Mayor of Montego Bay, Councillor Homer Davis (left) is assisted by Professor Verene Shepherd (2nd left) of The University of the West Indies, Custos of St James Bishop Conrad Pitkin (second right) and Civic and Community chairman at the St James Municipal Corporation, Councillor Dwight Crawford, with the unveiling of the Freedom Monument at the Montego Bay Cultural Centre on Wednesday, August 1, Emancipation Day. (Photo: Alan Lewin)  1/1

MONTEGO BAY, St James — Professor Verene Shepherd says the country’s debt and poverty could be alleviated by reparation.

“Reparation will help many of the problems we are experiencing in terms of debt and poverty today, even though some of the politicians will not tell you that,” The University of the West Indies (UWI) professor noted.

Recently, Minister of Finance and the Public Service Dr Nigel Clarke said the country’s debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio is projected to fall below 100 per cent at the end of the 2018/19 fiscal year.

The debt-to-GDP ratio is a measure of a country’s debt compared to its economic output. A low debt-to-GDP ratio indicates an economy that produces and sells goods and services sufficient to pay back debts without incurring further debt.

Professor Shepherd was resolute in her stance that slavery and historic trafficking were crimes against humanity in international law, therefore, reparation is a right and not an act of begging as some argue.

“We are living with the legacies of enslavement. What is going on today is a result of the context and the history of divide and rule laid down by colonizers. And reparation is not just a sum of money, that is not how we are framing it, but we want a development package to improve our social infrastructure,” Professor Shepherd argued.

“We did not negotiate the reparation package at the time of emancipation, which could have helped to maintain the social infrastructure that the colonisers left,” she continued.

Professor Shepherd was speaking during a ceremony at the Montego Bay Cultural Centre on Emancipation Day, to officially unveil the refurbished freedom monument on which is inscribed the names of more than 600 slaves who, following the December 1831 Emancipation War, were tried in the Civil Courts and Courts Martial, then executed.

“The unfinished business, I believe, is for us not just to keep our enslaved ancestors into our consciousness and honour them on Emancipation Day for what they did, but we have an obligation to press for reparatory justice,” Professor Shepherd argued.

Meanwhile, speaking at the same function, chairman of the St James Municipal Corporation, Councillor Homer Davis, called for the immediate relocation of the freedom monument from the rear of the Montego Bay Cultural Centre’s courtyard to a more conspicuous space in the historic Sam Sharpe Square.

“I have been to this cultural centre many times, but I have been to the area where the monument is located only twice. I, therefore, call for the relocation of the monument, which is dedicated to the memory of our freedom fighters. This monument bears too much importance and significance to be tucked away in the background,” Davis, who is also mayor of Montego Bay, said.