Ghana reaffirms commitment to racial justice, reparations

Ghana has strongly reaffirmed its dedication to the global struggle for racial justice, historical truth, and reparations for the transatlantic slave trade.

Speaking at the 48th National Congress of the Unified Black Movement in Brasília, Brazil, Ghana's Ambassador to Brazil, Nii Amasah Namoale, emphasized the need for enhanced solidarity between Africa and the Diaspora. He addressed the profound and lasting consequences of slavery and racism, describing the enslavement of Africans as the gravest crime against humanity.

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For more than four centuries, millions of African men, women and children had been violently removed from their societies, stripped of their humanity and subjected to unimaginable brutality.

Ambassador Namoale detailed how centuries of forced removal, dehumanization, and brutality destabilized African societies and enriched colonial empires. He noted that the wealth generated by this system financed institutions that continue to shape global power structures today. Descendants of enslaved Africans, he stated, still face systemic inequality, racial exclusion, and discrimination.

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The system had been global in scale, economic in purpose, racial in ideology and intergenerational in consequence.

The ambassador pointed to Ghana's historical sites, like the forts and castles of Cape Coast and Elmina, as painful reminders of the slave trade's atrocities. However, he highlighted their transformation into places of remembrance and healing. He also recalled Ghana's "Year of Return" initiative in 2019, which aimed to foster spiritual, cultural, and historical reconnection for people of African descent with the continent.

Ghana believes that remembering the past is a crucial form of justice, resisting historical erasure and confronting false narratives. The nation also commended the United Nations' recognition of the enduring consequences of the trafficking and enslavement of Africans. The ambassador concluded by noting the deep historical and cultural ties shared between Ghana and Brazil.

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Memory is a form of justice. To remember is to resist erasure, affirm humanity, confront historical falsehoods and reject narratives that minimised the horrors of slavery.