Open World Conference of Workers
In Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights
Verdict of the International Tribunal on Africa
(The conclusions of this Tribunal have been endorsed by the Open World Conference in Defense of Trade Union Independence and Democratic Rights)
Introductory Note
On Sunday, February 13, Lybon Mabasa, President of the Socialist Party of Azania (South Africa), gave an extended presentation to the OWC plenary session during which he reported on the International Tribunal on Africa, which was held one week earlier in Los Angeles.
Mabasa, the chief prosecutor of the Tribunal, had been mandated by that gathering to present the report from the Tribunal to the OWC. Mabasa summarized the conclusions of the verdict (a copy of which was included in the OWC packets in all languages for all the delegates) and called on the participants of the OWC to endorse the conclusions reached in Los Angeles. His presentation was greeted with an enthusiastic standing ovation. (Excerpts from Mabasa's presentation will be included in a later email posting of the report back.) The Final Declaration of the OWC, adopted the following day, recorded the decision reached by acclamation to endorse the Tribunal conclusions.
For more information about the Africa Tribunal, or to find out how you can get involved with the ongoing activities of the Permanent Tribunal on Africa, please contact Tribunal coordinator Connie White at Africa Tribunal, P.O. Box 303, 2286 E. Carson St., Long Beach, CA 90807. Tel. (310) 915-3510 (voicemail); (562 492-9139 (fax); connierw@earthlink.net (e-mail). Thank you.
- OWC Organizing Committee
+++++++++++++++
Verdict of the Jury of the International Tribunal
to Judge Those Responsible for the Deadly Evolution That Threatens the Workers and Peoples of Africa
The International Tribunal called upon to judge those responsible for the deadly evolution that threatens the very existence of the workers and peoples of Africa was convened on February 5-6, 2000, in Los Angeles (United States).
The Tribunal was presided by Louisa Hanoune, spokesperson of the Workers Party of Algeria and Deputy of the National Popular Assembly of that country. Also on the Tribunal Presiding Committee were Jean-Pierre Omanda, member of the executive committee of the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Gabon, and Jahahara Alkebulan-Ma'at, West Coast representative of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA).
The Tribunal held its sessions fully in conformity with the mandate conferred upon it by the Conference held in February 1998 in Bingerville (Côte d'Ivoire), which was called at the initiative of the International Liaison Committee for a Workers' International (ILC) and political and trade union leaders from 17 countries of Africa. It was held as well in conformity with the mandate of the Tribunal Preparatory Conference held in March 1999 in Johannesburg, Azania/South Africa.
Testimony was presented before an International Jury composed of 10 jurors, themselves representing political organizations and trade unions from nine countries. The jurors were:
- Martha Osamor, Trade Union Congress unionist (TUC), Great Britain
- Miguel Cristobal, International Liaison Committee for a Workers' International (ILC)
- Myrlin Daville, General Union of Guadeloupe Trade Unions (UGTG, Guadeloupe)
- François Grandazzi, trade unionist (France)
- Luis Carlos dos Passos, member of the Municipal Workers Union of Florianopolis (Brazil)
- Alan Benjamin, member of the Open World Conference Organizing Committee (United States)
- Richard Tiendrebeogo, Assistant General Secretary of the General Federation of Workers (CGT-B, Burkina Faso)
- Dedon Kamathi, Organizer, All African Peoples Revolutionary Party (AARP, United States)
- Johnny Espinoza, retired member of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU, United States)
- Ray Laforest, Haitian Coalition in Defense of Immigrant Rights
o After hearing the indictment prepared on the basis of contributions received from 20 countries of Africa, which was read by Tribunal chief prosecutor Lybon Mabasa, President of Socialist Party of Azania;
o After hearing testimonies from 24 people having come from Africa, Europe, the Americas, and the Caribbean;
o After hearing an update on the situation of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was imprisoned 17 years ago and is currently on death row in the United States, as well as information about the international campaign to save Mumia;
o After hearing a communiqué from Nobert Gbikpi-Bénissan, General Secretary of the National Federation of Independent Unions of Togo, who is a member of the Tribunal Organizing Committee who could not be present in Los Angeles due to the arbitrary imprisonment of which he and two other leaders of his union were victims -- all of them jailed for peacefully demonstrating in defense of teachers who had not been paid for six months;
o After taking note of the case prepared by the prosecution containing the facts, documents, figures, and all the evidence concerning the main developments that characterize the African continent today;
o After noting the absence of representatives from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, European Union (EU), United Nations, World Trade Organization (WTO), and the governments of the United States, France, Great Britain -- and this despite their being given proper notice to be present and being summoned according to universally accepted principles protecting the rights of defendants;
The Jury met to elaborate its verdict, while having as reference not only the facts presented before it but also firmly rooted in their conviction of:
- the recognition of the rights of peoples to self-determination;
- the recognition of the right to live, to peace against all attempts of massacring peoples through violence and famine; and also
- the recognition of the rights of the oppressed to organize themselves independently against any and all attacks made upon them.
Given the nature of the charges, testimonies, and documents presented, the Jury deemed itself competent to issue its own verdict, to establish and review the facts and to respond to two questions.
1) On the basis of the facts assembled, was it justified to call this the International Tribunal to Judge Those Responsible for the Deadly Evolution that Threatens the Workers and Peoples of Africa?
To this first question, and based on the facts, the Jury responded in the affirmative. The African people today are indeed threatened by a drama perhaps unprecedented in history. One of the witnesses asked if there would, in fact, be a next generation of Africans? In vast regions of Africa, we can already answer "no" to this question.
The Jury acknowledged that the projection first advanced in 1997 by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), according to which within the next 10 years there would be a drop in life expectancy of Africans by 20 years, has already been surpassed in entire regions of the continent. The testimonies and irrefutable facts confirm this.
The reason is wars, massacres and massive displacements of population due to these wars, and the resulting famine, poverty, disease and epidemics.
The Jury noted the following, based on the facts and testimonies presented to it:
- 220 million Africans lived below the poverty level in 1998, with an estimated 300 million in this condition by 2000, according to the UNDP,
- 42% of the population lives on less than one dollar a day,
- more than 60% of the population do not have access to drinking water,
- tuberculosis kills 600,000 Africans every year, Malaria is responsible for the death of 1 million people, of whom 400,000 are less than 4 years of age,
- 1.4 million people between the ages of 15 and 49 were infected in just one year alone (1997) by the AIDS virus in nine Southern African countries, according to the UNAIDS report of November 1998,
- Malnutrition affects 48% of children in Ethiopia, 41% in Eryhtrea, 37 % in Burundi, etc.
- more than half of the countries of Africa are affected by wars and their associated tragedies: hundreds of thousands of deaths (more than 200,000 in Burundi since 1993, to which one must add millions massacred in neighboring Rwanda).
- more than 12 million Africans are condemned to wander from one end of the continent to the other,
- for the youth it is misery or the incorporation into armed gangs; a figure was given of 300, 000 children in such a situation
- Privatizations have led to the massive closing of factories and widespread unemployment in the cities,
- the school systems have been devastated,
- hospitals have become morgues,
- Agriculture is ravaged as peasants and planters live in hardship because of the drop in agricultural prices on the world market and the disappearance of all price support and price stabilization systems,
- the existence of trade unions is being threatened,
- Repression has become generalized, as was demonstrated most recently in the case of Norbert Gbikpi-Bénissan, but also in the assassination of independent journalist Norbert Tsongo in Burkina Faso.
On the basis of the facts gathered, the Jury judged that these threats weigh heavily upon the peoples and workers of Africa. This means that if no real, fundamental change comes about in the foreseeable future:
- the African continent will soon be populated by orphans wallowing in violence and misery as well as by the elderly, deprived of any means of subsistence given the attacks on the systems of social protection and the devastation of the family structure,
- the African continent will soon be a continent where the only movements of people will be those of forced migrations, of people fleeing wars and violence -- a continent where the daily lot of most people living there will be that of famine and disease.
The Jury also listened to testimonies from descendants of those who had been forcibly uprooted from the African continent. Today, they are still victims of specific forms of exploitation and oppression linked to their history.
The Jury heard testimonies from Brazil, where a Black trade unionist explained how Black workers are the last to be hired and the first to be fired. At the same time, state officials in Brazil are deliberately attempting to erase all traces of the history of slave trade and slave labor in Brazil. This is how they are trying to avoid responding to the demands for reparations.
The Jury also heard testimony from a teacher trade unionist from Martinique who explained how slavery has been prolonged and extended today through the colonial status of Martinique and Guadeloupe and the other so-called Overseas Administrative Departments of France.
The Jury listened to testimony from a trade union leader from Haiti concerning the situation in his country, the first Black Republic in the world. Ever since its proclamation in 1804, Haiti has continuously been the target of imperialist onslaught aimed at punishing the people who dared to put an end to the regime of slavery, even at the cost of considerable sacrifices.
The Jury listened to testimonies from African American activists in the United States who presented the following evidence:
- today there are 4 million Black women and men either in prison, in detention or on probation or parole-- that is, the same number of slaves in 1865, in the aftermath of the Civil War,
- Black Americans are the victims of institutionalized racism regarding access to health care, education, nutrition and housing,
- life expectancy of African Americans is on the average 10 years lower than that of white Americans,
- the percentage of Black Americans affected by AIDS and HIV is growing at an alarming rate,
- the unemployment rate of Black Americans far exceeds the national average, despite the so-called economic boom,
- there are political prisoners in the United States, the great majority of whom are African American and who are subjected to conditions of detention reminiscent of slavery.
2) The second question to which the Jury felt it necessary to respond was the following: Who is responsible for this deadly course?
When deliberating, the Jury decided to respond to this question first on the basis of the facts. To do so, it had to take into account the historical context established by numerous testimonies. This is the past of a continent where the people were the victims of successive slave raids, slave trade, and later systems of colonial domination.
On the basis of facts, the Jury noted that the atrocious plight of the majority of the population in Africa results from the current system of exploitation and oppression. This system is destroying the African continent and threatens humanity as a whole.
It was recalled how the slave raids and slave trade sought to be legitimized and rationalized by those who carried them out under the guise of the so-called "inferior race" of Black people living on the continent.
The Jury rejected the idea according to which there is a so-called African "fatality" or "inevitability," that would somehow result from the skin color of the continent's Black majority.
It was brought to the attention of the Jury that colonialists sought to give official justification to their heinous acts by claiming that the African people, the majority of them Black, were incapable of governing themselves.
The Jury took note of the fact that the major state powers which dominate the world (and Africa in particular) as well as the international institutions which accompany this domination refuse to grant any historical reparations to the peoples victimized by slavery and colonialism. Not only this, these governments and institutions are responsible for spreading the scurrilous claim that Africa's current deadly condition is rooted in some sort of inherent predisposition to conflict and war by the African people.
The Jury felt it necessary to affirm the responsibility for the deadly evolution imposed on the African peoples. To do this, moreover, was to establish the historical continuity of the domination to which the African people have been submitted -- in violation of their centuries-old struggle to determine, for themselves, their own destinies.
The Jury took note of the fact that following slavery and colonialism there was a short respite in the early 1960s during which political independence was imposed by the African people. But this brief period of independence was followed soon thereafter by a generalized wave of coups d'état and military takeovers, imposed by means of force and repression and orchestrated by those who only a short time before had been their colonial occupiers.
In the early 1980s, the African peoples were once again submitted to a generalized system of foreign diktats. This time they took the form of Structural Adjustment Plans (SAPs) implemented by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Union. Such regimes placed the governments, the the states, the nations themselves under their tutelage. The SAPs had as their sole objective to perpetuate a cycle of pillage of Africa through the mechanism of the so-called foreign debt.
The Jury noted that all the witnesses that testified at the Tribunal raised vehement accusations against the Structural Adjustment Plans, the IMF, WTO, World Bank and European Union, as well as against all the African governments that had agreed to implement the murderous policies of these institutions. It was clearly established before the Jury that this accumulated debt cannot in any way be considered the African peoples' debt -- and so consequently the debt must be cancelled.
The Jury listened to testimonies analyzing the mechanisms used to further subordinate the African countries in the name of applying the rules of the World Trade Organization. In particular the tribunal heard reports about the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which the U.S. government intends to impose on 48 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. The AGOA clauses formally ban any forms of sovereignty by the African people. The European Union is now on the verge of instituting similar measures through the renegotiation of the Lomé Accords.
The Tribunal listened to descriptions of the military bases maintained in Africa by the United States, France and other European powers and their role in crushing any manifestation of the peoples' sovereignty.
The Tribunal learned of the U.S. Army's role in dismembering Somalia and in the war that is continuing to rage in the Great Lakes region, as well as that of French troops in this orchestrated military operation (which only serves to aggravate war in this region).
The Tribunal noted the specific role played by the multinational corporations in Africa in organizing and funding armed mercenary militias whose mission is to prevent the African people from exercising any control over their own natural wealth, mining and oil resources.
More generally, the facts indisputably refuted claims that the wars ravaging Africa are rooted in so-called ancestral ethnic hatred. These wars are the result of an intentional policy objective by the major powers to dismantle the nations and states of the region, pitting African peoples against each other in order to advance their own respective economic and political interests.
Consequently, to answer the question of who is responsible for the deadly evolution of Africa, the Jury concluded in no uncertain terms:
Guilty are the international financial and political institutions (IMF, World Bank, WTO, European Union), as well as governments such as those of the United States, France and Great Britain that continue to intervene on the African continent directly or through the proxy of governments which are subordinated to them.
On the basis of testimonies, the following was noted:
* The World Bank, the IMF, the European institutions, and the governments have submitted the African countries to a cruel system of repayment of a debt which is not the debt of the people. They have plundered the African continent, but they demand US$350 billion more in the name of the "debt". Each year, they grab from the budget of the African states US$35 billion for debt payment, which is formed mainly by the accumulation of interest as shown by documents of the World Bank itself. Of every million dollars repaid, $400,000 are devoted to the payment of the interest. The bulk of the loan, which was supposed to have enriched the African continent, fled the continent long ago following the agreements imposed by the World Bank and the IMF and the liberalization of financial transactions.
The latest report of the UN Economical Commission for Africa notes that the "average level of flight of capital in relation to the debt was assessed at more than 40% ... . In the case of four countries, it exceeded 60% (Nigeria, 94.5%; Rwanda, 94.3%; Kenya, 74.4%; Sudan, 60.5%)".
* These institutions and governments have placed the African states under protectorate rule to impose upon them the payment of the debt. They are guilty of the death, each year, of 900,000 Africans who are killed by malaria, when a few million dollars would have been enough to save their lives. They have emptied the coffers of the African states. In most of these countries more money is destined to the repayment of the debt than to education and health care combined. For example, Tanzania reserves 35% of its budget to repay the debt and only 11% to health services; Malawi 29% and 8% respectively; the Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) 25% and 5%; Cameroon 22% and 4%. These are the figures provided by the UNDP-UNICEF Public Expenditure Study.
* The IMF and World Bank have forced upon the countries of Africa the devaluation of their currencies -- such as the devaluation imposed on the 14 countries using the CFA Francs as a common currency. It was devaluated by 100% in the first months of 1994: the consequence was to double the amount of the foreign debt and to reduce by 40% the purchasing power of the populations (which were already deprived of almost everything).
* The World Bank states that the measures against AIDS must be regarded in commercial terms and therefore proposes that "priority be given to intervention in increasing the involvement of the private sector". The World Bank has, in fact, decided that the only policy in relation to AIDS should be to help the sick people to die:
"Antiretroval therapy, which has achieved dramatic improvements in the health of some individuals in high-income countries, is currently unaffordable and too demanding of clinical services to offer realistic hope in the near term for the millions of poor people infected in developing countries. An analysis of alternative treatment and care option concludes that community-initiated care provided at home, while often shifting costs from the national taxpayer to the local community, also greatly reduces the cost of care and thereby offers hope of affordably improving the quality of the last years of life of people with AIDS."
* The World Bank considers that the $17.5 dollars that the African states devote each year for each TB patient are still too much: "Costs can be reduced by the use of a small number of less expensive drugs and outpatient and community treatment where possible." (The World Bank, investing in HIV-AIDS)
* These international institutions, in their quest to impose the repayment of the debt, undo the national framework of the public services and impose so-called "decentralizations" -- which are nothing but a give-away of sovereignty. This makes it easier for legal Mafias to substitute for public administration. These institutions, moreover, seek to do away with all the state agencies responsible for stabilizing the production and sale of agricultural commodities, particularly in relation to farmers and peasants in the outlying rural areas. The destruction of local agriculture leads to the production of crops for drugs and the formation of private militias to protect the distribution of drugs.
* These international institutions dismantle the labor codes and all those laws regulating the public services -- all of which allowed, beyond regional and ethnic differences, the unity of the working class. By dismantling these codes and laws, they have paved the way for ethnic discrimination, whose inevitable outcome is war.
* The NGOs are a factor in dismantling social services and civil service. They fuel corruption and wars through so-called "humanitarian aid" -- as the latest report of the UN General Secretary had to acknowledge: "Does humanitarian aid contribute to the continuation of conflicts? ... One of the main problems is to avoid that the aid, in the last analysis, serves the continuation of the conflicts. But when fighters plunder the stores of a humanitarian operation -- as happens too often -- they do not only steal food, they also take control of transport, money and other elements which can all be used to continue and intensify warfare." (Report of the UN General Secretary on Africa, 1998)
* The oil, mining, and diamond consortiums -- as can be attested in the case of Angola, for example -- provoke wars to prevent the existence of a genuine state able to levy taxes and fund social services. Agri-business multinationals are taking advantage of the destruction of agricultural production.
* The governments of the former colonial powers maintain troops on the African continent to defend oppressive regimes. The U.S. government, through the aegis of the COMESA (Common Market of East and Southern Africa), is attempting to generalize the "Somalian model". A recent report of the ICFTU (International Confederation of Free Trade Unions) notes: "More than half of the states that are members of the COMESA are at war. In the horn of Africa, hostilities have resumed between Ethiopia and Erythrea, both affiliated to COMESA. Also in Angola the diamond trade has fueled the most murderous conflict in the world, which practically never stopped since that former Portuguese colony acquired independence in 1961, and, at a higher degree than elsewhere in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a war which involves Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola, pitted against Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi."
* The G-7 states in June 1999 not only refused to pay the historic reparations due to the African peoples, they decided to perpetuate the infernal cycle of payment of the debt. It is based on theses facts and on the totality of the documents submitted as part of the testimony, that the Jury issues the following verdict:
The IMF, the World bank, the World Trade Organization, the European Union, the major powers -- especially the United States, France and Great Britain -- the multinationals that operate on the continent, and the governments submissive to these institutions are all guilty. They are guilty of perpetuating the pillage and oppression which existed under the regimes of slavery and colonialism and which still exist today through the imposition of the Structural Adjustment Plans and the payment of the debt.
They are guilty of the systematic plundering of public funds that are diverted to repay this debt, thereby dismantling systems of public health and instruction and entire state infrastructures of African countries.
They are guilty of orchestrating all-out deregulation, starting with that of labor (liquidating labor codes and public sector jobs).
They are guilty of undermining the principle that all work deserves to be remunerated, thereby plunging workers and their families into abject poverty and hardship.
They are guilty of paving the way to widespread child labor and the expulsion of women from the work force by depriving them of the rights and guarantees that allowed them to maintain a job.
They are guilty as well of threatening to reverse International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 103, which guarantees maternity rights, at a time when in many African countries maternity leave is one of the last vestiges allowing women to receive health care.
They are guilty of deliberately attempting to dismantle African states by instigating wars which allow multinationals to operate on the continent without having to pay taxes or respect any labor codes.
They are guilty of constituting militias and armies of mercenaries who wage wars against the peoples to prevent them from controlling the wealth of their own countries.
They are guilty of placing into power -- by means of military coups and rigged elections -- African governments that are subservient to their every whim. The only mission of such governments is to perpetuate major power domination throughout the continent at the expense of, and in opposition to, all forms of democracy and the right of peoples to self-determination.
They are guilty of deliberately sending to their deaths millions of women, children and men through violence and famine.
More generally the Jury finds guilty these institutions, governments and multinationals that perpetuate oppressive regimes that have their historic roots in slavery.
Given these considerations, the Jury decides in favor of the plaintiffs' accusations.
The Jury, moreover, deems well-founded and legitimate any and all sovereign actions of the African people seeking to break the chains of the debt and to demand reparations for the crimes committed against them by the regimes of slavery, colonialism and structural adjustment.
The Jury considers legitimate the right of the exploited andoppressed of Africa to organize independently in their fightback against the policies of plunder promoted by the accused institutions and governments.
The Jury reaffirms the right of workers to form their own independent organizations and considers as legitimate all the mobilizations in defense of social conquests and labor codes.
The Jury takes as its own the alarm signal sent out by many of the witnesses who said it was impossible for all of this to continue as is and who urged that this state of affairs must come to a halt. Africa and the African people, they said, must not be allowed to be wiped off the face of the map. If Africa were allowed to disappear, this would be a threat to humanity as a whole.
That is why the Jury feels it is important that this Tribunal not simply be the end of a campaign. They Jury feels it is necessary to establish a Permanent Tribunal to judge those responsible for the deadly evolution that threatens the very existence of the workers and peoples of Africa, as well as a Permanent Delegation of the Tribunal that would be composed of members of the Jury, members of the Presiding Committee, all the witnesses who came before it, and all the members of the Tribunal Organizing Committee.
The Jury feels it is necessary that this Permanent Delegation constitute a Commission of Inquiry and Subpoena to notify these international institutions and governments of this verdict.
The Jury feels it is necessary to widely disseminate the verdict adopted herein. In accordance with the proposals made by the Tribunal Organizing Committee, the Jury proposes the formation of a delegation from this Tribunal to present a report-back to the Open World Conference in Defense of Trade Union Independence and Democratic Rights, which will take place in San Francisco on February 11-14, 2000.
The Commission of Inquiry and Subpoena and the delegation to the Open World Conference will be composed of:
Lybon Mabasa, Louisa Hanoune, Norbert Gbikpi-Bénissan, Jahahara Alkebulan-Ma'at, Dedon Kamathi, Alan Benjamin, Gaston Azoua, Daniel Gluckstein, Connie White, Martha Osamor, Ibrahim Fofana, Miguel Cristobal, Richard Tiendrebeogo, and Ray Laforest.
The Permanent Delegation, as per the proposal of the chief prosecutor, will be composed of:
- Connie White, coordinator of the Tribunal Organizing Committee (USA)
- Lybon Mabasa, president of the Socialist Party of Azania (SOPA, Azania/South Africa)
- Louisa Hanoune, deputy of the National Popular Assembly of Algeria and spokesperson of the Workers Party of Algeria
- Jean-Pierre Omanda, member of the Executive Commission of the Federation of Free Trade Unions of Gabon
- Martha Osamor, Trade Union Congress unionist (TUC), Great Britain
- Jahahara Alkebulan-Ma'at, West Coast representative of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA)
- Miguel Cristobal, International Liaison Committee for a Workers' International (ILC)
- Myrlin Daville, General Union of Guadeloupe Trade Unions (UGTG, Guadeloupe)
- François Grandazzi, trade unionist (France)
- Luis Carlos dos Passos, member of the Municipal Workers Union of Florianopolis (Brazil)
- Alan Benjamin, member of the Open World Conference Organizing Committee (United States)
- Richard Tiendrebeogo, Assistant General Secretary of the General Federation of Workers-Burkina Faso (CGT-B)
- Dedon Kamathi, Organizer, All African Peoples Revolutionary Party (AARP, United States)
- Johnny Espinoza, retired member of International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU, United States)
- Ray Laforest, Haitian Coalition in Defense of Immigrant Rights
- Raymond Ramiandrisoa, Assistant General Secretary of the SEMPIMA (Madagascar)
- Benoît Essiga, General Secretary of the CSTC (Cameroon)
- Patrick Mkhize, General Secretary of the SOPA (Azania)
- Kwesi Pratt jr., member of the Peoples Convention (Ghana)
- Gaston Azoua, General Secretary of the CSTB (Benin)
- Flan Szan-Senan, Assistant General Secretary of the SYNASEG (Côte-d'Ivoire)
- Iba N'diaye Diadji, General Secretary of the CSA (Senegal)
- Ram Seegobin, leader of the LALIT (Republic of Mauritius)
- Paul Nkunzimana, member of the Executive Committee of the STUB (Burundi)
- Gami N'Garmadjal, General Secretary of the SET (Tchad)
- Philippine Makoma Lekalakala, member of the SOPA (Azania)
- Patrice Zakaria, General Secretary of the SNECASU (Central AFrica)
- Garo Gado, head of the Disputes Commission of the USTN (Niger)
- Ibrahim Fofana, General Secretary of the USTG (Guinee-Conakry)
- Christophe Rangoly, Teachers' Union (Martinnique)
- Cajuste Lexiuste, honorary president of the CGT of Haiti
- Louisa Jan, trade unionist (France)
- Norbert Gbikpi-Bénissan, General Secretary of the UNSIT (Togo)