Akufo-Addo reiterates commitment to demand payment of slave trade reparations

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has repeated his commitment to demand payment of the appropriate slave trade reparations.

He said this at an event organized by the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at the site of the Ark of Return, a permanent memorial that was erected to honour victims of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade at the United Nations (UN) headquarters 30 years ago on Monday, 23 September 2024.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the UNESCO Routes of Enslaved Peoples Programme, which has significantly advanced a better understanding of the history and impact of enslavement through research, knowledge production, and awareness-raising campaigns.

Established in 1994 through the joint initiative of Benin and Haiti, the program has driven targeted advocacy efforts that culminated in the United Nations formally recognizing the transatlantic slave trade and enslavement as crimes against humanity in 2001.

President Akufo-Addo said with the full support of the African Union (AU) after the Accra Reparation Conference held last year in Ghana, he is certain that a global commission will soon be set up to champion the efforts to pay reparation.

“Ghana has quite a big responsibility for the slave trade. 75 per cent of the slave castles for which the trade passed through are situated on Ghana soil, so we are particularly involved in the events and what has happened since. This is why last year; we convened the Accra reparations conference to focus the world’s mind on the steps that need to be taken.

“In our view, three things are critical; One, we gather the global African family together like what is happening today to say that we will not ever again experience such a barbaric and inhumane set of transactions and we make a firm commitment never to subject the African people to this inhumane practice,” President Akufo-Addo said.

“Secondly, to use the occasion of our coming together to make a clear statement to the world as to how we see the forward movement of the African peoples as a result of this tragic experience and that is how we have now come to champion first of all, “the year of return,” that saw so many people from the global African family coming back to Ghana to reconnect.

 

“Thirdly, to make the demand, which is now on the table for reparations. The Accra reparations conference went a long way in making some important decisions about the need to establish a global commission on reparations, which will then fuel the conversation and chat a way forward in being able to arrive not just at the reparations but also at the process of healing and the process of reconciliation that is an inevitable part of the process,” Akufo-Addo further stated.