UK 'not open' to coughing up for slavery

London - Commonwealth countries want talks on slavery reparations but the United Kingdom - engaged in soul-searching over its former empire for several years now - is not open to financial compensation, officials and analysts say.

"Segments of British society might be ready to talk about reparation but you have other sectors, the majority really, that strongly oppose it," Sascha Auerbach, director of the Institute for the Study of Slavery at Nottingham University, said.

Meeting last week at a summit in Samoa, the Commonwealth's 56 members said the "time has come" for talks about the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade in a landmark declaration that raised the prospect of future reparations.

African, Caribbean and Pacific nations want Britain - and other colonial powers - to apologise for slavery and other ills of colonisation, and to start talks about compensation.