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Pan-African Organization Advocates Slave Trade Compensation
Co-chairman of the African World Repatriation and Reparation Truth Commission (AWRRTC) Harmet Maulana has called on African leaders to be serious about the demand for compensation of slave trade, Ghanaian media reported on Sunday in capital Accra.
Africa's woes derive neither from bad leadership nor political conflicts, but from "damage" done the continent by slave trade during the 18th and 19th century, Maulana was quoted as saying on Friday at the 133rd birthday party in Accra of William Edward B. Dubois, founding father of Pan-Africanism.
According to a report of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization on the slave trade, 210 million Africans were murdered and an additional 50 million were carried from the continent to work on farms in the West.
Maulana said: "No one has cared to apologize for the impact this history has had on Africa, much more compensating us," adding that there is every legal and moral justification for Africa to be compensated.
"Africa deserves compensation and we demand it now," he said, noting that other groups of people in other continents who suffered relatively milder damages from other countries and civilizations have been compensated in time.
He noted that victims of World War Two and their families had so far been paid a total of 705.8 billion U.S. dollars as compensation, therefore, it was very unfair that "Africa suffered greater damages than any of these groups and yet we have not received a cent, not even an apology.
The AWRRTC is pursuing the need for Africa's compensations at every available level, both national and international, he said.
"We have made representations to the Organization of African Union, the United Nations and we have filed a suit at the World Court to ensure that Africa is duly compensated for the damage it suffered during the slave trade," he added.
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