Despite their historical past, Africans cannot be absolved of their own responsibility to themselves and their children, said United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Annan said it was easy to blame ills on the past and on outsiders - the depredations of imperialism and the slave trade, the imbalance of power and wealth in a flagrantly unjust world. "But that cannot absolve us, the Africans of today, from our own responsibility to ourselves and to our children.”