The United Nations resolution on the transatlantic slave trade passed last week was a starting point rather than a finish line.
Ghana will work with its international partners to build a broad coalition around CARICOM’s 10-point plan for reparative justice.
President John Dramani Mahama announced this at a welcome reception held on his return to Ghana on Sunday after the UN General Assembly vote.
President Mahama told the gathering that the hard diplomatic work was only beginning and that translating the moral victory of 123 votes into concrete outcomes would now be the focus.
“This resolution is just the beginning, it is not an end. We will work with our partners to translate this moral victory into concrete outcomes,” he stressed.
CARICOM, the Caribbean Community, already has a structured 10-point plan for reparative justice that it has championed for years.
President Mahama said Ghana would align itself with that framework and work to bring more countries into the coalition gathered around it, building on the momentum generated by the UN vote.
He said Ghana’s approach going forward would rest on three pillars namely, dialogue, education and remembrance, pursued alongside its allies with the goal of advancing reparative action on the international stage.
President Mahama argued that the resolution’s deepest achievement was in ending the fragmented, piecemeal way in which the history of the transatlantic slave trade had been handled globally.
Apologies had been given here and there, acknowledgements made in isolation, but never before had the full weight of that history been placed on record at the world’s most recognised platform.
“Acknowledgement of the slave trade has been fragmented.
“This is the first time clarity and record has been brought to the issue on the highest global platform, the United Nations,” he noted.
He said the resolution was consistent with Ghana’s history from independence to the present day of standing for justice and human dignity on the global stage, and that working through the African Union and CARICOM to get 123 countries to vote in favour, many of them with no direct connection to the slave trade, showed what was possible when purpose and unity came together.
Richard Aniagyei, ISD
