The Accra Declaration on Reparations and Racial Healing

[Yehuda]

PDF versions of this declaration available in English | Español | Français

On August 1 – August 4, 2022, Black activists, artists and scholars from Africa, the Caribbean, North America, Europe, Central and South America convened to discuss a global agenda for reparations and healing. Recognizing the importance of reparations and healing as a global imperative, we are 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. While we are opposed to past colonialism, apartheid and slavery, we are 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. There is an evolution of economic systems that have come to naturalize poverty and inequality and casts it as the result of deficient people rather than resource deprivation and exploitation.

The reparations and healing imperative is a multigenerational, transnational endeavor 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. In keynote remarks at this convening, President of Ghana, H.E. Nana Akuffo-Addo stated the importance of the African Union
making reparations a priority issue, setting an expectation for the engagement of other African Heads of State to join with African people and people of African descent globally, in this endeavor.

We begin by affirming the thrust of the Durban Declaration and Program of Action in declaring that massive harms committed by various European governments, institutions,
corporations and families equated to crimes against African humanity. That the crimes of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, colonialism, apartheid and neocolonialism and the systems, structures and institutions established to perpetuate these harms have left a negative injurious legacy that impacts every aspect of the lives of people of African descent around the world, in the present day and stymies the capacity to be fully self-determining and accorded the rights owed by virtue of being human. 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.

1. We acknowledge President Nana Akufo-Addo’s solidarity message with the Reparations Movement. We believe it is critically important that President Akufo-Addo called for the engagement of governments and heads of state in the global reparations movement. Political will and commitment is critical to the implementation of this declaration. Active involvement of governments and political leaders will go a long way in beginning the process of healing the wounds between civil society and partner governments and providing redress for harms.
2. We submit that African nations and political leaders must take a center position, fully in step with, and guided by, African peoples and civil society in enforcing the demands of full repair from the perpetrating nations, institutions, governments and families that have negatively impacted the African world via the crimes to chattlellize Africans, (Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade), enslavement, colonialism, apartheid, and genocide. This direct assault on the bodies, minds and spirits of Black people resulted in profound injuries that went unmeasured and untreated. The generations of terrorism and abuse were followed by more systematic abuse sanctioned and codified by the very institutions that perpetuated the crimes. These institutions continue to materially benefit from their barbarism through the plunder of African wealth, natural, and cultural resources.
3. We call for the adoption of a clear, comprehensive definition of reparations, and forming criteria for reparatory justice initiatives based on the Durban Declaration and Program of Action. An important goal is to distinguish reparations from equitable, inclusive and ordinary public policy, and the narrow Black nativist lineage proposition.
4. The Summit observed that Africa, through the Assembly of Heads of State of the African Union, has 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.
5. We charge that Global Africans work for the development of prosperous economies based on values of African humanism with principles of inclusive economic rights, including Dr. Martin Luther King’s call for an Economic Bill of Rights to create independent, self-reliant African-centered knowledge systems. We recognize that reparations is a necessary, critical step to propel us to create these systems with the intentionality that ensures a guarantee of non-repetition of harms against Black people, or any groups of people.
6. We commit to supporting existing efforts for the return of artifacts, monuments, human remains connected to our memory as African people.
7. We call for foundational support for and engagement of the Social Movements in the Global African Reparations Movement, for example, the Global Pan African Movement, CARICOM Reparations Commission, NAARC, Africa Transitional Justice Legacy Fund, and others, in consolidating and expanding the global African reparations movement through active outreach, mobilization and building.
8. Consistent with the call of CARICOM, 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 in order to advance a process of truth, justice and accountability.
9. There must be special focus on religious institutions. In addition to The Vatican (Roman Catholic Church) – because of its specific role in sanctioning through papal bulls, the initiation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, we also seek to focus on all Western Christian institutions in sanctioning and benefitting from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the division of the Continent of Africa. Crimes against Africans warrant acknowledgement, apology and equivalent redress.
10. We call for the United Nations to extend the United Nations Decade for People of African Descent by 10 Years.
11. We will engage in dialogue and discussion on the term “Global African” as an inclusive identity of Black people around the world. It is evident that across the globe, there is a direct lineage to Africa. We are all Africans wherever we landed and wherever we reside.
12. We will address the urgent need for independent, self-sufficient knowledge systems and Black media/Communications platforms to propagate and spread knowledge to empower Global African movements.
13. 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. Examine historical data on circumstances, geo-political contexts and definitive clarity on relative roles of Europeans and Africans. We must recommend a process for acknowledgement and healing.
14. We, as part of the Global Reparations Movement, acknowledge that there must be a Summit of Reparations commissions and commissions-in-formation to consolidate and expand the global African reparations movement.

We affirm that justice requires an honest and comprehensive assessment of past harms and current harms experienced by African peoples around the world as a result of the crimes of slavery, colonialism, neocolonialism and its legacies. Reparations and healing are the critical building blocks for a justice-centered world in which the human rights of all people are protected.

The Accra Declaration on Reparations and Racial Healing

 

[Yehuda]

(...) Since the 1960s, African resistance to oppression has been constant, but Africans have never reconciled their multiple strategic tendencies. While there has not been a consensus about whether to simply demand concessions from power or to instead engage in revolutionary struggles to take power, there have at least been dominant tendencies. Consider that as militant as many of the struggles against police violence may have been in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, most have not endeavored to purge and take over police departments. There is usually a presumption that any changes – even the defunding of police departments, will be implemented in response to demands made to those with the power to make those changes.

In what is perhaps the latest initiative for African freedom, both longtime stalwart freedom fighters and various high-profile luminaries attended the “Advancing Justice: Reparations and Racial Healing Summit” in Accra, Ghana. The summit’s final declaration proclaimed:

“We begin by affirming the thrust of the Durban Declaration and Program of Action in declaring that massive harms committed by various European governments, institutions, corporations and families equated to crimes against African humanity. That the crimes of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, colonialism, apartheid and neocolonialism and the systems, structures and institutions established to perpetuate these harms have left a negative injurious legacy that impacts every aspect of the lives of people of African descent around the world, in the present day and stymies the capacity to be fully self-determining and accorded the rights owed by virtue of being human.”

This is an honest and poignant statement of African realities. However, it begs the question of what is to be done. Summit participants answered by stating: “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.”

Admittedly, the whole notion of reparations for Africans rests on the premise that oppressive forces with power must concede their obligation to do justice. Consequently, one might conclude that a movement for reparations within the current political paradigm limits it to petitioning power for concessions, even if those petitions take the form of militant demands. Given our knowledge of political realities, we are compelled to consider the implications of such a predicament.

As part of its plan for demanding reparations from oppressors, the summit declaration calls: “… for foundational support for and engagement of the Social Movements in the Global African Reparations Movement, for example, the Global Pan African Movement, CARICOM Reparations Commission, [National African-American Reparations Commission], Africa Transitional Justice Legacy Fund, and others…” Caution is warranted here because, as many have learned the hard way, “he who pays the piper calls the tune,” and the very oppressive forces that will be asked to concede demands for reparations can effectively take control of the movement.

Capitalism has fine-tuned what many refer to as the “Non-profit/Industrial Complex.” It is a time-tested method of controlling movements by turning the funding spigot off and on. Specifically, a non-profit or NGO might have the best of intentions in supporting reparations work, but if the organization’s capitalist grantors are troubled by the direction of the reparations movement, funding conditions may be imposed that limit, restrict or even direct the recipient organization’s program. To receive its funding and keep its doors open, a non-profit may find itself in the uncomfortable position of urging the movement away from demands for “reparations now” and instead toward a posture of “let’s study reparations a bit more before doing anything drastic.”

Caution is warranted as well regarding even the most basic notion of collaborative engagement with oppressive forces. The summit declaration proposes: “a Global Summit of colonial powers/governments, financial institutions, corporations, and other institutions that propagated and benefited from enslavement in order to advance a process of truth, justice and accountability.”

Many oppressors are scrambling because of the continuing collapse of global capitalism and empires. This is most evident in the U.S. because after the protracted expansion of its empire, which has required constant deployment of military forces to far-flung corners of the globe and the movement of industry beyond U.S. borders, there has been domestic economic and infrastructure deterioration that has caused widespread internal tension, confusion, fear and chaos. The likelihood of willing, genuine engagement by the U.S. empire in a discussion of reparations is slim. In fact, the chances for successful engagement would be no greater if the empire were strong because its strength would rest in preservation of the conditions reparations would presumably repair.

God has provided Africans with the capacity for self-liberation. The only question is whether full advantage will be taken of those blessings. Summit participants have rendered great service in developing a plan for demanding that power concede reparations. But implicit in its work is also an opportunity to organize to take reparations whether oppressive forces like it or not.

The summit declaration states: “We will engage in dialogue and discussion on the term ‘Global African’ as an inclusive identity of Black people around the world. It is evident that across the globe, there is a direct lineage to Africa. We are all Africans wherever we landed and wherever we reside.” The declaration also states: “We will address the urgent need for independent, self-sufficient knowledge systems and Black media/Communications platforms to propagate and spread knowledge to empower Global African movements.”

These resolutions suggest first that Africans end micro-national identification and recognize there is strength in global African unity. Second, the idea of African independence moves Africans closer to the capacity to act without limiting their actions to those that will appease oppressors. Demands can be made for voluntary reparations concessions, but “Global Africans” will increase the likelihood of success if at the same time they, by virtue of worldwide African unity and independence, are poised and ready to take them if those in power won’t concede.

Frederick Douglass famously proclaimed: “Power concedes nothing without a demand.” Through experience we know: “Power concedes nothing – period.” We can continue to make demands and hope for positive responses. But for reparations, and everything else we need, we are likely to fail unless we are prepared to also take what we want.

Reparations by Appeal to Conscience or by Demands from a Position of Strength?