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'This is an insult to us'
27/03/2007 16:09 - (SA)
London - A protester disrupted a service at Westminster Abbey on Tuesday marking the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in British colonies.
"You should be ashamed," shouted Toyin Agbetu, 39, as he ran in front of the altar. "This is an insult to us."
Queen Elizabeth and Prime Minister Tony Blair were among the congregation in the royal church for the service, led by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.
Agbetu was escorted out of the abbey by security guards and ushers. He is the founder of Ligali, which campaigns for human rights on behalf of Britain's African community.
The service commemorated the legislation in 1807 that outlawed the slave trade in British colonies. Slavery was not abolished in those territories until 1833.
Outside the abbey, Agbetu said that the queen should apologise for Britain's involvement in the slave trade.
'Patting themselves on the back'
He said: "The queen has to say sorry. It was Elizabeth I. She commanded John Hawkins to take his ship.
"The monarch and the government and the church are all in there patting themselves on the back."
In 1562, John Hawkins led a raiding party that seized about 300 slaves in what is now Sierra Leone. Elizabeth I provided a ship for Hawkins' second voyage two years later.
In his sermon, Williams said slavery remained "hideously persistent" around the world, though in different forms than 200 years ago, and "the Atlantic trade was our contribution to this universal sinfulness".
He urged the congregation to summon "the courage to face the legacies of slavery - the literal degrading slavery of the millions who, then and now, are the victims of the greed of others, and the spiritual slavery of those who oppress and abuse, and so wreck their own humanity as well as that of others."
- AP
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