(3 Minutes Read)
Ghanaian President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo stated that it would press the African Union (AU) to garner support for a cross-continent initiative to strengthen demand for reparations for the transatlantic slave trade. Building bridges and reconnecting as a united community to address the issue of reparations was now imperative.
The President reiterated that it is essential to create a “big and cacophonous voice that cannot be ignored, and that, in the end, will force some decisions.” It is time that the Caribbean and the African continent come together on this matter because it is a common fight, stated the President while addressing the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr Keith Rowley, at the Jubilee House, Accra.
The President stressed the need to work towards a strategy that would compel the perpetrators of the trans-Atlantic slave trade “to be able to sit down across the table with us and talk about how we can achieve our goals.”Dr Rowley’s courtesy call on the President was part of his itinerary on his visit to Ghana, where he was invited to celebrate His Royal Majesty Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, the Asantehene’s ascent to the throne. It is the 25th year since Asantehene ascended to the Golden Stool and ruled the Asante Kingdom. Dr Rowley is an ardent supporter of the development of an international entity, like an AU-Caribbean body, to advance the cause of reparations for African people for atrocities committed during the slave trade. He insisted that the atrocities committed during the slave trade should not be repeated and that Africans would never again allow such evil to be perpetuated against them. Dr. Rowley praised Ghana’s government for playing a key role in generating public support for reparations to Africans.
While many European and American families, businesses and institutions continue to benefit today from the enormous wealth produced by enslavement, the African people are still forced to grapple with the legacy of inequality, injustice, poverty, and low self-esteem. President Akufo-Addo said the idea of an international body to fasten the processes of ensuring reparations for the crimes committed during the slave trade was a welcoming one. The time has come for an international body to put this conversation, this narrative to the Western world so that some sort of rectifications could come out of it, stated the Prime Minister.
The idea of paying reparations or making other amends for slavery has a long history but the movement is gaining momentum worldwide. The EU earlier stated that Europe’s slave-trading past inflicted “untold suffering” on millions of people and hinted at the need for reparations for what it described as a “crime against humanity”.
It is crucial to recognise how slavery, colonialism, and racism intersect and impact the lives of Black people around the world. According to the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), an international organization dedicated to racial and economic justice, nearly 13 million Africans were kidnapped and trafficked across the Atlantic to the Americas, including the British, French, and Spanish colonies, between 1501 and 1867.
About two million people are thought to have died during the atrocious Middle Passage. Kidnapping, trafficking, abusing, and dehumanising African people and their descendants was as lucrative for Europeans and white Americans as it was traumatising for black people.
Read Also:
https://trendsnafrica.com/ghanas-president-underscores-reparations-for-colonial-days-damages/
https://trendsnafrica.com/africans-should-be-paid-slavery-reparations-ghanas-president/
The trans-Atlantic slave trade enriched many white people across occupations and industries—from early European colonists to priests and popes, shipbuilders to rum and textile producers, bankers to insurers—and generated the capital used to build some of America’s greatest cities and most successful companies, says the EJI
