Ghana will submit a resolution to the United Nations General Assembly in March to designate the African slave trade as "the most serious crime against humanity," Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama announced on Sunday during the African Union Summit in Ethiopia.
The resolution is to be submitted to the United Nations member states in March, as a "declaration on the trafficking of enslaved Africans and the racialised enslavement of Africans, described as the most serious crime against humanity," said the Ghanaian head of state, whose country was the first on the continent to gain independence in 1957.
"This UN resolution is just the first step," Mahama said at the close of the AU's annual summit in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.
"We believe that with the consultations we have conducted and the support of the African Union (AU), the truth will finally be recognised: the transatlantic slave trade was the greatest injustice and the greatest crime against humanity."
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'Restoring historical truth'
Adopting this resolution is not about erasing history, Mahama insisted but about acknowledging it.
"The trade of enslaved Africans and racialised forms of slavery are foundational crimes that shaped the modern world," he said.
"Their consequences continue to manifest themselves in structural inequalities, racial discrimination, and economic disparities," he continued. "Recognising these injustices is not synonymous with division, but with moral courage. This initiative offers us a historic opportunity. An opportunity to affirm the truth of our history."
He defended his proposal as "an opportunity to acknowledge the greatest injustice in the history of humankind".
"An opportunity to lay the foundations for genuine reconciliation and real equality. While the past cannot be changed, it can be acknowledged. And acknowledgment is the first step toward justice."
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Slow process
John Mahama’s predecessor as President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, called in November 2023 for a united front to obtain reparations for the transatlantic slave trade and the damage caused during the colonial era.
The transatlantic slave trade organised the trafficking of millions of people from West and Central Africa.
For the Ghanaian head of state, who stated that he was speaking in concert with the countries of CARICOM (Caribbean Community), it is “not just about financial compensation, it is about restoring historical truth.”
“But, for now, our goal is to submit the resolution to the [UN] General Assembly, to allow the world to recognise that this happened and that there has been no greater injustice against humanity in recent history or in world history than the slave trade,” the Ghanaian president emphasised.
Cape Coast Fort in Ghana, a former colonial trading post involved in the slave trade, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979.
