The University of the West Indies (UWI) and the University of Glasgow have signed the first ever agreement for slavery reparations since British Emancipation in 1838. The £20 million agreement was signed at the Regional Headquarters of The UWI in Kingston, Jamaica last week by Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles and Dr David Duncan, University of Glasgow’s Chief Operating Officer, representing Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli.
The terms of the agreement call for the University of Glasgow to provide £20 million to fund research to promote development initiatives to be jointly undertaken with The UWI over the next two decades. The sum of £20 million was the amount paid to slave owners as reparations by the British government when it abolished slavery in 1834.
The agreement represents the first occasion on which a slavery-enriched British or European institution has apologized for its part in slavery and committed funds to facilitate a reparations programme. In this instance, the two universities have adopted a regional development approach to reparations.
The funds will facilitate the operations of a jointly-owned and managed institution to be called the Glasgow-Caribbean Centre for Development Research. The Centre will target and promote solutions to Caribbean development problems in areas such as medicine and public health, economics and economic growth, cultural identity and cultural industries, and other 21st century orientations in Caribbean transformation.
The seminal agreement, the first of its kind in the Western World, brings to closure negotiations between the two institutions that began when the University of Glasgow published a report in 2018 revealing that between the 1780s and 1880s it received millions of pounds in grants and endowments from Scottish and English slave owners that served to enrich and physically expand the near 600-year-old university.
Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, who brokered the historic agreement, complemented Dr Duncan for his astute leadership of the Glasgow Reparatory Justice Task Force, and Glasgow’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli for his visionary leadership.
Commenting on the globally anticipated moment in the long reparations struggle, Sir Hilary noted that the University of Glasgow acknowledged that a university cannot be excellent if it is not ethical, and that this agreement places the university on a high moral ground.
The £20 million will be invested in policy research in science, technology, society and economy, and education and advocacy that seek to repair the debilitating consequences of slavery and colonization that continue to hold back Caribbean development. The Centre will therefore focus on joint efforts to clean up the colonial mess that continues to subvert efforts at Caribbean social growth and economic growth. It will be formally established on the two campuses in September 2019.
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20 million pounds over 2 decades.
I do not trust those people money. The last time I took some shiny things from them I ended up on an unwanted cruise to the Caribbean and a job that I did not apply for shackled and beaten.
As it was in the beginning so shall it be in the end. They are coming back people they are coming. This time no whips and chains, just psychology.
They think they have perfected it now they are back to implement
They have been working on this plan since 1834, so be vigilant.
They are tricky
Wow…20 million pound!!!
Wonder if any will trickle to the Five Island University cause it needs more funds to ensure it stays afloat to help the students and teachers that will be there and the maintenance of the compound too.
@ A&Bdband best
First victim. Ready to start a fight for crumbs. Ready to stand in line for handout.
Reparation cannot repair pride, dignity, soveringty, and consciousness. It is an individual responsibility.
Remember they are tricky. They only appear sorry they want access to do research us officially and in plain sight.
Their recommendations that will appear helpful, will in actuality compound our position as slaves .
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The era of Aquarius is at hand, and they know it. People are waking up and their truth will strangle themselves. This move is to try and protect themselves from us.
Aquarius is here….
Coming back? They never left.
The British ensured that we are psychologically subservient to them through language, culture , system of governance and religion. Once they are confident that the political Independence pioneers like VC Bird, Manley, Adams et al are all on board with operation ‘Black skin white mask’, then they grant independence and continue their domination psychologically.
There is absolutely no need for them to return physically when we are doing such a great job executing their master plan
Yes coming back… Boldly and physically with a present how covert and or clandestine it may be.
20 Million paid over 20 years??? That is it?? What about the interest that would have accumulated over close to 200 years??
Just imagine if someone stole 1000 dollars from you and 50 years later they want to repay you that same 1000 dollars ONLY (with ZERO interest). AND you’re not getting that money back immediately but over the course of 20 years!!
The University of Glasgow and similar institutions are BILLION dolliar organizations. 20 million over 20 years is nothing! A pittance! This is not reparation – this is humiliation. On our part.
The mindest of these people to persons of African descent has obviously not changed over the last 200 years.
Sorry Professor Beckles but I’m disappointed with this corned beef solution you came up with to the serious issue of reparations. You shouldn’t be shaking that man hand. You should be slapping him. Disgraceful.
@ Tourist man
You are 100% correct. These guys are intellectually blind. Their logics is based on their caucasion education and pompousness, not reality.
You do not repay a man and make the rules of the repayment. Just like how their monkey Cort system works the injured party benefits from finds and confinement in specific crimes.
I think this situation is worthy of fine and confinement. It’s time to take these criminals to the world court.
Not accept their pitty. How can 20 million pounds over 20 years sounds like any kind of reasonableness.
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These guys allowed those figures to bamboozle them. You see when you are broke and destitute and cluess as what to do next, you suffer from our intellectual blindness.
And any help is help even if it is wolf that us doing the helping
PROCEEDS OF HUMAN TRAFFFICKING – COMPENSATION OR REPARATIONS?
Irrespective of ownership, joint or otherwise, of a ‘ …Glasgow-Caribbean Center For Research,’ should ‘…Twenty million English Pounds’ be equated to the ‘…Compensatory Package’ paid to British Slave owners?
Looked at from this news story, either the intellectuals or reporters appeared confused over the concepts, ‘…Compensation and Reparation’ [Paragraph 2].
It could never be said that the British Government had paid ‘…Reparations of Twenty million Pounds’ to the Slave owners for ‘…humans’ they had considered among their possessions or inheritance.
Such payments looks more like ‘…Compensation’ for people they claimed they had purchased and owned as private property.
This shall not even be likened to the ‘…Compulsory Acquisition of the Half Moon Bay Property.’
Is this the worth of, or value placed on the ‘…Inhuman treatment; …indignities endured; …atrocities perpetrated; and consequential Deaths,’ considered by the distinguished Professor?
it is not even the intellect possess by an individual.
It is the intrinsic value of a ‘…Research Center’ placed upon the sufferings of the innocent and hapless slaves.
This is capable of being seen as the ‘…Proceeds of Human Trafficking and Exploitation.’
Okay, “pay us some money and this will make okay for the time you enslaved us”. We are sold out again!!
For Antigua alone, this is the amount the we should receive per year for the amount of years were were in slavery. Do you know that Native Americans go to college in the Unites State for free? All they have to do is to prove that they are just 25% Native Americans. Check the history why they are given free education. Now the Englishmen stole our freedom, beat us to death, rape our women, enriched themselves from our sweat. How many of us can go to a college in England for free?
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