African and Caribbean Nations Call for Formal Apology for Transatlantic Slavery
African and Caribbean leaders gathered in Accra, Ghana, to demand a formal apology and reparations from former colonial states that benefited from the transatlantic slave trade.
The call follows a three‑day conference that aimed to advance the push for reparatory justice, set against the backdrop of a March United Nations resolution that recognises the slave trade as the “gravest crime against humanity.”
Participants outlined a 19‑point reparations plan that includes comprehensive debt relief, restitution of looted cultural property, and the creation of a global reparations fund, though specific funding levels were not disclosed.
Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama said the past “does not ask us to inherit guilt… but it asks us to inherit responsibility,” while French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged that enslaved peoples were “dehumanised and treated as goods.”
The United Nations General Assembly vote on the resolution saw 123 nations in favour, with the United States, Israel and Argentina opposing the declaration of the slave trade as a crime against humanity. Fifty‑two countries—including the United Kingdom—abstained, leaving the resolution non‑binding under current law.
Repealing reparations has historically benefited slave owners—such as the UK’s 19th‑century payment of more than $21 billion to slave owners in today’s terms—rather than the descendants of enslaved Africans, a fact that continues to fuel the demand for genuine reparatory justice.
