The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Chief Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas National Reparations Committee (BNRC) said the British Royal Family should not visit the country “empty-handed” next month, demanding an apology for the devastating legacy of slavery and colonisation.

In a statement released over the weekend, the committee also renewed its long-held position that The Bahamas should move away from the monarchy and become a republic, calling this an important step in “our march to a common loftier goal”.

The committee, formed in 2013 in accordance with the CARICOM Reparations Commission, advocates for reparations from former colonial powers.

The body’s position comes as the country prepares to welcome King Charles III and Queen Camilla next month as part of a wider royal tour from October 27 to November 4.

The visit will be constitutionally different from that of an ordinary foreign head of state. King Charles is King of The Bahamas and the country’s Head of State, one of 15 countries in which he serves in that role.

It will be his first trip here since succeeding Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 and only his second visit to The Bahamas.

The BNRC, however, opposes the country’s continued ties to the monarchy, arguing that King Charles “is not our King” by choice or consent.

“He is a holdover from an arrangement this country accepted at Independence,” the committee said. “That was more than fifty years ago and yet fifty-three years later Bahamian boys and girls grow up learning that they can never be the Head of State in their own country. That position is the reward of our former colonizers.”

The BNRC added that royal visits typically result in a flurry of preparations, including road improvements, freshly painted public spaces and schoolchildren being paraded around to greet visiting royals.

However, the committee said such preparations only create the appearance of a thriving country when, in reality, The Bahamas “is not well”.

“Our power grid fails us. The cost of living grinds us down. Our health system carries the weight of a people who have never fully recovered from what was done to them. These are consequences,” it added.

“Consequences of chattel slavery. Consequences of colonization. Consequences of a system that broke up families, worked bodies to death, packed human beings into the holds of ships like cargo for weeks on open water, and sold them on arrival.”

The committee said it hopes King Charles will use his visit to publicly acknowledge the country’s “true” history and apologise for the wrongs of the past.

“We hope he will visit this history at Clifton Heritage Park, feel the spaces in which our ancestors toiled, and touch the narrow crevices that lead from the ocean to the island that our ancestors had to swim to after being shackled in the belly of a ship for months.”

If King Charles does not, the committee added, “he remains complicit”.

“The time is now for reparations. The time is now for the republic. And the time is long past for our Governments to stop preparing this country for guests and then hand us the bill. To paraphrase Veronica Bishop, ‘Don’t come here with your hands swinging; don’t come here empty-handed.’”

The costs of royal visits can be shared between the Sovereign Grant, the host country and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, depending on the nature of the trip.

It remains unclear how much the government has budgeted for the visit, with officials brushing aside questions on the matter.

When asked about the cost of hosting the visit and who would pay, Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell told reporters last month: “Well, he is your king,” he said. “You should be happy. He’s coming to see you.

“There’s no bill for our king,” he added. “Nothing too good for the king.”

After leaving The Bahamas, the King is scheduled to make a state visit to Guyana before travelling to Antigua and Barbuda, where he and Queen Camilla will attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).

The summit will bring together leaders and representatives from 56 Commonwealth countries from November 1 to 4.

Buckingham Palace said the autumn tour will celebrate “communities, cultures and nature within the Commonwealth family”.