By: Staff Writer
July 14, 2026
Sir Hilary McDonald Beckles KA, vice-chancellor of the University of the West Indies and chairman of the CARICOM Reparations Commission, said on a CARICOM Reparations Forum just recently that this is three moment in time where descendants of enslaved Africans should be demanding compensation from the descendants of the European powers that enslaved them.
Beckles said: “The historical evidence shows that we are in the fifth wave of the reparations movement. This is our time. We are standing on the shoulders of ancestors. This is our moment in time.
“The first wave, we know, was in the slavery period itself, when free black people would demand compensation and justice. They saw themselves as persons whose labor was stolen, and they wanted compensation for the stolen labor, which is based on a standard philosophy that every human being is entitled to benefit from the fruits of their labor.
“Why were black people not allowed to enjoy the fruits of their labor? It went to someone else, someone that owned that labor. So we had that first wave, and we have many cases of enslaved people becoming free and demanding compensation. Some got more, most did not.”
The movement for Caribbean reparations has shifted from a symbolic legal debate into a highly coordinated, global development strategy led by the CARICOM Reparations Commission (CRC).
Rather than viewing reparations strictly as direct cash payouts to individuals, Caribbean leaders frame reparatory justice as a necessary framework to address the systemic, structural underdevelopment left behind by centuries of chattel slavery and indigenous genocide
Beckles also said: “We could feel it. All of the people of the world today, who have been colonized, who have been enslaved, whose resources were plundered, whose people were stolen all over the world at this moment in history? Everyone is saying we want justice for what has happened to us.
“We are standing with the African black people on this matter, China, Russia, Iran-all of those countries are still with us. This is the moment. This is it. So here we are now at the final stage, where we believe that the case has been made.
For 300 years, did we have a legal case to reparatory justice? The answer now is yes. The case has been made. There’s nothing more to discuss about whether there’s a case or not.
“The question now is implementation. Demand. That’s where we are now at this moment. That is why Africa and the CARICOM are now in league, providing global leadership for the next phase.”