Portugal’s Debate Over Colonial And Slavery Reparations Resurfaces

By Alison Roberts\BBC Photos: YouTube Screenshots The Portuguese government has said it has no plans to pay Reparations for the country’s role in transatlantic slavery and colonialism. The previously dormant debate about the country’s role in the slave trade and other colonial-era abuses roared back into life last week after its President, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, suggested it should make amends for such “crimes”. But the right-of-centre government – dominated by a party that Mr de Sousa once led – dismissed the idea, while the far-right Chega party is to seek a vote in parliament condemning the president and his comments, which it said “undoubtedly represent a betrayal of the Portuguese people and its History”. It was in a wide-ranging conversation with foreign correspondents that the president was asked whether Reparations were due for the slave trade, during which Portuguese ships took millions of people from Africa, mainly to Brazil, where they were forced to work on plantations. In his response, he did not mention slavery, but said Portugal should take “full responsibility” for its past, citing massacres and looting as abuses for which it could “pay the costs”. Brazil’s Minister of Racial Equality, Anielle Franco, demanded “concrete actions” to...