LONDON - Prime Minister Tony Blair condemned the African slave trade and
expressed deep sorrow for Britain's role - but stopped short Monday of
offering an apology or compensation for the descendants of those victimized by
it.
Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair
speaks at the annual Confederation of British Industry conference in
London November 27, 2006. [Reuters]
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Activists are pressuring Britain
to offer an apology - and reparations - for its role in slavery before
it marks the 200th anniversary of the law that banned the country's
participation in the Atlantic slave trade.
Blair wrote in an article in the New Nation newspaper that it was right to
recognize the active role Britain, its ports and its industry once played in the
trafficking of human beings.
"I believe the bicentenary offers us a chance not just to say how profoundly
shameful the slave trade was - how we condemn its existence utterly and
praise those who fought for its abolition - but also to express our deep
sorrow that it ever happened, that it ever could have happened," Blair wrote in
the black community newspaper.
