President John Dramani Mahama’s draft United Nations (UN) resolution on the transatlantic slave trade has received formal endorsement at the ministerial level of the African Union.
This will position Ghana at the forefront of a global campaign to seek recognition of the slave trade as the gravest crime against humanity.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, made this known in a media interaction after holding bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the 39th African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Thursday.
The resolution, which describes the slave trade as the gravest crime against humanity, will be tabled on March 25.
He said the consultative process included input from the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, Economic and Social Council, the AU Committee of Experts, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), and international legal experts.
“There is collective ownership. President Mahama was designated as champion by the African Union, and his mandate has been extended by a decade. Ghana will be leading this process for the next 10 years,” he added.
He said this marked the first time such a resolution would be brought before the UN and added that Mahama would address the CARICOM summit in St. Kitts and Nevis in the coming days.
“You see that collective participation by all people of African descent, not only on the continent but those in the Caribbean, those in the Americas, a country like Brazil will probably have the biggest population of African descendants from that triangular slave trade that took place,” he noted.
The minister also addressed Ghana’s withdrawal from a contested seat on the AU Peace and Security Council and said Ghana stepped aside to allow a united front from the ECOWAS sub-region.
“Ghana has been described as a very mature and very reasonable country; in that way, we have also garnered more support for our activities and our efforts toward Pan-Africanism, regional integration, bringing all of us together so that Kwame Nkrumah’s dream of a united continent will be achieved,” he said.
Joyce Adwoa Animia Ocran, ISD
