Jamaica Asks U.K. for Slavery Reparations

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief.

The highlights this week: Jamaica petitions the United Kingdom for slavery reparations, Argentina renews its claims to the Falkland Islands, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio tours South America.

Olivia Grange, Jamaica’s minister of culture, gender, entertainment, and sport, traveled to London this week to file what the island called a first-of-its-kind petition to King Charles III.

The petition asks the highest court of appeal for Commonwealth countries to issue a decision on whether the British trafficking of enslaved Africans to Jamaica from the 17th to 19th centuries was unlawful—and whether the United Kingdom owes financial reparations.

The petition made no specific monetary claim, though a lawmaker from Jamaica’s ruling party previously estimated that the U.K. owes Jamaicans around $10 billion. The Jamaican government has the right to lodge such a demand because it is a member of the Commonwealth, itself a vestige of the colonial era. Charles is still Jamaica’s head of state.

Jamaica’s petition is backed by the rest of the Caribbean Community, or Caricom. Caribbean countries have played a leading role in the growing global movement for reparations. Since 2013, a Caribbean reparations panel has been refining its list of financial and symbolic demands to redress the harms of slavery.

In March, Caribbean nations backed a successful United Nations General Assembly resolution deeming the trafficking of enslaved Africans as the “gravest crime against humanity” and calling for reparations payments. Argentina, Israel, and the United States voted against the resolution, while the U.K. and European Union countries abstained.

Then, in June, Caribbean leaders including Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley attended a conference in Ghana that demanded a formal apology for slavery. They also asked for reparations measures, such as debt relief, from countries involved in the slave trade.

Jamaica’s reparations push is nonpartisan. The country’s conservative prime minister, Andrew Holness, who has otherwise taken a center-right stance on economic matters and worked closely with the International Monetary Fund, last year called the petition to the British crown a “watershed moment for Caricom and the broader global movement for reparatory justice.”

Grange’s trip coincided with the anniversary of the Zong slave ship’s departure from West Africa to Jamaica in 1781. During that journey, the ship’s captain ordered enslaved Africans to be thrown overboard and later tried to claim insurance money for lost cargo.

British law viewed enslaved Africans as property for centuries. When Parliament abolished slavery in the British Empire in 1833, the government borrowed funds equivalent to 40 percent of its treasury income to compensate slaveowners for their property losses. The formerly enslaved were never compensated for their stolen wages.

Seeking reparations is part of an effort “to rewrite our history from the standpoint of the hunted, and not from the standpoint of the hunter,” St. Lucia’s reparations envoy, Earl Bousquet, told the Miami Herald. He described a push to break free from “mental slavery,” a nod to the words of Jamaica’s Bob Marley.

Despite the growing international campaign for reparations, few governments or organizations have agreed to pay them. French President Emmanuel Macron made headlines in May by saying the matter should be addressed but provided no details as to how. In 2022, the Netherlands announced a $230 million fund to address the legacy of slavery, while the Church of England has pledged to set up a $135 million reparations fund.

In response to Jamaica’s legal filing this week, a spokesperson for Buckingham Palace said it was working with the Jamaican government to ensure the petition was successfully lodged. But a spokesperson for British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the U.K. “does not and will not pay reparations.”

If the U.K. court draws a similar conclusion, some observers believe that Jamaica could respond by severing its formal ties to the British crown, as Barbados did in 2021. Holness’s government introduced a bill to do so in 2024, but it has not yet advanced in the legislature.

Saturday, Sept. 12, to Sunday, Sept. 13: Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira attends the BRICS leaders’ summit in New Delhi in place of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Tuesday, Sept. 15: The U.S. House of Representatives holds a hearing on policy toward Nicaragua.

Education checkup. This year’s PISA scores are out. The test measures 15-year-olds’ proficiency in math, reading, and science in countries around the world. Many Latin American countries saw their scores decline in line with a global trend.

The education and skills director of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which administers the test, told the Wall Street Journal that poor policies regulating smartphone and artificial intelligence use might be to blame.

But the PISA exams also showed that certain uses of AI in education could be promising. In El Salvador, an additional school-level PISA test compared schools that were implementing reforms—including an AI tutoring program—with those that were not. Schools with the program had significantly better results.

The World Bank, which is backing the reforms, praised them as a case to continue studying.

Falklands flare-up. Argentine President Javier Milei gave a formal address last week claiming that the Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory, should be administered by Argentina. It was an effort to rally nationalist sentiment as his popularity wanes and households feel the economic pinch from Milei’s austerity program.

This week, Argentina announced that it would impose sanctions on energy companies drilling for oil near the Falklands, which it calls the Malvinas. Milei said the companies could be blocked from operating at Argentina’s Vaca Muerta oil and gas fields.

Unlike in the past, both U.S. President Donald Trump and a far-right Israeli cabinet member have signaled that they might support Argentina’s position, likely thanks to Milei’s alignment with Trump and new a U.K. ban on trade with settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Most countries across the global south support it as well.

One major remaining obstacle, Antonio De Loera-Brust wrote in Foreign Policy in July, is the desire of the islanders themselves, who prefer being ruled by Britain.

Pan-American humor. Chilean standup comedian Fabrizio Copano went on the pan-Latin America El Hilo podcast last week to discuss the role of humor in turbulent political times. Born in Chile’s capital, Santiago, Copano now lives in New York and does shows in both English and Spanish across the Western Hemisphere.

“I think humor is still lucky enough to be able to make people laugh even when they don’t agree with what’s being said,” he said. Copano often tells his U.S. viewers that “Latin Americans come from the future”—they know what it’s like to get by when politics is dysfunctional, part of which includes being able to laugh.

Copano naturalized as a U.S. citizen last year. He said in a recent comedy special that he really felt he was becoming American after taking his car in for a repair. The technician gushed about how much he loved Chile. He was thrilled.

But the technician added that his favorite part about Chile was former dictator Augusto Pinochet. Copano thought for a moment about taking a stand for Chilean democracy, but then the man said he would give Copano a discount. He swallowed his dissent and accepted the lower price.

Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella (left) and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio embrace during a bilateral agreements signing ceremony in Barranquilla, Colombia, on Sept. 8.Fernando Vergara/AFP via Getty Images

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveled to Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru this week. All three countries now have right-wing presidents who have pledged close security cooperation with the United States and joined Trump’s Shield of the Americas anti-gang initiative.

Washinton provided few details about the grouping when it was launched in March, though members vowed to support a militarized approach to fighting drug trafficking. Rubio’s trip delivered more specifics about the nature of that cooperation.

In Ecuador, Rubio said there had been a recent shift in the U.S. approach to targeting alleged drug boats in the region. The United States was now carrying out more joint operations with South American countries in their own territorial waters, rather than unilateral U.S. strikes in international waters, he said.

Rubio did not clarify when the change occurred. But in the last two weeks, the U.S. military has announced a series of interdictions off Ecuador’s coast of boats that allegedly served as refueling stations for drug runs. The crews were removed before the boats were bombed, in contrast with the previous norm.

But the deadly strikes are continuing. The U.S. military announced one on Wednesday in the Caribbean but did not specify whether it took place in international waters. That brings the number of people that the United States has killed in its yearlong campaign to at least 230.

Rubio said the United States would soon provide Ecuador with naval interceptor vessels; U.S. troops have already begun anti-gang land operations in the country. Speaking in Barranquilla, Colombia, Rubio said the country had not requested U.S. boots on the ground but rather equipment and training aid, which the United States planned to provide.