Roundup: African leaders chart path for global reparative justice advocacy at Accra conference

by Justice Lee Adoboe

ACCRA, June 21 (Xinhua) -- African leaders and their global partners in the advocacy for reparative justice have concluded their three-day conference in Accra, the Ghanaian capital, with clear pathways toward energizing global advocacy for reparative justice.

The High-Level Consultative Conference on the Next Steps to the Landmark United Nations Resolution on the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans concluded late Friday with the adoption of a blueprint to guide global advocacy for historical redress.

The Accra Next Steps Commitment on Reparatory Justice, a document produced at the conference, is expected to guide the fight to achieve justice for Africa and people of African descent for the personal, communal, and historical injustices suffered from the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism, and apartheid.

The 46-paragraph document, according to Ghana's Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, outlines practical steps toward reparatory justice, envisaged in the form of restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, institutional reforms, and assurances of non-repetition.

Among the main goals are truth and acknowledgement, legal justice, restitution of cultural artifacts, global governance reforms, compensatory reparations, gender justice, psychological rehabilitation, diaspora engagement, debt relief, financial justice, technology transfer, public health, and climate justice.

"The effects of the trafficking of enslaved Africans and the racialized exploitation of African people have not ended but continue to manifest in racial inequalities, development disparities, land degradation, and other forms of injustice," Ablakwa said.

Also achieved during the conference was the creation of three important global groups to guide the reparations' agenda. These include an advisory council on reparatory justice, a panel of experts on the restitution of cultural artifacts, and a panel of legal experts for reparatory justice.

One of the key outcomes of the conference was the consolidation of efforts by several African-related groups in the fight for reparative justice, including the campaign by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the campaign by African Americans, and the campaign by the African Union (AU).

Chairman of the CARICOM Reparations Commission Hilary Beckles said during the conference that the CARICOM 10-point plan for reparatory justice now forms part of a "global African consciousness."

Beckles said the adoption of the United Nations resolution on reparatory justice reflected a "global revolution of ideas" driven by centuries of resistance and resilience among enslaved Africans and their descendants.

In his closing remarks, Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama said that the iniquities of the slave trade remain, "and the demographic that slavery affected is still the poorest part of the world, which is rigged against the descendants of slaves and the victims of slavery."

"So, our work goes beyond reparations. It goes beyond the return of artifacts. It goes into advocacy for creating a more equal world that offers opportunities to everyone and a world that is fair and just," Mahama added. Enditem