Senior Clergymen last night urged Tony Blair to make a full apology for Britain's role in the slave trade, instead of only expressing sorrow for the suffering caused.
The Archbishop of the West Indies, who joined the Archbishops of Canterbury and York at a prayer service in London yesterday commemorating the abolition of the slave trade in the UK, said the Prime Minister would be the 'appropriate person' to deliver an apology, which, he insisted, would prevent human rights abuses in future. Campaigners say the failure to apologise could overshadow plans for an annual day commemorating abolition.
Blair will use a pre-recorded message to the British Council's commemorative event in Ghana today to express his deep regret at the inhumanity and degradation caused by what he has described as a crime against humanity. Lady Amos, the Leader of the Lords and herself descended from slaves, will describe it as 'one of the most shameful and uncomfortable chapters in British history'.
The Prime Minister told a press conference with the Ghanaian President earlier this month that he was 'sorry' about what had happened, but will stop short of the formal apology that Ken Livingstone, London's mayor, is making this week. The Archbishop of the West Indies, Drexel Gomez, said that while there might appear to be only a 'technical difference' between regret and a full apology, it was important. 'An apology is in order because we have to acknowledge our past if we are to build our future,' he told the Today programme.
Downing Street's position reflects concern that it is difficult for the current generation to apologise for wrongs done centuries ago by distant forebears, while apologies may also open the question of liability for reparation.
Amos, attending the event in Ghana, will tackle criticism that the celebrations have focused too much on the role of one white man - William Wilberforce, the Tory MP who led the parliamentary anti-slavery movement - and not enough on the black resistance movement.
The bicentenary of the 1807 legislation abolishing the slave trade has sparked comparisons with the maltreatment of ethnic minorities in modern Britain. Yesterday, the Bishop of Liverpool, James Jones, drew a parallel between the exploitation of Africans and the murder of teenager Anthony Walker, killed with an axe as he ran away from racist thugs in the city. Jones told a congregation at Liverpool Cathedral that the more he studied history, 'the more I believe that our racism is rooted in the dehumanising treatment of black people by white people'.
He read out an account by John Newton, the former slave ship commander turned abolitionist, describing the practice of 'jointing' - hacking slaves to death with an axe and throwing their body parts to other slaves.
Yesterday the Archbishops of Canterbury and York led a walk of witness through London, meeting the March of the Abolitionists - a group who have walked from Hull, Wilberforce's birthplace, to London wearing chains to symbolise shame at Britain's role.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, declared: 'The easiest thing in the world is to look back ... and say we wouldn't have made those mistakes.
'A part of what we're doing today is recognising that the people who worked in the slave trade, people who kept going a system of inhumanity, were people like you and me.'