The chairman of the Antigua and Barbuda Reparations Support Commission, Dorbrene O’Marde says he will use the visit of two members of the British royal family later this month to present an open letter on reparation.
“Essentially, it supports the positions taken by other…people as far as the issue of reparation is concerned and the inability of the absence of an apology from the Crown both as family and as an institution for their role in the enslavement of African people in the slave trade and in the slavery of African people,” O’Marde said on a local radio program.
Prince Edward and Sophie Countess of Wessex are due to visit Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines during the period April 22-28.
The royal couple will be guests at Government House on the morning of April 25 for an event dubbed ‘Showcasing our Nation; Saluting Our People’.
The visit is in celebration of Queen Elizabeth’s historic Platinum Jubilee as the longest-serving British monarch and titular head of the Antiguan and Barbudan state.
They will be the second pair of royals to tour the region as part of Jubilee celebrations; Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, recently wrapped up their Caribbean excursion during which they visited Belize, Jamaica, and the Bahamas where the issue of reparation had been raised
O’Marde said that while the Commission would be supporting the calls for reparation, it will also be guided by the fact that the royal couple’s visit will be in the context of them being “representatives of our head of state, Queen Elizabeth11.
“The Antigua and Barbuda Reparations Commission is a government-appointed Commission and the decision of the government that appointed this Commission is the invitation of these folks to visit Antigua and Barbuda”.
He said that it would be St. John’s that would have extended the invitation to the royals to visit adding “so they are invited to come here”.
CMC/
