Colonial State Crimes and the CARICOM Mobilization for Reparation and Justice

Abstract

Colonial rule in the Caribbean was based on the normalization, legalization and naturalization of violence, genocide, slavery, torture, dispossession and plunder, to the point that the victims of these colonial state crimes and their descendants continue to suffer the consequences. This article has a twofold aim: firstly, it discusses the Caribbean experiences with colonial state crimes and secondly, it analyses the Caribbean Community and Common Market's (CARICOM's) mobilization for reparations for the harm caused by the violence of colonialism and slavery as an example of decolonial justice. To accomplish this, a threefold analysis is conducted: (1) an exposition of the concept of colonial state crimes from a Caribbean perspective, (2) a brief depiction of the colonization and enslavement processes in the Caribbean and (3) a discussion of the CARICOM mobilization for reparations and justice. Thus, this article aims to initiate a debate on the importance of revisiting state crimes in colonial contexts and their continuity in the present.

Crimes of the powerful in Latin America and the Caribbean: Toward a research agenda

“…Agozino (2003) have proposed systemic critiques of the imperial reason and colonial dynamics dominating criminology, opening doors for the examination of the colonial epistemologies, practices and logic embedded in the discipline. Likewise, Comack (2018) has proposed the concept of corporate colonialism to describe the impact of corporate violence in Canada, and Atiles (2018aAtiles ( , 2020 have developed the concept of colonial state crimes and colonial state-corporate crimes to underscore the colonial violence and dynamic of exploitation deployed by the US colonial regimen in Puerto Rico. Michalowski (2009) uses the concept of transnational structure of power to develop the framework of a criminology of empire.…”

“…In my own work on Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, I have incorporated and sought to expand the scholarship on crimes of the powerful scholarship (Atiles, 2018a(Atiles, , 2018b(Atiles, , 2020Atiles and Rojas, 2022). I have attempted to demonstrate how the experiences of the Caribbean and Puerto Rico helps us identify key elements of the operativity of crimes of the powerful in the Global South.…”

“…In many instances, these social mobilizations have transformed global understanding of what is possible (i.e the Cuban Revolution or Zapatistas uprising in Chiapas) and have created conditions for resisting social harms. Additionally, the Caribbean community has recently launched a campaign to demand reparations for European colonial violence, indigenous genocide, and slavery (Atiles, 2018a). These mobilizations are essential as they are centered around demanding reparations for the historical harms and the ongoing effects of colonialism and slavery.…”

“…Years of colonial violence, slavery, plantation economy, neocolonial interventions, dirty wars, systematic violations of human rights, paramilitarism, corruption, sanctions, and economic blockage, and plundering organized by the US, local elites, and transnational corporations have become the daily reality in Latin America and the Caribbean. That is, on the one hand, what is considered exceptional in the Global North, is normalized or a part of everyday life in the South, and on the other hand, the history of crimes of the powerful in the Global South has been defined by an intense relationship between the global and the local, as well as being the result of a capitalist world-system and a series of colonial epistemologies (Atiles, 2018a(Atiles, , 2018b. This article argues that crimes of the powerful in Latin America and the Caribbean are always intertwined with global forces or transnational connections.…”

Latino Criminology: Unfucking Colonial Frameworks in “Latinos and Crime” Scholarship

“…This is what I mean when claiming that Latino Studies is a political location: it is less a function of the discipline inscribed on our terminal degree(s) and more of a good faith commitment to navigating divergent and convergent paths of inquiry that better reflect and advance the interests, needs, and ongoing struggles of variously situated Latino identities, subjectivities, and community formations. 9 While some readers may find the conceptual and empirical overlaps intuitive, it is not self-evident that Latino Studies has substantive connections to a plurality of perspectives associated with CCJ scholarship (see Atiles-Osoria 2018;Durán 2011;Scott 2017;Lantigua-Williams 2016;Menjívar and Bejarano 2004;Moosavi 2018;Saldaña-Portillo 2017). By way of example, the Latino 8 There is an ongoing conversation in Latino Studies about the artificial borders in our intellectual work, which includes the conceptual cordoning off of Latinos in the US from Latinos in Latin America (see Berg and Rodriguez 2013;Decena 2016).…”