MOTION TO THE AFRICAN UNION EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 39th EXTRAORDINARY SESSION DRAFTED BY BBHAGSIA PRESIDENT AND SUBMITTED TO THE AU ECOSOCC SECRETARIAT THROUGH THE ZAMBIAN MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

AFRICA DIASPORA ALLIANCE

(AfDA) 

Advocacy Committee

SUBMISSION OF A DRAFT MOTION 

FOR AU EXECUTIVE COUNCIL CONSIDERATION

Motion to The African Union Executive Council for a call to action to expedite the participation of the African Diaspora within the structures of the Africa Union

PREAMBLE

We, the undersigned, RECOGNISE the responsibility of The Citizens and Diaspora Directorate (CIDO) to implement the African Union’s (AU) Agenda 2063’ vision of an “integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa driven by its own citizens” and “with the support and contribution of the African Diaspora.”

We RECALL the AU insertion to the Constitutive Act of the AU (Article 3(q)) 2003 which declared its objective shall be to “invite and encourage the full participation of the African Diaspora as an important part of our Continent, in the building of the African Union. That invitation has been recalled repeatedly, for example, in the AU Handbook, statues of the Economic, Social & Cultural Council (ECOSOCC), mandate for CIDO, the reports of South African government-sponsored Diasporan Regional Consultative Conferences and the Accra Declaration 2007.

We ACKNOWLEDGE CIDO’s leadership in the engagement of the AU with non-state actors through its two divisions, the Civil Society Division and the Diaspora Division (DD), to provide a platform for African Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to directly influence the decision-making processes and institutions of the AU through the ECOSOCC, the AU’s advisory organ, which promotes the participation of African Citizens and Civil Society and currently hosted by CIDO.

We are INSPIRED by the DD’s mandate to serve as the focal point and hub to now engage with CIDO as a means for us to be supported as African Diaspora CSOs to become full participants through:-

  • promoting and deploying the members of the African Diaspora as a collective group and integrating its resources into the AU and thereby recognised in the process of Pan African unification;

  • promoting and implementing sustainable development programmes for the African Continent and the AU, for example, seeking out and developing opportunities for economic and social co-operative development with and for African people;

  • establishing the process and conducting the elections for African Diaspora CSO representation in the ECOSOCC General Assembly in order to assume the 20 allocated positions and the other African Diaspora positions defined in the ECOSOCC statutes;

  • establishing a forum for the global representation of the voice of the African Diaspora to raise their concerns across the AU.

We NOTE the DD’s definition of the African Diaspora as “consisting of people of African origin living outside the continent, irrespective of their citizenship and nationality…” and equally AFFIRM and REMIND of the sub-group within the African Diaspora consisting of the specific group of people of African origin, born outside the African Continent who have never had access to an automatic birthright to claim a specific African citizenship or nationality due to the horrific legacy of the transatlantic slave trade but recognise their Right To Return (RTR) to their ancestral homeland.

STATEMENTS

  1. WHEREAS The Dum Diversas issued on June 18, 1452, was the declaration of war that initiated the trafficking of African people which is documented in at least 36,000 voyages listed in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.

  2. WHEREAS The 1949 Geneva Convention: Article 4 (1) defines prisoners of war and Article 5 states, “the present Convention shall apply to the persons referred to in Article 4 from the time they fall into the power of the enemy and until their final release and repatriation.” REGRETTING that the African Descendants of those prisoners of war are still yet to be repatriated to their ancestral home on the African continent.

  3. WHEREAS the war of aggression by the historic enslavers of the African Diaspora created prisoners of war that were enslaved and colonized not only in the Americas, Arabia and Europe but also on the African continent.

  4. RECALLING the Declaration of the 3rd World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, Durban South Africa 2001 which acknowledged that slavery and the slave trade, including the transatlantic slave trade, were appalling tragedies in the history of humanity due to the abhorrent barbarism, the magnitude, the organised nature especially in the negation of the essence of the victims and further acknowledge that they are a crime against humanity which should always have been so and the major sources and manifestations of racism, racial discrimination towards Africans and people of African descent. Also, NOTING the Declaration considered it essential for all countries in the region of the Americas and all other areas of the African Diaspora to recognise the existence of their population of African descent and acknowledge their the right to seek just and adequate reparation or satisfaction for any damage suffered as a result of such discrimination, as enshrined in numerous international and regional human rights instruments, in particular the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

  5. RECALLING that in 1893, The Chicago Congress on Africa was convened at the World’s Columbian Exposition by people of African Descent from both sides of the Atlantic, which led to the Atlanta Congress on Africa in 1895. Further, in 1900, the first Pan African Congress held in London set the agenda for liberation movements across the African Diaspora and on the continent.

  6. RECALLING that in 1917, the protoype of the African Union 6th Region was created when Marcus Garvey repeated Martin Delany’s call for “Africa for the Africans” and built the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL). This was the largest African Diaspora organization in history with 11 million members on both sides of the Atlantic;

  7. RECALLING that those of African Descent in the African Diaspora supported and fought with Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie during the Italian invasion of Ethiopia from 1935 to 1941. The Emperor invited them both before and after the war to return to their fatherland, setting aside land in Shashamane. He began a repatriation recruitment program in the USA in 1954, providing a constitutional provision for citizenship as well as rent free houses, competitive salaries and free transportation. During his Opening Speech on May 23, 1963, he informed the OAU that, "... The blood that was shed and the sufferings that were endured are today Africa's advocates for freedom and unity. Those men who refused to accept the judgment passed upon them by the colonies, ... Many of them never set foot on this continent."

  8. THANKFUL that on July 17, 1964, Malcolm X reminded the Organization of African Unity (OAU) that, “Since the 22 million of us [i.e. African Diaspora] were originally Africans, who are now in America (north, south and central) not by choice but only by a cruel accident in our history… we strongly believe that African problems are our problems, and our problems are African problems… and, we will have to solve them together.”

  9. RECALLING, PAFMECA, the OAU Liberation Committee at the 1974 Sixth Pan African Congress in Dar es Salaam, the first of the Pan African Congresses to be held in Africa as well as, the Pan African Skills Project initiated in the 1970’s by Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, which specifically recruited Africans from the Diaspora to “come to live and participate in nation building in Tanzania.”

  10. THANKFUL that on July 14, 1993, Ghanian President Jerry John Rawlings, in a speech to the OAU in Cairo, called for African leaders to "Make a place for Africans in the Diaspora'' and also said, "We should and must find a way to include all the sons and daughters of Africa in building and moving our societies forward. In this respect, I would propose that the OAU should consider granting observer status to representative groups of Black Africans in the Diaspora."

  11. RELIEVED that on February 3, 2003, Siphiwe Baleka (then Ras Nathaniel) was the lone African Diaspora observer at the 1st Extra-Ordinary Summit of the Assembly of the African Union (AU), when it adopted Article 3(q), and that Siphiwe Baleka established the AU 6th Region Education Campaign; THANKFUL that along with Dr. David Horne of the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC) began the process for the African Diaspora to elect representatives for ECOSOCC as mandated by the statutes.

  12. RECALLING the Declaration Of The Global African Diaspora Summit, Johannesburg 2012 particularly the Programme Of Action that commits to engaging with developed countries with a view to creating favourable regulatory mechanisms governing migration and to address concerns of African immigrants in Diaspora Communities. FURTHER RECALLING its  encouragement of the African Diaspora to organise themselves in regional networks and establish appropriate mechanisms that will enable their increasing participation in the affairs of the AU as observers and eventually, in the future, as a sixth region of the continent that would contribute substantially to the implementation of policies and programme.

  13. AFFIRMING the significance of The International Decade for People of African Descent 2015-2024 proclaimed by UN General Assembly resolution 68/237, as providing a solid framework for AU Member States to join together with those of African descent in the Diaspora and take effective measures for the implementation of a programme of activities promoting recognition, justice and development under the decade’s theme to “promote respect, protection and fulfilment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms of people of African descent.”

  14. NOTING in particular, our participation in numerous virtual and in-person conferences held by the United Nations and the African Union over the years. Specifically, HIGHLIGHTING the delegation that met with the ECOSOCC Secretariat in Lusaka, Zambia, March 2016 for the purpose of moving forward with the process of their representation in ECOSOCC but REGRETFUL that the agreed plan of action, a review and follow up on the next step in the process, has still not taken place, and communication with the delegation has not been fulfilled.

  15. RECOGNIZING the “Year Of Return, Ghana 2019, For The African Diaspora” formally launched by Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo in Washington, D.C September 2018 which declared a welcome for all people of African Origin to return to Africa, especially Ghana, as being followed by the May 2020 launch of “Beyond The Return” a 10 year project under the theme of ‘A Decade Of African Renaissance 2020-2030 as a flagship programme.

  16. NOTING that the organisation the Global African Development Association has launched the Campaign “Rastafari Decade of Return 2020 to 2030” to encourage and empower the Rastafari community to return home to Africa, the continent of their origin. 

  17. Additionally, RECOGNISING the official launch of the ‘Welcome Home’ Initiative “Decada Do Retorno 2021-2031” by the Ministry Of Tourism, Guinea-Bissau May 2021 as the official programme of the government to recognise the descendants of people taken from homelands that became the nation of Guinea Bissau as a notable programme of the UN Decade.

  18. ASSERTING that we, the people of the African Diaspora of African Descent (RTR), have never ceased in our efforts to organize our communities in order to connect or repatriate to the African Continent and the African Union, nor have we ever stopped our efforts to speak up for the Historic Diaspora, the Contemporary Diaspora and Mother Africa on the world stage.

RESOLUTIONS

We, members of the African Diaspora, pursuant to the need to reconnect with Africa:


  1. DECLARE that we accept and ENDORSE the use of ECOSOCC Statues:- Article 4: Membership, Article 5: Election of Members, and Article 6: Eligibility Requirements for Membership, to facilitate full participation of African Diaspora CSOs in the same.

  2. DECLARE that each sub-region of the African Diaspora will establish an appropriate consultative process to determine its own modality for electing representatives.

  3. URGE the African Union Executive Council to take the following actions in an expeditious manner:

    • Ensure that the African Diaspora is adequately represented in the Bureau, as outlined in Article 9, as one of the Deputy Presiding Officers should be from the Diaspora; as well as one CSO representative must be on the Credentials Committee.

    • Direct ECOSOCC to re-establish communication with the CSOs from the Diaspora who previously made submission of their Framework of Engagement document - to commence its review of their submission, and to provide an update to them - within the next 30 days of the upcoming meeting on 13-14 October 2021.

    • Direct CIDO to contact those CSOs (referred to in 2) to inform them that the review of their pending submission is underway, and for CIDO to give those organisations 30 days to acknowledge that they wish to continue with their applications and update any details. CIDO should then announce a proposed 3 month timeline to the Credential Committee to complete their final decisions on the eligibility of those CSOs from the African Diaspora so they may be added to the list of all accredited CSOs and allow them to prepare for the next elections. In addition, use all communication platforms to publicise this is underway, in order to include all other CSOs that may have interest.

4. REQUEST the AU member states to put in place and enact policies to:-

i) Establish an African Diaspora Desk mandated to ensure that the African Diaspora sub-group - consisting of the specific group of people of African origin, born outside the African Continent, who have never had access to an automatic birthright to claim a specific African citizenship or nationality due to the horrific legacy of the transatlantic slave trade, but recognise their Right To Return (RTR) to their ancestral homeland -  have their specific needs met to achieve successful repatriation with a recommendation that the African Diaspora Desk works in partnership with the Diaspora Advisory Board instituted by the Declaration Of The Global African Summit 2012 for each member state.

ii) Implement legislation to assist African Diaspora RTR Repatriates with acquiring residency, an expedited path to citizenship, land acquisition, and cultural integration programs which includes the creation of a special immigration category to allow ease of repatriation for this group.

iii) Promote joint work between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Immigration, Home Affairs and Pan African CSOs, that can satisfy the ECOSOCC requirements to become a recognised CSO, to ensure enforcement of said policies as it relates to the ease and successful repatriation of African Diaspora RTR Repatriates.

(iv) Create a direct link from the African Diaspora Desk in all member states to CIDO, to implement appropriate African Diaspora Engagement and Assistance strategies for that African Diaspora RTR group across AU member states.

(v) Direct the African Diaspora Desk and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to work on the realization of Vision 2063 with the African Diaspora:- 

  • with the direct engagement of the African Diasporan CSOs through creating incentive schemes for them to invest directly in the priority sectors

  • through providing access to appropriate public and private agencies who could partner with these CSOs to implement agricultural, food security, eco-projects, medical and educational initiatives.

5.   RECOMMENDS these implementations and follow-up mechanisms for this MOTION:

  1. That the AU Executive Council accept this submission at the next meeting 13-14 October 2021 as delivered by the ECOSOCC Secretariat in Zambia, on behalf of the African Diaspora at large; and use that office as a channel to reach us.

  2. That this document be shared with all AU member states’ Ministry Of Foreign Affairs, so that they can implement the proposed resolutions.

  3. That the AU Executive Council remind the relevant AU structures of their responsibility and obligations to enact AU statutes and binding international laws as they relate to the African Diaspora and ensure enforcement of the same.

Signed:

Mrs. Grace A James (Jamaica), Co-President of AfDA

Siphiwe Baleka (USA/Guinea Bissau)

Judge D Peter Herbert O.B.E. (retired) UK

ENDORSED BY THE FOLLOWING DIASPORA ORGANISATIONS

Africa Diaspora Alliance

Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus

Balanta B’urassa History & Genealogy Society in America

Kenya Diaspora Alliance

Zambia Diaspora Foundation

6 Region African Diaspora Alliance in Tanzania

The Mississippi Conference of Black Mayors

Africa-USA Chamber of Commerce

The National Bar Association (USA)

The Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU)

The Society of Black Lawyers (England and Wales)

The Judicial Support Network (England and Wales)

The Honourable Bell Ribeiro-Addy Member of Parliament (U.K.)

The Honourable Claudia Webbe, Member of Parliament, U.K. (Blaksox UK)

Aspire Education (U.K.)

Operation Black Vote (United Kingdom)

The Mississippi Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials

The Cocoa Basket Initiative (U.K.)

UNIA-ACL Kingston Branch

All-African People's Revolutionary Party Tanzania Branch

Bandung Conference

Central American Black Organization (CABO)

Middle East African Diaspora Unity Caucus

Ethiopian World Federation (Addis Abeba Chapter)