Ghana has reaffirmed its strong commitment to the global fight for racial justice, historical truth and reparatory justice.
It has also called for deeper solidarity between Africa and the Diaspora to address the lasting impacts of slavery and racism.
Ghana’s Ambassador to Brazil, Nii Amasah Namoale, stated that for more than four centuries, millions of African men, women and children had been violently removed from their societies, stripped of their humanity and subjected to unimaginable brutality.
He was speaking at the 48th National Congress of the Unified Black Movement in Brasília, Brazil, on the theme: ‘ The trafficking and enslavement of Africans as the gravest crime against humanity ever committed: scale, duration, systemic nature and brutality.’
The Ambassador, who has additional responsibilities for South American countries, said the system had been global in scale, economic in purpose, racial in ideology and intergenerational in consequence.
He explained that entire African societies had been destabilised while human beings were transformed into instruments of labour for the enrichment of colonial empires.
He added that the wealth accumulated through slavery had financed industries, ports, banks, insurance systems and institutions that continued to shape global power structures.
Mr Namoale said descendants of enslaved Africans continued to suffer structural inequality, racial exclusion, poverty and systemic discrimination.
The Ambassador indicated that the legacies of slavery had not ended with abolition but had evolved and remained embedded in modern social, political and economic systems.
He further noted that the forts and castles of Cape Coast and Elmina were among the historical links to the transatlantic slave trade, serving as painful reminders of the atrocities committed against Africans.
Mr Namoale stated that the Cape Coast and Elmina sites, once symbols of separation and suffering through the infamous “Door of No Return”, had now been transformed into places of remembrance, healing and reconnection.
He recalled that under the leadership of former President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Ghana launched the “Year of Return” initiative in 2019 to commemorate 400 years since the first recorded arrival of enslaved Africans in English North America.
He said the initiative had attracted Africans in the Diaspora to reconnect spiritually, culturally and historically with the African continent.
The Ambassador stressed that Ghana believed memory was a form of justice, adding that to remember was to resist erasure, affirm humanity, confront historical falsehoods and reject narratives that minimised the horrors of slavery.
He commended the adoption of United Nations Resolution A/RES/80/250, which recognises the historical gravity and enduring consequences of the trafficking and enslavement of Africans.
Speaking on Ghana–Brazil relations, he said the two countries shared deep historical and cultural ties rooted in African heritage, visible in language, cuisine, music, spirituality and collective memory.
He reaffirmed Ghana’s commitment to strengthening cooperation with Brazil and Afro-descendant communities across South America in the areas of culture, education, academic exchange, youth empowerment and economic partnership.
BY VICTOR A. BUXTON
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