Debts to humanity: do the rich, industrial nations of the North owe the peoples of Africa some sort of compensation for the wrongs that were done? (Africa - Compensation).

Between the 15th and 19th centuries millions of Africans were taken from their countries and transported across the Atlantic Ocean in the stinking holds of ships. The reward for surviving the horrendous voyage was being sold into slavery.

By the start of the 16th century, almost 200,000 Africans had been transported to Europe and islands in the Atlantic. But after the voyages of Christopher Columbus (1492-1504), slave traders found another market for slaves: plantations in the Americas.

Eager to gain a colonial foothold in North America, English settlers set up colonies in Virginia, Massachusetts, and elsewhere up and down the eastern seaboard in the 1600s. There was plenty of work to do, and they needed labourers.

By 1619, more than a century and a half after the Portuguese first traded slaves on the African coast, European ships had brought a million Africans to colonies and plantations in the Americas and forced them to work as slaves. Trade through the West African forts continued for nearly three hundred years. The Europeans made more than 54,000 voyages to trade in human beings and sent at least ten to twelve million Africans to the Americas.

Millions of their descendants now live in North and South America. Here's how one Canadian described his ancestors' plight in a letter to the editor of The Globe and Mail in September 2001: "Africans ... were first separated from family, whipped and humiliated (in order to make them more manageable), and then made to work in gangs (usually chained), often for seven days a week, on plantations that were run like agricultural factories. Physical and sexual abuse of slaves was normal and open practice in most places. The wealth generated by this system was massive, feeding the growing Western appetite for sugar and tobacco, and laying the financial foundations of the Industrial Revolution.

"No wonder this experience has left African-Americans with a legacy of outrage and bitterness ..."

African countries think they should be financially compensated for the damage done by 400 years of slavery and colonialism. They said so in a paper presented in September 2001 to delegates at the United Nations World Conference Against Racism. The paper maintains that colonialism and slavery are to blame for the wide development gap between Africa and the rest of the world, and that those who profited from the system have a debt to pay.

Most Western countries would rather offer their apologies and extra aid than compensation directly linked with historical wrongs: they're afraid that direct payments will be the beginning of endless lawsuits launched by descendants of slaves worldwide. Some former slave-trading powers even think the word "apology" should give way to "a statement of regret" as well as replacing the words compensation and reparations with aid. The "aid" would be directed through the New African Initiative, an economic development plan that aims to build up the continent's infrastructure, digital networks, and workforce.

Some say this is not a debate about race, but about justice, and perhaps saying "sorry" would start to heal the wounds of generations.

On the question of slavery, the Racism Conference delegates agreed on text that acknowledged and profoundly regretted the massive human sufferings and the tragic plight of millions of men, women, and children as a result of slavery, slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, apartheid, colonialism, and genocide. Acknowledging that these were appalling tragedies in the history of humanity, the conference further stated that the slave trade was a crime against humanity, and should always have been so - especially the transatlantic slave trade.

The story of the Herero tribe in Namibia marks another bleak time in African history. In 1884, Germany decided to colonize the country in pursuit of its valuable diamonds and other resources. In a lawsuit fried in Washington, DC in June 2001 the Herero tribe sought $2 billion in reparations from three German companies. The claim said that the companies formed a "brutal alliance" with imperial Germany to exterminate more than 65,000 Hereros between 1904 and 1915. They systematically killed about 80% of the Hereto population. Many were killed by German soldiers, others were poisoned or turned into slaves. Finally, those who were left were driven into the desert to die. The shocking ordeal of the Herero people is documented in the 212-page "Blue Book," published by the British government in August 1918.

In September 2001, the Hereros also filed a $2 billion lawsuit against the German government. Germany, Namibia's largest aid donor, has given more than $1 billion in development aid to the country, which many Germans see as payment for the crimes of their forefathers. But, the Hereros want "proper" compensation, directly related to the atrocities, such as the German parliament paid to more than one million survivors of Nazi era slave labour during World War II.

The Hereros are optimistic, but some experts think there is a slim chance that events that happened a century ago will be settled now, because they will be judged by the international law of the time. In any event, the dispute is not expected to be settled quickly.

While the German government is reluctant to target funds to any one particular tribe, the Hereto chief says he wants compensation to buy land from white farmers, which he then could give back to his people. The Hereto insist they are seeking proper legal redress and have no intention of grabbing land by force, as has happened in Zimbabwe.

Since the invasion of white-owned farms began in Zimbabwe in March 2000, courts have consistently upheld the rights of white farm owners and ordered the police to evict the squatters. Nevertheless, in the intervening months, ruling-party militants led by veterans of the independence war that ended white rule in 1980 have illegally occupied more than 1,700 white-owned farms. The government has targeted more than 4,500 white-owned farms for confiscation without compensation, and the violence and intimidation continue. Thousands of whites, who were born in Zimbabwe and who inherited their farms from colonists, now face losing their land and, in some cases, their lives.

The question of who rightfully owns the land remains: in most cases, the land was taken by the white colonists and declared to be their own, in much the same way as Native Indians in Canada and the United States were dispossessed. Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair's government says 44 million pounds (about $100 million) has been provided for Zimbabwe's land reform since 1980. In addition, much of the redistributed land has so far ended up in the hands of cabinet ministers and other government officials.

But this is more than a question of land ownership, and putting right the historical wrongs inflicted upon Africans. It has more to do with keeping the minds of Zimbabweans off the corruption and mismanagement of President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF government. Observers expect the same tactics will help President Mugabe win the presidential election of April 2002, as Mr. Mugabe presents the crisis as a land dispute between white farmers and land-hungry black Africans in order to fire up his supporters. While he blames British colonial policy for creating the land imbalances, Britain has said it will not finance land reform amidst chaos and disregard for the rule of law.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. Whites complain that Zimbabwe, once a food-exporting country is now a food importer. But, Zimbabwe was self-sufficient in food before Europeans brought "civilization." Today, much of the land in Zimbabwe that provided food crops for subsistence farmers is given over to growing tobacco for export. This transfer of land from food production for local needs to cash crop use for export is common throughout Africa.

Discuss whether such a change in land use benefits Africans or not.

2. "Concerning the trade on this Coast, we notified your Highness that nowadays the natives no longer occupy themselves with the search for gold, but rather make war on each other in order to furnish slaves ... The Gold Coast has changed into a complete Slave Coast." That's what William De La Palma, Director, Dutch West India Co., had to say in September 1705. Research the tribal conflicts that resulted from the slave trade in Africa.

FACT FILE

Germany, which briefly controlled the areas that are now Tanzania, Namibia, and Togo, became the first former colonial power to offer a formal apology, at the World Conference Against Racism in September 2001, to help return to victims "the dignity of which they were robbed."

Websites

Africa Reparations Movement - http://the.arc.co.uk/ arm/home.html

African Origin - http://www. africanorigin.com/index.html

World Conference on Racism - http://www.un.org/WCAR/

RELATED ARTICLE: `Denial ain't just a river in Africa'.

Although racially motivated crimes are on the rise in South Africa, few people think they are racist. But, even though the whites-only restaurants and park benches are gone, the physical divisions created by the 1950 Group Areas Acts, still exist.

Most whites live in affluent, gated communities, leaving the blacks to their tin-and-wood shantytowns, too poor to afford anything better. And, while whites make up about 9% of South Africa's population of 42 million, they continue to control most of the wealth, seven years after South Africa's first free elections.

This land of racial inequalities is where the United Nations chose to hold its conference against racism in September 2001. Some are hopeful that having a conference in Durban that involves many people who are not racist is a move in the right direction to help lessen the hate in their country.