Oral Statement to the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights
Fifty-Fourth Session (2002)
Agenda Item 5 (c)
In 1997 and 1998 the Sub-Commission passed two resolutions of concern to us. The first called upon the Working Group on Minorities to consider how the Sub-Commission in its future work might usefully address the continuing legal, political and economic legacies of the African slave trade, as experienced by Black communities throughout the Americas. The second urged the Working Group on Minorities to include on its agenda an item on issues related to the legacies of the slave trade on the Black communities throughout the Americas.
At the 4th Session of the Working Group on Minorities we saw that the protections offered minorities under Article 27 of the ICCPR did not apply to us, the descendants of enslaved Africans, for we have been denied a collective international identity and denied our original mother tongues, cultures and religions, which is the total destruction of our essence, although some of us are unaware.
One of the decisions of the Working Group on Minorities was to assign Mr. Jose Bengoa to write a paper on the existence and recognition of minorities. This paper was a tremendous benefit to us, for it started the process of our recognition as minorities undergoing ethnogenesis.
In 2001 the Working Group participated in a Saturday session held in Geneva, and in a Conference held in Montreal, Canada in order to listen to our issues. The Working Group also listened to our issues at the World Conference Against Racism in Durban and at a historic meeting in La Ceiba, Honduras.
In Honduras it was shown that "minorities" is an evolving term: it could denote who has the minority of power and wealth, and clearly the Afro Descendants are usually the minority in that respect. Also in Honduras we Afro Descendants, of some 19 countries, recognized ourselves and decided, by concensus, that we wish to be recognized by the UN as Afro Descendant Minorities.
The Working Group on Minorities has acknowledged our decision to be recognized as Afro Descendant Minorities. We ask the Sub-Commission to acknowledge our decision also.
In conclusion, we recognize that as minorities we do not have full equality before the law due to the total destruction of our essence, our identity, which, as we have seen, is the loss of our identity internationally. We believe the reinstatement of us to the human family, and reparation can take place with the continued effort of the Sub-Commission and the Working Group on Minorities.
Mr. Silis Muhammad
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