Jamaica's Rastas want to resettle in Africa

A coalition of Jamaican Rastafarian groups wants the UN to pressure European countries, especially Britain, to pay billions of pounds in slavery reparations to followers of the faith.

The Rastafarian Nation in Jamaica said countries formerly involved in the slave trade should pay £72.5bn (€106.3bn) to resettle 500,000 Jamaican Rastafarians in Africa.

“It’s a matter of human rights and justice for a crime that was committed 300 years ago and whose repercussions are still being felt today,” said Barbara Makeda Blake-Hannah, a member of the group.

More than 90% of the former British colony’s 2.6 million people are descendants of African slaves, however, it’s not known how many are Rastafarians.

The coalition presented the reparations figure at a conference in the capital Kingston.

“We think it’s very modest, especially when you consider how much money is being spent on the war in Iraq,” Hanna-Blake said.

She said the money would pay for resettlement costs for Rastafarians, including five airliners and two cruise ships to transport them to Africa, farming equipment, hospitals and communication satellites.

The group plans to continue lobbying Jamaica’s government to take its case to the UN International Court of Justice in the Hague, Netherlands.

While such a move is unlikely, members of Jamaica’s Parliament have called for a debate on the issue of reparations.

Rastafarianism, best known for its ritual use of marijuana and the matted “dreadlocks” worn by followers, emerged in Jamaica in the 1930s out of the anger over the oppression of blacks.

Adherents worship late Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie as their god, and preach a philosophy of moving back toward African roots.