EXT year marks the bicentennial of the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire; while the pernicious institution of slavery was not itself dismantled in British territories until 1834 the transatlantic trade in human chattel was abolished in 1807.

In 1805 the House of Commons in London had approved a bill that made it unlawful for any British subject to capture and transport slaves. However, that measure had been blocked by the House of Lords. I

But in February 1806, Lord Grenville formed a new Whig administration. Grenville and his Foreign Secretary, Charles Fox, were longtime opponents of the slave trade. Fox and abolitionist William Wilberforce led a new campaign to persuade the House of Commons to support ending the slave trade while Grenville lobbied the House of Lords to accept the measure.

Grenville made a passionate speech in which he argued the slave trade was "contrary to the principles of justice, humanity and sound policy" and criticised fellow members for "not having abolished the trade long ago". When the vote was taken the Abolition of the Slave Trade bill was passed in the House of Lords by 41 votes to 20. In the House of Commons it was carried by 114 to 15 and it become law on 25th March, 1807. British captains who were caught continuing the trade were fined ?100 for every slave found on board their ships.

There is speculation that British Prime Minister Tony Blair will mark the upcoming anniversary with a formal apology to peoples of African descent for Britain's role in the slave trade.

Already the idea of an apology has engendered controversy among those who believe that Britain ? as one of the foremost European states involved in the slave trade, along with Portugal and Spain ? should do more than just say it's sorry. In fact the question of reparations being paid to the descendants of African slaves has been raised for the first time as a major political talking point in the United Kingdom.

Recently the British Broadcasting Corporation carried a lengthy report on this very issue and an opinion was voiced that when it comes to the question of slavery, the matter needs to be placed into a much broader social and historical context than tends to now be the case. The BBC pointed out the undeniable reality that chattel slavery continues to exist in some parts of the world up to the present day ? and that the world's focus should be on eliminating these contemporary manifestations of the slave trade.

Certainly the question of child labour ? which exists in many countries in the Developing World ? would qualify as a form of modern day slavery. Regrettably this form of exploitation and human degradation can be found in Africa ? the chief victim of the transatlantic slave trade which saw millions of people forcibly transported across the ocean to the countries in the so-called New World, where their labour was used to build fortunes for their European owners.

There has never been a formal apology issued to the descendants of African slaves by any of the European slave-owning nations. The chief reason for this is the fear that any such apologies would make these nations liable to pay massive reparations to those in the West who can trace their ancestry back to Africa.

Any such financial compensation would, of course, amount to billions and billions of dollars ? possibly imperilling the monetary systems of the countries in question if they were required to pay out such vast amounts.

And there would be great resistance to any such move on the part of the citizens of the countries involved. After all, nobody alive today was responsible for the slave trade. It would be argued they should not be held responsible for the actions of ancestors who have been dead for 200 or more years.

Of course, even the most progressive history courses taught in European schools tend to dodge the fact that these nations benefited mightily from the slave trade. The economies of many European countries developed on the backs of the free labour provided by African slaves who were transported to their colonial territories in the Americas and the Caribbean.

Many of the palatial 17th and 18th century homes that dot the European countryside, for example, widely held to be national architectural and cultural treasures, were built off both profits from the slave trade and investments in the plantation economies developed by the British in its Caribbean colonies ? plantation economies which owed their very existence to the labour provided by African slaves.

Even the Industrial Revolution, pioneered by British scientists and entrepreneurs, owed its start to the massive profits amassed as a result of the plantation economies ? profits that were then invested in new, mechanical means of production and transportation.

And once Britain began to develop its industrial infrastructure, it then embarked on finding new overseas markets for its new, mass produced manufactured goods ? and had far less need of plantation economies dependent on slave labour, which came to be viewed as both increasingly inefficient and as a moral blight on the British nation.

This view was not shared by the plantation owners in the Caribbean, however. They were, of course, among the chief financial beneficiaries of the slave-based economies in the West Indies. And for very many years they carried tremendous influence in Britain's corridors of power, repeatedly holding off moves in the House of Commons to abolish both the slave-trade and the very institution of chattel slavery.

If you want to find a parallel for this type of immoral political influence in the modern day context, look no further than South Africa during the apartheid era. Successive British (and US) administrations were reluctant to put any large-scale economic sanctions in place against Pretoria because of massive investment in the country's infrastructure ? and because South Africa positioned itself as an indispensable Western ally in the Cold War proxy battles with the Soviet Union that flared throughout the African continent in the 1960s, '70s and '80s.

There is clearly a lot at stake when it comes to the possibility of paying reparations to the descendants of African slaves and many excuses have been offered as to why former slave-owning nations have no legal or moral responsibility to discharge the debt they owe to peoples of African descent living in the Western hemisphere.

One of the rationales put forward is the fact that Africans themselves engaged in the slave trade. This is true, a fact Africans do not deny.

But Africa is a vast continent, one that has many peoples and nations dwelling within its boundaries. The European slavers made a habit of playing one group off against another ? dividing and effectively ruling, so to speak. So to curry favour with these new allies from beyond the seas, warring African peoples often sold their enemies off to the Europeans.

Wars and invasions are replete with examples of such behaviour. The Ottoman Empire, for instance, built its military might for centuries based on Greek and Balkan peoples sold into slavery by their regional enemies.

It will be interesting to see what ? if anything ? Britain will do to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, whether it will indeed issue an apology and perhaps even broach the subject of financial reparations.