President Nana Akufo-Addo has stated that the call by Africans and Africans in the diaspora for the payment of reparations by European nations who carried out the transatlantic slave trade some 400 years ago is not a plea for alms but a demand for justice.
The demand for reparatory justice, he proposed, must go hand in hand with the subject of restitution.
According to him, the restitution should be executed through the return of all cultural properties of African nations that were illegitimately and barefacedly taken from Africa and transported to European countries.
Speaking at the maiden edition of the Accra Reparations Conference (ARC 2023) held at the Kempinski Hotel, Gold Coast City, yesterday, President Akufo-Addo said reparations for African and Africans are long overdue.
He noted that victims of other injustices in human history have rightly received reparations and that, Africans deserve the same for the damage caused by the transatlantic slave trade.
“The call for reparation is not a plea for alms but a valid demand for justice. If reparations can rightly be paid to victims and the descendants of victims of the Holocaust, so can reparations also be paid to the descendants of the victims of the slave trade. It has been four hundred years, and we want to bring closure to this tragedy.
“While at it, let me point out that the subject of reparations must go along with the subject of restitution. The initiative for the return of African cultural properties to the continent must also be an issue of major concern for all Africans. We must call for the return of African cultural properties that were illegally and shamelessly transported from the continent” President Akufo-Addo said.
Tracing the history of the transatlantic slave trade, President Akufo-Addo, said “It began with some 20 slaves from West Africa being forcefully sent in 1619 to the commonwealth of Virginia, in what was to become part of the United States of America. This initial action he noted, “was the first of 36,000 voyages to and from Africa which resulted in some 20 million Africans from Central and West Africa being sold into slavery in the Americas and the Caribbean”.
“We are also told that 10% of this number, that is, some 2 million Africans lost their lives en route to their destinations with the Atlantic Ocean serving as their final resting place. As if this was not enough, the continent had to endure centuries of being colonized by the same people who undertook the slave trade.
“The identity and personality of Africans were brutally assaulted, and the imprints of colonialism and imperialism woven deeply into the fabric of our lives. The effects of the slave trade have been devastating to the African continent and to the African diaspora. The entire period of slavery meant that our progress economically, culturally, and psychologically was stifled” President Akufo-Addo stated.
Fair treatment
President Akufo-Addo traced the history of the payment of reparations to victims of historic injustices such as the holocaust and even those who owned slaves when the slave trade was finally abolished.
Accordingly, he said there must be no reason why the payment of reparations to Africans who suffered from the devastating effects of the transatlantic slave trade should be questioned.
“Reparations for Africa and the African diaspora are long overdue. Predictably, the question of reparations becomes a debate only when it comes to Africa and Africans. When the British ended slavery, all the owners of enslaved Africans received reparations to the tune of some 20 million pounds sterling, the equivalent to some 20 billion pounds sterling but enslaved Africans themselves did not receive a penny.
“Likewise, in the United States of America, owners of slaves received $300.00 for every slave they owned, the slaves themselves, and received nothing. Take the case of Haiti, which had to pay reparations amounting to 21 billion United States dollars to French slave owners in 1825 for the victory of the Haitian revolution, the first in the Americas and the Caribbean which freed the slaves.
“It was a payment made under duress that impoverished Haiti throughout the 19th century until today. Native Americans received and continue to receive reparations, Japanese Japanese-American families who were incarcerated in internment camps in America during World War Two, received reparations. Jewish people, six million of whom perished in the concentration camps in ‘Hitlerised’ Germany, received reparations including homeland grants and support.
“So, it is time for Africa, 20 million of whose sons and daughters had their freedoms curtailed and sold into slavery, also to receive reparations. No amount of money can restore the damage caused by the transatlantic slave trade and its consequences which have spanned many centuries, but surely, this is a matter that the world must confront and can no longer ignore,” he added.
Demand for apology
President Akufo-Addo also called on Africa’s “slavemaster” to render a formal apology to the entire continent for carrying out the slave trade “crime.”
“Even before these discussions of reparations conclude, the entire continent of Africa deserves a formal apology from the European nations involved in the slave trade for the crimes and damage it has caused to the population, psyche, image, and character of the Africans the world over” President Akufo-Addo remarked.
The conference was organized by Ghana in close collaboration with the African Union (AU) Commission.
