Abstract.
I make no illusion about my status as an intergenerational victim of gross violations of international human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law during the German invasion of Africa. A German expeditionary force invaded my ancestral homeland, Bangwa, West Africa, in 1899. The German expeditionary campaign lasted about nine years. 

Resistance to the German invasion was led by my great grandfather Fontem Asonganyi King of the Bangwa (ca. 1870-1951). During the expeditionary campaign, the Bangwa were subjected to well documented grave atrocity crimes. These violations occurred at a time when twenty-six states in Europe were establishing the Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907) for the limitation of the sufferings of war and provided protections for all “moveable or immovable property of great importance to the cultural heritage of every people irrespective of origin”. 1 The First Hague Conference (18 May and 29 May 1899) established a new foundation for international law.

Pursuant to the Hague Conventions and the Hague principles, the Bangwa cultural heritage was entitled to protections provided to “cultural heritage of every people irrespective of origin”. This did not occur. For these colonial powers, Africa was not a subject of international law and victims of gross colonial violations and serious crimes were not entitled to protections under international law and national jurisdictions of colonial powers.

Colonial crimes and the controlling neo-colonial world order are interlinked by an umbilical cord of exploitation, prejudice and injustice. Colonial criminal arrogance, impunity and systemic policy and culture of colonial prejudice, precluded African victims who were characterised as colonial possessions and conquered colonial peoples from equal protections under international law. International violations and crimes against colonised people were legitimised, encouraged, enabled and celebrated as blessings of Western civilisation.

The prejudice and harm caused by these violations have an enduring, continuing and intergenerational effect on victims. Requests by victims and their succeeding generations for reparations have not seared into the conscience of humanity. The controlling neo-colonial world order has evinced no meaningful effort to acknowledge responsibility for colonial crimes; apologies and a commitment of non-repetition. These would have constituted reasonable first steps toward reparation.

European institutions of perpetual dominance, superiority and prejudice were established on a foundation of gross human rights violations and serious international crimes. Neo-colonial states in Africa were established on this foundation. National jurisdictions in these countries were not empowered to provide effective reparations, restitution, repatriation and restorative justice for victims and affected communities.

In attempts to override the interest and rights of victims and affected communities, colonial powers are demonstrating preferences to negotiate reparations, restitution and repatriation claims with neo-colonial states in Africa. This is inconsistent with principles of reparation which are well founded in international law;2 and the jurisprudence of the International Criminal Court in the Thomas Lubanga Appeal Judgment which established the principles of reparation principles in international criminal law. 3  

The ghost of colonialism has hampered effective individual and collective measures for securing reparation for colonial crimes and the repatriation of stolen or looted cultural objects and treasures. Africa does not have robust national and/or continental legal frameworks for reparation, restitution, repatriation, and restorative justice for colonial crimes. Available national legal frameworks are foster children of colonial systems which conceived, legitimized, and benefited from colonialism. Profound reforms of the inherited colonial legal orders are required for effective reparations, restitution and repatriation justice for victims and affected communities. Without reparation, restitution, repatriation and restoration justice for victims, African countries cannot be said to have attained complete or meaningful independence. 

This paper demonstrates the enduring nature of gross international human rights violations and serious violations of international humanitarian law which victims and affected communities endured and suffered. The paper has established a factual, legal and historical basis for reparation and restitution, and proposes a complementarity multi-pronged approach for successful outcomes.