Author name: Ashton

Dutch king says sorry but offers no compensation for role in slave trade

World /

Dutch King Willem-Alexander asked for forgiveness and apologized for his country’s role in the slave trade in a speech on Saturday. “Today I’m standing here in front of you as your king and as part of the government. Today I am apologizing myself,” Willem-Alexander said at an official event marking 150 years since the end of slavery in Dutch colonies. One former lawmaker claimed to a Dutch broadcaster that he started crying as the king apologized. Willem-Alexander also said he has authorised a study into the role of the royal family in slavery in the Netherlands as a study published last month showed that the royal family had earned the modern-day equivalent of 545 million euros just from the slave trade alone. Dutch PM Rutte did not offer compensation to descendants of enslaved people when he apologized last year in December for the Dutch’s role in slavery. Before the king’s speech on Saturday, Black Manifesto and The Black Archives groups marched under the banner reading “No healing without reparations.” Speaking to a US wire service, Black Archives director Mitchell Esajas said, “An apology should be tied to a form of repair and reparatory justice or reparations.” The harrowing colonial history of the Netherlands has been under renewed scrutiny following the aftermath of the race riots in the US. The Dutch’s involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade began in the late 1500s but it took them last than a hundred years to be a major global slave trader.

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De Beers signs new diamond sales deal with Botswana

Africa /

Botswana and controversial mining company De Beers have announced they agreed in principle on a new diamond sales deal and to extend mining licences for their venture. Friday’s deal comes after months of tense negotiations in which Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi pushed De Beers for a bigger share of Debswana’s output. The new deal covers a 10-year sales deal for rough diamond production and 25-year mining licences for their joint Debswana venture. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Botswana would get a bigger share of Debswana’s output from the deal as it had hoped for. Under the deal that ended on Friday, Debswana, sold 75% of its output to De Beers, with the balance taken up by state-owned Okavango Diamond Company. Masisi said on Friday that although De Beers had started to concede to some demands, Gaboron also had to make some concessions. An interim sales agreement is in place until the new deal is finalised, the two partners said in a statement. In March, Botswana announced it would take a 24% stake in Belgian gem processing firm HB Antwerp in a move seen as designed to loosen De Beers’ grip on the country’s gems. Botswana supplies 70% of De Beers’ rough diamonds. Debswana joint venture diamond sales nearly account for two-thirds of Botswana’s foreign currency receipts and a fifth of its GDP Debswana’s diamond sales increased by $1.1 billion in 2022 compared to 2021, with a record $4.6 billion total. De Beers has been criticised over the decades for being involved in the blood diamond trade. Most of the mining company’s shady exploits have been reported in South Africa. But its tendrils reach Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Botswana. It is accused of displacing, killing, incarcerating and working millions of Afrikaners to death. Under the leadership of Cecil Rhodes, De Beers and its many subsidiaries also justified this through the belief in white supremacy from the 1800s forward.

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Washington deeply alarmed about Wagner’s ‘destabilizing activities...

Africa /

Washington “remains deeply concerned” about Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner PMC’s “destabilizing activities” in Africa, said the White House on Friday. US National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby speaking at an event said that since 2016 Wagner PMC infiltrated African countries such as the Central African Republic and more recently Mali, “undermining their sovereignty, stealing their natural resources and killing their people”. “We have no indication that Wagner is decreasing its intent to exploit African countries despite the events of last weekend,” said Kirby, referring to a revolt led by Prigozhin in response to an alleged Russian strike on his PMC. Kirby said Wagner is playing a “deadly and toxic” role in Mali, where it has operated since December 2021. “Our information indicates that the Malian transition government has paid $200 million to Wagner since late 2021,” said Kirby. “Despite these hundreds of millions of dollars, Wagner has not improved Mali’s security situation,” he said. “Wagner has instead brought more bloodshed, creating opportunities for terrorist exploitation”. Kirby said that Washington will continue to work with its allies to address the threats that Wagner poses in Africa and elsewhere. “We’re also going to keep open additional opportunities to hold Wagner accountable as appropriate there or anywhere else that we find them continuing to conduct these destabilizing activities,” he added.

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