Charles will visit the Bahamas and Guyana before travelling to Antigua and Barbuda for the Commonwealth heads of government meeting (Chogm). He is expected to deliver three significant speeches during the trip but to follow British government advice not to issue a formal apology for Britain's role in the transatlantic slave trade. The government has also ruled out paying reparations.
Patrick Vernon, a cultural historian and UK representative of the Global Jamaica Diaspora Council, called the visit “the biggest crossroads for the Commonwealth since its creation.” If it fails to meet expectations, he said, it raises a big question about the Commonwealth's future. Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Afrikan reparations, said the royal family and UK government had failed to reckon with a sea change in the world on the issue. “You can tell that the Commonwealth means something to the monarchy, and I'm sure he would not want to be the monarch under which it crumbles,” she said.
The trip comes four years after the Prince and Princess of Wales's 2022 Caribbean tour, which drew widespread criticism across the region. While Charles has gone further than his predecessors in acknowledging the monarchy's historic links to slavery, the region has shifted: a UN resolution tabled by Ghana declared the transatlantic slave trade the gravest crime against humanity and called for reparatory justice, and Jamaica's slavery reparations petition to the king is due to be heard by the UK-based privy council next March.
Guyana's president, Irfaan Ali, has made clear he wants progress towards reparations, beginning with an apology. There are no formal agenda items on reparations at this year's summit, but Prof Sir Hilary Beckles, chair of the Caribbean community reparations commission, said it would be the “number one item on the table” for Caribbean attendees. Prof Robert Beckford, a theologian at the University of Wolverhampton, said the credibility of the monarchy and of the king's Commonwealth leadership “rests on the ability to empathise with Caribbean history,” and proposed a national truth and reconciliation commission examining Britain's role in slavery as a “creative way” to navigate the reparations debate.
Protests are planned for the tour. Richmond McKinney, a Rastafarian leader organising a protest during the Bahamas stop, said: “You say you regret slavery, but your regret is not good enough. We want a full apology from you.” Dr Niambi Hall Campbell-Dean, chair of the Bahamas reparations committee, questioned what the country gets from hosting the king and said the protests aim to demand reparations and prompt Bahamians to question their relationship with the crown.