African Americans in Global Affairs: Contemporary Perspectives

9: The Looming Quest for Global Reparations: African Americans and the World Conference against Racism

NINE The Looming Quest for Global Reparations AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE WORLD CONFERENCE AGAINST RACISM Ife Williams Ever since the first African was ripped from the shores of the continent, the global aspirations of people of African descent have been characterized by two perennial themes: returning to a pre-holocaust state and unification of all Africans who underwent a similar fate. At present, that politic is evidenced in “global reparations,” the utilization of Pan-Africanism, “the total liberation of African people everywhere they live on the face of the earth” (Clark, 1973, 32), and the provision of reparations as the economic, social, and spiritual means to sustain development. African descendants throughout the Diaspora have historically participated in international conferences to elucidate the contradictory nature of human rights atrocities of the slave trade, slavery, colonialism, segregation, apartheid, and genocide. By focusing attention on those actors who proclaim democracy, freedom, and fraternity , it was hoped that the aggressors would be pressured to abandon such practices and make restitution for the present dire social, political, and economic conditions that exist as a direct consequence of those gross violations of humanity. The World Conference against Racism, Xenophobia , and Related Intolerance (wcar) in 2001 offered that opportunity. Even more, at the conference the issue of reparations for African descendants was debated and legitimated by the international community. The significance of addressing this issue is that the effects of the transatlantic slave trade, slavery, and colonialism persist at present and continue to be sources of systemic discrimination, marginalization, poverty and exclusion that still adversely impacts African descendants throughout the Diaspora.” This chapter examines the role of African Americans, via the African 225 Transnational Activism & Globalization 226 Descendants Caucus (adc) at wcar, in having the transatlantic slave trade and slavery declared crimes against humanity, thus establishing the legal foundation to move into the next phase of “compensation.” Under investigation here is the process that informed this historic mandate, the guiding definitions of reparations that were advanced, the nature of the opposition, and the political navigation of the caucus to establish this universal precedent for global reparations. Background to Conference In the early 1990s, several nongovernmental organizations (ngos) dominated by African Americans, including the December 12th Movement (D-12), along with selected African governments, successfully lobbied the United Nations to hold the Third World Conference against Racism. It is believed that those African governments shifted the reparations movement “from a demand of Diaspora blacks for restitution in their own countries to a new worldwide crusade for reparations for the African and black world as a whole” (Mazrui, 1994, 4). In 1993, the Organization of African Unity (oau) charged a group of persons, under the chairmanship of Chief Bashorun M. K. O. Abiola, to investigate reparations for enslavement, colonialism, and its aftermath. Their findings delineated two forms of reparations, nonmonetary and financial (primarily through debt forgiveness). The major goal and related strategy concerned empowerment of African states, inclusive of women, to become stronger, autonomous players in the global community. They also recommended the “Middle Passage Plan”: skills transfer, direct power transfer or power sharing, and giving African countries in total a veto on the Security Council of the United Nations that would facilitate including “Africa in the mainstream of global decision-making after centuries of deprivation” (Mazrui, 1994, 7). In 1998 the African Group unanimously called for a U.N. resolution declaring the transatlantic slave trade and slavery crimes against humanity. As such, statutes of limitation would not apply. The Senegalese chair of the group withdrew the resolution after international pressure, but the group resolved to have it reintroduced at wcar (Wareham, 2003). The major difficulty here that evolved up through the 2001 world conference in deliberations with the African governments was their reliance on the West to provide “freedom for opposition” that is inherently antithetical to Western interests. The International Secretariat of D-12, as reported by Roger Wareham, began their efforts for a world conference on racism at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in 1989 and at the U.N. World Conference on Human Rights in 1993. During this process colonialism was added as constituting many crimes against humanity (Wareham, 2003, 231). 227 williams ) Quest for Global Reparations Historically, the United Nations has served as the international venue to organize around redress from racism because of its proclamations against human rights violations. Opting to use the structures, guidelines, and language of the West...