The Repair Campaign, led by Irish entrepreneur Denis O’Brien and working with Caribbean Community (CARICOM) government to pursue Reparations from Europe for Slavery and Native Genocide, on Monday (March 9, 2026) announced the appointment of former Vincentian Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves as its Senior Advisor and Elder.
This is a significant move by Repair, which, based in Jamaica and with a presence in several CARICOM member-states, will have known of Dr Gonsalves’ long and rich history in and with the Caribbean’s Reparations movement.
Dr Gonsalves was Prime Minister when St. Vincent & The Grenadines (SVG) hosted the first meeting of Caribbean government representatives — including University of the West Indies (UWI) Vice Chancellor Sir Hilary Beckles — that led to the formation of the CARICOM Reparations Commission (CRC), which today has National Reparations Committees or Commissions (NRCs) in 12 member-states.
As the region’s longest-serving Prime Minister, Dr Gonsalves became a leading regional public spokesman, defender and explainer of the Reparations issue and took it to the wider Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).
CELAC is an intergovernmental bloc of 33 countries established in 2011 to – like CARICOM — promote regional integration, political dialogue and cooperation.
It represents over 650 million people and serves as a unified voice for the region, often acting as an alternative to the OAS, without US or Canadian involvement.
While serving as a rotating CELAC President, Prime Minister Gonsalves led a delegation of Caribbean and Latin American leaders to the European Union (EU) for discussion on Reparations, after which he said if Brussels continued delaying action on CARICOM’s Reparations demands, the next stop will likely be the United Nations (UN) International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Best known as ‘Comrade Ralph’, Dr Gonsalves is SVG’s Leader of the Opposition today.
Announcing his appointment, The Repair Campaign noted: “He served as Prime Minister from 2001 to 2025 — the longest unbroken tenure of any Caribbean prime minister and one of the longest periods for an elected leader in the world.”
The Repair press release noted he served for more than two decades “with a steadfast commitment to social justice, economic transformation, and regional integration” and as “an accomplished scholar, attorney and legislator.”
Educated at the UWI and the University of Manchester (UK), Dr Gonsalves has authored several books and academic papers on law, governance and Caribbean political economy.
In 2015, he authored ‘The Case for Caribbean Reparatory Justice’, a collection of speeches and essays to mark the launch of the International Decade for People of African Descent.
According to Repair: “Dr. Gonsalves’ leadership has been marked by major advancements in human development, infrastructure, education, health care, housing and foreign policy – most notably his advocacy for small-island developing states and his role in elevating SVG onto the UN’s Security Council.”
A respected voice in the Caribbean and the Global South, Dr. Gonsalves has also championed climate resilience, economic diversification and multilateral cooperation.
According to the release: “His long and distinguished service has earned him recognition as one of the Caribbean’s most-influential political figures, dedicated to the upliftment and empowerment of his people.”
According to the Repair Campaign, it “works to advance reparatory justice for the Caribbean” by “bringing together communities on both sides of the Atlantic to build a coherent reparations movement and building understanding of the current-day impacts of the historical slave trade.”
The Campaign also “engages with political, business, academic and other institutions to progress reparatory justice solutions,” while “producing research and evidence to underpin this work.
Since its first engagement with CARICOM, the Repair Campaign had funded research-related visits by Caribbean teams comprising UWI lecturers, while engaging directly with the UWI Mona Campus.
Through its engagements with the UWI and the Mona-based Sir Arthur Lewis Institute for Social and Economic Studies (SALISES), Repair and CARICOM leaders have been working on pilot programs in some member-states as part of a 25-year vision for (before and after) reparations.
The Campaign also conducted many national consultations in CARICOM member-states (including Saint Lucia) to inform its own thrust, alongside the CRC and NRCs, towards the similar ultimate goal.
Indeed, just as Repair’s O’Brien says he looks forward to working with the former Vincentian leader, Dr Gonsalves likewise says he very-much looks forward to working with the CRC in his new role.
Repair recently announced it had trained (in Jamaica) and appointed national coordinators in Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago and Saint Lucia and its appointment of Dr Gonsalves is also in recognition of his own role in pursuing closer Caribbean-Africa ties during his quarter-century in office.
Schooled at the UWI’s Mona Campus in Jamaica, Dr Gonslves has left there a sterling legacy as a firebrand Vincentian student leader and organizer during the Black Power era of the mid-to-late 1960s.
He was President of the Mona Students’ Union that organized the October 1968 boycott of classes and so-called ‘Rodney Riots’ over the then Hugh Shearer government’s decision to ban Guyanese and Caribbean writer and lecturer Dr Walter Rodney from re-entering the island after attending a Black Writers Conference in Canada.
The government claimed Rodney’s ‘Grounding’ with Rastafarians (and Working Class people) was ‘seditious’.
Dr Gonsalves also has a long history of association with the Caribbean’s Rastafarian movement’ — started during his days at Mona.
During his first official visit to Ethiopia as Prime Minister, he included a sizeable representation of Rastafarians; and on his return announced he’d cleared the way for any Rastafarian wishing to repatriate to Africa to possibly do so through SVG.
One of Dr Gonsalves’ most important last overseas visits in office was again to Ethiopia, this time for the 2025 CARICOM-African Union (AU) Summit – again with respectable Rastafari representation.
Indeed, Dr Gonsalves’ appointment has considerably strengthened The Repair Campaign’s standing as an advocate in cooperative pursuit of Reparations from Europe for Slavery and Native Genocide for CARICOM’s 14 ex-colonies.