Reparations Means Full Repair: For 400 Years of Terror, and Other Egregious Crimes
- National Coalition of Blacks for
Reparations
in America (N'COBRA) -
2019 marks 400th anniversary of the arrival of the
first
Africans on the shores of the Virginia Colony in 1619. This began
the American period of enslavement of Africans and their
descendants. The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in
America (N'COBRA) has themed this anniversary 400 Years
of Terror: A Debt Still Owed.
From the very beginning,
terror or psychic trauma was
the
reality for these perhaps three dozen stolen Africans. Not only was
the Middle Passage a terrifying experience of its own, but
history tells us that the ship that brought these Africans here
was not the ship they initially embarked upon. Nor was it just 36
of them that left Africa on that voyage. It was 350.
In route to its destination of Vera Cruz Mexico, the
original
ship -- the San Juan Bautista,
was
met
in
the
Gulf
of
Mexico
by
not
one, but two, pirate ships -- the White
Lion and the Treasurer.
At
the
end
of
the
attack,
the
White Lion
delivered all
of its pirated cargo from the attack -- "20 and odd Africans,"
and the Treasurer, a "half
dozen" of the 40 Africans it seized,
before it sailed to Bermuda.
How did these sixty or so Africans make it upon these
pirate
ships, as the San Juan Batista
was destroyed in the attack? Were
they pulled from the sea? Were they forced by gunpoint or at the
end of a sword.? Did they choose any vessel other than the one
that was sinking and offering them certain death? More
importantly what happened to the nearly 300 others that were on
the San Juan Bautista? Were
they still chained together in death
as they were in the frightening last months of their lives
through the horrific Middle Passage?
This began our existence in what was to become America
-- a
terror that has yet to cease and has yet to be redressed. This
scene would be followed by 256 years of brutal enslavement of
Africans and their descendants. [...]
The period of enslavement was followed by 100 years of
legal
apartheid, called Jim Crow Segregation -- social separation
backed by tremendous force, unjust laws and deadly violence.
After the Civil War, former Confederate Army soldiers, officers
and their offspring created highly organized terrorist groups
that sprang up everywhere. Their reach went all the way to the
White House. These groups -- the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the
White Camellia, White Citizen's Council and their copycats were
responsible for thousands of murders and assassinations, unjust
imprisonment of tens of thousands, continued theft of labour,
theft of millions of acres of land purchased by Blacks
post-emancipation, and at least 4,743 recorded lynchings. This,
in addition, to the destruction of scores of Black towns and
communities and the banishment (racial cleansing) of their
inhabitants. In a matter of hours, these towns and communities,
some with residents numbering in the thousands, were erased from
existence. [...]
After 1965 and the passing of civil rights
laws,
even
though
"segregation" ended, the violent intimidation and forcibly
controlled limitations of the Black community did not.
Although white mob action declined, the deadly racial
violence
of the police remained steady and harsh. "Police brutality," as
it was named, sparked the creation of the Black Panthers Party
for Self-Defense and other Black nationalist groups. These groups
rose to address the criminal behaviour of police terrorism, and
the social, political and economic domination and control that
the police enforced. After the Panthers and others were illegally
and unconstitutionally suppressed, police departments like the
Chicago Police Department obtained, what amounted to, free
licence to terrorize African descendants through torture, forced
confessions and murder of innocent men and women. These summary
executions continue to this day across America -- Ayana
Stanley-Jones, Tamir Rice, Oscar Grant, Sandra Bland, Rekia Boyd,
Mike Brown, Philando Castile, and Laquan McDonald, are just a few
of the thousands who have met this fate post-1965.
Throughout this entire 400-year period, Africans and
their
descendants fought against this inhumanity and put forth demands
that these crimes be redressed in the form of reparations through
the means of securing freedom, land, repatriation, pensions,
compensation, and restitution.
In the latter part of the 20th century international
charges
of genocide were levied twice by Blacks with the United Nations
Human Rights Commission -- once in 1957 and again in 1997. (In
2014 and 2016 a new generation of activists repeated the charge.)
In 1969 James Foreman presented his Black Manifesto to the white
Church community demanding resources for economic development and
various structural and institutional acts of restitution.
Mass-based organizations rose in the 1980s to create a grass
roots demand for reparations. N'COBRA, at one time, had membership in
the
thousands.
At the beginning of the 21st century, with assistance
from
N'COBRA, the December 12th Movement -- D-12, and the National
Black United Front -- NBUF, led nearly 400 delegates to Durban
South Africa to the 2001 World Conference Against Racism,
Xenophobia and Related Intolerances. Over 14,000 participants
attended the conference including governmental delegations from
195 countries.
For the D-12 and NBUF-led delegation, reparations
was their focus.
The conclusion of the conference reaffirmed some
fundamental
human rights for people of African descent -- particularly the
right to be repaired from criminal and injurious acts of one's
government. In the official outcome document of the Conference
--
the governmental delegates declared that the Trans-Atlantic Slave
Trade, slavery, apartheid and colonialism were crimes against
humanity. Further, that there was an economic basis to these
crimes -- that are evident to today -- the injuring nations are
wealthy and "the effects and persistence of these structures and
practices have been among the factors contributing to lasting
social and economic inequalities [poverty, underdevelopment,
marginalization, social exclusion] in many parts of the world
today." And even further, that there is an obligation on the part
of those nations that were enriched by these crimes to engage in
redress for the inequities that exist and injuries caused.
This historical victory by those in the global
reparations
movement marked a new phase and new mode of reparations struggle
by people of African descent. Everywhere, those of us in the
reparations struggle, began speaking the same language -- that
the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, slavery, colonialism and
apartheid, were not just bad/immoral acts -- they were in fact
crimes against humanity, "the most
egregious crimes a government
can commit or allow to be committed against a civilian
population."
Globally we became aware that crimes against humanity
have no
jurisdictional statute of limitation. We became aware that the
enormous economic theft is still accruing value to the nations
and corporations that usurped the productive output from our
ancestors; we also became aware that the wealth that sits in
the accounts of many extremely wealthy white westerners was also
wealth passed down generationally from the original criminal
usurpers; we all became clearly aware that the dysfunction that
is seen in African and African descendant populations globally
have their initial causation in the crimes committed against the
humanity of their ancestors and that are compounded by continued
harmful acts done today. We all further became aware since
Durban, that the number one global issue for Africans and people
of African descent world-wide is the repair from centuries of
theft, abuses, terror and lies regarding our humanity and our
primary and substantial contributions to the human family long
before the advent of the West.
Now today, there is an uptick of public
figures
and
others
that are acknowledging either the need for reparations, or the
rightness of reparations or both. This
is good.
Particularly, 2020 presidential candidates Marianne
Williams,
Senators Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, Kamala Harris and Bernie
Sanders, in addition to former White House cabinet member Julian
Castro. Even Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy
Pelosi, who was said to have blocked the congressional discussion
of reparations during the Obama presidency, has now offered
support for a reparations study.
Where some err, however, is in their attempt to tell us
--
Descendants of Africans Enslaved in the United States -- DAEUS,
what form and to what extent reparations are and should be. They
should support the demand for reparations. In addition, they
should seek to understand the full extent of the crimes of
enslavement, Jim Crow and post Jim Crow America, and how these
crimes have benefited America. [...]
The forms and to what extent will be determined by us.
This
has already begun, in part, with N'COBRA's 21st Century
Reparations Manifesto and Five Injury Areas. [These include
Criminal Punishment System; Education; Wealth and Poverty;
Peoplehood and Nationhood; Health]. Also, this has begun with a
series of national town hall meetings already held, and more to
be scheduled, to introduce, assess and debate the Reparations 10
Point Program compiled by the National African American
Reparations Commission (NAARC). [The ten points include: 1. A
Formal Apology and Establishment of a Maafa/African Holocaust
Institute; 2. The Right of Repatriation and Creation of an
African Knowledge Program; 3. The Right to Land for Social and
Economic Development; 4. Funds for Cooperative Enterprises and
Socially Responsible Entrepreneurial Development; 5. Resources
for the Health, Wellness and Healing of Black Families and
Communities; 6. Education for Community Development and
Empowerment; 7. Affordable Housing for Healthy Black Communities
and Wealth Generation; 8. Strengthening Black America's
Information and Communications Infrastructure; 9. Preserving
Black Sacred Sites and Monuments; 10. Repairing the Damages of
the "Criminal Injustice System"] [...]
[...] It is in fact the work done
post-Durban that has created a climate that demands that these
presidential candidates (and others) make such pronouncements.
Post Durban, it was N'COBRA's keeping this issue alive after the
New York Trade Towers attack that had the effect of silencing the
reparations movement's momentum that had been built in Durban.
Then there were Caribbean political leaders through their group --
the Caribbean Community of States (CARICOM) that created the
CARICOM Reparations Commission (CAR). CAR has initiated the
process to bring a case of crimes against humanity to the
International Criminal Court against the European nations that
participated in the slave trade and slavery in the Caribbean. The
charges: native genocide and enslavement of Africans and African
Descendants in the Caribbean islands.
Further, CAR sparked the creation of the NAARC. In 2015
NAARC held an
international summit in New York attracting many of the CAR
commissioners and delegates from 17 nations. NAARC inspired
several of these groups to establish reparations commissions in
the nations where they resided.
Black People Against Police Torture (BPAPT) called for a
reparations campaign for the victims of police torture in
Chicago. That success led to a new generation calling for
reparations, culminating in the Movement for Black Lives adding
Reparations as a major policy plank in their platform. Ta-Nehisi
Coates' essay, The Case for Reparations had major
significance in shaping this climate. Finally, we can never
forget Congressman John Conyers' longstanding perseverance to
hold this government accountable, with the bill HR 40, The
Commission to Study Reparations Proposals for African Americans
Act, which he revised, at NAARC's and N'COBRA's suggestion
and with their input, before his departure from Congress.
Again, it is from all these actions, and much, much
more that
those who now speak have the presence to do so. But most are
doing so from an extremely limited base of knowledge and action
on where this movement and their current support rest.
Post-Durban we look to international bodies and law to understand
reparations and to base the structure of our claim.
For us in the movement, we understand that reparations,
under
international norms and law, means "full
repair." [...]
The Permanent Court of International Justice laid out
the
"general and foundational rule"
for
reparations
in
the
Chorzow
Factory
Case
of
1928.
In that ruling, the Court held "that
reparation must, as far as possible, wipe out all consequences of
the illegal act and re-establish the situation which would, in
all probability, have existed if that act had not been
committed."
The extent of "all consequences" was fleshed out as full
reparation in the International Law Commission (2001) Draft
Articles on Responsibility of States for International Wrongful
Act. In Article 31." ... the responsible state is under an
obligation to make full reparation for the injury caused by the
internationally wrongful act."
The International Law Commission and other established
international guidelines lay out what is considered full and
comprehensive reparation. These include:
Cessation, Assurances and Guarantees of
Non-Repetition -- a state responsible for wrongfully injuring a
people
"is
under an obligation to a) cease the act if it is continuing, b)
offer appropriate assurances and guarantees of non-repetition
...
"
Restitution and Repatriation -- "re-establish the
situation which existed before the wrongful act was committed."
To restore the victim to the original situation before gross
violations of international law occurred. How includes
restoration of freedom, recognition of humanity, identity,
culture, repatriation, livelihood and wealth.
Compensation -- The injuring State is obligated
to
compensate for the damage, if damage is not made good by
restitution. Compensation is "any
financially assessable damage
suffered ..." Proper compensation is such that is "appropriate
and
proportional to the gravity of the violation and
circumstances."
Satisfaction -- "as
a
means
for
reparations
for
moral
damage,
such
as
emotional
injury, mental suffering, and injury to
reputation."
Rehabilitation -- rehabilitation consist of mind,
body,
emotional and spirit healing -- [of] the lasting effects of the
trauma of enslavement and segregation.
It was in utilizing this structure, that in 2017
Congressman
John Conyers introduced a revised HR 40 in the 115th Congress
that called for a commission to develop programs, policy and
practices with these elements and intended outcomes -- The
Commission to Study and Develop Reparations Proposals for African
Americans Act. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee has
introduced it currently in the 116th Congress. When one examines
N'COBRA's Manifesto -- and NAARC's 10 Point Reparations Platform
in detail, these outcomes are fleshed out.
[...]
This article was published in
Volume 49 Number 23 - June 22, 2019
Article Link:
Reparations Means Full Repair: For 400 Years of Terror, and Other Egregious Crimes - National Coalition of Blacks for
Reparations
in America (N'COBRA)
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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