Portugal says no plans to pay colonial reparations

World News@lemmy.world – 155 points – 6 months ago

Portugal says no plans to pay colonial reparations – DW – 04/28/2024

Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa had called for Lisbon to find ways to compensate its former colonies, including canceling debt. The government says it has not initiated any process to that effect.

Lisbon is not planning to pay reparations for trans-Atlantic slavery and colonialism, Portugal's government said on Saturday.

The statement comes in response to remarks by President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who said Portugal could find ways to compensate its former colonies.

Portugal said in a statement that it seeks to "deepen mutual relations, respect for historical truth and increasingly intense and close cooperation, based on reconciliation of brotherly peoples."

It stressed that it had not launched any "process or program of specific actions" for paying reparations.

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Using the same logic as you used, then the US still has Slavery because people in its prisons are forced to work all of which is legal hence the State approves of it.

Similarly by that logic of yours the UK also had Slavery until the 20th Century since they had Indentured Servitude.

Oh yeah, and pretty much every single instance in any country (Communist China being a good example) were people were forced to move to the fields and work there is per your logic Slavery.

Correct. A slave by any other name is still a slave.

Well within that definition of yours, I have to agree.

All that shit is exploitation and people who suffered should be compensated, with the money for the compensation coming from those who profited from the exploitation and those in positions of authority who made it possible for it to occur.