Portugal recognizes guilt for slavery and massacre in Brazil for the first time and talks about reparations | World

President of Portugal says country must pay price for slavery and colonial crimes

Portugal was responsible for a series of crimes against slaves and indigenous people in Brazil in the colonial era and must pay for it, said Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.

In a conversation on Tuesday night (23) with foreign correspondents, Rebelo de Sousa also said that suggested to his government to make reparations for slavery and stated that his country “assumes full responsibility for the damage caused”, as massacres of indigenous people, the slavery of millions of Africans and looted goods.

“We have to pay the costs (for slavery). Are there actions that were not punished and those responsible were not arrested? Are there goods that were looted and were not returned? Let’s see how we can repair this”, he declared.

In the conversation, however, the Portuguese president did not specify how the repair will be carried out.

And the first time that a president of Portugal — who is the head of state in the country — acknowledges guilt. Last year, Rebelo de Sousa said Portugal should apologize for transatlantic slavery and colonialism, but Didn’t even apologize in full.

As early as Tuesday night, he claimed that acknowledging the past and taking responsibility for it was more important than apologizing.

“Apologizing is the easy part,” he said.

Portugal was the country that trafficked the most Africans in the colonial era. They were almost 6 million of themalmost half of the total number of people enslaved at the time by European countries.

To this day, however, the country’s authorities talk little about crime, and schools also barely address Portugal’s role in transatlantic slavery.

Instead, Portugal’s colonial era — during which countries such as Angola, Mozambique, Brazil, Cape Verde and East Timor, as well as parts of India, were subjected to Portuguese rule — is often seen as a source of pride.

For more than four centuries, at least 12.5 million Africans were kidnapped, forcibly transported long distances, mainly by European ships and traders, and sold into slavery. Those who survived the journey were sent to work without any pay on plantations in Brazil and the Caribbean.

The idea of ​​paying reparations or taking other action for transatlantic slavery has been gaining traction around the world, including efforts to establish a special tribunal on the issue.