Should Reparations For Massive Human Rights Abuses Perpetrated on African Victims During Colonial Times be Given?

The issue of the rights of African victims of the colonial period is an understudied and under-researched area (Ulrich and Boserup 2001). However, the inhabitants of Africa even during the colonial period had rights and are attempting to claim reparations today based on those rights (Sarkin 2004a). For this reason, dealing with the issues that occurred during colonial times in Africa is highly controversial (Spitzer 2002, p. 1). There are many who argue that such rights do not exist and that such claims should not be supported, even though the effects on Africa and its inhabitants of what occurred many years ago are still being felt today (Howard-Hassmann and Lombardo 2008). ¹ Those opposed to Africans having such rights argue that for legal, political, cultural, economic and practical reasons, those rights never existed and reparations to Africans are not justified, not legally due and ought not to be paid. ² These issues are contentious (Brooks 1999; Osabu-Kle 2000; Wareham 2003, p. 228) partly because it is agreed that genocides, crimes against humanity, exterminations, ethnic cleansing, disappearances, land expropriation, forced labour, the use of comfort women, experimentations and other gross human rights violations were committed by colonial governments and multinational corporations. The question that is raised, however, is whether states and corporations had legal duties to those upon whom the violations were committed. Those who do not support claims by Africans argue that what occurred were not crimes or human rights violations when they occurred as international law at the time did not prohibit such conduct, that anyway too long has passed and that the victims of these atrocities are no longer alive. Thus, the argument made is that rights did not exist and even if they did the passage of time has made them extinct. It is also argued that the former colonizers recognize their responsibili-ties ³ and give development aid to the countries they once occupied, and this is just compensation for what occurred.