Africa has officially joined the push to demand reparations from Britain and other former colonial powers for ‘historic crimes’, including slavery and imperialism.
The African Union, which represents all 55 nations on the continent, has called for ‘meaningful reparations’ from European powers for exploiting Africa’s people, land and resources and blamed colonialism for ongoing ‘systemic injustice’ across the region.
At a joint summit in Addis Ababa with Caribbean leaders, the bloc said it would team up with countries across the Atlantic to seek compensation and what it called ‘reparatory justice’.
Mahamoud Ali Youssouf, the Djiboutian politician heading up the African Union Commission, said the two regions would now work together to ‘honour our ancestors, to uplift our descendants and reclaim our shared destiny in freedom, justice and unity’.
It comes as Caribbean nations – under the Caricom alliance of 15 states – have already demanded trillions in compensation for slavery. Now African leaders are expected to draw up their own list of demands.
Britain, which at the height of its empire controlled a quarter of Africa, could find itself facing fresh claims – not just for its involvement in the slave trade, but for the broader impact of colonialism and what has been described as ongoing ‘structural and systemic injustice’.
Reparations are now being framed more broadly, not only in terms of slavery, but also the return of cultural artefacts, reforms to global economic systems, and compensation for climate change impacts.
Leaders argue that the industrialised nations of the ‘Global North’ bear historical responsibility for environmental degradation.
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