Colombia's VP calls on former colonial powers to confront past as UN forum opens

By Catarina Demony

(Reuters) -Colombia's Vice President Francia Marquez, an advocate of slavery reparations, urged former colonial powers to take responsibility for their past wrongs and called for a global reparations fund, at a United Nations forum on Monday.

In her opening speech at the fourth session of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD) in New York, Marquez said the fund would be used to help eradicate legacies of slavery and colonialism, without providing further details.

"Colonial states, states that fostered... that form of domination based on the definition of race have to assume the responsibility of restoring the human dignity of people of African descent," Marquez earlier told Reuters in an interview. 

While the issue of reparations has gained momentum worldwide, from Africa to the Caribbean, so has the backlash. Many of Europe's leaders have opposed even talking about reparations.

Marquez, a celebrated environmental activist, was elected in 2022 and is Colombia's first Black woman vice president. 

At least 12.5 million Africans were kidnapped, forcibly transported by European ships and sold into slavery from the 15th to the 19th centuries. Hundreds of thousands were shipped to Colombia.  

Marquez said many Afro-Colombians still lacked basic rights, such as access to health, housing and higher education, a reality she sees as a legacy of that period: "We continue to experience the damage and consequences of that system."

Opponents of reparations argue, among other things, that contemporary states and institutions should not be held responsible for their past.

But advocates say action is needed to address the legacies, such as systemic and structural racism, and say that contemporary states still benefit from the wealth generated by hundreds of years of exploitation.

'RACIAL BIASES'

Participants at the forum will discuss calls for reparations in the digital age. The forum says systemic inequities risk being replicated in emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI). 

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in remarks delivered by his Chef de Cabinet Courtenay Rattray, reiterated his call for reparations, and said there was a need to "eliminate bias" from AI. 

"Even AI, which holds such promise for humanity, too often mirrors and amplifies the same inequalities and racial biases that have plagued us for centuries," Guterres said. 

Marquez said although important steps had been taken by the UN in the fight for reparations, such as the creation of the PFPAD, more must be done: "It is not enough to face the challenges of systemic racism the population still faces."

Brazil's Minister of Racial Equality Anielle Franco was among other politicians attending the four-day UN forum. Franco said slavery was a crime against humanity and "must be faced with courage". 

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk also called on states - but also companies, universities and religious groups - to "acknowledge what they did to perpetuate and profit from enslavement and colonialism".

"The harm caused must be repaired," Turk said.

(Reporting by Catarina Demony in London; Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols in New York;Editing by Sharon Singleton)