African Liberation Day in Washington, D.C. Focuses on 50th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution

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Sisters and Brothers, Comrades and Friends:

We hope this email finds you and your familily in the very best of health and revolutioonary spirits. We apologize for the lateness in sending you this email. The volume and pace of our work left us no choice.

It is with great pleasure that we forward you this email from the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC) inviting your participation in and support for the African Liberation Day 2009 commemoration and celebration that the A-APRP (GC) is organizing on May 22-23, 2009 in Washington, DC.

As you know, we have organized ALD in Washington, DC, for the past 33 years, rain or shine, low tide or high tide. Other organizations have come and gone, but we have remained steadfast and uncompromising, and we will organize ALD next year, and the next year, and the next. As you also know, we have supported, to the best of our meager resources---human, organizational and financial, African Liberation Day commemorations and celebrations in every corner of the Africa and the World.

African Liberation Day continues its 51-year tradition, as a revolutionary, Pan-African and International forum to update African and all struggling Peoples on the advances of the current struggles of world humanity. It is a day where those who fight for National Sovereignty and Unity, Justice and Human Dignity, Pan-Africanism and Socialism rededicate themselves to intensify the struggle against all forms of oppression and exploitation in Africa, the African Diaspora and the World.

This year, the A-APRP (GC) commemorates and celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution under the banner: “From Africa to the Americas, Cuba Stands with African People Worldwide: Honoring the 50th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution!” ALD 2009 activities include:

Friday May 22, 2009:

Student & Youth Teach-In: Rebel Youth, St. Stephens Church, 16th & Newton Street NW, Washington, DC, from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM

Pan-African & International Reception: A Tribute to the Cuban People and Cuban Revolution and a thank you party in respect for Alberto Preito, the Second Secretary of the Cuban Interest Section in Washington, DC, from 6:00 PM to 12:00 AM Please RSVP!
Saturday May 23, 2009:

ALD Symposium, St. Stephens Church, 16th & Newton Street NW, Washington, DC, from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM

Panel 1: The Pan-African and International Struggle for Scientific Socialism

Panel 2: In Defense of and in Solidarity with the Cuban Revolution

ALD Rally, Solidarity, & Protest, Malcolm X Park, 16th & Euclid St. NW (Upper Level), Washington DC, from 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM

The A-APRP (GC) is requesting your participation in ALD 2009 activities. Admission is free! It would be great if you could wear white, as an expression of unity and support.

If you have any additional questions, or want to RSVP for the Pan-African and International Reception, please contact Banbose Shango, Second Secretary, Secretariat of Pan-African and International Affairs for the A-APRP (GC) at bshango@yahoo.com or (202) 544-9355.

Cuba is an oasis of revolution and socialism in a world of counter-revolution and neo-globalization, a world of capitalism and imperialism in crisis. Cuba is a sterling example of revolutionary Pan-Africanism and Internationalism in a world of neo-tribalism and micro-nationalism, a world of racism and Euro-American supremacy, albeit sometimes, in black skin. Cuba is a moral beacon and an ideological port in a raging storm.

Cuba has given so much---tangible and intangible, to Africa, the African Diaspora, and the world, and has asked for nothing in return. Every time Africa and her 1.5 billion Children, who are scattered, suffering and struggling in every corner of the world called, since the victory of the Revolution in 1959, Cuba has voluntarily, enthusiastically and selflessly answered.

It would be the greatest crime, as Kwame Ture never tired of saying that anyone could ever commit, if African and Oppressed Humanity did not respond in-kind, voluntarily and enthusiastically to the worldwide call to lift the illegal and immoral US embargo and travel ban against the Cuban Government and People.

The All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC) also invites you and your family, your co-workers and friends to travel with us to Cuba from July 18, 2009 to August 3, 2009 or from July 24 to August 3, 2009.

Pan-African Roots and the A-APRP (GC) will celebrate Cuba’s 50th anniversary with the Masses of Cuban People in Cuba and challenge the US travel ban. We invite you to celebrate history with us, and make history, change history while doing so. This is a once in a lifetime Delegation that you will regret not joining.

Contact Bob Brown at paroots02@yahoo.com or (202) 544-9355 for more information.

HELL YES, WE ARE GOING TO CUBA!

WE WILL HELP END THE U.S. TRAVEL BAN AND REPEAL OF US EMBARGO, NOW!

Sincerely,
Bob Brown, Organizer,
All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC)
Website: http://www.a-aprp-gc.org
Email: info@a-aprp-gc.org
Voice Mail: (202) 719-0529


African Liberation Day: A Brief History

Why African Liberation Day?

African Liberation Day (ALD) became a symbol of African People’s advance towards National Liberation, the Unification of Africa, Human Dignity, and People’s Power. It has historically and continues to serve as a beacon of unity, a crucible of political struggle and a call for the intensification of revolutionary action against imperialism, neo-colonialism, and zionism and for the revolutionary Pan-African struggle for Pan-Africanism and the International fight for scientific socialism.

Every year, on or around May 25, Africans in the Diaspora, in the Motherland, and among other progressive and revolutionary People come to observe and commemorate ALD. For the A-APRP (GC), African Liberation Day, remains one of the fundamental institutions in the Pan-African Movement, which promotes political education, the building of revolutionary organization, and protests the injustices and crimes of imperialism and zionism committed against African and all oppressed Peoples’ of the world.

ALD is also a forum that provides an update on the struggles of the revolutionary and progressive world, by their representatives, and fortifies our ideological conviction, recommitment and rededication, through the daily work to build a revolutionary mass Pan-African political party, for the African Revolution as a prerequisite for the victory of our revolutionary struggle.

Today, it is clearer than ever, for those who want to see, that African People in Africa, Europe, Asia, the South Pacific and Caribbean and North, South, and Central America continue to live with untold suffering and in deplorable conditions. This suffering takes the form of poverty and disease, political and economic exploitation reflected in chronic joblessness, homelessness, and hunger. It is expressed in our powerlessness to effect qualitative change in the lives of the African Masses, even with an African president in the U.S., and immense and perpetual illiteracy and ignorance.

There is no question there is more of a need today than ever to politically educate and organize African People to rid ourselves of this state of affairs. They are the sole source of the solution to their problems. “For the ideology of the People’s Revolution, the People are the absolute reference the absolute mover.” (General Policy Statement of the National Bureau to the XIIth National Congress of the PDG)

It is a common known truth that the Masses of the People are the makers of history. It is only the all mighty People who determine victory or defeat in our revolutionary struggle for National Liberation, Human Dignity, People’s Power, Pan-Africanism, and Socialism. The primary purpose of ALD is to therefore to be a tool, an instrument, to further motivate and inspire and a forum to further the political education and organization of our People, particularly the Students, Youth, and Women.

Yet it is unquestioned that all of our People have a role to play in our glorious struggle, a generational struggle in which the level of political education and organization of the People can only measure progress. Kwame Nkrumah who taught, “You can measure the political maturity of a country by the political maturity of its women”, underscores this. For the A-APRP (GC) African Students/Youth are the spark and shock troops of the African Revolution and their commitment to serve their People, active participation, and fulfilled role is another measure. Frantz Fanon said it best, “Every generation, out of relative obscurity, will find its mission of which it will fulfill or betray.”

The Founding of African Liberation Day

African Liberation Day (ALD) follows in the tradition of the Pan-African Congresses and Conferences, World Assemblies, and All-African People’s Conferences organized by Henry Sylvester Williams, W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah and other Pan-Africanists.

These congresses, conferences and assemblies inspired a generation of students, women, and youth, including Pan-Africanist Kwame Nkrumah, who led Ghana to independence March 6, 1957. It was during his independence speech that he informed the world that “the independence of Ghana is meaningless without the total liberation and unification of the African continent.”

It was during his presidency that ALD was founded; April 15, 1958 on the occasion of the First Conference of Independent Africa States held in Accra, Ghana. Representatives of the governments of Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, The United Arab Republic, which was the federation of Egypt and Syria, and representatives of the National Liberation Front of Algeria and the Union of Cameroonian Peoples attended. At this conference, Nkrumah called for an intensification of the independence struggle leading to the United States of Africa.

April 15th was declared Africa Freedom Day and was proclaimed, “To mark each year the onward progress of the liberation movement in Africa and to symbolize the determination of the People of Africa to free themselves from foreign domination and exploitation.” ALD was therefore born as an expression of African People’s struggle against imperialism, neo-colonialism, and zionism in Africa and abroad.

The All-African People’s Conference, a conference that W.E.B. DuBois called the Sixth Pan-African Congress, held in December of 1958, representing 28 African territories comprising over 300 delegates, confirmed the revolutionary character of ALD and because of its organization quickened the pace of the African independence and liberation movement. In supporting the just struggles of African People the All-African People's Conference resolved “its full support to all fighters for freedom in Africa, to all those who resort to peaceful means of non-violence and civil disobedience, as well as to all those who are compelled to retaliate against violence to attain national independence and freedom for the People. Where such retaliation becomes necessary, the Conference condemns all legislations which consider those who fight for their independence and freedom as ordinary criminals.”

A second All-African People’s Conference held in Tunisia January 25-30, 1960 followed and a third in Egypt. The Year of Africa, a proclamation, made that same year reflected the advances made in Africa. Further advances, made by African and other oppressed and exploited Peoples, with the defeat of U.S. imperialism in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean were made. Africans in the U.S. engaged in confrontation with the U.S. government who practiced apartheid, called segregation, and the denial of basic civil and human rights. This struggle evolved into a struggle for power, Black Power that could only consummate itself with its highest expression, Pan-Africanism.

At the initiation of Kwame Nkrumah and as a political compromise to his call for a Union of African States leading to the United States of Africa, on May 25, 1963, thirty-one African Heads of State convened a summit meeting in Addis Abba, Ethiopia to found the Organization of African Unity (OAU). They reaffirmed the legitimacy of the African revolutionary struggle against imperialism, underscoring that the armed struggle was a legitimate method of struggle and that liberation was a necessity throughout the African continent, qualified the name Africa Freedom Day as African Liberation Day (ALD).

As the OAU, at is founding, was established to build a framework for the unity of African states, ALD was reaffirmed as an expression and tool of the Revolutionary Pan-African Movement. It was reaffirmed not as an institution of governments and states; it was and remains an institution of the oppressed, yet struggling African Masses.

U.S. imperialism and its allies, responded viciously to the successes of the oppressed and exploited, but struggling Masses. They used the assassination of revolutionary cadre including but not limited to Mbalia Camara, Che Guevara, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Kalil Wazir, Amilcar Cabral, Somara Machel, Cesar Sandino, and Steven Bantu Biko. When murder was not an option, disinformation and military invasions were orchestrated in Argentina (Malvinas), Vietnam, the Congo, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Haiti, Grenada, Iraq, Kampuchea, Laos, Sudan, Lebanon, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Somalia, Palestine, Panama, Burkina Faso, the Philippines and others.

Coup de tats were organized in Ghana, Congo, Iran, Chile, Guatemala, Guinea, Conakry, and other progressive and revolutionary countries. These campaigns of political destabilization, murder, terror, and repression were organized through western intelligence agencies led by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)/Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and with the complicity in many instances of MOSSAD (Israel) and other puppet governments.

In addition, economic destabilization was used by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Aid for International Development (AID), National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the World bank as they are doing in Zimbabwe today. It also concretized its alliance with the apartheid regimes of South Africa and Rhodesia and zionist Israel and the neo-colonial puppet governments of Africa, the African Diaspora, and the world. World humanity will never forget or forgive imperialism and zionism for the horrendous and vile crimes they have committed against the defenseless, poor and downtrodden fighting masses of the world.

However, the resistance of Africa and African People to oppression and exploitation is a permanent and irreversible expression of African culture. African People have never missed a call to struggle, to organize and fight to advance their just struggle for National Liberation and Unity, People’s Power, Human Dignity, Socialism, and Pan-Africanism.

This is the historical fact and Sekou Toure qualified that point when he declared that “Revolution is an act of culture” and therefore the resistance by the African People to their oppression is but one expression of the African Personality. In response to the attacks by imperialism, by 1972, various organizations in African communities outside of Mother Africa held ALD observances in the Caribbean, United States, Canada, and Britain.

In the United States, self-serving opportunists and charlatans of Pan-Africanism tried to destroy ALD and by 1975, they were almost successful. However, African Liberation Day activities continued to be held in Africa, the Caribbean, Britain, and Canada. These charlatans of Pan-Africanism have raised their treacherous heads once again in a futile attempt to sever ALD from the struggle for Pan-Africanism. As they failed before they will fail again and be buried in the dust heap of the African Revolution.

Take African Liberation Day Back To Africa

On February 20, 1976, the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP) voted to reclaim African Liberation Day in Washington, DC and to take “African Liberation Day Back TO Africa” from wince it came and where it eternally belongs. The A-APRP vowed to maintain the original revolutionary purpose and character of ALD and maintain its focus on AFRICA, the core of the African Revolution.

Between 1976 and 1983, the A-APRP organized an ALD observance in Washington, DC in the United States. Since, 1984, the A-PRP moved to expand ALD in the Western Hemisphere, Europe and Africa, while joining forces with others in various locations. Due to a multitude of factors, ALD receded in its both number and ideological quality.

All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC) and African Liberation Day

With the death of Sekou Toure, the A-APRP began to show the schisms and contradictions that already existed within the Party and it began to see a decline in its membership both quantitatively and qualitatively. Many of its leading cadre resigned. During the process of Kwame Ture’s transitioning to the ancestors this process intensified with many of its key organizers who had fundamental ideological, organizational, and strategic differences and exacerbated the conditions for a greater exodus of its members.

For the A-APRP (GC), ideological differences represent or reflect the values and ethics of the Revolution that either unite or divide. Sekou Toure correctly states, “Ideology is the fighter’s first weapon. Having a bad foot or a bad arm, is not a fatal disease. But from the moment a man becomes mentally sick, he loses the sense of life. When man’s mind is alienated, it loses its social conscience and this turns man into an animal . . . That is why we maintain that ideology is man’s first weapon. One should be able to assign oneself a place within the world community, to determine one’s obligations towards society and assume the same, to participate in the People’s struggle, to go into the causes of the joy and misfortune of all men and Peoples and to permanently stand for the defence of their interest and personality.”

The A-APRP split into four separate and distinct formations some under the name A-APRP and others choosing different names. There have been no public attacks or discussions as to the basis of the split. All have moved to implement their ideology understanding, political line and strategy leaving it to their work and its productivity for history to judge.

One of those members, who resigned from the A-APRP, travelled to Guinea, Conakry and was introduced to the PRPAG, and became a member of its Political Bureau. Other current and former members of the A-APRP seeking to follow the revolutionary traditions of Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure, and Kwame Ture joined the PRPAG. They declared, “As of August 9, 2006, we are conscious members of the A-APRP (Guinea Conakry), which is known as the PRPAG in Guinea, accepting all responsibilities as Revolutionary Militants and acknowledging with the fulfillment of our Revolutionary duties, that we are entitled to and will be accorded the same rights as all members. By and through this positive and Revolutionary decision and act, we honor Kwame Nkrumah and Ahmed Sekou Toure, Kwame Ture, Ken Tyler, Mawina Kouyatte, Kwakou Leak, untold ancestors, and ourselves, as we continue to intensify their and our Revolutionary work, study and struggle.

By and through this positive and Revolutionary decision and act, we admit to ourselves, the People and the world, that despite their and our contributions, sacrifices and achievements, despite their and our victories and setbacks, personal and organizational, the A-APRP was not completely built in Kwame Nkrumah's or Kwame Ture's time. By and through this positive and Revolutionary decision and act, we also reaffirm our confidence in the People that their Revolutionary Cadre, the almighty People and their Revolutionary Militants, will in the final analysis, build the A-APRP (GC)/PRPAG, or some other Revolutionary, mass, all-African political party that is truly working in the interest and on behalf of the more than 1 billion African People who are scattered, suffering and struggling in every corner of Africa and the African Diaspora, even if not in our lifetime.

We know and can prove, beyond any doubt, even if the masses of our People and other progressive and Revolutionary movements and parties do not know the truth, that history, as made thus far, records that we have made our contributions, quantitatively and qualitatively, towards the 40-year struggle to build the A-APRP. And we know and declare to you, African People, and the world, that history will etch on our tombstones that we made even greater contributions, quantitatively and qualitatively, to the struggle to build the A-APRP (GC)/PRPAG from this day forward!

For us, a much needed and long struggled for dialectical leap and categorical conversion to a higher, more ramified and rarefied quality of consciousness and organization has been made. Matter, organizationally and personally, is indeed a plenum of forces in tension; and it is out of this tension, out of this Positive Action, that a new cadre, a new woman, man, and youth, a new PRPAG/A-APRP (GC), a new Guinea, a new Africa, and a new world is struggling to be born!” (From the Founding Statement of the A-APRP (GC))

Build African Liberation Day Worldwide!

For the A-APRP (GC), from day one, there was no question that we would continue organizing African Liberation Day assuring that it reflected the National, Pan-African, International, and Socialist character of the African Revolution. As a small Party and with meager resources, it was evident that we could only organize ALD in two sites. What was fundamental to our efforts to organizing ALD is reflected in the fact that “We reaffirm our uncompromising belief that Africa remains primary, for all Africans, those in Africa, and those abroad, in the struggle for Revolutionary Pan-Africanism, which includes scientific socialism, and that we have and will always place politics over and before economics, and social services, Revolution over reform.

We reaffirm our uncompromising belief, as Nkrumahist-Toureist, that Guinea (Conakry) remains our organizational and ideological base, and that we will continue to work, study and struggle in every zone, every country, every city, every community and every campus wherever one African can be found in the world. (From the Founding Statement of the A-APRP (GC))
We chose to maintain the tradition of ALD in Guinea, Conakry and Washington, D.C. As Africa is primary in the thinking of revolutionary Pan-Africanists, ALD in Guinea was most important.

The A-APRP (GC) is committed to maintaining ALD as a revolutionary Pan-African institution at whatever level or capability our organizational capacity and resources allow and until the political conditions allows us once again give ALD a mass character. There in no doubt that African Liberation Day will once again take on a mass character reflecting the ever-growing revolutionary consciousness of African People. It is our revolutionary duty and responsibility to continue to Build African Liberation Day so that it can continue to play its revolutionary role in the noble struggle of African People for Pan-Africanism – the total liberation and unification of Africa under scientific socialism.

We know that history records the inevitability of the victory of our struggle. This is our commitment to Africa, the African Diaspora, Pan-Africanism, and those fighters, with the ancestors and those alive, in the International struggle for scientific socialism.

We encourage all Pan-Africanists to host ALD observances and the friends, supporters, and allies of the African Revolution to do likewise. Our task at this moment in history is to intensify the struggle against imperialism, neo-colonialism, and zionism on all fronts, but particularly in the realm of mass revolutionary political education with the corresponding building of revolutionary organization. Build African Liberation Day! Organize, Organize, Organize! This is our watchword as Kwame Nkrumah taught, “We Must Organize As Never Before As Organization Decides Everything!

JOIN AND HELP BUILD

A-APRP (GC)
PO BOX 68735
WASHINGTON, DC 20001
http://www.a-aprp-gc.org - info@a-aprp-gc.org
(202) 719-0529