All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC)
Statement on the 8th Pan-African Congress
August 19, 2014
To: International Preparatory Committee for the 8th Pan-African Congress (8th PAC) and the North American Delegation
The All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC), respectfully, declines your invitation dated July 19, 2014, to participate in 8th Pan-African Congress, convening November 4-9, 2014, in Accra Ghana. We have followed the 40-year struggle to convene 6th, 7th and 8th PAC’s. The A-APRP (GC) has discussed the call for an 8th PAC for almost two years. We were informed about the progress of other efforts in Trinidad and South Africa. We were correspondingly informed of anti-Arab, anti-North African sentiments, anti-Muslim and other views. We exchanged our views—openly and principally–to all parties concerned, but did not join or attack any initiative. We would error by joining or attacking this 8th PAC initiative. For what purpose, and to what end?
Malcolm X correctly stated in 1964: kittens born in an oven are not biscuits. We are African, period; and it is unthinkable for us to be part of a Delegation that identifies itself as North American and is composed overwhelmingly of individuals and organizations with whom we share no history of struggle, and have minimal or nothing politically in common. We would never consent to being silenced, managed or controlled. We would never agree to implement positions and projects with which we disagree. We know that our Nkrumahist-Toureist analysis of history and our principled positions on socialism, capitalism, imperialism, neo-colonialism, apartheid and zionism would be a minority interpretation, a correct one nonetheless. It is better raised, principally, outside this Congress.
The 8th PAC theme speaks about a “pan-African Movement.” The A-APRP (GC) is part of the “Pan-African Movement,” and is conscious of the difference between the two. The 8th PAC theme calls for“structural transformation” without explaining how it is better than “structural adjustment”. The A-APRP (GC) calls for the political education and organization of the African masses, and for the organization of the African Revolution.
The African Revolution has identified its enemies and is crystal clear that the realization of Pan-Africanism can only come with the complete destruction of capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, settler-colonialism, segregation, apartheid, zionism, neo-colonialism, and with them sexism, racism, Euro-Asian supremacy, and all of their manifestations in every corner of Africa, the African Diaspora and the world. We are also clear that, in our Pan-Africanist lineage, Pan-Africanism is correctly defined as, One Unified Socialist Africa!
“The Pan-African Congress Movement: Building Solidarity for Emancipation and Transformation” is posted on the North American Delegation’s official website. We note the ideological inconsistency with respect to the use of “pan” versus “Pan.” The Pan-African Congress Movement that it speaks of is at best, a subset of the larger Pan-African Movement; it is not the Movement. This paper references the “global political, social and environmental challenges” that we face today. It does not mention the global economic, military-police and ideological war that is raging in every corner of Africa, the African Diaspora and the world. Why?
The A-APRP (GC) disagrees with this line of thinking regarding the origin of the Pan-African Movement, which has been the dominant view for a century, a view that was shared by Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure and Kwame Ture. Historical research and ideological struggle has called this view into question. It is sexist, elitist, chauvinist, micro-national and African-American centered. Intellectual honesty requires us to revisit and re-frame it.
How can Dr. W.E.B. DuBois be considered the “father of Pan-Africanism” when Henry Sylvester Williams and others proceeded him; and Marcus Garvey and George Padmore were his contemporaries? How many fathers do we have or need? Who is the“mother of Pan-Africanism?” The “roots of Pan-Africanism,” according to The Pan-African Congress Movement: Building Solidarity for Emancipation and Transformation, “can be traced to the trans-Atlantic slave-trade,” “500 years ago,” and “the bonds of solidarity and unity forged” on the slave ships. Why trade instead of trafficking? Why not war or “social violence” as Walter Rodney labeled these slave raids?
Why do we continue to frame Pan-Africanism as a reaction to Euro-Asiatic “adventures,” to paraphrase Kwame Nkrumah, albeit tragic ones? The A-APRP (GC) traces the roots of Pan-Africanism to the struggle—class struggle, following the laws of historical development, —to build a larger and more complex African society and civilization in every corner of Africa, north and south, east and west? Surely, this is the main root!
Why trace Pan-Africanism’s roots to the trans-Atlantic traffic exclusively, and not the trans-Mediterranean, trans-Red Sea, trans-Indian Ocean and other external routes of trafficking and the enslavement of Africans, many of which continue to function today? Why not also include the internal routes of human trafficking in every corner of Africa before, during and after the European and Asiatic (including Arab) invasions, which were conducted in the name of Judaism, Christianity and Islam? Did we not forge unity and solidarity during these Maafas as well?
Do we suggest that the 500,000 Africans trafficked to the United States made a greater contribution to the Pan-African Movement—which is larger than the Pan-African Congresses—than the 10,000,000 Africans who were trafficked to the rest of the Americas, or the 15,000,000 who were trafficked to Asia and Oceania? Is this not chauvinism, “American exceptionalism” in its ugliest form, by Africans enslaved in the “belly of the beast?”
As Nkrumahists-Toureists, we respect and support all progressive and revolutionary meetings and traditions within the Pan-African Movement. We condemn the counter-revolutionary and neo-colonialist meetings and traditions. We inherit and continue the revolutionary organizational tradition that emerged full blown at the 5th Pan-African Congress in Manchester in 1945. Our inheritance and continuation also emanates from the African Democratic Rally(RDA) in Bamako in 1946, the Bandung Conference in 1955, the African-Asian People’s Solidarity (AAPSO) meeting in Cairo in 1957, the All-African People’s Conference (AAPC) meeting in Accra in 1958, the Organization of the People’s of Africa, Asia and Latin America (OSPAAL)meeting in Havana in 1966, the Organization for Latin American Solidarity (OLAS) meeting in Havana in 1967, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) meeting in Caracas in 2004, and a host of follow-up, and other regional and local meetings. The 6th, 7th and 8th Pan-African Congresses are not a part of the Pan-African movement’s revolutionary tradition. We are conscious of the neo-colonial parties and governmental processes within the façade of the Pan-African Movement, but we choose to not have any relationship with them, or the African Union.
What does “intellectual understanding” and “spirit of freedom mean?”These concepts sound elitist and a-historical. Intellectuals understand, while the masses are imbued with emotions and spirits? This assessment, sounds like warmed over spittle, warmed over “Negritude”. We are asked to believe that Africa is “liberated,” with the exception of a few remaining colonies in Africa and the African Diaspora. How is this “liberation” defined; and when, where and how did it occur? How has it changed the condition and lives of the masses of African People on or off the continent? If “liberated,” then a new series of pan-African meetings is surely required? Those of us who know that Africa and the African Diaspora is not “liberated” will continue to fulfill our generational mission to help liberate it from the bottom up, not the top down.
Twenty years ago, on April 6, 1994, the last day of the 7th Pan-African Congress, a plane carrying Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira, Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, respectively, was shot down killing all aboard. Genocidal killings organized by the Rwandan government, mass murder organized by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a wave of spontaneous revenge killings, and mass displacement of the Rwandan people began the following day, and continued for four months. This event escalated the four year old “civil war.”
From April 7, 1994 to mid-July, an estimated 800,000–1,000,000 Rwandans were slaughtered: 300,000 to 500,000 Tutsis and 500,000 to 700,000 Hutus. Who murdered them, and why? What role did France, the United States, Tanzania, Uganda, Libya, and other countries play? An additional 2 million Rwandan citizens became external refugees, and 1 to 2 million became internal refugees. This Rwandan Genocide has had a lasting and profound impact on its neighboring countries, particularly in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, including the First Congo War (1996–97) and Second Congo War(1998-2003), and the conflict in Goma (2003-2013). Nothing was said about these crimes during the 7th PAC or the last 20 years. Why?
It would be a crime against our conscience, a crime against history, a crime against African and world humanity, if this silence of betrayal was permitted at the 8th Pan-African Congress. AFRICOM, the militarization of Africa, and related “democracy promotion” and “development” efforts by the United States and its allied governments must be condemned. The genocide being committed in Palestine, in West Papua New Guinea, and other areas of the world must also be exposed and condemned. The All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC) rededicates itself to these tasks!