Why are Prince William and Kate facing protests in the Caribbean?
The royal couple are on a tour of Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas in honour of the Queen’s 70th year on the throne
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The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are in the middle of their eight-day tour of the Caribbean in honour of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee – but their visits have been marked by protests in each of the three countries on the royal couple’s schedules.
From the very beginning of their trip, Prince William and Kate’s arrival in Belize was opposed by residents of a village the couple were due to visit. The protest resulted in a last-minute change in the Cambridges’ schedule, but it was not the last objection to their tour they would face.
The royals’ trip to Jamaica has also been marred by a much-publicised demonstration calling on the monarchy to pay reparations for its role in slavery on the island.
A committee in the Bahamas, which is the last destination on the couple’s tour to mark the Queen’s 70th year on the throne, said Bahamians are “footing the bill” for William and Kate’s “extravagant trip”.
They separately urged William and Kate to acknowledge that the British economy was “built on the backs” of past Bahamians and to pay reparations.
According to the PA news agency, a royal source has said the duke is expected to acknowledge the issue of slavery in a speech on Wednesday night during a dinner hosted by the Governor General of Jamaica, Patrick Allen.
So what has each nation on William and Kate’s tour called for and why?
Belize
William and Kate began their eight-day tour on Sunday 20 March in Belize, where they were meant to spend their first full day touring the Akte ‘il Ha cacao farm in Indian Creek village, in the foothills of the Maya Mountain.
However, local residents in the village staged a protest on Friday 18 March opposing the royal visit, resulting in the tour being removed from the couple’s schedule by their office.
According to local Belize media outlet Channel Seven, villagers of Indian Creek are in the midst of a dispute with Flora and Fauna International (FFI), a conservation charity William supports as a patron.
The dispute has stirred discontent among the residents over the “meaning of consent in the context of communal land rights – rights to lands that were expunged in the colonial period by the British”, the outlet reported.
FFI said in a statement seen by Reutersthat it had purchased land at the nearby Boden Creek from private owners in December 2021 and pledged to conserve and protect the area’s wildlife while supporting the livelihoods and traditional rights of local people.
It continued to say that it bought the land to benefit the area and Belize as a whole and promised to maintain “open and continuous dialogue” with the local community, but did not address the dispute directly.
The villagers also protested against the landing site for the Cambridges’ helicopter and claimed they were not consulted about the location.
Sebastian Shol, chairman of Indian Creek village, told the Daily Mail: “We don’t want them to land our land, that’s the message that we want to send. They could land anywhere but not on our land.”
A spokesperson for Kensington Palace confirmed that the visit had been moved to a different location “due to sensitive issues involving the community in Indian Creek”.
Jamaica
The Duke and Duchess arrived in Jamaica on Tuesday as hundreds of campaigners staged a protest outside the British High Commission against their visit.
At least 350 activists gathered outside the building, holding up signs that had messages like “Princesses and Princes belong in fairytales… not in Jamaica” and “We demand apologies and reparation”.
The demonstration came after a coalition of politicians, business leaders, doctors and artists penned an open letter to William and Kate, in conjunction with Jamaica’s 60th anniversary of independence.
The letter read: “We see no reason to celebrate 70 years of the ascension of your grandmother to the British throne because we believe her leadership, and that of her predecessors, have perpetuated the greatest human rights tragedy in the history of humankind.
“Her ascension to the throne, in February 1952, took place 14 years after the 1938 labour uprisings against inhumane working/living conditions and treatment of workers; painful legacies of plantation slavery, which persist today,” it continued.
“During her 70 years on the throne, your grandmother has done nothing to redress and atone for the suffering of our ancestors during the entire period of British trafficking of Africans, enslavement, indentureship and colonialisation.”
The Independent has learned that Jamaica, which still designates the Queen as head of state, has already begun the process of removing the monarch from that position. Political sources said that a senior figure within the government has been appointed with the primary aim of seeing the nation transition to republic status.
The Bahamas
Ahead of the Cambridges’ next stop of their tour in the Bahamas, the country’s national reparations committee has issued a strongly-worded statement accusing the monarchy of having “looted and pillaged our land and our people for centuries, leaving us struggling with under development, left to pick up the pieces”.
The Bahamas National Reparations Committee was founded in 2013 to establish the moral, ethical and legal case for the payment of repatriations by European countries.
It said in its statement: “We, the members of the Bahamas National Reparations Committee (BNRC), recognise that the people of the Bahamas have been left holding the bag for much of the cost of this extravagant trip.
“Why are we footing the bill for the benefit of a regime whose rise to ‘greatness’ was fuelled by the extinction, enslavement, colonisation, and degradation of the people of this land? Why are we being made to pay again?
“The visit to commemorates 70 years since Queen Elizabeth’s accession to the throne of imperialism - more years than the Bahamas has been a sovereign nation.
“The BNRC asserts that we as Bahamians must have a clear understanding of what this trip truly means. We are not beholden to the British monarchy in any way and we do not owe them a debt of gratitude for anything - not for our culture, religion, or system of governance.
“Instead the monarchy has looted and pillaged our land and our people for centuries, leaving us struggling with under development, left to pick up the pieces.”
The Bahamas gained governmental independence in 1973, and still recognises the Queen as head of state.
Additional reporting by PA
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