The European Union and Africa remain far apart in their talks on the issue at a U.N.-sponsored conference on racism, with the Europeans offering increased cash for aid but rejecting the notion of reparations.

Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu addresses journalists at the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) in Durban, South Africa September 5, 2001. Tutu made a call for reparations for slavery saying that they would be like a balm to the wounds of Africa's past. (Juda Ngwenya/Reuters)

African delegates maintain that the affluence enjoyed by many in the developed world today was built on the backs of slave labor and the raw materials extracted from the world's poorest continent.

``The slave trade destroyed Africa's human resources ... and the lack of those human resources weakened the continent,'' said one central African delegate who declined to be named.

``In the 16th century there was not such a great difference between Europe and Africa...today there is because of the legacies of colonialism and slavery which helped to build the West's economies. This generation in the West has benefited from those crimes and should pay for them,'' he said.

Millions of Africans were uprooted from their homes and shipped chained in appalling conditions across the Atlantic to plantations in the New World. Countless perished en route.

Colonialism also took a huge toll on the continent, with millions of enforced laborers dying in the Belgian Congo where authorities terrorized locals into collecting rubber by cutting off hands and committing other atrocities.

Africa today remains the world's poorest continent, burdened by poverty, disease and brutal conflicts.

AFRICANS SAY UNITED ON REPARATIONS

``The African group holds a common position (on reparations and apologies),'' said South Africa's Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, who is leading Pretoria's delegation on talks with other African nations on the issue.

She denied reports that there had been a ``hardening'' of Africa's stance on the issue, but delegates who have seen the documents under discussion have disputed this.

``The latest document from the Africans is less flexible,'' said Marcos Pinta Gama, a spokesman for the Brazilian delegation, which is trying to broker a compromise.

Genocide against indigenous peoples and apartheid are also under discussion, with the Africans pushing to have them and slavery branded as crimes against humanity.

The Ecumenical Caucus, an umbrella group of churches, backed the African demands, asking ``for our churches and governments to acknowledge that they have benefited from the exploitation of Africans and African descendants.''

REPARATIONS ALSO MAJOR ISSUE IN U.S.

Across the Atlantic, the issue of reparations is also becoming a major issue with the descendants of the slaves taken from Africa demanding compensation for an injustice which many commentators say is still inflicting harm on blacks in America.

``It is the issue of repair for damage done,'' United States civil rights leader Jesse Jackson told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.

``We (African-Americans) have fewer services and less education. We are disproportionately jailed and killed by the state. We have shorter life spans. We have less access to capital,'' Jackson said.

He added that all of these social and economic problems faced by the African-American community were rooted in the centuries of slavery that ended with the North's victory over the South in the Civil War in 1865.

Asked if he would make reparations for slavery a political priority when he returns to the United States, Jackson said: ''Yes, of course...we must make crooked ways straight.''

Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited

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