ICTJ in the News

August 1, 2001

Reparations call gains more voices in anticipation of the WCAR

New York Amsterdam News

By Karen Juanita Carrillo

"We begin with the premise that slavery, the slave trade, the most severe forms of racism associated with colonialism and subsequent official racist practices such as apartheid in South Africa or the Jim Crow laws in the United States are extraordinarily serious human rights violations," noted Human Rights Watch, the New York City-based international watchdog group, in the first sentence of its position paper calling for African-American reparations.

"If committed today," the group added in its paper entitled "An Approach to Reparations," issued this past Thursday July 19, "these would be crimes against humanity."

With a press release announcing its call for the governments of countries like the United States, Brazil and South Africa - countries that benefited from African enslavement and subsequent segregationist practices against people of African descent - to pay reparations, Human Rights Watch became one of very few predominately white social justice organizations to officially propose a method for the United States to compensate its population of African descendant.

Human Rights Watch is careful to delineate the reasons it believes reparations are called for: International law has stated that victims of human rights abuses have a right to seek redress. Even descendants of human rights abuse victims retain that right. But the group cautions that if every descendant of a human rights victim sought reparations, "because human history is filled with wrongs, many of which amount to severe human rights abuse, significant practical problems arise once a certain time has elapsed in building a theory of reparations on claims of descendancy alone."

So Human Rights Watch is calling for African-American reparations based on what it terms "practical reasons" - that reparations would speak to Black American life today. "That is, we would focus on people who can reasonably claim that today they personally suffer the effects of past human rights violations through continuing economic or social deprivation.

"Even though governments have an intergenerational life, we recognize that to hold them responsible for past crimes is, as a practical matter, to hold today's citizens or taxpayers responsible. We believe this attribution of responsibility can be justified by reference to the economic benefits that these countries derived from, say, slavery or abusive colonialism - benefits that presumably helped to jumpstart their industrialization and thus continue to the present. We note that this rationale would apply even to immigrants who arrived in a beneficiary country after these abusive practices ended, since they, too, presumably, have benefited from the advanced economy they joined."

Reeve Brody, the organization's advocacy director, explained that in preparing to attend the upcoming Aug. 31-Sept. 7 U.N. World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) in Durban, South Africa, Human Rights Watch searched for a human rights approach to combating racism. "We wanted to come up with a proposal that would be forward-looking and constructive," he said. "A proposal that, hopefully, would bring more people on board."

And bringing more people on board would require first establishing the legitimacy of a need for reparations - which the current Bush administration, for one, has not accepted. Debates are still raging about what issues ought to be discussed at the WCAR, because the Bush administration has stated that it doesn't want to take part in a conference about racism that would discuss African enslavement or the idea of reparations.

Human Rights Watch is calling for the subject of compensation for slavery to be placed on the WCAR agenda. "By 'reparations,' we mean not only compensation but also acknowledgment of past abuses, an end to ongoing abuses and, as much as possible, restoration of the state of affairs that would have prevailed had there been no abuses."

In the same vein, another predominantly white human rights organization, Amnesty International (AI), earlier this week sent a letter to Pres. Bush, urging that the United States attend the WCAR, because "racism is a fact of life for far too many in the United States. Racial bias pervades local police forces from New York to Los Angeles. It has an impact on everything these forces do, from their use of racial profiling to their investigation of crimes and arrest of suspects. Similarly, racism frequently perverts the course of justice, impacting everything from arraignment to jury selection, from trial to sentencing and the racially biased application of the death penalty. Yet those who benefit from the system - police, wardens, guards, judges, prosecutors, government officials and political leaders - consistently overlook, ignore or openly tolerate what has become a national pandemic."

Gerald LeMelle, an AI advocacy director, explained, "The United States has to show leadership by being there - at the WCAR - and not just fleeing the scene." LeMelle will be attending the WCAR as an AI delegate: "Our letter is an attempt to get the administration to take a position. It's like, 'Hey, what are you going to do?'

"We understand that the United States doesn't want to discuss reparations and they don't want to discuss the whole Zionism issue. But the U.S. government has to find out that there are ways to resolve this without putting their heads in the sand, without just boycotting the whole conference. This is an issue that we need leadership, and strong leadership, on. This country should not be in a position of squelching free speech. The United States should attend the conference and hear what people are saying - and people will hear what they have to say. Just because one issue or two issues might offend somebody does not mean that the entire problem of race, which has dominated this country ever since European's first got here, can be dismissed."

AI has also taken a somewhat positive position regarding reparations for African-Americans. "Under existing international legal standards," AI has noted, "it may be difficult for descendents of slaves to seek reparations in court for the enslavement of their ancestors. However, the fact that the direct victims and their dependents are dead as are the perpetrators, and the fact that the passage of long periods of time makes it very difficult to identify descendents of victims, does not negate the fact that terrible injustices were committed and that any lingering violation should be addressed."

But, unlike Human Rights Watch, AI does not propose the idea of truth commissions in the United States - in the fashion of the hearings most recently conducted by South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Truth commissions would be designed to develop methods of compensation.

The Human Rights Watch position is interesting, Jahahara Alkebulen-Ma'at, the newly elected national co-chair of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA) said, but not that impressive. "What we say is that it's not up to white folks, even well-meaning white folks. It's up to us - it's up to Africans to decide on reparations. Reparations is not just about a check, it's about a healing, it's about a holistic resolution for Africans." Alkebulen-Ma'at, for one, said that any truth commission modeled on South Africa's would not be welcomed. N'COBRA believes that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission allowed criminals an easy way out, without having to pay for human rights crimes.

"I think these groups, however well-meaning they may be," Alkebulen-Ma'at added, "they need to come talk to the victims. The victims have a right to determine what should be the process for reparations. They need to come ask us. N'COBRA has conducted its own survey - among our people - about reparations. We've been throughout the prisons, churches, schools, to Black newspapers, we've talked to our people and asked them what they want. Wellmeaning white people should come to us; they need to stop trying to make decisions for us. If they asked us, it would be an educational process for those white supremacists out there and for those well-meaning whites."

N'COBRA's position is like those of other victimized groups who have called for reparations. Priscilla B. Hayner, a program director at the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), a newly established organization designed to assist governments who are ready to face lingering social justice issues, says Human Rights Watch's truth commission proposal could work, but it would require a long, studied process of consultation with African-Americans.

But that's exactly what the December 12th Movement's Roger Wareham has said he would be afraid of. "I don't necessarily know what a truth commission necessarily would accomplish. What we've been subjected to is not unknown: COINTELPRO, slavery, numbers of different things have gone on. The U.N. special rapporteur on racism was here documenting abuses in 1994 and again in 1997. There've been enough studies - my concern is that a truth commission could cause more delays. What we need is a commitment to reparations and a method toward distribution."

N'COBRA and the December 12th Movement have suggested that any organizations who want to support African-American reparations help push for passage of Michigan Rep. John Conyers H.R. 40 - a bill to set up the Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act - which Conyers has proposed in Congress every year since 1989.

"No one today is denying that slavery took place in the United States," Hayner, whose recent book, "Unspeakable Truths: Confronting State Terror and Atrocity," details how truth commissions have challenged governments around the world, acknowledged. She has some hope that a well-established U.S. truth commission would be helpful. "The country, as a whole, has not fully gotten the public to acknowledge the role of the actions of the U.S. government. The majority of people have never put their minds to it.

"I think that most white Americans don't recognize what Black people still face, and I think that many don't recognize the reality of Black Americans and how racism continues to exist. Reaching out so that the full country - this society as a whole - recognizes that reality would help us find ways to make sure that that legacy doesn't continue. I continually argue that that legacy hasn't been dealt with; even though time has passed, it doesn't make it any less critical that we all confront this."

Human Rights Watch's "An Approach to Reparations" position paper is available at www.hrw.org. Amnesty International's report "Racism and the Administration of Justice" is available at www.amnestyusa.org. N'COBRA is sponsoring a community forum reporting on the organization's 12th Annual Juneteenth Convention and on preparations for the WCAR. The forum will be held this Saturday, July 28, from 1-3 p.m., at the Dynamics of Leadership office of City Council candidate Charles Barron, 26 Court St., Suite 2402, in downtown Brooklyn. Call (718) 287-0134 or e-mail ncobranyc@aol.com for further information.