The Algiers Declaration Calls for Justice, Reparations, and Structural Reform: Africa Sets a New Agenda Against the Legacy of Colonial Crimes
✍️ BY: Dr. Hana Saada
Algiers – December 2025 – Adopted at the close of the International Conference on Colonial Crimes in Africa, the Algiers Declaration emerged as a forceful political and diplomatic document reaffirming Africa’s collective demand for justice, reparations, and historical recognition. The declaration, made public on Monday evening in Algiers under the high patronage of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, issued a solemn call urging former colonial powers to fully acknowledge their historical responsibilities “through a public and explicit recognition of the injustices committed” and to cooperate unconditionally in the restitution of resources to their countries of origin.
At the forefront of the declaration is a proposal — initiated by the President of the Republic — to proclaim 30 November as “African Day of Tribute to the Victims of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Colonialism and Apartheid.” This proposal crystallizes the symbolic and moral significance of the conference, while rooting Africa’s call for justice in a shared commemorative identity.
The declaration further pressed the African Union Commission and international partners to strengthen the legal and institutional framework enabling sustainable mechanisms for the recovery of looted African heritage. Delegates underscored the urgency of operationalizing the Grand Museum of Africa, described as a “continental institution mandated to preserve African heritage and document the socio-economic distortions caused by the exploitation of labour, land and resources.” These distortions, they noted, continue to generate “systemic, deeply embedded structural inequalities,” revealing that colonial legacies have not dissipated but remain entrenched within contemporary global systems.
Echoing a historical truth too often marginalized, the declaration reaffirmed that colonialism, the transatlantic slave trade, deportation, and apartheid are crimes against humanity and forms of genocide that inflicted systemic harm on African peoples. Participants stressed that the economic impacts of colonialism persist, most visibly through the ongoing control of strategic resources, reinforcing imbalanced global power structures.
In this regard, they called for a reform of global economic governance, aimed at dismantling colonial legacies embedded within international financial institutions and trade regimes. Coordinated legal, diplomatic, and economic strategies were urged as essential tools for advancing the continent’s industrialization. Delegates further denounced persistent discriminatory practices, noting that international airports remain configured by racial hierarchies rooted in colonial logic, illustrating how colonial residues continue to shape everyday infrastructures in subtle yet enduring ways.
The Algiers Declaration also expressed strong solidarity with CARICOM states, recognizing their ongoing struggle for reparative justice and situating Africa’s demands within a global movement for restitution and historical accountability.
A Post-Colonial Struggle Anchored in Strategy, not Symbolism
In remarks delivered at the closing ceremony, Salima Bakhta Mansouri, Secretary of State in charge of African Affairs, emphasised that the true value of the conference lies not merely in its final document, but in its aftermath — in Africa’s capacity to consolidate its position ahead of the next African Union Summit, to craft a long-term legal strategy, and to convert this momentum into a genuine starting point toward historical justice.
“What was achieved under the guidance of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune,” she noted, “is a first step toward building a strong Africa, with a clear purpose, ready to engage in a long struggle for truth, justice, and development.” Mansouri stressed that the gathering in Algeria was not an academic seminar nor a symbolic stage for rhetorical exchange, but a process of reorganizing the continent’s priorities, opening “a new horizon for collective African action.”
She asserted that the work of the conference had exposed a critical truth: colonial crimes are not relics of the past but an active system whose consequences continue to shape development trajectories, power tools, and relations of force across the continent. Addressing these crimes, she argued, cannot be reduced to administrative procedures, and “Algeria cannot be disengaged from this struggle.”
“Our battle is not only about financial compensation,” she declared, “but about redefining the conditions of development, breaking cycles of dependency, and repositioning Africa within the global economy on just and equitable foundations.”
Mansouri further highlighted the urgent need to strengthen the role of the African Union as a legal and institutional actor on the international scene, capable of leading the continent’s fight for reparations, sovereignty, and structural transformation.
The Algiers Declaration thus positions Africa not as a passive recipient of historical injustice, but as a strategic, unified actor determined to dismantle colonial residues in law, economy, culture, and infrastructure. It marks not an end point, but the beginning of a long and complex struggle — one in which Africa demands not apology, but equity; not charity, but restitution; not rhetoric, but structural change.
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