There is a say­ing with re­search, you’re al­ways search­ing and you on­ly know when you find it be­cause some­times you do not know what you are search­ing for.

The Com­mon­wealth was born out of Colo­nial­ism and the British Em­pire. This week in Sin­ga­pore, the lead­er­ship of the Com­mon­wealth Games Fed­er­a­tion (CGF) for the next four years, will be de­ter­mined.

In the run-up to prob­a­bly the most sig­nif­i­cant elec­tions in the his­to­ry of the Com­mon­wealth Sport Move­ment, not much has been ar­tic­u­lat­ed about the chal­lenge to the rel­e­vance of the CGF, giv­en calls for atone­ment by or­gan­i­sa­tions and in­sti­tu­tions with ex­ten­sive ties to colo­nial­ism and slav­ery.

Can­di­dates are in the run­ning for pres­i­dent, vice pres­i­dents, re­gion­al vice pres­i­dents and sport com­mit­tee mem­bers for the CGF.

Re­gion­al meet­ings take place to­day - the first day (No­vem­ber 14) - to elect six re­gion­al vice pres­i­dents to the board and six sports com­mit­tee mem­bers. The pres­i­dent and three vice pres­i­dents will be elect­ed to the Board at the full Gen­er­al As­sem­bly to­mor­row (No­vem­ber 15).

Giv­en the CGF's re­luc­tance to face up to its his­to­ry, lega­cies and ex­ten­sive ties to em­pire and colo­nial­ism, a re­cent Unit­ed Na­tions re­port is time­ly. The re­port, de­liv­ered to the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, says repa­ra­tions are es­sen­tial to rec­ti­fy past in­jus­tices against peo­ple of African de­scent and are "a cor­ner­stone of jus­tice in the 21st cen­tu­ry".

Ep­sy Camp­bell Barr, chair of the Per­ma­nent Fo­rum on Peo­ple of African De­scent, said the re­port un­der­lines that “the lega­cies of colo­nial­ism, en­slave­ment and apartheid are still alive to­day and the re­port high­lights that “there is an in­vis­i­bil­i­ty of peo­ple of African de­scent, es­pe­cial­ly for vul­ner­a­ble groups."

The fo­rum was es­tab­lished by a Gen­er­al As­sem­bly res­o­lu­tion in Au­gust 2021 as a UN con­sul­ta­tive body for im­prov­ing the safe­ty, qual­i­ty of life and liveli­hoods of peo­ple of African de­scent. It al­so serves as an ad­vi­so­ry body to the Gene­va-based Hu­man Rights Coun­cil.

Camp­bell Barr not­ed that dur­ing the ses­sions of the Per­ma­nent Fo­rum, halt­ing and re­vers­ing the last­ing con­se­quences of en­slave­ment, colo­nial­ism, geno­cide and apartheid were seen as key to ad­dress­ing sys­temic and struc­tur­al racism against peo­ple of African de­scent in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

On the is­sue of repa­ra­tions, it rec­om­mends that all 193 UN mem­ber na­tions “ed­u­cate them­selves and the pub­lic on the his­to­ries and lega­cies of colo­nial­ism and en­slave­ment".

It says they should recog­nise how they con­tributed to or suf­fered from these lega­cies, and elim­i­nate all forms of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion at the lo­cal, na­tion­al, re­gion­al and glob­al lev­els.

The re­port al­so rec­om­mends fos­ter­ing pan­el dis­cus­sions, hold­ing a glob­al sum­mit and seek­ing le­gal opin­ions and stud­ies on the repa­ra­tions is­sue.

The idea for the fo­rum was con­ceived at the start of the In­ter­na­tion­al Decade of Peo­ple of African De­scent, which be­gan in 2014 and ends in 2024. The fo­rum calls in the re­port for an ex­ten­sion to a sec­ond decade, through 2034.

The 2021 as­sem­bly res­o­lu­tion called for the fo­rum to con­sid­er draft­ing a UN de­c­la­ra­tion on the pro­mo­tion, pro­tec­tion and re­spect for the hu­man rights of peo­ple of African de­scent. In the re­port, the fo­rum strong­ly sup­ports such a de­c­la­ra­tion, say­ing it would fill gaps in ex­ist­ing hu­man rights in­stru­ments and “be a vi­tal tool to guar­an­tee dig­ni­ty, in­clu­sion, eq­ui­ty and repara­to­ry jus­tice for Africans and peo­ple of African de­scent".

Sports Diplo­ma­cy and grass­roots sport diplo­ma­cy should mat­ter to the CGF and the en­tire Com­mon­wealth Sport Move­ment.

The con­se­quence of avoid­ing dis­cus­sions and de­bates about repa­ra­tions is that the truth of the CGF's his­to­ry is be­ing erased. But maybe that's the in­ten­tion of the in­com­ing CGF lead­er­ship. De­ny and dis­miss - let's keep the skele­tons in the cup­board.