INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON PAN-AFRICAN REPARATIONS

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON PAN-AFRICAN REPARATIONS FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE SET FOR ACCRA, GHANA, JULY 21 to AUGUST 2, 2006

March 15, 2006: Black people from around the world, Afro-descendants, African Descendants, Afrikan Americans, Afrikan Ascendants, and Afrikans by the various names they call themselves will gather in Accra, the capital city of Ghana, from July 21st to August 2, 2006 for an International Conference. The theme: Create the Future! Transformation, Reparations, Repatriation, and Reconciliation.

Ghana is ideal for such an important conference. As Pan African reparations work used to be at the heart of the local, national, and international policies pursued by the government of its first president, Osagyefo Kwame Nkruma with the support of great historic figures like W.E.B. Dubois, Aime Ashford Garvey, Malcolm X, George Padmore, Ras Makonnen, Franz Fanon, John Henrick Clarke among others. We welcome the continuity of efforts in this direction by Ghanaian progressive forces at home and abroad, and applaud the support of the current government of President J.A. Kuffour for the Joseph Project.

The conference was called to assess the Global Pan African reparations movement as preparations are being made not only to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the 1957 Proclamation of the Independence of Ghana, but also for the commemoration of the Bicentenary of the British Abolition of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. The year 2007 will mark 200 years since the British Empire officially ended the trafficking in captive Africans for enslavement throughout the British Empire. For the United States, the year is 2008. After wresting its freedom from Britain and declaring itself a new nation, the founding fathers protected its international practice of trafficking in African captives until 1808 by codifying it in the U.S. Constitution. U.S. domestic trafficking and forced breeding to offset the loss from international trafficking continued until 1865, almost a century.

The conditions in Africa, and for dispersed Africans, for the past 1000 years, are rooted in greed, and the continuous gang-raping of Africa by Arabs, Europeans, fortune hunters, and purveyors of assorted religions that enjoy the political and military backing of their governments, says Bankie of the GAC, Namibia. Sababu Shabaka, Co-Chair of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America?s International Affairs Commission (NIAC), asks, rhetorically, ?Where are we in the USA on the eve of the 200 Anniversary? For the naked truth, we need only look at the shameful unnecessary loss of lives during Hurricane Katrina as officials watched and dared others to help, and then criminalized those who helped themselves. We need only look at the concentration camps called prisons, the disparate drug and death sentencing, and the flooding of drugs and guns in our impoverished communities?

How does one acknowledge the occasion that speaks to the Maafa, Maangamizi-Holocaust of African Enslavement? ?Some of us have personally committed to a Material Fast. We will buy Black and abstain from buying anything except absolute necessities until the end of 2008. We honour the lives of those sacrificed on the alter of greed and materialism by creating a future worthy of the 1000 years of pain, suffering and sacrifice. This conference is a step in creating that future,? says Queen Mother Dorothy Benton Lewis, former National Co-Chair of N?COBRA and North American Regional Co-Representative to the GAC. ?It is the imperative of people of good will everywhere to expose the whole truth and ensure that those responsible are held accountable for the worst and longest running crime against humanity in human history. With an understanding of that history, people will understand that our contemporary experience is just a continuum of the same,? says Raushana Karriem of All for Reparations and Emancipation (AFRE).

Esther Stanford, of the Pan Afrikan Reparations Coalition of Europe (PARCOE), states ?International law recognizes that those who commit crimes against humanity must make reparations, restitution, compensation, damages and all the necessary legal redress. Yet the governments, companies and families of the USA, Canada, and all of Europe whose wealth is directly related to the chattel, colonial and neo-colonial enslavement of Africans from the past into the present, are silent on the issue, and will remain silent until we force the truth out in the open.?

According to Kwaku Duren of the New Black Panther Vanguard, an organizational Co-sponsor, ?We are looking forward to promoting a dialogue within the global reparations movement about ?international capital? and its origins, the demise of capitalism as we know it, and the new world-wide movement for a ?new economic order. A key expected outcome is world-wide programmatic framework, or simply a ?Plan,? which would allow the International Reparations Movement to develop and coordinate mutually supportive activities and tasks that promote Transformation, Reparations, Repatriation, and Reconciliation among continental Africans and Afro-descendants throughout the Diaspora.?

Kofi Mawuli Klu of the Pan-Afrikan Forum of Ghana, (PAFOG), UK chapter says, ?This conference will be an eye opener in showing African people that we are one family in the Continent and the Diaspora in our fight against a common oppressor. This conference will demonstrate that without true reparations and Pan-African unity in this contemporary world of heightening imperialist globalisation, there is no viable solution to any problems faced by continental and Diasporan Afrikans in all spheres of life at local, national, and international levels. We will develop an action plan which will be influential in asserting to the African Union and our other representatives that the best representation and accountability are required from them internally and on the world stage.?

?We are also planning visits to historic sites in Ghana and Benin including the Slave Castles where Europeans kept Africans in Dungeons, in sub-human conditions before transporting them to Europe and the Americas. We are busy promoting the conference and mobilizing community organizations to participate in this historic event.? says Sistah IMAHKUS of One Africa, another Pan Afrikan organization, and author of Returning Home Ain?t Easy, But It Sure Is A Blessing.

Sistah IMAHKUS is a repatriated African Ascendant born in the USA. She further stated, ?We as Afrikans born in the Americas (North America, Europe, South America & the Caribbean) are returning to one of the scenes of the crimes perpetuated against our families, friends and loved ones. The gravitational pull of Ascendants of African ancestors lost and kidnapped during the Trans-Atlantic Arab European Slave Trade, will be returning in their numbers to continue to plan and demand restitution for the crimes against Mother Africa and her children; crimes against humanity.?

Nana Gypei III, of SUCARDIF, an indigenous Pan African organization based in Ghana, and Co-Facilitator of the Conference: ?Through the Tower of Return Monument Project, we wish to show the world that Africa wants its sons and daughters to return home mentally, spiritually, and economically. The Ghana Government is launching the Joseph Project, which is an invitation to the African Diaspora of descendants of enslaved Africans to return to Africa through Ghana. This Global Pan Afrikan Reparations Conference will bring together some of the best minds in the reparations movement from the African Diaspora and the continent. We are calling on the African Union leadership, Director of African Affairs, as well as African originations worldwide to come and be part of this Conference.

Individuals and organizations that support the aims of the conference are requested to support the cost of the conference whether or not in attendance. Donors will be listed. Those who wish to be Co-Sponsors will be invited to participate on the planning committee. The comprehensive logistical planning is in its final stages and arrangements will be announced shortly. Transportation, accommodations and estimated living costs will be made available to all of the area coordinating teams for local distribution. Please contact Queen Mother Dorothy Benton Lewis (240-277-5140) or Sababu Shabaka at 410-979-9558. Donations and Co-Sponsorship may be made payable to

NCOBRA-Ghana 2006. P.O. Box 90604, Washington, DC 20090-0604. In Ghana, contact

Nana Kweku Egyir Gyepi III at 777 One Power Station P.O. Box CT 732 Cape Coast Ghana. Cell 011 233 20 833 5571 or 011 233 243 834032.