Joint Statement by First Nations, Indigenous Peoples, and Advocacy Groups of 12 Countries with the British Monarch as Head of State, on the occasion of the Coronation of King Charles III, May 6 th 2023

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May 4, 2023

Joint Statement by First Nations, Indigenous Peoples, and Advocacy Groups of 12 Countries with the British Monarch as Head of State, on the occasion of the Coronation of King Charles III, May 6 th 2023

Apology, Reparation, and Repatriation of Artefacts and Remains

We, the undersigned, call on the British Monarch, King Charles III, on the date of his coronation being May 6, 2023, to acknowledge the horrific impacts on and legacy of genocide and colonisation of the indigenous and enslaved peoples of Antigua and Barbuda, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Australia, The Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

Our collective Indigenous Rights Organisations among other organisations who are working to help our communities recover from centuries of racism, oppression, colonialism and slavery, now rightly recognized by the United Nations as “Crimes Against Humanity,” also call for a formal apology and for a process of reparatory justice to commence. We specifically call on King Charles III, as Head of State of our respective countries, to do the following:

1. Having acknowledged, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Rwanda in June 2022, that the wrongs of the past is a “conversation whose time has come,” to immediately start the conversation about “slavery’s enduring impact.”

2. Immediately commit to starting discussions about reparations for the oppression of our peoples, plundering of our resources, denigration of our culture and to redistribute the wealth that underpins the Crown back to the peoples from whom it was stolen.

3. Immediately commit to the repatriation of all remains of our collective peoples that reside in UK museums and institutions and that represent our family histories, genealogies, cultural history and spiritual ancestry.

4. Immediately commit to the return of all our cultural treasures and artefacts stolen from our peoples throughout the hundreds of years of genocide, enslavement, discrimination, massacre, and racial discrimination by the authorities empowered by the protection of the British crown.

5. Immediately commit the Royal Family to acknowledge and adopt the renunciation of the “Doctrine of Discovery” made by Pope Francis in April 2023 and start the process of consultation and reparations for the First Peoples who suffered the consequences of Native Genocide in fulfilment of that doctrine in the name of God.

We stand united in engaging a process to right the wrongs of the past and to continue the process of decolonisation.

We remain committed to truth-telling about our past, justice for our Indigenous peoples and a future built on democracy, merit, inclusion and unity. We are united in our struggle to create a world free of the vestiges of racism and oppression that still pervade today and are a direct legacy of the dehumanisation of our First Peoples and enslaved peoples that has occurred throughout the colonial era.

Signed by: