Most African countries are crime scenes — Kagoro

Managing director of Open Society Foundations (OSF) Africa Brian Kagoro on Tuesday said most African countries are crime scenes.

Kagoro’s assertion was in apparent reference to the scars that African countries still bear from past colonial injustices.

He was engaging with panelists on discussions at the OSF tour in Windhoek, which tackled the role of women in dealing with past injustices.

Kagoro said the pending issue of past colonial injustices in most African countries needs to be dealt with.

He said reparations to be paid to Africans for loss of life and wealth to colonialism can not be quantified in monetary value.

“The black man was the property of the white men in the past. Part of the psych of violence is bred in that colonial era,” he said.

Kagoro said some men in modern day society also treat women in an unfair way, mirroring the effect of racism on Africans in the past.

“We need to agree, my brothers, that when we cannot compete for jobs with our women we then use violence the same way racists treated us in the same era,” Kagoro said.

CAPTURING HISTORY
Speaking at the same event, former minister of justice Yvonne Dausab underscored the importance of African countries to capture history in real time.

“We also need to understand that the issue of the restorative justice is not a new issue. This issue has alsready been dealt with at the African Union,” she said.

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