UK tells Commonwealth members slavery reparations not on table

Britain said reparations for the centuries-old transatlantic slavery is not on the agenda of its participation at a Commonwealth summit.

Members of the former British empire, the Commonwealth, are meeting in Samoa, as the current government sticks to a tradition set by its predecessors rejecting calls for reparations.

Both British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and King Charles will attend the Samoa meeting.

“We do not pay reparations,” a spokesman for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Reuters.

“The position on an apology remains the same. We won’t be offering an apology,” he said.

In April, the US backed African and Caribbean nations calling for the setting up of a tribunal that will look into atrocities suffered by ancestors who have been enslaved by Western powers including the UK.

The creation of such a tribunal modeled on Nuremburg trials.

Formally recommended in June by the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, the idea of a special tribunal has been explored further at African and Caribbean regional bodies.

Between 1501 and 1867, nearly 13 million African people were kidnapped, forced onto European and American ships, and trafficked across the Atlantic Ocean to be enslaved, abused, and forever separated from their homes, families, ancestors, and cultures.