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Ghana’s president Nana Akufo-Addo has convened a meeting in Accra with African leaders on demands for reparations for transatlantic slavery and colonial-era damages.
Some Western leaders have recently moved to acknowledge the wrongs of the colonial era in Africa and museums have begun returning stolen African treasures and artefacts, notes the AFP news agency. But the concept of paying financial reparations over a trade that shipped millions as slaves from West and Central Africa remains vague.
“Let me reiterate that the call for reparations is not a plea for alms, but a valid demand for justice,” Akufo-Addo said at the Accra Reparations Summit on November 14.
“If reparations can rightfully be paid to victims and descendants of the victims of the Holocaust, so can reparations also be paid to the descendants of the victims of the Slave Trade. It has been 400 years, and we want closure to this tragedy.”
“No amount of money can restore the damage caused by the transatlantic slave trade and its consequences. But surely, this is a matter that the world must confront and can no longer ignore,” AFP quoted Akufo-Addo as saying.
Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier earlier in November expressed his “shame” at crimes committed during his country’s colonial rule in Tanzania.
European museums are still keeping stolen artefact from Africa. Nigeria is in the process of bringing back thousands of 16th to 18th century metal plaques, sculptures and objects that were looted from the ancient Kingdom of Benin and found their way into museums and with art collectors across the US and Europe.
Source: Daily Mail GH
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