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A visit by David Cameron to Jamaica began awkwardly as the island’s prime minister pressed him to enter talks on reparations for slavery and campaigners called for him to personally atone for the slave-owning wealth of a relative in the 1800s.
Portia Simpson Miller, the Jamaican leader, raised the issue of reparations in a formal meeting with Cameron on Tuesday evening, hours after his arrival on was greeted by a military band playing God Save the Queen.
Appearing together after the talks, she said her nation wanted to engage the UK on the matter while also being “aware of obvious sensitivities”.
However, the prime minister ignored the subject in his reply, saying his visit was about future trade ties and hailing the historic links between the two countries.
The controversy has overshadowed the first visit of a UK prime minister to the Caribbean island for 14 years.
After initially remaining silent on the issue, Cameron now faces pressure to mention Britain’s involvement in slavery when he addresses Jamaica’s parliament on Wednesday.
Related: Hundreds of Jamaican prisoners held in UK jails to be repatriated
Jamaican opposition politicians are threatening to boycott this speech, with Ed Bartlett, a frontbench spokesman for the country’s Labour party, saying the issue of reparations was “gaining movement in the region”.
Bert Samuels, a member of the island’s National Commission on Reparations, appeared on Jamaican television to say Cameron needed to “atone, apologise, personally and on behalf of his country” for slavery.
“His lineage has been traced and his forefathers were slave-owners and benefited from slavery,” he said. “We were left behind because of racism.”
This appears to be a reference to the fact that General Sir James Duff, Cameron’s cousin six times removed, received more than £4,000 compensation for loss of 202 Jamaican slaves when the trade ended 1833.
The Press Association of Jamaica has also submitted an official complaint to their prime minister about Cameron’s refusal to take questions from the media after their talks, in contrast to US president Barack Obama.
Asked by UK reporters about reparations before his visit, Cameron said: “This is about the future relationship and about what we should be doing together economically in terms of trade and investment and this significant infrastructure fund I am announcing which will make Britain the biggest bilateral donor in the Caribbean by quite a long way. So that is what the visit is about, it’s talking about the future.”
Asked about the bilateral meeting, a No 10 spokeswoman said: “On reparations, the prime minister said he understood it was an issue for some people.
“He noted that the government abhorred slavery and indeed had passed the Modern Slavery Act to tackle human trafficking today.
“He reiterated the long-standing position of the United Kingdom that we do not believe reparations is the right approach.
“The prime minister underlined that he wanted to focus on the future and how the United Kingdom could help to spur economic growth across Jamaica.”
As part of that, Cameron announced the UK would give £300m to the Caribbean to pay for infrastructure. The UK will also build a £25m prison in Jamaica using the foreign aid budget to house around 300 of the country’s citizens currently serving sentences in the UK. Simpson Miller met Cameron’s commitments with loud impromptu clapping and embraced him at the end.
Before the announcement, Cameron met naval servicemen and women on RFA Lyme Bay, which helped the Dominican storm relief effort. It also works interrupting the trafficking of drugs, mostly cocaine and marijuana, in the Caribbean.