"It's For Our Self-Worth": Ghana To Push For Intercontinental Initiative For Slavery Reparations
- Ghana is set to push for the creation of an intercontinental body to press demands for reparations
- President Akufo-Addo said to strengthen the demand for reparations, Africa and its diaspora must unite
- This was during a meeting with the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr Keith Rowley
Ghana says it will press the African Union (AU) to reach out to the African diaspora to strengthen demand for reparations for the transatlantic slave trade.
President Akufo-Addo said connecting the African continent with the diaspora was important to create a united community, whose demands for reparations cannot be ignored.
Source: UGC
According to him, a united front will force some major decisions from former colonial masters.
Akufo-Addo made this suggestion in an interaction with Dr Keith Rowley, the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, at the Jubilee House in Accra.
He said it was time for former colonies and colonial masters to sit across the table and discuss how reparations can be paid.
The Prime Minister for Trinidad and Tobago met with the President as part of his itinerary on his first visit to Ghana following an invitation from Manhyia to join Otumfuo Osei Tutu II to celebrate the Asantehene’s 25th anniversary.
Dr Keith Rowley also advocated the creation of an AU-Caribbean body to press former colonial masters to pay reparations to former colonies and descendants of the enslaved.
He noted that it was important for the self-worth and self-confidence of descendants of enslaved people.
Akufo-Addo, responding to the suggestion, said it was a welcome idea and promised to forward it to the African Union.
He had earlier argued that if Holocaust survivors could receive reparations, Africans could also receive reparations for the slave trade.
Calls for reparations have intensified in recent times, with many African and African diasporic nations, including Ghana, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago, calling on former colonial masters to pay for the atrocities committed during the infamous trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Akufo-Addo calls for reparations at UN Assembly
YEN.com.gh reported that President Nana Akufo-Addo made a strong call at the 78th UN General Assembly for the payment of reparations to African states for the debilitating effects of the slave trade.
He told world leaders on September 20, 2023, at the event held in the United States that the era of the slave trade was among the most horrific periods in the continent's history.
He said that while the present generations of the nations that perpetrated some of the evils are no longer around, the destruction slavery caused the continent cannot be overlooked.
Akufo-Addo said it’s time to bring the subject of reparations to the fore firmly.
Proofreading by Edwina N.K Quarcoo, journalist and copy editor at YEN.com.gh.
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Source: YEN.com.gh
