African peoples and the Afro-descendant diaspora do not have to ask permission from former colonizers to “talk about memory”, declared Robert Dussey during a pre-congress in preparation for the 9th Pan-African Congress in Lome.

This event will be an opportunity to “take concrete actions” to give meaning to the Pan-Africanist struggle, affirmed the minister without specifying what actions were involved.

“We suffered from slavery, deportation and colonialism. We continue to suffer from neocolonialism, but we do not have the right to say so. Why do we not have the right to claim our humanity? We do not have to ask permission from all those who plundered the African continent, to take back what they stole”, he argued.