Britain’s King Charles deflected calls to atone for his country’s colonial past Friday, as a summit of Commonwealth allies turned into a factious debate about the legacy of slavery and empire. Leaders from the 56-nation Commonwealth — made up mostly of British ex-colonies — gathered for a summit in Samoa, hoping to prove the bloc is united and still relevant. But instead of finding common cause on pressing issues like climate change, Charles III’s maiden summit as king has been overshadowed by history. Many African, Caribbean and Pacific nations want to see Britain — and other European powers — pay financial compensation for slavery, or to at least make political amends. They want UK leaders to commit to a discussion on reparatory justice — which could involve financial payments. It is a debate Britain’s cash-strapped government has worked hard to avoid. But the Bahamas’ Prime Minister Philip Davis told AFP that a real discussion about the past was vital. “The time has come to have a real dialogue about how we address these historical wrongs,” he said. “Reparatory justice is not an easy conversation, but it’s an important one.” “The horrors of slavery left a deep, generational wound in our communities, and the fight for justice and reparatory justice is far from over”. Experts estimate that over four centuries about 10-15 million slaves were brought from Africa to the Americas. The true figure and human toll may never be known. The practice finally ended around 1870. The British royal family, which benefited from the slave trade over centuries, has faced calls to apologise. But the monarch stopped well short of that on Friday, asking delegates to “reject the language of division”. “I understand, from listening to people across the Commonwealth, how the most painful aspects of our past continue to resonate,” he said. “None of us can change the past. But we can commit, with all our hearts to learning its lessons and to finding creative ways to right inequalities that endure.”