By Doyinsola Oladipo
UNITED NATIONS, Sept 23 (Reuters) – Ghana, which has led a campaign for reparations for the nearly four-century-long trans-Atlantic slave trade, said on Wednesday that support is growing among Western countries for the effort.
The campaign’s first focus is on restitution of looted artifacts, Ghanaian Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa told an event on reparatory justice co-hosted by Ghana, Germany and France on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Wednesday.
Later stages could include formal apologies, debt relief and financial compensation under a 19-point plan adopted by the African Union and the Caribbean Community Commission on Reparatory Justice at a conference in Ghana in June.
The UN passed a resolution in March recognizing trans-Atlantic slavery as “the gravest crime against humanity” with 123 votes in favor and three — from the US, Israel and Argentina — against. Fifty-two other countries, including European Union members and the UK, abstained.
Since then, many European countries have expressed their support, he said. “Virtually all the European countries that abstained during the vote have reached out and have said they are going to work with us on this journey,” Ablakwa said.
The UK and Portugal have offered support, and the US has also said it is willing to work with the Ghana-led effort, Ablakwa said.
France, Germany and the Netherlands have pledged their willingness to return artifacts, he added.
“Restitution is very important to this journey…These artifacts ought to be returned to the motherland,” the minister said.
About 12.5 million Africans were enslaved and transported across the Atlantic between the 16th and 19th centuries, according to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. They were taken to South America, the Caribbean and North America to labor on plantations and in mines. This generated vast wealth that fueled development of Western powers while causing enduring economic and social harm.
Portugal and Britain were responsible for transporting more than 70% of all enslaved Africans across the Atlantic, according to the database.
(Reporting by Doyinsola Oladipo in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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