Nicolò Vertecchi
ISPI Research Trainee
Africa-Press – Botswana. As African states rally around a unified stance on reparations, the African Union has placed historical justice at the forefront of its agenda. From financial compensation to the restitution of cultural heritage, calls for redress are gaining momentum, challenging former colonial powers to reckon with their past.
Central to the debates regarding the relationship of western states with their colonial pasts, which resurfaced even more strongly across the US, Europe, and Africa in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, is the question of reparations for historical injustices. These broadly refer to measures intended to address past human rights violations, including both material (financial compensation, the recovery of confiscated land, and restitution of looted cultural property) and symbolic means (official apologies, public commemorations, and the publication of historical research).
In the African context, reparations for historical injustices committed by former colonial powers – especially for transatlantic slavery, colonisation, and neocolonialism between the 16th and 20th century – have been championed by governments and civil society organisations long before decolonisation ended. Yet, they have rarely materialised. In a renewed effort to advance their demands, African Heads of State officially launched the 2025 African Union (AU) theme, “Justice for Africans and People of African Descent Through Reparations,” during the 38th AU Summit (12–16 February 2025). Aiming to craft a common African position on reparations and strengthen the AU’s capacity to provide technical support to member states, the initiative has placed reparations at the core of the AU’s long-term priorities.
African states’ ongoing diplomatic push presents complex challenges for countries which were at the forefront of the transatlantic slave trade and Africa’s colonisation (including France, the UK, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands), as they find themselves caught in contradictory directions. On the one hand they are attempting to relaunch (and, sometimes, rebrand) their partnerships with African states on more equitable terms, to preserve their privileged relations with the continent, at a time when the latter are engaging more closely with actors like China, Russia, Türkiye, and the Gulf countries, who are, in this respect, privileged for their lack of a colonial past in Africa comparable to the West’s experience. On the other hand, European governments have been reluctant to heed calls to conceding large-scale reparations, on the basis that they cannot be held accountable for wrongs committed in the past.
Reparations at the heart of the AU’s agenda
Although this year’s AU Summit was overshadowed by pressing issues posed by conflicts raging in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the inauguration of the reparations theme marks a significant development in the AU’s reparatory justice agenda. According to a roadmap outlining key actions for 2025, the initiative foresees the operationalisation of new frameworks and mechanisms, including an AU Secretariat for Reparations acting as a focal point for the AU’s reparations efforts, a Committee of Legal Experts to provide legal guidance on reparatory justice claims, and a Global Reparations Fund to serve as an advocacy platform.
Additionally, while national governments have so far pursued reparations on an individual basis, the AU now intends to craft an “African Common Position on Reparatory Justice” and integrate it into member states and Regional Economic Communities (RECs)’ strategies through high-level meetings, consultations, and ministerial events. Further efforts – including the establishment of a partnership framework with CARICOM (an intergovernmental body of twenty-one developing states from the Americas, the Caribbean and Atlantic Ocean), an Africa-Diaspora summit (involving representatives of African origin living outside the continent), and a high-level event at the UN General Assembly – will focus on enhancing cooperation with other actors who are in favour of reparatory justice measures.
The AU Commission has been tasked with implementing and monitoring progress on these initiatives, making them a top priority for the newly elected Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, in the first year of his mandate. But sustained engagement can also be anticipated for the coming years: AU Assembly Decision 884 has, in fact, elevated reparations to the status of Flagship Issue and Project of the Union, positioning it alongside key Agenda 2063 initiatives designed to spearhead Africa’s socioeconomic development in coming decades.
Divided on much, but not reparations
Designating an annual theme is a well-established practice for the AU; past years have focused on education, refugees, and gender parity. However, progress on these has often been slow. With limited decision-making authority over member states, the AU’s ability to turn thematic priorities into concrete policies heavily depends on the political will of national governments, which often have competing agendas. Yet, progress on the 2025 theme appears more likely as reparations from former colonial powers emerge as a widely shared priority among member states.
Support is today strong in countries with a longstanding tradition of activism on the issue. Nigeria, which hosted the First Pan-African Conference on Reparations in 1993, one of the earliest international summits on the topic, has for instance recently endorsed the creation of a UN-led international tribunal on transatlantic slavery, modelled after ad hoc courts such as the Nuremberg trials (though its scope remains unclear). And representing South Africa, a pioneer in transitional justice movements thanks to its own experience in transitioning from apartheid to democracy, President Cyril Ramaphosa, has spoken in favour of the UN putting reparations on its agenda.
In other countries, demands for reparations have only recently become louder as a result of growing anti-western sentiments. In some Sahelian states, where a wave of coups brought new military juntas to power between 2021 and 2023, the request of reparations has featured among the recriminations moved against western partners, and even the measures taken by junta governments to cut ties with them. European countries, and especially France, received bitter criticism, for, among other things, perpetuating perceived neocolonial practices, including a persistent military presence on African soil and the use of the colonial-era FCA franc. In Niger, for example, following the withdrawal of western troops, renegotiation of mining contracts, and closure of media outlets, junta leader Abdurahmane Tchiani called on France to pay compensation for “over a century of colonial and neo-colonial plundering.”
This trend extends beyond the Sahel’s “coup belt” to countries where disillusioned young voters are increasingly vocal in asking for a reassessment of relations with western powers. A case in point is Senegal: generally seen as the voice of younger generations asking for systemic change, Bassirou Diomaye Faye won the 2024 elections on a strongly sovereigntist platform, with an emphasis on rewriting the country’s colonial history. Among the steps he took since coming to power, he announced plans to rename public spaces bearing the names of French national figures and urged France to take full responsibility, make an official apology, and launch investigations into the so-called “Thiaroye massacre”. The incident, in which approximately 400 Tirailleurs (West African soldiers who fought for the Allies in World War II) were slaughtered by the French army in 1944 during a protest over unpaid wages, has become a critical point of contention between France and Senegal, as the circumstances of the event remained unclear for decades, and in general, the former is accused of downplaying the violence of its colonial rule. Demonstrating the relevance of Faye’s demands for French foreign policy, a first acknowledgment that the event constituted a massacre was made at the end of 2024 in a private letter by French President Emmanuel Macron to Faye himself.
A stalled history
This year’s theme builds on over three decades of advocacy by the AU and its predecessor, the Organization of African Unity (OAU). A first collective call to acknowledge the “unprecedented moral debt owed to the African peoples” was made during the First Pan-African Conference on Reparations. This request was echoed in other fora – including the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in South Africa, recognising the slave trade as a crime against humanity. But international discussions on what reparations could practically entail only picked up following the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. In their wake, the AU organised a continental workshop on the restitution of cultural artefacts (2021), an Africa-Diaspora Summit on reparations (2022), and two Accra Reparations Conferences (2022 and 2023).
Although a clearly stated common African position was not agreed, reparations have broadly come to be defined as measures seeking moral redress for the “historical crimes and mass atrocities committed against Africans and people of African descent,” including colonisation, apartheid, and genocide, as well as their present-day legacies. This perspective underscores the lingering effects of past wrongs on African societies, drawing a direct link between transatlantic slavery (which forcibly removed an estimated 15 million Africans) and the continent’s persistent economic underdevelopment; between the borders imposed during colonisation and several of the conflicts that still affect parts of Africa; and between the continent’s exclusion from international institutions before the end of decolonisation and its current underrepresentation in governance bodies like the UN Security Council.
Reflecting these broad demands, proposals for reparations have taken many forms, ranging from financial compensation and land restitution to the structural reforms of governance institutions and the restitution of cultural artefacts. Symbolic gestures also play a role, including apologies, the publication of historical research, and public commemorations—though these are seen as complementary to more substantive forms of redress.
Several constraints have hampered their success. Chief among them is the absence of consensus on how to quantify compensation for injustices that spanned centuries and affected millions. Estimates of the damages caused by transatlantic slavery alone vary widely, from the $100-131 trillion suggested by the 2021 Brattle Group report to the $777 trillion proposed by the African World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission in 1999. Critics also highlight legal complexities. Since the victims of past harms are long deceased, questions arise about who should receive reparations—should it be states, local communities, or direct descendants? European governments also argue that colonial-era atrocities were not considered illegal under international law at the time, making it difficult to hold former colonial powers legally accountable today.
Too little too late from Europe?
Despite European countries’ pledge to confront their colonial past and the launch of several initiatives intended to foster novel partnerships with African nations, reparations remain largely absent in their Africa policies. Where steps have been taken, they have faced criticisms by African governments and civil society organisations for being piecemeal and inefficient.
The restitution of cultural artefacts has emerged as the most common measure, offering high symbolic value with little financial cost. In recent years France led the way in this regard. Following President Macron’s 2017 Ouagadougou speech, in which he declared that “African heritage can’t just be in European private collections and museums,” France returned 26 artefacts to Benin and one to Senegal. The Netherlands, Germany, and the UK took similar measures, collectively returning several hundred Benin Bronzes to Nigeria between 2022 and 2024. Yet, critics argue that these efforts are insufficient, as according to the 2018 Sarr-Savoy report commissioned by Macron to assess the state of publicly owned French collections of African artefacts originating from disputed acquisitions, an estimated 90% of sub-Saharan Africa’s “material cultural heritage” (physical items and objects) remains housed outside the continent.
Other symbolic gestures include the establishment of two truth commissions by France to investigate colonial crimes in Algeriaand Cameroon and the creation of a Special Parliamentary Commission in Belgium to examine its conduct in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Rwanda, and Burundi. However, the former initiative is stalling due to deteriorating relations between France and Algeria, while internal divisions have blocked the publication of the latter’s report. Public apologies have been more forthcoming, with some states making official apologies for specific colonial-era events (like Belgium’s apology to the 20,000 living victims of forced separations in the DRC, Rwanda, and Burundi). Nevertheless, most (including the UK and France) are opposed to making formal apologies for their overall colonial legacy.
When it comes to direct financial compensation, the most successful cases typically focused on small groups of living victims – for example, the £19.9 million paid by the British government in 2013 to 5,228 Kenyans tortured during the Mau Mau uprising of the 1950s. However large-scale settlements involving African nations have not occurred beyond one high-profile case, Germany’s 2021 agreement to provide €1.1 billion to Namibia for the 1904–1908 genocide against Herero and Nama peoples. The deal was however framed as the payment of “development aid” rather than official reparations (to avoid setting a legal precedent that could trigger further claims) and drew criticisms for excluding the descendants of victims, making it hard to consider it a case of reparatory justice.
Looking ahead, the likelihood of European states agreeing to compensation remains low as European parties across the spectrum increasingly distance themselves from ideas related to equity and inclusion in international cooperation. In Portugal, the right-wing party Chega went so far as to accuse the President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa of treason over his support for reparatory justice. Meanwhile, in the UK, Prime Minister Keir Starmer—leader of the Labour Party (which has traditionally been sensitive on questions of memory politics) explicitly ruled it out during the last Commonwealth summit. However, as African states move towards a unified position on reparations, and younger African generations become increasingly attuned to the historic role of former colonial powers in the pauperisation of the continent (of which Mati Diop’s recent award-winning documentary, Dahomey, is just one testament) the issue is bound to gain prominence in discussions with Europeans, at a time when these are seeking to revitalise their engagement with the continent.
ISPI
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