The Dutch government has catalogued 2,000 artefacts it has decided to return to their places of origin, while Germany and Denmark have made commitments on restitution and preservation of slave trade sites, Foreign Affairs Minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has announced.
Speaking at the observation of Juneteenth in Accra last Friday, Mr Ablakwa said the announcements formed key attachments to the outcome document adopted at the just-ended Next Steps Conference on Reparatory Justice.
Denmark to preserve Osu Castle
Mr Ablakwa said Denmark’s Foreign Minister also announced at the conference that “the Danish government has decided to work with the government of Ghana to preserve all castles they built during that dark period of slavery and colonisation.
He said French President Emmanuel Macron also pledged that France will work with the coalition “to establish a scientific commission so that where our artefacts are located, who is keeping them, who is hiding them, we can find all of them and return them to their motherland”.
Outcomes
The minister said the three-day conference had delivered “concrete outcomes” beyond expectations.
Mr Ablakwa said governments resolved that UN Resolution A/RES/80/250 “will not just be a cosmetic resolution” and committed to “actionable and measurable steps” including reflecting reparatory justice objectives in national development plans and educational curricula.
He added that the framework will also be reflected in the UN Secretary-General’s report to the 82nd session of the UN General Assembly next year.
Mr Ablakwa said governments committed to “establish museums, to preserve monuments so that we will ensure that denialism, minimalism, erasure, all of those negative tendencies we have seen, those tendencies are defeated by our collective commitment.”
Perhaps most significant, he said, was the agreement to end fragmentation.
“For the first time, we are going to end fragmentation.
We are no longer going to have a separate African agenda on reparatory justice.”
Observation of Juneteenth
As part of the observation of Juneteenth, a US holiday that marks the day enslaved African Americans in Texas finally learned they were free, more than two years after slavery had legally ended, President John Dramani Mahama, joined by the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Amor Mottley and other dignitaries, laid wreaths in honour of the memory of the forebears who suffered the cruelty of slavery.
The wreath laying at the Osu Christiansborg Castle was preceded by a reenactment performance by the University of Ghana’s School of Performing Art, who displayed vividly the experience of slavery from “the capture of slaves, binding slaves in chains, slaves’ arrival to the castle trekking several miles, the registration and making of identification marks on slaves, holding slaves in dungeon accompanied by their whipping and their onward dispatch through the door of no return onto smaller boats”.
There was also the exhibition of several slavery relics at the Castle to offer a better comprehension of the weight of the slavery history in Africa.
The emotional reenactment saw some attendees in tears, as they could not come to terms with the severe pains and the cruelty the forebears had to endure at the hands of the slave masters from Europe and the Americas.
