African and Caribbean leaders adopt reparations plan at Ghana conference

African and Caribbean leaders adopted a 19-point reparations framework at a conference in Ghana that demands financial compensation, debt cancellation and formal apologies from countries that benefited from the transatlantic slave trade.

The plan calls for a Global Reparations Fund, the return of looted cultural artifacts and ancestral remains, and reforms to international financial institutions that supporters say disadvantage developing countries. It will be presented at the next UN General Assembly.

The African Union and the Caribbean Community Commission on Reparatory Justice approved the proposal on Friday at the end of a three-day meeting.

"None of us gathered in this hall today can be held personally responsible for the atrocities of the transatlantic slave trade," Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama told delegates. "History does not ask us to inherit guilt, but it asks us to inherit responsibility."

The document does not name specific countries expected to pay or apologize. It seeks debt cancellation, climate justice financing, expanded citizenship pathways for people of African descent abroad and a "right of return" for descendants of enslaved Africans. It also urges African nations to preserve former slave forts and castles as memorial sites.

Advocates say at least 12.5 million Africans were taken aboard European ships between the 15th and 19th centuries. They argue the effects of slavery persist across Africa and the Caribbean.

The conference follows a UN vote in March that recognized transatlantic slavery as the "gravest crime against humanity." The resolution passed 123-0 with opposition or abstentions from the United States, Israel and 52 other countries. The United States and European Union said the measure could create a hierarchy among crimes against humanity.

Heads of state from Namibia, Liberia, Senegal, Barbados and Sao Tome and Principe attended, along with senior officials from other nations. French President Emmanuel Macron spoke virtually and acknowledged the suffering caused by slavery. He said reparations should not be viewed "as an end point, or a cheque written to bring the story to a close."

The Ghana meeting merged separate African and Caribbean reparations efforts into one document for presentation at the United Nations.