King Charles is due to make a multi-country state visit to the Caribbean this month. He will be traveling from October 27 through November 4th. The side-chick queen will only join him for part of the state visit, because Camilla hates to fly and hates all of this. Part of the tour is for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. Buckingham Palace is already trying to hype the tour while simultaneously tamping down expectations on a political level. As in, King Charles is not going to apologize for slavery or speak about reparations in any way, shape or form. He will acknowledge, in a vague way, that slavery was bad. That’s all anyone is getting, apparently.

The King will not “shy away” from discussing the historic slave trade during his upcoming Caribbean tour, Buckingham Palace has promised, amid a growing campaign for reparations. The King, who will travel to the Bahamas, Guyana, and Antigua and Barbuda, will find ways to acknowledge the “darkest days of our past” without contravening British government advice to issue no official apology.

The Government has made clear that, while it considers the historic slave trade “abhorrent”, it will not pay reparations, following legal advice that it is not necessary for acts that were not, at the time they were committed, violations of international law.

Caribbean campaigners have called for slavery reparations to be on the agenda of the next Commonwealth summit, which the King will attend during the trip. The King, who is Britain’s head of state but bound to follow government advice in such matters, will instead “acknowledge the wrongs of the past” in his own way during an eight-day tour spanning three island nations.

A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: “It is important to note here the work His Majesty himself has done over many years both to acknowledge the wrongs of the past and to find creative ways to “right inequalities that endure”. As you would therefore expect, opportunities will be found during the visit to reflect and renew his personal, wholehearted and continuing commitment to that process.”

The King will make speeches in all three countries, culminating in the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) at which there is expected to be heated debate over the issue of reparations. The King is attending the summit in his role as head of the Commonwealth. Andy Burnham, the Prime Minister, is also expected to attend.

Buckingham Palace has acknowledged that this year’s CHOGM “comes at an important time in the history of the relationship between the United Kingdom and the countries of the Caribbean in particular…There are important discussions taking place in various fora about colonial legacy and the intergenerational impact of the transatlantic trade in enslaved persons,” a spokesman said. “While these are primarily matters for governments to address, His Majesty’s previous statements on them have been unequivocal, describing them as an ‘atrocity’ which ‘forever stains our history’. The visit programme will therefore not shy away from ‘the darkest days of our past’, as His Majesty has described them, but – in keeping with the wishes of our host nations – it will principally be oriented to the vibrant present and promising future of each country, with visit programmes developed in close consultation with their governments to reflect their individual priorities.”

[From The Telegraph]

This will be the first time Charles and Camilla have visited any Caribbean country in many years. After his mother’s death, Charles never even visited the Caribbean countries which still call him their head of state, which is its own issue and one which no one mentions – part of the succession plan was that Charles needed to go on a whirlwind tour of all realms and commonwealth countries in his first year as king. He flatly refused. I’d also like to point out that following Prince Harry and Meghan’s 2021 Oprah interview, there was a lot of talk about how Caribbean countries in particular were outraged by how Meghan was treated, and outrage with the modern racism of the royal family. It’s all well and good for Charles to act as if his ancestors’ involvement in chattel slavery can just be brushed aside with a vague acknowledgement, but many people in these countries feel that the monarchy is still an institution built on racism, colonialism and bigotry. Some might even ask why Charles is sitting on his hands and refusing to guarantee security to his mixed-race daughter-in-law and grandchildren.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.