Accra, Sept 2, GNA – Black activists, artists and scholars from Africa, the Caribbean, North America, Europe, and Central and South America say they are committed to supporting existing efforts for the return of artefacts, monuments, and human remains connected to the African people.
The Group, therefore, called for foundational support for and engagement of the Social Movements in the Global African Reparations Movement in consolidating and expanding the global African reparations movement through active outreach, mobilization, and building.
The Global Coalition, in a statement after discussions held on Reparation and Racial Healing in Accra, said, “we call upon the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent to call for a Global Summit of colonial powers/governments, financial institutions, corporations, and other institutions that propagated and benefited from enslavement to advance a process of truth, justice, and accountability.”
The statement called for a special focus on religious institutions.
Dubbed: “The Accra Declaration on Reparation and Healing”, the Declaration served as the outcome of advancing justice.
It said recognizing the importance of reparations and healing as a global imperative, they were charging the Global African Reparations Movement to build upon the legacies established by social movements that produced outcomes such as the 1993 Abuja Proclamation and the 2001 Durban Declaration and Program of Action.
The statement said while they were opposed to past colonialism, apartheid, and slavery, they were also opposed to all current and contemporary forms of colonialism, apartheid, xenophobia, and exploitation.
“We condemn the outright use of violence and terror designed to extract, exploit, and advance the system of plunder,” it said.
The statement said there was an evolution of economic systems that have come to naturalize poverty and inequality and cast it as the result of deficient people rather than resource deprivation and exploitation.
It said the reparations and healing imperative was a multigenerational, transnational endeavour requiring the active engagement of the grassroots, civil society, private sector, policy makers and leadership at all levels to usher in the transformative change to the systems, structures and institutions that have perpetrated harm against Africans and people of African descent around the world.
The statement said, “We further hold that there is both a moral and legal obligation of the perpetrators of the crimes to engage in full reparations wherever the crimes were committed, and the legacies persist.”
It said they believe it was critically important that President Akufo-Addo called for the engagement of governments and heads of state in the global reparations movement.
It said political will and commitment were critical to the implementation of the declaration.
The statement said active involvement of governments and political leaders would go a long way in beginning the process of healing the wounds between civil society and partner governments and providing redress for harm.
The Summit observed that Africa, through the Assembly of Heads of State of the African Union, had adopted a continental Policy on Transitional Justice, the African Union Transitional Justice Policy (AUTJP), to address different types of injustices in the continent and to repair damages against the victims of human rights violations.
Based on the success of the AUTJP framework, it will serve as a blueprint to pursue a policy for reparations for historical crimes.
It said they would engage in dialogue and discussion on the term “Global African” as an inclusive identity of Black people around the world and it was evident that across the globe, there is a direct lineage to Africa.
It said, “we as members of the Global Reparations Movement, will establish and facilitate a Global African Symposium on the role of Africans in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and colonialism.”
“We affirm that justice requires an honest and comprehensive assessment of past harms and current harms experienced by African peoples around the world because of the crimes of slavery, colonialism, neocolonialism, and its legacies,” it added.
GNA