Chairman of the Caricom Reparations Commission, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, Vice-chancellor of the University of the West Indies, will be in Grenada February 27, at a forum, organized by the Grenada National Reparations Committee (GNRC).
Beckles will seek to enlighten the public on the work of the CARICOM Reparations Commission and be witness to the official handing over to the Reparations Committee here of some 100,000 pounds sterling by the Laura (Travolian) Trevelyan family, descendants of a plantation owner in Grenada in the 19th Century, responsible for enslaving more than 1,000 Africans on five sugar estates.
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The money is for the establishment of an education fund at the UWI Open Campus here, details of which will be outlined at the forum, which will be held at the Grenada Trade Centre.
Laura Trevelyan, who produced a documentary on Grenada last year “Grenada Confronting the Past’’, has apologized for her family’s slave-owning past and will be joined by other family members on her visit to issue a public apology.
It’s understood that some forty-two members of the Trevelyan clan have agreed to sign a letter of apology for the enslavement of Africans in Grenada.
Laura Trevelyan said she has been contacted by British families in similar positions, descendants of slave owners – some of them with far more significant holdings than her ancestors and want to talk about how to handle their own past.
Recounting her Grenada trip last year, Laura Trevelyan, head of the BBC’s New York office, recalled seeing “the instruments of torture that were used to restrain’’ the enslaved, which according to her, was “really horrific”.
Attorney-at-Law, Arley Gill, Head of the Grenada National Reparations Committee, described the attempt at restitution by the Trevelyans as a “positive step in the right direction’’.
Another man who’s following the struggle, Attorney Peter David, Former Government Minister and current opposition MP, expresses sentiments says the Trevelyans’ move is well worth the fight.
The voice there of Attorney and Opposition MP, Peter David, looking at the Grenada Reparations issue and the Trevelyan’s part in the process.
