REVISED
DRAFT
for
distribution at the EU-AU Summit in Tripoli
29
-30 November 2010
Rastafari
Call on European Union and African Union to factor in Reparations
The
Caribbean Rastafari Organisation is calling upon Member States of the
African Union (AU) and Member States of the European Union (EU) to
include Reparations within the framework of the new action plans for
2011-2013 to be adopted at the EU-AU Summit in Tripoli on 29 and 30
November 2010.
From
the perspective of critically conscious, justice-loving, world
citizens it is evident that a meaningful partnership between the EU
and the AU must have outcomes of poverty reduction based on the
synchronization of trade goals with sustainable development
objectives.
With
reference to the Joint Declaration from the 4th AU/EU
College-to-College meeting in Addis Ababa on 8 June 2010, the
Summit’s positive response to this call will facilitate a Rastafari
contribution to furtherance of:
·
the AU/EU dialogue on Human Rights and
Governance
·
incorporation of the cultural dimension in the
AU/EU cooperation framework
·
the establishment of the Pan-African University
·
the African Diaspora’s involvement in
Africa’s development to address the
challenge
of the ‘African brain drain’.
As
reluctant residents in a region whose socio-economic structures of
inequity reflect the persistent legacy of the plantation system based
upon the trans-Atlantic trade in African people;
As
descendants of those Africans who were kidnapped, reified and sold as
chattel to provide slave labour in that acknowledged crime against
humanity, as well as of Europeans whose countries profited immensely
from centuries of that despicable enterprise;
As
citizens of the European Union based in the non-independent
Territories of the Caribbean Region, bearing witness to the
debilitating prejudices that characterize colonial relations and that
are still manifest in neo-colonial economic arrangements;
Rastafari
have transcended barriers of race, class, language, political and
cultural diversity and are united as sons and daughters of Africa and
of Europe, in the call for Reparations.
The
Rastafari Nation is particularly interested in Reparations as defined
in the United Nations Durban Plan of Action (POA, 2001). Section
IV of the POA (i) recommends ‘provision of effective remedies,
recourse, redress, and other measures at the national, regional and
international levels;’ and (ii) proposes ‘Facilitation of
the welcomed return and resettlement of the descendants of the
enslaved Africans.’
Article
157 of Section IV of the Durban POA recognizes the efforts and
challenges of developing countries to address poverty and
underdevelopment and calls for additional financial resources. Article
158 of the said section links ‘historical injustices’ with ‘the
need to develop programmes for the social and economic development of
these societies and the Diaspora, within the framework of a new
partnership based on the spirit of solidarity and mutual respect.’
It
is in this spirit that Rastafari calls for the inclusion of
Reparations in the strategic actions to be implemented in the short
and medium terms.
Rastafari
applaud President Wade and the Government and People of Senegal who
recently accepted 160 Haitian students in response to the catastrophe
in Haiti, as a sterling example of international morality.
However, the Rastafari demand for repatriation to receptive African
countries must be considered not in response to disaster or by way of
provision for Refugees, Asylum Seekers, Returnees, Internally
Displaced and Stateless Persons but as free African citizens
legitimately claiming the Right of Return and the restitution of
lands.
Given
factors of small size, limited capacities and differences in political
status, mechanisms such as the European Citizens Initiatives are not
accessible to the Rastafari community in the Caribbean at this time.
However, we are fully prepared to engage on this matter with EU Member
States who are administering powers of Overseas Countries,
Territories, Departments, Regions, Collectivities and Special
Municipalities; with the Citizens and Diaspora Directorate and
Economic Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) of the AU Commission;
with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and with the United Nations
Forum on Minority Issues.
Copy
Mr.
Khafra Kambon, Coordinator, Caribbean
Pan-African Network, Trinidad & Tobago
Dr.
Jinmi Adisa, Citizens and Diaspora Directorate, AU Commission, Addis
Ababa
EU
Civil Society Contact Group, c/o
Social Platform, 18 Square de Meeus-1050,
Brussels
Ms.
Cecelia Babb, Coordinator, Caribbean Policy Development Centre,
Barbados
Dr.
Verene Shepherd, UN Group of Experts on People of African Descent
UN
OHCHR Forum on Minority Issues, Palais
des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland
