The Editor, Sir:

Has the Parliamentary Committee on reparations died a natural death? One was established under the previous government with Hon. Mike Henry as chairman. He was very vocal on the issue and even apologised to the Rastafarian movement for the repression meted out to them in the early days. His stance caught the attention of Rastafari and many other descendants of Africans who were captured from Africa and enslaved in this country.

We are counting on Mike Henry to prove that he was not just setting a net to catch votes. We expect him to continue the struggle for reparations by ensuring that the special parliamentary committee be reconvened to examine the submissions on the issue. This is an urgent matter for black people in Jamaica because the vast majority of us are suffering in poverty due to economic conditions that we did not create.

Handicapped

We are handicapped in an economic system that forces the majority (black people) to scramble in a dog-eat-dog race for scarce opportunities, a system that rewards only a few and condemns the rest to a life of oppression, exploitation, poverty, begging, crime - all the social ills that come with decadence.

The debate over reparations is not just an academic exercise to enhance the résumé of university intellectuals; it is a serious demand for debt repayment by all countries and companies who perpetrated the African holocaust, who participated in and benefited from the enslavement of Africans in Jamaica and the region.

Won the struggle for freedom

When we won the struggle for freedom from enslavement, the slave owners were compensated for the 'loss' of their labour force, but the Africans were not compensated for all the years of forced labour to create wealth for the very same slave owners, all the pain and suffering under the whip, the deadly middle passage, and the disruption of their lives when they were snatched from their home continent.

There are lots of efforts to obfuscate the issue by connecting it to modern-day human trafficking and to shift the focus from reparations for enslavement. We are as clear about our demand for reparations as the Jews were about theirs. The Jews got their reparations. We want ours now so that we can restore black people to their former dignity.

I am, etc.,

JENNY WILSON

wilson.jenny89@gmail.com