sentamu

The Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, has said that despite the heinousness of slavery, it would be difficult to determine a means of compensation for its descendants.

Speaking during a meeting with members of the media yesterday, at the Church House on Caledonia Road in Kingston, the archbishop told members of the media that it would be somewhat impractical to determine how the descendants of those affected by the slave trade would be compensated for their sufferings.

"I'm not so sure how you can compensate," he said. "As there were quite a lot of people who were thrown overboard. It just isn't the people who managed to get away from Africa and taken across the Atlantic, but there were quite a number of people who died at sea and we don't know that number," he added. "How do you compensate them, how do you compensate their family?" he asked.

"It was such a heinous crime that as far as I'm concerned, the best thing you can do is to ensure that such a thing never happens again," he said.

The archbishop said tha he did not have an answer for how the families of those affected by slavery could be compensated, he was sure that it is something we should never forget.

"What you can't do is ignore it or forget it cause that would not be right," he said. Archbishop Sentamu said he did not believe that the nations, churches and groups that participated in the slave trade have actually realised the seriousness of the effects of the practice.

"I don't think [they] have taken seriously the inhumanity of what actually happened to people," said the Archbishop.

See more on Archbishop Sentamu at Fw: http://archbishopofyorkinjamaica.com/index.html