Caribbean | 加勒比地区呼唤修复式正义

当年，非洲人民被抓后再被贩卖至大洋彼岸的美洲，经历悲惨的受奴役人生，而留在非洲本土的人们，则遭受了野蛮殖民制度的践踏，这样的苦难是众所周知的。而鲜为人知的，或许是被奴役的社会和奴隶们及其后代在经济上承受的长期后果。

曾因征服、拥有动产奴隶以及实行殖民统治而受益的政府和机构，目前正日益频繁地面对两项要求，一是承认其在此类制度中起到了推波助澜的作用，二是做出适当的赔偿。这一趋势在全球南方（包括非洲、拉丁美洲和加勒比地区，以及亚洲和大洋洲部分地区）愈演愈烈。

其中主要的诉求是以上实体须认识到其财富系因破坏无数种族群体和民族群体、文化与社会而得，而这样的破坏，目前仍对这些群体繁荣发展的能力有着深远的影响。这一点已经通过了以下人士的证明：1939年《西印度群岛的劳工》（Labour in the West Indies）一书作者、圣卢西亚经济学家以及诺贝尔奖获得者阿瑟·刘易斯（Arthur Lewis）；历史学家、特立尼达和多巴哥首任总理埃里克·威廉斯（Eric Williams），其于1944年出版了《资本主义与奴隶制》（Capitalism and Slavery）一书；以及巴巴多斯经济史学家希拉里·比克尔斯（Hilary Beckles）。

长期否认

与上述对赔偿必要性的解读背道而驰的，则是大量由来已久的坚决否认。比如美国历史学家西摩·德雷舍尔（Seymour Drescher）就对此予以否认，认为英国于1807年废除“奴隶贸易”，属于英国民众反对奴隶贸易运动的成果，并非源于奴隶制对于英国而言逐渐失去价值。

甚至早在威廉斯和比克尔斯之前，因对西印度群岛工业化提出多项建议而闻名的经济学家阿瑟·刘易斯就强烈倡导针对殖民时期犯下的错误做出赔偿。他提醒英国，近200年来，英国一直在加勒比地区的被奴役人民身上榨取免费劳动力，这笔债必须偿还。

当然，两个多世纪以来，欧洲各国与加勒比国家之间诉讼案和历史进程的一大特点，都是要求就以下内容给予赔偿：加勒比地区土著民遭遇的种族灭绝；非裔人民遭遇的贩卖和奴役；亚裔人民遭遇的欺诈性劳动契约；以及奴隶制度与殖民终结后仍存在的不公正现象。被奴役的非裔人民在其中担当了先驱者，他们十分清楚非法抓捕属于对自身人权的侵犯，且一直在设法结束跨大西洋的动产奴隶贩卖行为。

寻求正义

奴隶制结束后，获得解放的人们开启了斗争，争取获得土地和体面的工资。由于统治阶层仍在试图维持奴隶制度，广大民众则拒绝配合，加勒比地区于18世纪和19世纪爆发了多次战争；1865年牙买加的莫兰特湾战争，以及20世纪30年代加勒比地区的劳工起义，都是在延续寻求补偿性正义之路。

拉斯塔法里教（Rastafari）在帮助黑奴回到非洲的背景下不断发起索赔运动，最终大量民间团体、学者、政治人士也纷纷加入，2013年起，加勒比地区各国政府也相继参与其中。最早加入的政治家是已故大使达德利·汤普森（Dudley Thompson），他是1993年尼日利亚阿布贾索赔大会的关键人物。阿比奥拉（Abiola）酋长和安东尼·吉福德（Anthony Gifford）勋爵也出席了大会。前者是一位成功的尼日利亚商人，长期致力于将赔偿列入国际外交议程；后者则是在英国和牙买加从业的人权律师，为加勒比地区人民的权利而战。

“诸多机构都承认了自己在历史上犯下的错误，并敦促犯下同样错误的国家正视奴隶贸易的遗留问题”

如今，已有诸多机构承认了自己在历史上犯下的错误，并敦促犯下同样错误的国家正视奴隶贸易和殖民统治的遗留问题，同时根据《德班宣言和行动纲领》（Durban Declaration and Programme of Action）以及《非洲人后裔国际十年活动方案（2014—2024年）》（Programme of Activities for the International Decade for People of African Descent (2014-2024)），通过赔偿来弥补数百年来的暴行与歧视。

不断加大的支持力度

努力争取赔偿的还有美国普林斯顿大学和英国剑桥大学等高校，以及牙买加蒙罗学院等由被奴役人民建立的学校。其他敦促给予赔偿的机构还包括英国圣公会、联合国各机制和条约机构、银行、保险公司以及被奴役人民的后裔。这些后裔由前BBC记者劳拉·特里维廉（Laura Trevelyan）牵头，成立了一个名为“被奴役人民后裔”（The Heirs of Enslavers）的组织。

“对经济赔偿的诉求正获得越来越多的支持”

各方日益支持做出经济赔偿。美国咨询机构布拉特尔集团（Brattle Group）就此给出了具体数字。其在报告中表示，曾经的奴隶制国家欠美洲31个国家的总金额达107.8万亿美元。按照这一计算结果，英国须向14个加勒比共同体国家赔偿约24万亿美元，须向牙买加赔偿9.5万亿美元。美国须就其开展的跨大西洋奴隶贸易向美国和法国的大量人士赔偿26.790万亿美元，须向马提尼克岛、法属圭亚那、瓜德罗普和格林纳达赔偿9.288万亿美元，须向海地赔偿14亿美元。索赔对象还涉及西班牙、巴西、葡萄牙与荷兰。

奴隶制终结后的赔偿估值达22.9万亿美元，因此，赔偿总额将略高于130万亿美元。

直到正义得到伸张

除此之外，加勒比共同体（CARICOM）还提出了一项“补偿性正义计划”。该共同体由20个国家组成，从北美洲的巴哈马一直延伸至南美洲的苏里南和圭亚那。加勒比共同体赔偿委员会由各国政府首脑、西印度群岛大学赔偿研究中心和整个加勒比地区的多个国家赔偿委员会组成。其提出“10点赔偿计划”，要求给出正式道歉、开展扫盲运动、承认非洲的本土知识并取消债务等。

无论采用何种方法，追求补偿性正义的运动终将不断发展壮大，直到实现为所有因卑劣的动产奴役和白人至上主义而受到伤害的人们伸张正义。这样的卑劣在殖民统治时期得到了充分体现，并因其在当代的遗留问题而昭然若揭。

毕竟，特立尼达政府驻联合国非殖民化特别委员会代表埃利斯·克拉克（Ellis Clarke）爵士就曾于1964年表示：“一个管理国……无权在长达数个世纪的时期将殖民地所拥有的一切榨干，而当这样做的目的是为了免除其义务时……要寻求正义，就须对遭受殖民统治蹂躏的国家给予赔偿……”

The Caribbean calls for restorative justice

The violence inflicted in the context of slavery has left deep and multiple scars throughout the region. More and more voices are calling for reparation, including financial compensation.

Verene Shepherd

The human suffering of the Africans who were captured, trafficked across the sea and enslaved in the Americas, as well as the indigenous peoples who also suffered under the barbaric colonial system, are well known. What may be less known are the enduring financial implications, for the enslaving societies as well as for the slaves and their descendants. 

More and more frequently, governments and institutions that benefited from the conquest, chattel enslavement and colonialism are being demanded to acknowledge the role they played in these systems, and to make adequate restitution. This is increasingly so in the Global South, which is broadly comprised of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and parts of Asia and Oceania.

The key demand is for these entities to recognize that their wealth was created from the destruction of countless racial and ethnic communities, cultures and societies, which continue to have far-reaching implications on their ability to thrive. This has already been demonstrated by Saint Lucian economist and Nobel laureate Arthur Lewis, author of Labour in the West Indies in 1939; the historian and first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago Eric Williams, who wrote Capitalism and Slavery in 1944; and the Barbadian economic historian Hilary Beckles.

Ancestral denials

These explanations of the need for reparations run counter to many age-old denials, such as the one by American historian Seymour Drescher, who argued that Great Britain’s abolition of the “slave trade” in 1807 resulted from the British public’s mobilization against it, and not from the diminishing value of slavery for Great Britain.

Even before Williams and Beckles, the economist Arthur Lewis, who was famous for his recommendations for the industrialization of the West Indies, had been a passionate advocate for reparation for colonial wrongs. He reminded Great Britain that the close to 200 years of free labour it extracted from enslaved people in the Caribbean was a debt that must be repaid. 

Of course, in the Caribbean, the call for redress for the genocide of indigenous populations, the trafficking and enslavement of Africans, deceptive Asian indentureship and post-slavery and post-colonial injustices, has been a feature of European/Caribbean jurisprudence and history for more than two centuries. The pioneers were enslaved Africans who knew their illegal entrapment was a violation of their human rights, and struggled to end the transatlantic trafficking in chattel enslavement. 

Quest for justice

In the post-slavery period, emancipated people took up the struggle, making efforts to secure land and decent wages. The 18th and 19th century saw wars all over the Caribbean; the Morant Bay War in Jamaica in 1865 and the 1930s labour protests across the Caribbean all continued this search for reparatory justice as the governing classes sought to maintain slavery and the masses refused to cooperate. 

The Rastafari continued the movement for reparation, framed within the context of repatriation to Africa, until joined by civil society, academics, individual politicians, and, since 2013, by the governments of the Caribbean region. The earliest politician to do so was the late Ambassador Dudley Thompson, who was a key figure at the 1993 Abuja Reparation Conference in Nigeria, attended also by Chief Abiola, a successful Nigerian businessman who worked to place reparations on the international diplomatic agenda, and Lord Anthony Gifford, a human rights lawyer in the UK and Jamaica who fights for Caribbean rights. 

“Many institutions have owned up to their past and urged complicit countries to confront the legacy of slavery”

Today, many institutions have owned up to their past and urged complicit countries to confront the legacy of slavery and colonialism, and make amends for centuries of violence and discrimination through reparations, grounded in the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action and the Programme of Activities for the International Decade for People of African Descent (2014-2024). 

Growing support

Those who push for reparations include universities such as Princeton in the United States and Cambridge in the UK, as well as schools established by enslavers, such as Munro in Jamaica. Other institutions pushing for reparations are the Anglican Church; United Nations mechanisms and treaty bodies; banks; insurance companies and individuals descended from enslavers. The latter, led by former BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan, have formed a group called “The Heirs of Enslavers”.

“The need for financial reparations is gaining increasing support”

There is growing support for financial reparations, and specific figures have been provided by the US consulting firm the Brattle Group. They report that the aggregate sum owed by former enslaving states to 31 countries in the Americas is US$107.8 trillion. According to this calculation, the UK would have to pay some US$24 trillion to 14 CARICOM countries and US$9.5 trillion to Jamaica. The United States would have to pay US$26.790 trillion for its practice of transatlantic slavery to the United States; and France, US$9.288 trillion to Martinique, French Guiana, Guadeloupe and Grenada, and US$1.4 billion to Haiti. Spain, Brazil, Portugal and the Netherlands are also concerned by these claims.

The estimate of reparations for the post-enslavement period is calculated to be US$22.9 trillion, putting the total sum to just over US$130 trillion.

Until justice is served

Aside from this, a Plan for Reparatory Justice has been proposed by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), a group of twenty countries stretching from the Bahamas in the north to Suriname and Guyana in South America. A CARICOM Reparation Commission was established by the countries’ heads of government, The Centre for Reparation Research at The University of the West Indies, and National Reparation Committees across the Caribbean. The Ten Point Plan addresses formal apology, illiteracy eradication, the recognition of African knowledge and debt cancellation, among other points.

Whatever the method, the movement for reparatory justice will continue to grow until justice is delivered to all of those harmed by the indecency of chattel enslavement and white supremacy, as expressed through colonialism and manifested in its contemporary legacies. 

After all, as Sir Ellis Clarke, the Trinidadian Government’s United Nations representative to the Committee on Colonialism stated in 1964: “An administering power . . .  is not entitled to extract for centuries all that can be got out of a colony and when that has been done to relieve itself of its obligations . . . Justice requires that reparation be made to the country that has suffered the ravages of colonialism..."

Originally coming from West Africa – in an area between Senegambia and Central Africa – and East Africa, they were deported mainly to Brazil (40 per cent of captives in the slave trade), to the Caribbean islands (60 per cent) and, to a lesser extent, to the United States. This system of human exploitation through violence and domination – slavery – was the first global economy.