Ghanaian President John Mahama has received overwhelming support from United Nations members to recognise the past transatlantic slave trade as a crime against humanity and the need for reparations for African nations.
A resolution on the matter he introduced on Wednesday in New York, at the general assembly, got 123 votes in favour, three votes against from Argentina, Israel and the US, while 52 countries – mostly European – including the UK, Portugal and Spain – abstained.
Mahama called on UN members to “engage in inclusive, good-faith dialogue on reparatory justice, including a full and formal apology,” as well as measures of restitution and compensation.
The West African nation’s ports played a key role in the centuries-long transatlantic trade in Africans to the Americas, which the president said was the largest forced migration in history.
Mahama also called for the prompt return without charge of African art and artifacts, many pieces of which were removed during the colonial era and remain on display in Western museums.
More than 12 million Africans, mostly from the west and central part of the continent, were forcibly removed from their homelands over a period of roughly 400 years through the early 19th century, by European traders who sold them mostly to buyers in the Americas.
They were used as cheap labour on cotton, rice, tobacco and sugar plantations, whereas in Europe, they served mainly in domestic service, maritime, construction work and as personal attendants in royal or noble courts.
Well over 200 years after the slave trade was abolished, Mahama said its lasting impacts and that of colonialism continue to “cause immense suffering, cultural disruption, economic exploitation, emotional trauma and unending discrimination endured by Africans.”
