Activists are disappointed about the exclusions
analysis
Gregory Mthembu-Salter
Following threats from the United States government to boycott the World Conference Against Racism later this month in Durban, the South African government helped broker a compromise at the recently concluded third preparatory meeting in Geneva on the contentious issue of the acknowledgement of slavery and colonialism. South Africa’s foreign affairs Director General Sipho Pityana said the compromise had ”narrowed substantially” the divide between the different parties.
However, while South Africa’s compromise has apparently satisfied former colonial European powers, it may not have gone far enough for the US government, which apparently wants to prevent even discussion of whether it owes an apology for slavery, and is still considering a boycott of the Durban conference.
The South African compromise has also left activists from the African diaspora feeling short-changed, and was unacceptable to some African states, like Namibia, which have since called for African states to retain their previous hard-line stance. South Africa is nonetheless sticking by the compromise it negotiated in Geneva.
Before the Geneva meeting a broad consensus concerning slavery and colonialism had been achieved within the African bloc, comprising African governments and African, African-American and Caribbean NGOs. The key demands were that:
l The slave trade, slavery and colonialism be identified as crimes against humanity;
l States responsible should apologise; and
l Reparations for Africa and the African diaspora should be considered.
In the build-up to the conference, the declaration of a meeting of African ministers in Dakar in January called slavery and colonialism ”unparalleled crimes against humanity” and demanded that the states that were responsible offer ”explicit apology” and ”assume their full responsibilities and provide adequate reparation”.
This tough talk was endorsed by African and African diaspora NGOs, which issued a statement from Geneva demanding that ”reparations for racial discrimination should manifest concretely as part of the process of reconciliation and redemption”.
According to the statement, ”the issue is whether all those who claim to be committed to living an anti-racist life and building anti-racist societies will join us in that fight, both publicly and privately, for compensatory and reparatory measures even in the face of political expediency”.
However, all three principal positions of the African caucus regarding slavery and colonialism were strongly opposed by former slaving and colonial powers at the preparatory meeting in Geneva this month, pushing African governments into painful concessions to achieve consensus.
The first concession was to drop the section from the draft document terming slavery and colonialism as crimes against humanity. The second was no longer to ask for an apology, explicit or otherwise, from former slaving and colonial states, but instead to ask for their ”regret”. Pityana says, however, that this issue will be debated further in Durban.
The third, which he says will also be discussed further at the conference, was to turn the demand for reparations into one calling on the West to support the New African Initiative (NAI) the recently released programme for Africa’s economic recovery, primarily through the partnership of African and Western governments.
According to South Africa’s foreign affairs representative, Ronnie Mamoepa, the equation of the NAI and reparations for slavery and colonialism should satisfy the African diaspora because ”it is about the recovery of all Africans”.
Yet the NAI deals exclusively with the African continent, and never once mentions the African diaspora. Its goals refer to Africa’s economic growth and improvements in the human rights indicators of African people, but nowhere addresses the concerns of inhabitants of the economically depressed Caribbean region, or of African-Americans.
African-American civil society activists say they are disappointed by the exclusion of references in the conference document emerging from Geneva to slavery and colonialism as crimes against humanity, and are not convinced that the NAI can have much impact on the needs of the African diaspora. However, to safeguard the united public appearance of the African caucus, the activists are reluctant to blame African governments for the Geneva concessions. As one African-American activist who prefers to remain anonymous put it: ”We did meet with the African governments and I believe that there was support for taking a much stronger stand. Apparently that resolve was defeated.”