Indigenous leaders from 12 countries have demanded King Charles to apologise for genocide and effects of colonisation on the eve of his coronation.
Twelve indigenous advocacy organisations from former British colonies published a joint letter on Friday demanding that the new king “acknowledge the horrific impacts 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.”
A formal apology, the return of Indigenous peoples’ bones and cultural artefacts, monetary reparations, and a plea that the monarch “help our communities recover from centuries of racism, oppression, colonialism, and slavery” were also included in the letter’s list of demands. A signatory to the letter and the co-leader of Te Pti Mori (Mori Party) in New Zealand, Rawiri Waititi, told Al Jazeera that “Indigenous peoples are speaking up around the world to ensure that the Crown takes full responsibility for the impacts, the damage, and the hurt it created.”
Beginning in the late 16th century, British colonisation spread across about a quarter of the world, and at its height in 1922, the United Kingdom, with the monarch serving as its head of state, controlled more than 450 million people. Indigenous peoples were gravely hurt by the invasion of their ancestral lands in colonies like Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, and thousands were slain as the British tried to firmly establish rule over the areas they had taken. While aggressive assimilation efforts that persisted until the second half of the 20th century caused the loss of language and culture and the forcible abduction of children, indigenous people were also exposed to new diseases.
Meanwhile, King Charles III is crowned at a lavish Westminster Abbey ceremony on a dreary, rainy day in London, as thousands line the streets in the capital.
The head of the United Kingdom’s main republican group and other antimonarchist activists were arrested at a coronation protest in London hours before the historic events.
