Reparations

Today’s massive global inequalities are the direct result of centuries of global apartheid. Africa’s place as the poorest region in the world, now ground-zero of the global HIV/AIDS pandemic, is the consequence of a history of oppression, exploitation, discrimination and racism that dates back to the slave trade, and continues today.
Reparations are an essential first step to acknowledging and correcting this history and its lingering consequences.

The call for reparations for Africans and African descendants is based on historical and moral arguments. Africa’s fate has been determined by patterns of subjugation and exploitation that began with the slave trade and continued through the colonial and neo-colonial eras. These patterns are now perpetuated in the international policies and policy-making processes controlled by the U.S. and other rich countries. The U.S. is historically the greatest beneficiary of global apartheid, and it is the richest country in the history of the world as a result. There is a clear and unique moral, economic and historical debt owed to Africa and its descendants for this history of exploitation and racism, and for its deadly and persistent effects.

The call for reparations is also supported in international law. It is recognized in international law that those who commit crimes against humanity – the mass enslavement of Africans being acknowledged as such – must make restitution. There are, in fact, many examples in recent history of reparations being paid at the international, national and individual level. The reparations paid by Germany for the Holocaust, and by the U.S. government to Japanese Americans, are just two examples of such a precedent.

Reparations for Africans and African descendants must begin with an acknowledgment that the slave trade and colonialism represented crimes against humanity whose consequences continue to shape the world today, and that an apology is required from those governments that legitimized and benefited from these injustices.

Beyond this, compensation is necessary. There is an obligation on the part of the world’s rich countries to support efforts to address the structural inequalities that have resulted from an international economic system built on slavery and colonialism.
As Africa now faces the worst health crisis in human history, the U.S. and other rich countries should support African efforts to defeat HIV/AIDS and poverty. This should be seen as an obligation, and not charity. This is an essential first step to reversing the severe impoverishment of African people that has resulted from historical and contemporary international racism and economic exploitation.

Reparations should be seen as a positive step toward addressing the consequences of centuries of global apartheid.

Links

Other Resources on Reparations
From the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA)

Africa Reparations Movement (UK) Homepage

The Legal Basis of the Claim for Reparations

Who Owes Whom: AIDS & Reparations
June 19, 2003 - Salih Booker, The Christian Science Monitor
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Africa Action on the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR)
August 2001 - Africa Action
“Africa Action is addressing the WCAR on four principal issues: (1) a declaration that the slave trade and enslavement of Africans were crimes against humanity; (2) the right to reparations for slavery, colonialism, apartheid and continuing racism; (3) the cancellation of African countries' external debts; (4) financing for the Global Fund for AIDS and other infectious diseases...” – This position paper provides a summary of the principal issues Africa Action highlighted for the WCAR.  Go >
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Global Apartheid
July 2001 - Salih Booker & William Minter, The Nation
“Global apartheid, stated briefly, is an international system of minority rule whose attributes include: differential access to basic human rights; wealth and power structured by race and place; structural racism, embedded in global economic processes, political institutions and cultural assumptions…” – This article examines how the global AIDS pandemic reveals an international system of global apartheid.  Go >
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010709&s=booker
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