Open Letter from Lybon Mabasa, President, Socialist Party of
Azania (South Africa) to Black Activists and Organizations in the United
States
Attention:
U.S. Organising Committee
International Tribunal on Africa
Julian Kunnie and Alan Benjamin
P.O. Box 40009
San Francisco, CA 94140
Dear Sisters and Brothers:
Four years ago, Black unionists and activists from 21 African countries,
Brazil, the Caribbean and the United States came together at the
International Tribunal on Africa, held in Los Angeles, California.
There, on the basis of detailed testimony and documentation compiled in
Tribunal preparatory sessions held across Africa over two years, we put
the spotlight on the deadly evolution that threatens the very existence
of the peoples of Africa.
Our continent, first ravaged by the slave trade and then by colonial
occupation, found the promise of national liberation confiscated and
betrayed by horrific so-called "ethnic" wars and structural
adjustment/debt-repayment programmes -- all of which were imposed by the
U.S. government and by the international institutions of finance capital
(IMF, World Bank, WTO, European Union, AGOA, NEPAD). Millions of people
are dying in the killing fields or in our villages and city streets from
HIV/AIDS and pandemics thought to be eradicated long ago.
In Los Angeles, we also reaffirmed that racism against people of African
origin on all continents is a scourge that has not been erased. On the
contrary, Black people -- from Brazil, to the Caribbean, to the United
States -- are being driven into sub-human conditions, rounded up in
prisons, placed on chain gangs, subjected to indiscriminate police
violence, and/or heaved onto the scrap-heap of unemployment and
homelessness.
The children of Africa are looking for a ray of hope. Our peoples want a
future free from landlessness, homelessness, unemployment, poverty and
want. They want to live in peace, free from the wars imposed from the
outside by monied interests. They want to prevent the destruction of
their nations and of their very sons and daughters.
Everywhere across Africa people are asking: Is it possible to stem this
deadly course? Is it possible to save the African continent? Can we
avoid this fate which, unless reversed, awaits all humanity?
Today, we need your help!
Our embattled Africa needs the help of our sisters and brothers, who,
with their revolutionary actions began to change the course of history
when they helped secure the Northern victory in the U.S. Civil War. We
need the help of our sisters and brothers who confronted the water
cannons and federal troops to put an end to Jim Crow. We need the help
of our sisters and brothers who have enjoined their fight to ours in the
struggle for collective reparations, for an end to the imposition of IMF
Structural Adjustment Plans and debt repayment, for the cancellation of
the African debt, for an end to the U.S.-led military interventions in
Africa and beyond, for the withdrawal of all foreign occupation forces
from our continent, for the respect of the right of our peoples to
self-determination.
We in Africa have viewed with great shock as the current administration
levels an unprecedented assault against Black America, bringing back Jim
Crow laws and Death Row executions. We've been stunned to see how in
November 2000 they stole the vote of the American people -- particularly
the vote of 80,000 Black Americans in Florida, who were simply dropped
from the voters' lists to ensure the Bush "selection."
We were alarmed to see the Bush administration rain down bombs on the
peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq for the sake of oil and empire.
But we also were angered by the fact you were abandoned by politicians
of all stripes who, despite giving lip service to your cause, refused to
mobilise the outrage felt by millions over the Bush/Supreme Court coup
d'etat, and who, since that time, have endorsed all of Bush's attacks on
working people in the U.S. and abroad in the name of the phony "war
on terrorism."
Dear Sisters and Brothers:
The eyes of the peoples of Africa, just like the eyes of the rest of the
world, are turned to the United States this election year.
From South Africa/Azania, we are deeply concerned. We know there is
bound to be a discussion on all the issues that affect the peoples of
African origin. But from afar, we hear no voices speaking out
forthrightly against the pillage of our continent, against the wars
devastating the peoples and nations of Africa, or against the
unprecedented onslaught against working people in the United States
itself -- particularly Black Americans and other oppressed
nationalities.
As one of the African coordinators of the International Tribunal on
Africa, I had the good fortune to travel across the United States in
1999 to build support for the Tribunal in Los Angeles. I visited your
schools, campuses, union and community halls, and churches. I heard your
anger, but I also heard your fighting determination -- which gave me
great strength and hope to carry on.
Today, more than four years later, I feel I must return to the United
States to bring our appeal for help. Our continent is on the edge of the
abyss. We need your help so that we can start to turn things around, so
that we can forge our own solutions -- something that is not possible as
long as Black people are denied political sovereignty over their own
countries.
And I want to bring a message to you: Don't all the children of Africa
need an independent voice to speak for them in the U.S. political arena
this election year? Is it too far-fetched a notion to think that an
independent Black candidate -- someone speaking on our behalf -- could
come forward this election year to challenge the politicians of the
corporate elite? Is this possible? What would it take?
I would like to open a discussion with you on this burning issue.
The U.S. Organising Committee of the International Tribunal on Africa
has proposed that I spend two weeks touring cities across the United
States later this spring to renew the dialogue we began when we
organized the International Tribunal on Africa four years ago.
The difficult conditions we've faced over these past few years
interrupted our discussion. I deeply regret it. But now the situation is
so urgent, we must get back in touch.
I call on you to support the U.S. organisers of the International
Tribunal on Africa in building and helping to finance my two-week U.S.
tour this spring. Help me travel to your city and meet with your
organisations and activists.
With your support, I am convinced, we can build a powerful movement to
save our African continent and champion the fight of all the children of
Africa. We must!
Thanks, in advance, for your interest and support,
In Unity,
Lybon Mabasa
President,
Socialist Party of Azania (SOPA)
Azania/South Africa
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