Caribbean Leaders Urge Britain to Return British Virgin Islands, End Colonial Rule

The main reparations body for Caribbean nations has called on Britain to return the British Virgin Islands to its people and urged King Charles to commit to decolonising the UK's remaining overseas territories, warning that the world is witnessing a resurgence of colonialism, AP reported.

The Caricom Reparations Commission, which seeks reparative justice for enslavement and colonialism on behalf of Caribbean states, was in London this week for a four-day visit that included meetings with Church of England clergy and British parliamentarians.

Speaking at a briefing on Tuesday, commission chair Sir Hilary Beckles said the Caribbean remained the most colonised part of the world and that this had to stop. He warned that without incorporating decolonisation into the framework of reparatory justice, the world risked seeing colonial patterns reassert themselves elsewhere, pointing to instances of military intervention in other nations' territories as early signs of that trend.

David Comissiong, Barbados' ambassador to Caricom, said decolonisation had been inserted into the commission's newly launched manifesto as a central demand, alongside calls for sovereignty and self-determination. He described it as inconceivable that after enduring slavery and colonial extraction, Caribbean people still lacked full self-governance. Britain's overseas territories in the region, including Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos, retain internal self-governance but remain under UK-appointed governors with authority over defence, international affairs and certain legal matters.

King Charles in focus

With Charles due to be keynote speaker at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Antigua and Barbuda in November, Comissiong said Caribbean people would be watching closely to see whether their king would advance the conversation around sovereignty, decolonisation and reparatory justice. He stopped short of advising the king directly but said the time had come to begin breaking what he called the chains of imperial governance and to formally accept responsibility for three hundred years of wealth extraction.

The commission described its meeting with senior Church of England clerics as productive, calling the church a possible ally and urging it to press ahead with its reparations programme, Project Spire.

Delegates noted that the global reparations movement was entering a stage of negotiations, following a wave of institutional apologies and a UN vote in March that recognised the trafficking of enslaved Africans as the gravest crime against humanity. Britain abstained from that resolution, a decision the commission criticised.