Indigenous chief presses for stronger role in reparations movement

The Caribbean’s indigenous people must be at the heart of the region’s reparations agenda, not an “afterthought”, Taíno Chief Damon Gerard Corrie has told a regional conference.

The chief of the Barbados Chapter of the United Confederation of Taíno People and co-president of the Caribbean Amerindian Development Organisation delivered this message on behalf of Chief Ricardo Bharath Hernandez, chair of the Caribbean Organisation of Indigenous Peoples (COIP).

The call was made at the opening of the third conference on reparations, an international meeting of the Caribbean Community-led drive for reparations for transatlantic slavery and the genocide of the region’s native peoples that followed European colonisation in the 15th and 16th centuries.