Jamaica wants to be ‘independent,’ premier tells British royals

By Karim El-Bar

LONDON (AA) – Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness has told Britain’s Prince William and his wife Kate that his country wants to be “independent.”

William, second in line to the British throne, and his wife are currently on a weeklong tour of the Caribbean, a trip dogged by public protests calling for reparations for slavery and debates over the continued ties of former colonies with Britain.

Jamaica is a Commonwealth realm with British monarch Elizabeth II as its queen.

Barbados, another former British Caribbean colony, removed the queen as its head of state last November and became a republic.

“There are issues here which, as you would know, are unresolved,” Holness told William and Kate during a photo shoot on Wednesday.

“But Jamaica is as you would see a country that is very proud … and we’re moving on,” he said.

“We intend to fulfill our true ambition of being an independent, fully developed and prosperous country.”

At a separate event attended by Holness and other officials, William expressed his “profound sorrow” for slavery, saying it should never have existed, but stopped short of apologizing.

William said he agreed with his father Prince Charles’ comment that “the appalling atrocity of slavery forever stains our history.”

Jamaica has previously indicated that it is exploring the process of becoming a republic, and announced last year that it will seek reparations from the UK for forcibly bringing around 600,000 Africans to work on plantations in Jamaica.