What the US Can Learn From Africa About Reparations for Slavery

The House Judiciary Committee has voted to recommend the creation of a commission to study the possibility of paying reparations to the descendants of enslaved people in the United States, reports Kwasi Konadu for The Conversation. The measure, H.R. 40, would establish a 15-person commission to offer a "national apology" for slavery, study its long-term effects and submit recommendations to Congress on how to compensate African Americans.

This echoes a statement made by Human Rights Watch that said: "The United States will need to engage with the diaspora with humility, recognizing that it is only beginning to grapple with the legacy of slavery. Thus it is essential to maintain robust support for the mandate of the U.N. Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent for needed international scrutiny on systemic racism and police violence. In addition, the U.S. could benefit from promoting strong partnerships between U.S. agencies and local human rights organizations, as well as among U.S.-based, Africa-focused human rights groups."

In South Africa, Nelson Mandela and his ruling political party, the African National Congress, created a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1995 upon coming to power. The commission investigated human rights crimes during nearly five decades of apartheid, the system of legislation that upheld segregationist laws and perpetrated racist violence. The commission also established a reparations program, recommending in its 2003 final report that victims of apartheid receive roughly US$3,500 over six years. Around the same time that South Africa created its Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the West African nation of Sierra Leone undertook a similar effort to confront the aftermath of its 10-year civil war.

Sierra Leone's civil war, from 1991 to 2002, killed at least 50,000 people and displaced another 2 million. In 2004, its Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended reparation measures for survivors. It recommended pensions, free health care and education benefits for amputees, those severely wounded, those widowed by the war and survivors of sexual violence.

In other African countries, survivors of colonial atrocities have sought redress through the courts. In 2013, Kenyan survivors of British colonial atrocities brought a legal suit to the British high courts demanding reparations. The British government recognized "that Kenyans were subject to torture and other forms of ill-treatment at the hands of the colonial administration" and agreed to pay £19.9 million - $27.6 million - in compensation to some 5,000 elderly survivors.

A similar court case in Germany demanding reparations for the Germans' 1904-1908 massacre of the Herero people in colonial Namibia remains contested. And negotiations over payments and other forms of redress continue.