Persistent exclusion of Afro-descendants

Maura Nasly Mosquera

25/06/2008

Opinión

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We are today at the beginning of a new era, where all people are the protagonists of their own development processes, so it is said. The Charter of Santiago de Cali[1] of the Black Parliament of the Americas and the Caribbean represents the ratification of this vision by the parliamentarians and the social organizations as actors and allies in the democratic and humanitarian solution to the cruel realities the afro-descendant people and communities are facing today.

Previously, at the Americas Social Forum in Quito in 2004, a “Political declaration of the afro-descendant men and women” has been expressed, in which they compel to “taking up again the historical amends fundamental to our integration and our struggle, assuming that the slavery of the Africans has been and still is a crime against humanity. Demanding emotional and material reparations for the afro-descendant people. Discussing the strategies, limits and scopes of such amends” [2].

The Vienna Declaration and Program of Action of Africans and Descendants of Africans (Vienna Conference 2001) states that the international black community is united as such by a historical connection of “shared roots and experiences” and recognizes that the inequity against the black African and afro-descendant populations are the result of a complex historical process, and it is assumed that the continuing of this inequity is related to the ignoring and concealing of the memories of slavery, exploitation, discrimination and exclusion, generated by the “falsification and negotiation of African history” and a policy of “cultural imperialism” that, simultaneously, enhances the values and history of the West.

For Agustin Lao – Montes[3], in Latin America historically no discourse about amends to afro-descendants linked to concrete, elaborated propositions with legislative and legal implications has yet taken place, as has been the case in the

United States

since the 19^th century. He adds that this disparity has its roots in the different forms of racial domination that occurred in the two American regions and that explain the recent emergence of claims for reparations for afro-descendants in Latin America.

Obligations

Colombia, Perú, Ecuador and Bolivia have adopted international commitments and the implementation processes to fulfill their obligations regarding the human rights of the afro-descendants; including the recommendations issued by other international bodies and soft law initiatives (emerging law), such as commitments in social forums that constitute international obligations due to the principle of estoppel in international law[4].

In a broader and more precise form, The Durban Declaration points out in paragraph 11:

“While globalization offers great opportunities, at present its benefits are very unevenly shared, while its costs are unevenly distributed. We thus express our determination to prevent and mitigate the negative effects of globalization. These effects could aggravate, inter alia, poverty, underdevelopment, marginalization, social exclusion, cultural homogenization and economic disparities which may occur along racial lines, within and between States, and have an adverse impact”.

In the sub-regional plan, the pronouncing of the Sub-Regional Workshop on “Human Rights, Development and the Andean Community”, realized between July 3 - 5, 2002 in Lima, recommends in relation to afro-descendants that the same importance as to indigenous matters should be given to the conditions of the afro-descendants, establishing a roundtable for the afro-descendant communities for this purpose that will coordinate its works with the Roundtable of Indigenous People. Similarly, in the Declaration of the Afro-descendants of the Andean Region within the framework of the Reunion of the Andean Presidential Council, the resolution 1083 of May 27, 2004 of the Andean Parliament is cited, where a Working Group about the Rights of the Afro-Descendant Communities is stipulated in order to facilitate the participation of the regional afro-descendant civil society in the process of integration and contribution to the full effect of the Economic and Social Rights confirmed by the Andean Community in the Andean Charter for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, signed by the Presidential Council in 2002.

Exclusion still happens

To date, the Consultative Council for the Indigenous Peoples of the Andean Community has been established by mandate of Decision 674, as a consultative instance in the framework of the Andean Integration System that strengthens indigenous participation in the sub-regional integration process, and yet the petitions of the afro-descendants of the region have not received any echo.

This reality that we find in the negotiation process of the Andean Community and the European Union will result in deepening the asymmetries of the afro-descendant communities inside of the Andean countries, and it will have as a logical consequence that the weakest party will be the least favored in the Association Agreement, and the loss of the opportunity to demand an “apology” from the European Union not only for the impositions of the slave trade, slavery and colonization, but also for their “ongoing psychological, economic, social, political and cultural effects on the Africans and descendants of Africans”.

The invisibility and exclusion of the Andean afro-descendents does not contribute to strengthening the regional integration and sustainable human development in a democratic atmosphere that respects human rights. Simultaneously, it can even lead to a consolidation of the violations of the human rights of the Andean afro-descendants which are excluded from political dialogue, from cooperation and trade. The challenge for the afro-descendant activists in Latin America will be to switch from petitions to demands, to concrete strategies and to action. (Translation: ALAI)

- Maura Nasly Mosquera is the Director of the Fundación para la Formación de Líderes Afrocolombianos, AFROLIDER

(Translation: ALAI. Article originally published in Spanish in edition No. 431-2 of the magazine América Latina en Movimiento: http://alainet.org/publica/431.html)

[1] In its first considerations it points out that the Black Parliament of the Americas and the Caribbean is the Regional Forum that gathers together afro-descendant representatives of the Americas and the Caribbean on the highest political level, aiming at contributing to guaranteeing human development of afro-descendant people and communities as protagonists in building intercultural, equitable democracies , in conditions of equality and equity.

[2]Almario García, Oscar. Reparaciones contemporáneas: de la Memoria de la Esclavitud al cuestionamiento de la exclusión social y el racismo. In: Afro-reparaciones: Memorias de la Esclavitud y Justicia Reparativa para negros, afrocolombianos y raizales. Editores Claudia Mosquera Rosero-Labbé y Luiz Claudio Barcelos. Universidad Nacional de Colombia Colección CES.

[3] Lao – Montes, Agustín. Sin justicia étnico-racial no hay paz: las afrorreparaciones en perspectiva histórico-mundial.

[4] Estoppel holds that it is not admissible for a State to act against its own actions or to take a position that is obviously contrary to its own previously adopted behaviors or positions.

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