GUYANA President Irfaan Ali slammed the descendants of European slave traders on Thursday, saying those who profited from the cruel, trans-Atlantic slave trade should offer to pay reparations to today’s generations.

The leader of the South American country also proposed that those involved in the slave trade be posthumously charged for crimes against humanity.

President Ali spoke ahead of today’s planned formal apology in Guyana by the descendants of Scottish 19th-century sugar and coffee plantation owner John Gladstone, saying the apology should also include issues of compensation and reparative justice.

Mr Ali said that while he welcomed plans by the family to acknowledge what he called the sins of the past, it also implies “an acknowledgement of the cruel nature of African enslavement and indentureship in Guyana and an act of contrition that paves the way for justice.”

“The Gladstone family has admitted that it benefited from African enslavement and indentureship on the Demerara and other plantations owned by its patriarch, John Gladstone.”

Mr Gladstone was the father of 19th-century British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone and received more than £100,000 in compensation for hundreds of slaves.

Six members of the family are set to participate in a brief ceremony at the University of Guyana today, where they will formally apologise for the role John Gladstone played in what was then British Guiana.

Mr Gladstone never set foot in Guyana or Jamaica where he owned 2,500 enslaved Africans.

But he was in charge when the 1823 slave uprising erupted on his plantation at Success Village on Guyana’s east coast, about seven miles from the capital of Georgetown.

The uprising was ruthlessly put down with hundreds of enslaved people killed with many having their heads chopped off and lined up on poles all the way to the capital.

Mr Ali said: “Reparations are a commitment to righting historical wrongs. The trans-Atlantic slave trade and African enslavement were an affront to humanity itself. 

“The heinousness of this crime against humanity demands that we seek to right these wrongs.”

Mr Ali said: “The descendants of John Gladstone must now also outline their plan for reparatory justice for slavery and indentureship.”

The plan for reparations favoured by many Caribbean nations includes a formal apology and investment of billions in education, health, infrastructure and cultural revitalisation to ensure that “future generations are unshackled from the chains of history.”

Of the major slave trading nations, only the Netherlands has formally apologised for their role.