Reparations for Slavery, Vedanta & Blood Diamonds – the three protests I photographed in London on Friday 1st August 2014 had been all associated to world commerce – the Atlantic Slave Commerce and present devastation brought on by mining business and the diamond commerce that funds Israeli warfare crimes in opposition to Palestinians.
Rastafari demand reparations for slave commerce – Windrush Sq., Brixton
On August 1st 1834 the 1833 Abolition of Slavery Act got here into drive, ending slavery throughout the British Empire. However though the slave homeowners obtained compensation of £20 tens of millions the freed slaves acquired none. They weren’t even freed, however transformed to ‘apprentices’ who had been anticipated to proceed to work with out wages for as much as six years till 1838 and had been unable to personal land.
The cost to the previous slave homeowners was big – round 40% of the Nationwide Funds of the UK, and the Treasury who took out a mortgage to allow them to pay it. British tax payers – together with many descendants of former slaves – had been nonetheless paying off the debt till 2015, as a quickly deleted tweet from the UK Treasury confirmed in February 2018.
The Act abolishing slavery was designed largely to make sure that Britain’s vastly worthwhile sugar business primarily based on slavery continued after emancipation, and Britain additionally continued to import cotton grown by slavery within the southern states of the USA in addition to sugar from slave plantations in Brazil and Cuba.
August 1st turned extensively celebrated as ‘Emancipation Day’ and it was the date chosen by Marcus Garvey to discovered the Common Negro Enchancment Affiliation (UNIA) in Jamaica in 1914, and for a gathering six years later in Madison Sq. Gardens in New York attended by 25,000 of UNIA’s claimed membership of 4 million.
Calls for for reparations to be made to the descendants of slaves have to date been met by solely token measures, such because the renaming of streets and buildings and official apologies, with some laws requiring corporations to supply details about their involvement within the commerce and insurance coverage of slaves.
However for the reason that Nineteen Nineties there was a rising motion demanding monetary reparations each for slavery, notably following the First Pan-African Convention on Reparations convened by the Organisation of African Unity and the Nigerian authorities and held in Abuja, Nigeria in 1993.
Within the UK the motion was led by Bernie Grant, MP for Tottenham till his loss of life in 2000. Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2006 expressed “deep sorrow” for Britain’s position within the slave commerce, saying it been “profoundly shameful”, although as Wikipedia notes this was criticised as missing any measures of reparation. An extra public apology for London’s position within the slave commerce got here from then London Mayor Ken Livingstone throughout the commemorations of the 2 hundredth anniversary of the passage of the 1807 Slave Commerce Act.
A case was for compensation was introduced in opposition to Lloyds of London in 2004, however failed. The identical yr a Jamaican Rastafari name for European nations, notably the UK to help the resettlement of 500,000 Jamaican Rastafarians in Africa in a scheme costed at £72.5 billion was rejected. Different claims have been lodged by in 2007 by Guyana, in 2011 by Antigua and Barbuda and Barbados.
On 1st August 2014, the one centesimal anniversary of Garvey’s organising of the UNIA. a big group of primarily individuals of African and Afro-Caribbean descent gathered in Windrush Sq. in Brixton for a number of hours of speeches, celebration, drumming and dancing earlier than they had been to march to Parliament to make their demand for reparations. The march has change into an annual occasion in London, however I needed to go away shortly earlier than it started.
Rastafari demand reparations for slave commerce
Vedanta informed ‘finish your killing’ – Lincoln Inn’s Fields
I joined the protest exterior the constructing in Lincoln’s Inn Fields the place the FTSE 250 British-Indian mining firm Vedanta Assets was holding its AGM. Right here and at different protests in Zambia and Odisha and Delhi in India.
Vedanta is a large firm which protesters say is “responsible of 1000’s of deaths, environmental devastation, anti union motion, corruption and disdain for all times on earth. They’ve change into one of the hated and contentious corporations on the earth.“
Their actions, notably their try to destroy the sacred Nyamgiri mountain in India for its aluminium ore, have led to protests around the globe, and an Indian Supreme Court docket resolution that, not less than for the second have halted the mining there.
One other setback for Vedanta was the analysis by activist group Foil Vedanta into their subsidiary Konkola Copper Mines in Zambia, accused of poisoning 1000’s and inflicting ongoing delivery deformities by main air pollution spills in 2006 and 2010. The analysis confirmed the corporate which was claiming it was making a loss and so unable to pay its fines and tax invoice was really making round $500 million a yr.
Vedanta’s issues being made public resulted in a dramatic crash in its share value and the earlier December it dropped out of the FTSE100. Billionaire proprietor Anil Agarwal responded by shopping for massive numbers of the shares and was now stated to personal over two thirds of the corporate. However there have been different shareholders going into the AGM, together with a number of activists who had purchased a share to entitle them to attend and ask questions.
The actions of those activists, each inside and out of doors the AGM yearly, had been finally had been an essential half within the resolution 4 years later by Agarwal to make Vedanta a personal firm.
Vedanta informed ‘finish your killing’
Boycott Israeli Blood Diamonds – De Beers, Piccadilly
Lastly I made my method to Piccadilly the place pro-Palestinian campaigners had been protesting in entrance of De Beers jewelry store, calling on individuals to boycott diamonds lower and polished in Israel.
Though there are not any diamonds mined in Israel, in accordance with Wikipedia, virtually 1 / 4 of Israel’s complete exports come from the gross sales of diamonds lower and polished within the nation they usually account for nearly one eighth of the full world manufacturing.
Israel claims that each one these diamonds are coated by the ‘Kimberley Course of’ which goals to forestall diamonds mined in battle areas and bought to finance warfare and insurgency coming to the market. However campaigners say that this defines blood diamonds too narrowly, enabling Israel’s diamond-cutting business to keep away from consideration, and the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) marketing campaign, amongst others, has referred to as for diamonds processed in Israel to be thought of battle diamonds.”
Boycott Israeli Blood Diamonds
Tags: Anil Agarwal, BDS, blood diamonds, boycott, De Beers, deaths, disasters, Emancipation Day, environmental devastation, First Pan-African Convention on Reparations convened by the Organisation of African Unity, First Pan-African Convention., Foil Vedanta, Israeli Blood Diamonds, Jamaican, killing, Konkola Copper Mines, London, Marcus Garvey, mining, Nigeria, Nyamgiri mountain, peter Marshall, air pollution, protest, Rastafari, Rastafarians, reparations, slave commerce, slavery, UNIA, Vedanta, Vedanta Assets, Zambia
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