President Mahama rejects claims African involvement diminishes slavery’s crime or reparations case

President John Mahama has rejected arguments that the involvement of some Africans in the transatlantic slave trade diminishes the scale of the atrocities committed or weakens calls for reparatory justice, insisting that such participation does not erase the fact that slavery was a systematic crime against humanity." Speaking at a high-level dialogue on reparations at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, he said the same principle applies to discussions about African involvement in the slave trade, arguing that the participation of some Africans cannot be used to deny the wider system of exploitation and suffering.

President Mahama said the history of the transatlantic slave trade must be examined in its entirety, including the systems and structures that sustained it for centuries.