IVORY COAST: France honours for the first time the victims of its slave trade

Record ID: 182494

  • Title: IVORY COAST: France honours for the first time the victims of its slave trade
  • Date: 11th May 2006
  • Summary: (W5) BASSAM, ABIDJAN, IVORY COAST (MAY 10, 2006) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF BASSAM STREET (2 SHOTS) VARIOUS OF NATIONAL MUSEUM OF COSTUME (2 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 26th May 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations,History
  • Reuters ID: LVA2M6BMY8HQGY4MKDMXXXHSZC0Z
  • Story Text: France on Wednesday (May 10) honoured for the first time the victims of its slave trade, 158 years after it stopped the practice of taking people from their African homelands and enslaving them in Caribbean colonies.
    But people in the streets on towns in Ivory Coast, a country heavily hit by the slave trade, were different opinions as to whether it was a good idea remembering the slavery.
    Antique dealer Serine Gueye was very much in favour of the decision by France to commemorate the slave trade, but said: "I think that it is a good initiative that France took for saying to people not only that slavery did exist, but bringing people to understand that the slavery is still existing [until now]."
    But Noel Ekra, a cultural worker at the National Museum of Bassam, was not of that opinion, and said that it would only remind people of the tragic past: "Slavery was very dramatic. I must say that it was the massive slaughter of the black race, and I think that was a bad thing. When France chooses to commemorate this day, it was like stirring the knife in the wound. People have already suffered enough, and it should not be pointed out again."
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