Members of the African Commission on Human and Peoples; Rights, Working Group Chairs, State Officials and distinguished delegates
The Concept Note for this panel discussion states,
“This panel discussion is one of those activities initiated by the Commission to contribute towards the implementation of the Theme of the Year, providing a platform to reflect on the reparative justice journey in Africa, and ignite action in pursuing the reparative justice agenda, in conformity with the Abuja Proclamation on Reparations for African Enslavement, Colonization, and Neo-Colonization and the Accra Declaration on Reparations and Racial Healing.”
The Concept Note on the African Union Theme of the Year for 2025 recalls that,
“Reparations, including reparatory justice for historical crimes and mass atrocities committed against Africans and People of African Descent has always been part of the complete decolonization process of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and now the African Union (AU) since its inception in 1963. . . . Following in the tradition of the global Pan-African movements, the continental movement for reparations, including reparatory justice, in Africa, started with political activism by prominent politicians during the campaigns for national liberation and independence, including Chief Moshood Kashimawyo Olawale Abiola of Nigeria. The OAU fficially inaugurated the 12-Member Group of Eminent Persons (GEP) for Reparations on June 28th, 1992.”
When the Honorable Commissioner Dr. Litha Musyimi-Ogana invited me to speak on this panel, she stated that, among other things, the Panel Discussion was being convened “to reflect on the progress made” in pursuing the reparative justice agenda in Africa in conformity with the Abuja Proclamation. So I now take some time to do just that, to reflect on what progress has been made. Necessarily, I will need to review some critical history.
Actually, it was the political activism of Afro Descendants in the United States pursuing reparations that led to the adoption of reparations as a central focus of the global Pan African movement and later, the establishment of the GEP and the reparations movement in Africa.
Bishop Henry Turner attended the Chicago Congress on Africa in 1893 which was the starting point for the historic Pan African Congresses. A Pan African Repatriation plan was initiated two years later in 1895 by black businessman William Ellis, who helped Bishop Turner organize the Congress on Africa in Atlanta at the end of 1895. Bishop Alexander Walters, who attended both the Chicago and Atlanta Congresses would, five years later, chair the London Pan African Congress in 1900. That Congress declared that the problem of the new century is “the problem of the color-line, the question as to how far differences of race… will hereafter be made the basis of denying over half of the world the right of sharing. . . the opportunities and privileges of modern civilization.” Haitian-born Benito Sylvain, the former secretary of the Haitian Legation in London and serving as Aide-de Camp to the Imperial Household of Ethiopian Emperor Menelik, attended the London Congress in 1900 as the Ethiopian Representative. In 1900, Bishop Turner said,
“We remained in slavery two hundred and fifty years, and have been free the best end of fifty more years. In other words we have been dominated over by the buckra, or white race, for about three hundred years. We have worked, enriched the country and helped give it a standing among the powers of the earth, and when we are denied our civil and political rights, (many) ridicule the idea of asking for a hundred million of dollars TO GO HOME, for Africa is our home and is the one place that offers us manhood and freedom, though we are the subjects of nations that have claimed a part of Africa by conquest. A hundred million dollars can be obtained if we, as a race, would ask for it. The way we figure it out, this country owes us forty billions of dollars, and we are afraid to ask for a hundred million. Congress, by its legislation, throws away over a hundred million annually.”
The African nationalist Arthur Anderson said in 1919,
“We, the colored race of the USA and our representatives, your wards, your half brothers and sisters by blood, demand of the Government of this United States 600,000,000 dollars indemnity for slavery, for the trail of blood sacrificed in human lives, the loss of country. The years of tyranny and oppression that followed and continues until today on the ex-slaves and their offsprings, created by the institution of a cruel slavery by the American people of the U.S.A.”
Marcus Garvey saw the redemption of Africa as recompense for the exploitation of African people. He petitioned the League of Nations to turn over the former German colonies in Africa to the UNIA in 1919 as a form of reparations for African American contributions in the First Great European Tribal War. Later, The Peace Movement of Ethiopia petitioned President Franklin Roosevelt and the Virginia legislature in the 1930s for reparations. Paul Roberson, William Patterson, and W.E.B. Du Bois then launched the Genocide Campaign that included a call for repair and reparations in 1951.
In 1955 - fifty five years after Bishop Turner - Queen Mother Audley Moore founded the Reparations Committee of Descendants of United States Slaves. In 1957, Queen Mother Audley Moore presented a petition to the United Nations and a second one in 1959, arguing for self-determination, against genocide, for land and reparations, making her an international advocate. Interviewed by E. Menelik Pinto, Moore explained the petition, in which she asked for 200 billion dollars to monetarily compensate for 400 years of slavery. The petition also called for compensations to be given to African Americas who wish to return to Africa. The New Alajo Party then formed in 1961 and stated, “All leaders must be educated by their own people in their own aims. Our present leaders are not. That is why our power is wasted. The U.S. owes us millions of dollars in indemnity for slavery. We must have strong leadership to collect this money which is due each family. You and your friends should join the Alajo Party now to petition the U.S. to pay its debt to us.” The development of revolutionary territorial nationalism in the United States also included the formations of the African Nationalist Partition Party of North America (ANPP), the African Descendants Nationalist Independence Partition Party (ADNIP), and the Provisional Government of the African American Captive Nation (PG-AACN). The goal was to establish an African state in America with reparations by 1972.
In 1962, Queen Mother Moore and the Reparations Committee of the Descendants of United States Slaves, filed a claim in California. She went to the White House in 1962 to meet with President John F. Kennedy. In 1963, at the time of the one hundred years of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, Queen Mother led the Reparations Committee with a petition drive to get signatures to demand reparations for slavery and 100 years of economic, political inequality. She went all over the country getting signatures and organized the African-American Party of National Liberation in August 1963. This was the state of the reparations movement that existed in the United States at the founding of the OAU.
In those early 1960’s years, Ras Mortimo Planno, a major figure in the Rastafari Repatriation Movement, was in New York and he and Omowale Malcolm X began to discuss the solution to the condition of the Black man in America. Having toured Africa and spoken with African Heads of State including HIM Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, General Nnamdi Azikiwi of Nigeria, President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, President William Tubman of Liberia and Prime Minister Milton Margai of Sierra-Leone, Ras Mortimo Planno suggested to Malcolm X that if the Black Muslim plan for a separate, Black Nation within the United States failed, that the only solution would be Repatriation.
One month before attending the 1964 OAU Summit in Cairo, Omowale Malcolm X, said,
“The 22,000,000 so-called Negroes should be separated completely from America and should be permitted to go back home to our African homeland which is a long-range program; so the short-range program is that we must eat while we’re still here, we must have a place to sleep, we have clothes to wear, we must have better jobs, we must have better education; so that although our long-range political philosophy is to migrate back to our African homeland, our short-range program must involve that which is necessary to enable us to live a better life while we are still here.”
Discussing the memorandum he circulated to African Heads of State at the OAU, Milton Henry asked Omowale Malcolm X, “By the way, Brother Malcolm, before we close, did you receive any promises of assistance or help from any of the African nations?” Omowale Malcolm X answered,
“Oh, yes, several of them promised officially that, come the next session of the UN, any effort on our part to bring our problems before the UN . . . I think it is the Commission on Human Rights. . . will get support and help from them. They will assist us in showing us how to bring it up legally.”
Omowale Malcolm X was killed on February 21, 1965. Two weeks later, the New York Times ran a story headlined “World Court Opens Africa Case Monday” which stated that, “The International Court of Justice will open oral proceedings Monday in a case linking the segregation struggle of the American Negro and the fate of 430,000 African Bantus and bushmen. . . . At issue is a four-year effort by Ethiopia and Liberia to bar South Africa from applying her race separation or apartheid doctrine in South West Africa which she controls.” As Omowale Malcolm X emphasized in his memorandum at the OAU,
“Since the 22 million of us were originally Africans, who are now in America, not by choice but only by a cruel accident in our history, we strongly believe that African problems are our problems and our problems are African problems. . . . If South Africa is guilty of violating the human rights of Africans here on the mother continent, then America is guilty of worse violations of the 22 million Africans on the American continent. And if South African racism is not a domestic issue, then American racism also is not a domestic issue. We beseech independent African states to help us bring our problem before the United Nations, on the grounds that the United States Government is morally incapable of protecting the lives and the property of 22 million African-Americans. And on the grounds that our deteriorating plight is definitely becoming a threat to world peace.”
The assasination of Omowale Malcolm X proved his point. After the assasination of Omowale Malcolm X, his followers convened the Black Government Conference and declared the independence of the Republic of New Afrika (RNA) on March 31, 1968. The RNA drafted an Anti-Depression Program which called for a lump-sum reparations downpayment and a negotiating committee between its subjugated government and the U.S. government, and successfully had the Program adopted at the 1972 National Black Political Assembly Convention held in Gary, Indiana. It was an act to determine kind, dates, and other details of paying reparations.
It should now be recalled that the reparations for repatriation tradition started by Bishop Henry Turner at the 1900 Pan African Congress in London and sustained by, inter alia, Queen Mother Audley Moore and Omowale Malcolm X, continued at the 6th Pan African Congress, the first to convene after the establishment of the OAU, held in 1974 in Dar es Salam, Tanzania, headquarters of the OAU Liberation Committee, which Malcolm X visited a decade ago. The Working Paper on Desirable Results of the 6th Pan African Congress
“Encourage[d] African and Caribbean states to recognize the principle of dual citizenship for Africans from the West in non-independent situations, and who meet the African and Caribbean states’ own citizenship criteria; and that special effort be made to facilitate their acquiring of African citizenship.”
On July 28, 1975, Queen Mother Moore addressed the Summit meeting of the Heads of State of the OAU meeting in Kampala, Uganda at the request of Ugandan President Ida Amin. Said Moore,
“We know now that we are a people, that we are an African people, that we are an entity-- a unique entity as Africans born in the United States of America. . . . power has to be exercised by a people, a nation and before power can be exercised, the right of self determination must be won. Citizenship in the United States was imposed on us in 1867 by the government (unilaterally} without even consulting us, without a plebiscite. We had no choice. The Congress of the United States declared us citizens. By declaring us citizens we were not only denied the right to self determination, we were also denied the right to reparations for unpaid labor and the social degradation that slavery entails. . . . Slavery in the U.S.A. was African slavery, Africans are black. . . . We Africans who are captives in the western hemisphere understand that our destiny and liberation are historically interlocked with Africans everywhere. We who are in colonial bondage by the United States Government ask that our African brothers and sisters in Africa take a stand in respect to our human rights. Africans born inside the United States ask our African brothers and sisters to hear our demands.
We want self-determination and independent nationhood. We believe African captives in the USA will not have freedom until they have land of their own and a government; a nation that we govern, run, and control. We demand the states of Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama and Louisiana as partial repayment for injustice done to us for over 400 years.
We want an independent self-governing economy to guarantee full employment for our people. We believe the US federal government owes us for 400 years of slavery and 100 years of forced citizenship-servitude. We demand the US government pay the colonized captive African 400 billion dollars for ten years as partial repayment for its crimes of genocide against our people.
We ask our African brothers and sisters to make a public stand in defense of our just cause of self-determination against our common imperialist oppressor. We call upon our African brothers and sisters to support us in our just demands for reparations, self-determination and ask that you bring the United States before the United Nations General Assembly for violating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and support our just demand for a United Nations convened plebiscite.”
Three years after Queen Mother Moore’s pleas to the OAU, the United States government issued National Security Council Memorandum 46 that authorized clandestine operations to destroy the New Afrikan Independence Movement in the United States and prevent it from working with the OAU, its members, and other liberation movements on the continent.
Nevertheless, the movement continued. The 14-Point Working Platform of the African People’s Socialist Party, “What we want – What we believe” was adopted at the First Congress of the African People’s Socialist Party, September 6, 1981, 9 years after the Party’s founding. It states:
“11. We want the U.S. and the international European ruling class and states to pay Africa and African people for the centuries of genocide, oppression, and enslavement of our people.”
According to The Burning Spear, Vol. 9 Number 8 of November 1982,
“At this time, however, the Black Power Movement was facing vicious attacks and was unable to carry out the mass campaign that the reparations demand was beginning to mobilize. Indeed, the U.S. government assaults came at a time that the mass mobilization of Africans for independence, and for historical justice and reparations, threatened to destabilize the whole imperialist power. It is appropriate, then, that after 10 years, after the African movement for freedom and independence has again struggled to put forth its strategy and after African people have begun to move in a massive way, that Reparations should once again be picked up, should be put forward by all those who can contribute data, understandings, testimony, history, and truth about the right of African people for reparations. And then it will be taken by the masses of African people, will be carried forth as it has been developed through the centuries, and will ignite our people’s struggle for freedom and independence. Reparations now! . . . Since our First Party Congress some thirteen months ago, our Party has been doing concrete work to bring about a real capability of our people to begin doing something about the reparations owed to us by the U.S. government. What soon became clear to us is the fact that our people need a mass, U.S.- wide action-oriented organization to make our just fight for black reparations. We knew that in order to make the demand real it would be necessary for the masses of working and poor black people throughout the U.S. to take up the demand as their own and to have their own fighting organization that they could use to shove the demand down the throat of the U.S. government. This is why our Party is calling for the November 15-16 convention in New York to build the black reparations organization immediately following the two-day World Tribunal on Reparations for Black People in the U.S. But in keeping with our understanding that the black reparations organizations has to be a genuine mass organization capable of attracting the participation and support of the broad masses of our people, the Party organized a pre-convention meeting of people from throughout the U.S. who we asked to serve as the national steering committee which would have the responsibility of planning, convening, and presiding over the founding convention up till the point when the officers of the organization would be elected. The pre-convention meeting was held in New York on October 16 . Twenty-one individuals from throughout the U.S. who are well respected for their work and commitment to the cause of black freedom had been invited to the pre-convention meeting. Although 20 people turned up for the meeting, twelve of those were steering committee nominees, the other being observers. . . . The pre-convention meeting was presided over by the New York based National Committee to Build the World Tribunal on Black Reparations. . . . The rules of the procedure for the convention were also adopted, and the Steering Committee voted to call the organization being built the African National Reparations Organization (ANRO).”
Reparations: A Proposed Act Submitted to Some Members of Congress in September 1987 by the President of the PGRNA Imari Abubakari Obadele. The act proposed the following, simple and logical formula for reparations:
1. One-third of the annual sum shall go directly to each individual;
2. One-third of the annual sum shall go directly to the duly elected government of the Republic of New Afrika and to any other state-building entity of New Afrikan people; and
3. One-third of the annual sum shall be paid directly to a National Congress of Organizations. And all of this to be framed and manifested through a PLEBISCITE.
By November of 1991, ANRO hosted the 10th Session of the International Tribunal on Reparations for African People in the U.S. (notice the name change) in Philadelphia. This is what led to the First Pan-African Conference on Reparations that was held in Abuja, Nigeria, April 27-29, 1993, sponsored by the Group of Eminent Persons (GEP) and the Commission for Reparations of the Organization of African Unity, and the Federal Government of the Republic of Nigeria. The GEP, which included US Congressman Ron Dellums and the Jamaican lawyer and diplomat Dudley S. Thompson was established at the suggestion of Mr. K. O. Abiola who was influenced to take up this cause by his contacts in the Congressional Black Caucus in the United States. The then-President of Nigeria, Ibrahim Babangida, promoted the idea of reparations and officially dedicated US$500,000 to it after discussing the idea of reparations as early as 1991 with the then presidents of Senegal and Togo, the three agreeing that the African debt “should be written off as part of the reparations due for 500 years of slavery of Africans in Western Europe and America”. The Abuja Proclamation that
“Exhorts all African states to grant entrance as of right to all persons of African descent and right to obtain residence in those African states, if there is no disqualifying element on the African claiming the "right to return" to his ancestral home, Africa.”
So there you have the history of the modern Reparations movement - started by Afro Descendants in the African Diaspora or 6th Region of the African Union, and how it reached to the Abuja Proclamation which is the basis for our Panel Discussion today.
Now, the Accra Declaration on Reparations and Racial Healing states,
“We submit that African nations and political leaders must take a center position, fully in step with, and guided by, African peoples and civil society in enforcing the demands of full repair from the perpetrating nations, institutions, governments and families that have negatively impacted the African world via the crimes to chattlellize Africans, (Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade), enslavement, colonialism, apartheid, and genocide. . . There must be special focus on religious institutions. In addition to The Vatican (Roman Catholic Church) – because of its specific role in sanctioning through papal bulls, the initiation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, we also seek to focus on all Western Christian institutions in sanctioning and benefitting from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the division of the Continent of Africa. Crimes against Africans warrant acknowledgement, apology and equivalent redress.”
Putting this all together then, this panel is to ignite action by the African nations and political leaders that effects the right to return of those who were trafficked and enslaved in the Americas, as the FIRST priority of the Reparations Agenda, with a special focus on the moral, spiritual and legal obligations of the Catholic Church whose Military Order of Jesus Christ launched the invasion authorized by Pope Nicholas V, June 18, 1452 in the declaration of war known as the Dum Diversas Apostolic Edict.
However, Nigerian Nobel-prize winning writer Wole Soyinka argued, “[R]eparations, like charity,should begin at home, and the wealth of the Mobutus, the Babangidas, the Abachas … should be utilized as down payment” And just as Bishop Henry Turney, Queen Mother Audley Moore, Omowale Malcolm X, the entirety of the Rastafari movement have argued, the first order of action is citizenship for the descendants of African people forcibly taken from their homelands in Africa.
The 1949 Geneva Convention: Article 4 (1) defines prisoners of war and Article 5 states, “the present Convention shall apply to the persons referred to in Article 4 from the time they fall into the power of the enemy and until their final release and repatriation.”
United States v The Libelants and Claimants of the Schooner Amistad - 1841 makes clear that
“it is admitted that the African . . . owe no allegiance to (any Nations laws) their rights are to be determined by the law which is of universal obligation - the law of nature. . . a former domicile is not abandoned by residence in another if that residence be not voluntarily chosen. Those who are in exile, or in prison, as they are never presumed to have abandoned all hope of return, retain their former domicile. That these victims of fraud and piracy - husbands torn from their wives and families - children from their parents and kindred - neither intended to abandon the land or their nativity, nor had lost all hope of recovering it, sufficiently appears from the facts on this record.”
Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states,
“Article 15
Everyone has the right to a nationality. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.”
Article 12 of the AFRICAN CHARTER ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES RIGHTS states,
“Article 12
1. Every individual shall have the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of a State provided he abides by the law.
2. Every individual shall have the right to leave any country including his own, and to return to his country. This right may only be subject to restrictions, provided for by law for the protection of national security, law and order, public health or morality.”
The World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance Durban Declaration states,
“52. We note with concern that, among other factors, racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance contribute to forced displacement and the movement of people from their countries of origin as refugees and asylum-seekers;
(…)
54. We underline the urgency of addressing the root causes of displacement and of finding durable solutions for refugees and displaced persons, in particular voluntary return in safety and dignity to the countries of origin, as well as resettlement in third countries and local integration, when and where appropriate and feasible;”
The AU 50TH ANNIVERSARY SOLEMN DECLARATION states,
“We, the Heads of State and Government of the African Union assembled to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the OAU/AU established in the city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 25 May 1963,
WE HEREBY DECLARE:
A. On the African Identity and Renaissance
i) Our strong commitment to accelerate the African Renaissance by ensuring
the integration of the principles of Pan Africanism in all our policies and
initiatives;
ii) Our unflinching belief in our common destiny, our Shared Values and the
affirmation of the African identity; the celebration of unity in diversity and the
institution of the African citizenship;
The African Union Agenda 2063: Aspiration # 5: An Africa with a strong cultural identity, common heritage, values and ethics states,
“Pan Africanism By 2063, the fruits of the values and ideals of Pan Africanism will be manifest everywhere on the continent and beyond. The goal of the unity of the African peoples and peoples of African descent will be attained (2025). An Agency for Diaspora Affairs will be established in all member states by 2020 with the Diaspora integrated into the democratic processes by 2030. Dual citizenship for the Diaspora will be the standard by 2025. . . . “
In Pan-Africanism and Nationality Rights For the Diaspora: A Contemporary Perspective, in Pan-Africanism, African Nationalism: Strengthening the Unity of Africa and its Diaspora edited by B.F. Banke & K. Mchombu, A. Bernard puts it this wasy:
“The Pan-Africanist Law of Return: Quintessential Reparations
At a very basic level, if reparation is to repair the wrongs committed against African peoples through slavery and its apprentices, colonization and imperialism, the first wrong committed was taking millions of peoples from their homeland. Those taken from Africa lost, among other things, their citizenship and this is the first thing that needs to be given back. It is morally and philosophically the first step in the journey of a thousand miles that needs to be undertaken if Africa and African peoples are to move forward in a forceful, positive and determined manner in the 21st Century.
Concomitant with this position therefore is that the law of return can only be made possible by African governments/states, not the West. It is to be stated clearly nonetheless, that this is a right, not a concession or special privilege. Diasporan repatriates should not have to prove which part of Africa they are from. The loss of this specific identity is a part of the harm done by slavery, and cannot be used by African governments to reject Diasporans. Any African government which challenges the right to return to Africa for proof of specific identity is in breach of their own claim for compensation for slavery.”
Let us recall that in 1996 the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations granted consultative status to the Rastafari Movement who were represented by Ras Bongo Spear and Ras Boanerges. In 1998, at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Ras Bongo Spear and Ras Boanerges asked: “What is the responsibility of the nations to Africans in the diaspora with respect to the age-old quest for Repatriation?” Said the Rasses, “Our advice from that committee and from the UN Office of Human Rights . . .. was simple:
“The United Nations as an organization of states cannot at this time in any serious way entertain the issue of repatriation without the consent of the African states and the African Governments to which we want to go in Africa. So we were directed to seek the support of African governments with respect to the acquisition of land. And after that, the matter can be brought up again to the United Nations and the issue of [settlement] can take place.”
Thus, given that the initial aims of the reparations movement emanated out of the desire of enslaved Africans in America to return to their ancestral homelands and to receive citizenship or establish new African states in the Western Hemisphere, and have these issues brought to the World Court, we can conclude that much lip service has been paid to these objectives and only slight progress has been made.
In addition to the subjugated nation of the Republic of New Afrika, for which I serve as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, there are seventeen (17) other black non-self governing territories that have yet to be released from colonial control. No African nation has brought the case of these Afro Descendants in the United States or these other territories before the International Court of Justice. No African state has done for the Afro Descendants in the African Diaspora, what the Government of South Africa has done for the Palestinian people by bringing their case to the ICJ. Similarly, while a handful of governments have begun to grant citizenship to the Afro Descendants in the African Union’s 6th Region - notably Ghana, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso and my country, Guinea Bissau, which earlier this year granted citizenship to the first twenty of its prisoners of war held captive in the United States, the African Union still has no continental African citizenship policy for its 6th region and we can not wait until 2063. But our aim now is not to criticize the African Union for its glaring failures to the African Diaspora and its century-old demand for repatriation and citizenship, but rather, as the concept note states, it is time to ignite action. Towards that end, I wish to say the following.
The Abuja Proclamation appraises “the issue of reparations in relation to the damage done to Africa and its Diaspora by enslavement, colonization, and neo-colonialism”. EX.CL/1528(XLV) states, “The Assembly further decided that the theme of the Year for 2025 will be ‘Justice for Africans and People of African Descent Through Reparations” as well as designate the reparations for transatlantic-enslavement, colonialism and apartheid. . . .” Notice the construction here: reparations for transatlantic-enslavement always precedes colonialism and neo-colonialism. Thus, the first priority of reparations is to repair the first harm done which happened when African men, women and children were invaded and attacked by the Military Order of Jesus Christ after war was declared on them by Pope Nicholas the V on June 18, 1452. Captured African prisoners of war were forcibly trafficked across the Atlantic and subjected to the dehumanization processes that resulted in ethnocide. This is the first harm of enslavement that is the first priority of Africa’s Reparations claim.
DNA Testing: The first remedy, therefore, is the lineage restoration of the people still suffering from ethnocide. The United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3384 (XXX) of 10 November 1975 known as the Declaration on the Use of Scientific and Technological Progress in the Interests of Peace and for the Benefit of Mankind proclaims that all states shall take the necessary measures, including legislative measures, to ensure that the utilization of scientific and technological achievements promotes the fullest realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms and to satisfy the material and spiritual needs for all sectors of the population.
On May 25, 2023, the State of Illinois House of Representatives 103rd General Assembly passed House Resolution No. 292. The resolution calls upon the State to immediately, through its African Descent-Citizens Reparations Commission (ADCRC), provide matrilineal and patrilineal DNA testing through African Ancestry to determine the ancestral lineages and territories of origin of its Black residents so that they can seek citizenship in their ancestral homelands, if so desired. It further calls upon the State to become the first to conduct a repatriation census.
On April 10, 2024, the State of Illinois House of Representatives 103rd General Assembly passed House Resolution No. 0453 that urges support for the Family Roots Genealogy Pilot Program as it provides autosomal genetic testing that allows descendants of enslaved Africans the opportunity to trace their roots back to their ancestral homelands to reconnect to their ancestral heritage and to promote their well-being.
Thus, it is now possible to reverse ethnocide and completely restore the ancestral lineages and genealogies by combining the African Ancestry matrilineal and patrilineal testing with autosomal testing provided that a comprehensive database of reference populations for each ancestral group is established.
My first recommendation, therefore, is that the Commission and the AU, following the model in the state of Illinois, convene discussions with the Vatican along with the holders of the Catholic Church's Asiento monopoly war contracts about their obligation to provide a remedy for the war damage of ethnocide. This can be done by the detaining powers under the Geneva Convention. It should be noted that the New Afrikan Diplomatic and Civil Service Corps’ study, entitled Initial Plebiscite Survey Early Analysis, was recently released. Afro Descendants participated from thirty-seven states with some of them living outside of the United States. Ages ranged from 16 to 85 with the average age being 51.2 with 52% males and 46% females from all demographic and political categories. Overall, questions 9 through 14 show that the majority of Descendants of Africans Enslaved in the United States still suffer ethnocide - the destruction of their natural ancestral identities (since they cannot identify who and where they come from in Africa) and proves that the original harm committed by colonial and state sanctioned ethnocide laws and policies still continue today unremedied. The study further showed that 75% of the respondents would take the African Ancestry DNA test if provided free of charge as a form of reparations.Citizenship.
2. Citizenship: The next order of priority is citizenship, starting with the Afro Descendants from the 6th Region who have already returned to various countries. At the AU ECOSOCC Pre-Summit ahead of last February’s 38th Ordinary Summit of the Heads of State in Addis Ababa, the State of the African Diaspora (SOAD) Ambassador and President of the Ethiopian World Federation Local in Shashamane Ms. Jasmine Rowe informed the Summit of the deplorable and inexcusable fact that after 80 years, some Rastafarians on the land granted by Emperor Haile Selassie still did not have citizenship. This and many other problems plague repatriates in many AU member states. For this reason, I am now submitting to the Commission and AU ECOSOCC reports prepared by Ambassador Jasmine Rowe, by Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé Bakari Kambon, PhD of the Abibifahodie Think Tank Consortium in Ghana, and by Ms. Abena Grace James of the 6th Region African Diaspora Alliance in Tanzania on the current condition of repatriates in Ethiopia, Ghana and Tanzania, along with recommendations regarding citizenship and other unique immigration programs needed by Afro Descendants in the AU 6th Region returning to one of the AU’s Five Regions, an absolute and fundamental prerequisite for the 6th Regions FULL participation in building the Africa We Want. Most importantly, it is our recommendation that the Commission pass a resolution on the Afro Descendants Right to Return and the African Union develop a comprehensive 6th Region citizenship policy. It would be embarrassing for the African Union to expect the former enslaving and colonial powers to fulfill their reparations obligations when AU Members have not first fulfilled their own.
3. Plebiscites: The third reparations priority is conducting plebiscites for self determination. At the Opening of the 4th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent April 14, 2025, outgoing Chair June Soomer emphasized the fact that there are still seventeen (17) black colonies seeking independence from colonial masters, including the five unincorporated U.S. territories of Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. I would add to that the subjugated nation of the Republic of New Afrika, of which I serve as the Minister of Foreign Affairs. These black colonies have yet to achieve independence like the former colonies in Africa which now constitute the AU member states. Do these colonies consisting primarily of people of African descent that exist in the AU’s 6th Region not have the right to exercise self determination like other peoples? Is Africa’s liberation really complete so long as members of Africa’s 6th Region still live under foreign colonial domination? Afro Descendants in the Republic of New Afrika, Bonaire, St. Maartens, the U.S. Virgin Islands and others all have self determination movements that, like the liberation movements during the time of the OAU, seek support. The AU could grant these self determination movements Observer Status like the OAU did, and this included granting observer status to the Organization of Afro American Unity (OAAU) whose international spokesman, Omowale Malcolm X addressed the OAU in July, 1964. Sixty years after his assassination and on the 21st Commemoration of the AU’s Article 3q Amendment, the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika (PGRNA), as the successor to the OAAU, submitted a letter to the AU Commission in Addis Ababa requesting to renew that observer status that Malcolm X had secured for the OAAU. We are still awaiting a response and think that renewing this observer status and setting a precedent for the other self determination movements would be a significant tangible outcome of the AU Theme of the Year. Additionally, the Initial Plebiscite Survey Early Analysis also showed that 90% of the respondents Would you participate in a plebiscite recognized by the United Nations or the African Union that would give each Afro Descendant the chance to choose among the four options: (1) return to Africa, (2) the creation of a new African nation on territory where they currently reside, (3) emigration to another country or (4) US citizenship. A plebiscite supported by the AU conducted in any of the remaining black colonies, including the Republic of New Afrika, would lead to plebiscites in ALL of them. Reparations can not achieve the requirement of satisfaction unless the Afro Descendants are allowed to choose their political destiny and the primary framework of reparations they are to receive.
4. ICJ: Finally, my fourth and final recommendation, in pursuit of the dna testing, citizenship and plebiscites, concerns a Request for an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the Status of Afro Descendants under the Geneva Convention and their Right to Conduct Plebiscites that was drafted and submitted to the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent during its second session. Despite being submitted by 300 delegates and overwhelming support from the floor, UN PFPAD has not used its mandate to submit the request to the ICJ. This was discussed with Ambassador Luvuyo Ndimeni of the Republic of South Africa during a consultation at the 81st Session of the ACHPR. I am happy to see him here today. The Afro Descendants in the remaining black colonies, including the Republic of New Afrika, want the AU Member states to do for us, members of the AU 6th Region, what South Africa did for the Palestinians in Gaza and bring our case before the ICJ. Specifically, we need the following questions answered:
(a) Is the Dum Diversas apostolic decree issued by Pope Nicholas V on June 18, 1452 a declaration of “total war” - warfare that includes any and all civilian-associated resources and infrastructure as legitimate military targets, mobilizes all of the resources of society to fight the war, and gives priority to warfare over non-combatant needs - and therefore a war crime and a crime against humanity? Is there a statute of limitation regarding reparations for this war crime and crime against humanity?
(b) Were the people captured as a result of the Dum Diversas apostolic decree “prisoners of war” and do their descendants retain that status until their final “release and repatriation” under the Geneva Convention?
(c) Have the Afro Descendants - black folks - now within the United States ever been converted, in accordance with settled principles of universally established law, into United States citizens, and divested altogether of their original foreign African nationality?
(d) What rights do the Afro Descendants throughout the Americas and Caribbean have to exercise self-determination and conduct plebiscites to discern who wants to repatriate to their ancestral homeland, who wants to establish independent nation states of their own, and who wants to integrate into the states they currently reside?
(e) What are the legal consequences that arise for all States and the United Nations from the above?
I look forward to follow up action on these recommendations that focus on war reparations for FORCED DISPLACEMENT and ETHNOCIDE which are the first harms caused by the invasion of our ancestral homeland and warfare conducted by the Catholic Church, its Military Order of Jesus Christ, and the European Asiento monopoly war contract holders, namely, Portugal, the Netherlands, France, Spain and Britain, including her former British colonies that became the United States of America.
