African and Caribbean nations on Friday demanded formal apologies from countries that benefited from transatlantic slavery, as well \u200bas debt relief and financial compensation, part of an increasingly forceful push for reparations.<\/p>\n
The demands were part \u200cof a 19-point reparations plan endorsed at the end of a three-day conference in Ghana, whose U.N. resolution recognising transatlantic slavery as the “gravest crime against humanity” was approved in\u00a0March\u00a0despite resistance from Europe and the United States, countries which have a legacy in the sprawling human trafficking system that saw \u200bmillions forcibly taken from their homelands.<\/p>\n
The plan was adopted by the African Union and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Commission on \u200bReparatory Justice. It does not mention which specific countries should apologise.<\/p>\n
It calls for the establishment of a \u2060Global Reparations Fund, comprehensive debt relief and cancellation for affected countries and reforms to international financial institutions to ensure fairer \u200brepresentation for nations in the Global South.<\/p>\n
It also calls for the restitution of looted cultural property and ancestral remains, climate justice financing \u200band steps to address the specific brutalities inflicted on African women and girls during slavery.<\/p>\n
And it urges African countries to grant the right of return and citizenship pathways for diaspora Africans while committing to preserving the coastal forts and castles as memorials.<\/p>\n
The U.N. resolution in March was passed with \u200b123 votes in favour, but the United States, Israel and 52 other countries \u2014including European Union members and Britain \u2014 either opposed or \u200babstained.<\/p>\n
Both the EU and the U.S. voiced concerns the resolution could imply a hierarchy among crimes against humanity, treating some as more serious \u200cthan others.<\/p>\n
RESPONSIBILITY, \u2060NOT GUILT<\/strong><\/p>\n At least 12.5 million Africans were kidnapped and forcibly transported by European ships between the 15th and 19th centuries. Advocates say action is needed to confront enduring legacies, including racism and economic inequality.<\/p>\n CARICOM had previously developed\u00a0its own reparations framework, while the African Union was working on a separate plan. The conference in Ghana allowed the two bodies to merge their efforts into a single \u200bdocument to be presented at \u200bthe next U.N. General Assembly.<\/p>\n Addressing \u2060the conference, several leaders struck a conciliatory tone.<\/p>\n \u201cNone of us gathered in this hall today can be held personally responsible for the atrocities of the transatlantic slave trade,\u201d Ghana\u2019s President John Dramani \u200bMahama told delegates. \u201cHistory does not ask us to inherit guilt, but it asks us to \u200binherit responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n Heads of \u2060state from Namibia, Liberia, Senegal, Barbados and Sao Tome and Principe attended, as did the vice president of Equatorial Guinea.<\/p>\n Speaking virtually from the Elysee Palace, French President Emmanuel Macron said enslaved people \u201cwere torn from their homelands, deported, dehumanised, and treated as goods.\u201d<\/p>\n He also said reparations \u2060should not \u200bbe seen ” as an end point, or a cheque written to bring the \u200bstory to a close.\u201d<\/p>\n Last month, French lawmakers voted to formally repeal slavery-era laws that defined the legal status of enslaved people as “movable property” and justified abuse \u200band corporal punishment, though they stopped short of including demands for reparations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" African and Caribbean nations on Friday demanded formal apologies from countries that benefited from transatlantic slavery, as well \u200bas debt relief and financial compensation, part of an increasingly forceful push for reparations. The demands were part \u200cof a 19-point reparations plan endorsed at the end of a three-day conference in Ghana, whose U.N. resolution recognising […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21183,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":5,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1116,28,29,32,2362,33,34,30,27],"tags":[158,1462],"class_list":["post-21182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-african-union","category-central-africa","category-east-africa","category-economy","category-featured","category-politics","category-society","category-southern-africa","category-west-africa","tag-ghana","tag-slavery-reparations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21184,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21182\/revisions\/21184"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}