavery reparations petition in London, addressing it to the king. That was the first time a British Commonwealth state has taken legal action pursuing 'the cause of reparatory justice', as the Jamaican delegation called it. The petition is due to be heard by a UK Privy Council in March next year. The UK has so far refused to formally apologise or pay reparations for slavery.
Also in September, Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) Secretary-General Carla Barnett said reparations are 'fundamentally about justice'. She said: 'It is about recognition, accountability and transformation, and about building a just and equitable future for the descendants of those who, as the chattel of colonial owners, endured untold suffering, loss of life and freedom.'
The transatlantic slave trade was declared the 'gravest crime against humanity' in a United Nations resolution in March this year. The last time a British royal visited Jamaica was when Prince William and Kate Middleton, then the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, toured the island in 2022 during their Caribbean Platinum Jubilee tour. A memorable moment of that trip was when the couple were pictured shaking hands with Jamaican children with a fence separating them, which many criticised for being 'tone-deaf'.
The meeting in Antigua and Barbuda is also expected to cover climate resilience as well as trade and development. Many leaders want an apology for slavery from the king, but Buckingham Palace recently announced that will not be happening. A palace spokesperson said in a statement that the visit programme will not shy away from 'the darkest days of our past', as His Majesty has described them, but, in keeping with the wishes of host nations, it will principally be oriented to the vibrant present and promising future of each country. The palace added that it is 'important' to acknowledge the 'creative' ways Charles has tried to right 'enduring inequalities'.
The chair of the UK's All-Party Parliamentary Group for Afrikan Reparations, Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, said the royal family and the UK government had failed to recognise the demands of those wanting reparations. She said: 'I think it would be wrong to think that we can continue with platitudes. You've got 'atrocity', 'deep regret', 'sorrow', and now they're going to say 'darkest days'. I think the king needs to realise that people wouldn't keep raising it if what he was doing was anywhere near enough.' She added: 'You can tell that the Commonwealth means something to the monarchy, and I'm sure he would not want to be the monarch under which it crumbles.'
