President John Dramani Mahama has expressed joy over the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the resolution declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialised chattel enslavement of Africans as the gravest crime against humanity.
President Mahama, in a statement, said the process of its realisation, from idea to reality, was made possible by the solidarity of people of good conscience around the world and led by the active coalition of the African Union, CARICOM and other groups.
“I cannot think of a better way to honour our forebears on the day of remembrance than to have the majority of the world’s countries affirm that the trafficking and enslavement of nearly 13 million human beings is, indeed, the gravest crime against humanity,” the President said.
One of those forebears, François-Dominique Toussaint L’Ouverture, who was born into slavery but became one of the architects of Haiti’s liberation, the first independent nation in Latin America and the Caribbean, said: “The greatest weapon against oppression is unity.”
“We must stand united in seeking the restoration of the humanity and dignity of our forebears who were enslaved and sold,” he stated.
