EX-CHAIR OF REPARATIONS COMMITTEE: PNM’S CONTEMPT FOR AFRICAN ISSUES

AIYEGORO OME, former chair of the Trinidad and Tobago National Commission on Reparations (TTNCR), has accused Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley of “disregard and disrespect” on the issue.

“The current African elite and their associates in the PNM seem to have an inherent contempt for African issues,” Ome said.

His tough comments follow Rowley’s recent responses in the House of Representatives to questions on chattel slavery.

The questions were posed by Opposition Member of Parliament Rodney Charles.

Ome accused the Prime Minister of being “very dismissive on the issue of reparations,” stating that “it is not the first time.”

The former committee chair said that Rowley’s stance is at odds with those of Jamaica, Antigua & Barbuda, Guyana, Barbados, Grenada, and Suriname.

He stated that the TT Government has offered “scant courtesy” to the cause of the committee.

He said that, over time, the committee met government ministers Dennis Moses, Fitzgerald Hinds, and Dr. Amery Browne, and forwarded correspondences to Rowley.

In his parliamentary response to Charles, the Prime Minister said that “it has been a long time since I had any interaction with (the committee).”

Ome said that Rowley is correct in acknowledging that “it has been a long time” since he met the committee.

This is not Ome’s first salvo at the Rowley administration on the matter of reparations.

In April 2022, he said that “little or nothing has been done in spite of innumerable letters from TTNCR, as well as three meetings held with ministers enquiring about the PNM Government’s position on the status of the committee.”

He declared that the Government “continuously disrespected” the committee.

According to the former chair, “the Government has done nothing tangible in advancing the way ahead.”

He delivered a broadside against the ruling regime.

He said: “Contrary to the myths perpetuated by the PNM party, I and other citizens state categorically that the PNM has done too little to enhance the psychic state of T&T’s Africans, who continue to suffer from dysfunctions that put us at a severe disadvantage against other ethnic groups.”

He added: “Africans should really desire nothing more than what other people have received.”

In February 2021, Ome spoke of “further disservice” and questioned whether the Prime Minister recognised how much time was lost by the Government on the matter of reparations.

TTNCR was constituted in June 2015 by the-then administration of Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

At the launch, Professor Sir Hillary Beckles, Chairman of the Caricom Reparations Commission, said the setting up of the TT committee was a seminal moment in the history of civil rights and social consciousness in the country.

The current circumstances in Trinidad and Tobago exist while several descendants of former slave-owners have acknowledged the roles of their ancestors in the crimes against humanity.

The owners of the British Guardian newspaper and other prominent Britons have admitted that previous generations owned slaves on Caribbean plantations.

The descendants have apologised, in some cases, are providing financial assistance to the current generation.

One such example is in Grenada, for which an aristocratic British family apologised for their fore-parents’ ownership of some 1,000 enslaved Africans.

The family promised the equivalent of TT $1 million in reparations.

The British Guardian commissioned an exhaustive study, which uncovered linkages to slavery with its own former owners and other prominent figures, including the royal family.

The newspaper apologised for its role in slavery.

The paper said it would invest the equivalent of about TT $100 million over a decade in “restorative justice” and would “consult widely” on the matter.

Britain’s King Charles has expressed support for research on slavery.

Buckingham Palace said the King takes the issue “profoundly seriously.”

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been encouraged to negotiate compensation with Caribbean leaders.

But in T&T, the Rowley administration has been roundly accused of a lack of interest in the matter.