Make It Plain: Understanding the Historical Task In Front Of Us

The Completion of the Rebuilding The Pan-African Liberation Movement/Revolution And Understanding The Effects Of COINTELPRO On Our Movement

By Abdul Jabbar Caliph

“Specific steps should be taken to inhibit coordinated activity of the Black movement in the U.S. …Bing into effect a special program designed to perpetuate division in the Black movement to neutralize the most active groups.” (U.S. National Security Council Interdepartmental Group for Africa, National Security Memorandum No.46 [NSC-46]” 1973 Carter Administration 

Uhuru Comrades

I greet you with the Kiswahili word meaning freedom, the most important word in the vocabulary of a Pan-African Revolutionary and the number one priority in the minds of any real Pan-African solider! Currently we are faced with the incredible task of rebuilding a movement that was crushed during the mid-seventies by a ruthless anti-African counterinsurgency program. 

It is because of this defeat that today we find our movement in such a dire state of weakness, a weakness that has kept the people in servitude to the colonialist-capitalist structure that exist in the United States. Meanwhile, the rest of our people are forced in a live of political oppression and economical exploitation throughout the Diasporas by an internationalist monster known as imperialism because of the natural resources that exist in Mother Africa. Those resources being the human labor that we supply and the natural resources that are unearthed daily. 

In order to overcome this crisis we must examine the tactics that were used to halt the Pan-African Liberation Movement (PALM) of the 60’s and 70’s. The counterintelligence program of that decade, better known as the COINTELPRO was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had five stated goals and objects that had a global impact on our movement while it was in its infancy. Those stated goal and objectives were as follows:

1. The prevention of the coalition of any black militant nationalist organization, for in unity there is strength. They realized that this might be the first step towards a real “Mau Mau” in America, the beginning of a true black revolution; 
2. The prevention of the development and raise of a “Messiah” figure that could have the ability and the desire to direct a unified black militant nationalist movement
3. The prevention of violence on the part of black militant nationalist organization, this was of primary importance to this program. The identification and neutralization of any potential troublemaker to the internal security of this nation and its oversea interest
4. The prevention of any black militant nationalist organization from gaining any type of respectability
5. The prevention long-range growth of black militant organizations, especially among the youth.

It is because of this counterinsurgency program that we have lost many of our noble son and daughters of Africa due to political assassinations, imprisonment, forced exile and political slander conducted by this government. This program has not only affected us physically but it has damaged us psychologically. Many of our comrades are suffering from post traumatic stress disorder due to the affects of being under the constant threat of death in war time situation, low-intensity-conflict.

Comrades what we need to understand is that no domestic counterinsurgency program can be successful without it’s international counterpart. The Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, National Ssecurity Aagency, and all the other US spook organizations, have made it a habit to practice the domestic repression campaigns overseas. While many of us recognize the counterinsurgency program COINTELPRO many of us are unaware of the counterinsurgency program established by the CIA in the United States of America to destroy the domestic part of the Pan-African Liberation Movement.

Three such programs have been identified as being launched by the CIA domestically to help crush the movement. The United States Senate reveled this information after they conducted an investigation into the illegal activities of the CIA during the late 1960s and the early 1970s. The first counterinsurgency program was identified as Project CHAOS which involved illegal tampering with mail by the agency of those organizations identified as security threats on its “watch list”. The next program to be identified was named Project RESISTANCE which illegally gathered and compiled counterintelligence information on a number of alleged radical organizations. The last program to be identified during this period was called Project MERRIMAC which illegally operated in this country from the years of 1967 to 1973. Its primary mission was to conducted anti-black operations of infiltration of various Black political organizations.

During the 60’s many of us were already aware of the CIA involvement in Africa to a certain extent. They were responsible for the death of Patrice Lumumba and overthrowing Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana through the use of the military, through the use of coups d’état. They attempted to assassinated Castro of Cuba over 100 times, only to fail. We know that they followed Malcolm X while he was overseas and are even believed to have tried to assassinate him. Who can forget the assassination of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark here in the United States? Yes, this is the type of stuff that the United States government does to those who wish to free their people from political oppression and economical exploitation and establish justice under a socialist government that will truly offer real change.  Hell, in 1969 we witnessed the death of 28 panthers and the arreste and imprisonment 749 people who were activists.

"The nationalist liberation movement in Black Africa can act as a catalyst with far-reaching effects on the American Black community…(D)ue weight must be given to the fact there are 25 million American Blacks whose roots are African and who consciously or subconsciously sympathize with African nationalism.”    (U.S. National Security Council Interdepartmental Groups for Africa, National Security Memorandum No.46 [NSC-46])."                                          

The international implications of this counterinsurgency programs on the movement is not really understood nor is it discussed among us. We have to realize that every since 1963 the FBI has been requesting CIA intervention in the illegal investigation of Americans abroad. It was through these procedures that the FBI secured the assistances of the CIA in conducting illegal investigations of black militant leaders and antiwar activists who went overseas.  The United States Government is no fool, they recognized the fact that Pan-African Liberation Movement in Africa could act as a catalyst with far- reaching effects on Black people here in America. 

"With Africa now a crucible of great-power maneuver, we cannot afford to have our Africa policies hostage to the bitter memories still cherished by those who struggled for racial equality in America. We cannot let Africa become a stage on which America act out their psychic traumas. (Richard M. Nixon, The Real War, p.9)"

It is not widely known to the public that all law enforcement agencies, which are considered paramilitary organizations, receive some sort of counterinsurgency or counterintelligence training. This training is often masked as gang identification training. Those that are unfortunately labeled as such are identified under the label as “security threat groups” or “person of interest” and or often placed in photo binder with a photo of the individual(s) along with important information. Organizations such as Homeland Security, FEMA and other private agencies such as MARGIN and MACGLOCEEN often are given federal grant money to conduct such training programs. The majority of public gun ranges even conducted such training as well as the military with joint law enforcement agency.

Sister Comrade Assata Shakur was not wrong when she stated the fact that she believed that this program still existed just in another form. It doesn’t matter if you call it Safe Streets, Officer Friendly, McGruff the Dog, Weed and Seed, a War on Crime/Gangs or call it a War on Drugs they all are counterinsurgency programs designed to cripple the movement for the liberation of African People. Today we see the emergence of another counterinsurgency program designed to further oppress the people called the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which allows you to be illegally arrested and detained without questioning or due process of law, as if due process every really existed for  Black people. Under this act you can housed in a secret prison without anyone knowing for an undisclosed amount of time and be charged as a terrorist for what every crime the government see fit to charge you with: even for speaking out against this government.

It is because of this counterinsurgency program that we see the massive incarnation of the African working class today in the penal system of this country. Comrade Mumia Abu Jamal, a political prisoner points out the following in his article “From the Realm of the Dead” about the drastic effects of the COINTELPRO:

“The 1970’s marked a pivotal phase in U.S. history, as a time of the emergence of the Black Liberation Movement via militant groups like the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), The Republic of New Africa (RNA), and The Black Panther Party (BPP). The striking emergence, the author argues, gave rise to the often startling disparity reflected in statistics which show, in 1990 rates, how whites, roughly 90% of the U.S. population, can become a minority percentage (46%) of those admitted to state prisons, and how blacks (to be precise, black men), roughly 12% of the U.S. population, can balloon upwards to a majority percentage (53.2%) of state prison admissions.”

State Repression is an everyday occurrence if you’re Black and a member of the African working class. It doesn’t matter if you are born in the United States, Africa or any part of the African Diaspora. Under the current global political administration, you have everything to lose including your life. If you’re down for the freedom and liberation of African people then you are at war with Imperialism and it Neo-colonialist, boot-licking henchmen

What do you think AFRICOM is doing in Africa? They are running another counterinsurgency program under the disguise of an aid for humanity program which is designed to destabilize African countries. No matter how much aid they offer we must never let our guards down. AFRICOM is there for one reason and that is control of the resources in Africa! If that means the death and destruction of Africa as we know it, then so be it, they are prepared to do what they deem needs to be done in order to maintain their control over Africa. The questions for us is: are we prepared to do what it takes to win the freedom and independence of Africa? 

Comrades I leave you with the following quote from the late Fred Hampton of the BPP, brutaly murdered by the State of Chicago on December 4, 1968: 

“You can kill the revolutionary, but you can’t kill the revolution. You can jail the liberator, but you can’t jail the liberation. You can run the freedom fighter all around the country, but you can’t stop freedom fighting.”

 

References:

1.       “Black Prison Movements” NOBO, 1995

2.       “Racial Matters” Free Press,1989

3.       “An Unlikely Warrior” By Iyaluua & Herman Furguson ,2011

4.       “Lockdown America” By Christian Parenti ,1999

5.       “The Plot to Destroy” By Ahamadiel Ben Yehuda

6.       “Agents of Repression” By Ward Churchill & Jay Vander Wall, 1998

7.       “Fugitive Thought” By Michael Hames-Garcia, 2004 

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Equality in Marriage: An Issue of Human Rights

By Abdul Jabbar Caliph

“We’ve got to find a way to reconcile ourselves to living in a community, one group with the other. To be successful, the struggle must be waged with resolute efforts that are kept strictly within the framework of our democratic society. This means reaching, educating and moving large enough groups of people of both races to stir the conscience of the nation.” Martin Luther King

All across the United States we are seeing a highly political charged issue being debated that will determine the future of millions of colonized subjects trapped within the decadent boarders of this country. Some have called it disgusting while others have come out in support of it. Whether you call it a civil union, domestic partnership or gay marriage it is an issue that has divide the community not just along racial lines but class lines as well.  

Here in the State of Maryland we have seen the contradictions around this issue; and we have seen how the capitalist power structure has used this issue to divide the masses of the people. This issue has and is being used to elevate a few individuals and professional political operatives to a higher political office at the expense of the masses. It is an issue that keeps the people’s attention misdirected, focused away from the real contradictions that exist in this capitalist society: the contradiction of political oppression and economical exploitation.

We in the Pan-African International Coordinating Committee (PICC) have taken the following political position on this issue. First, we recognize the fact that this a highly charged political issue that is being used to divided the masses. Second, this is not a civil rights issue but an issue of human rights, humanity’s treatment of humanity. Third, we have taken the political position of the original Black Panther Party (BPP) on this issue: as along as a comrade is doing the political work to be free from political oppression and economical exploitation then we have to respect their rights to be a part of humanity, and live the kind of lifestyle they choose. As long as that lifestyle is not harming the interest of the people involved, or the community at large, we have no right to interfere and you had better not touch them. Finally, we also realize that this issue opens the door for other forms of marriage to be accepted such as polygamy. Maryland State must recognize the fact that they cannot regulate true love or what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own homes.  

We realize that gay bashing can only stop when humanity decides to stand up and end capitalism as a tool of oppression, only under Socialism will gays be able to be recognized as human beings. Second, in order to win their rights of equality the LBGT community must close ranks if this is too be achieved? They are too divided among themselves right now. Third, that which passes itself off as the progressive left in this country must take a stand and stop vacillating on this issue. This community has reached out for help and they deserve an answer. We recommend that instead of waiting and looking for support on this issue that the LBGT take charge and push forward their political campaign.

The LBGT community has not awakened to the fact that the issue homosexual couples being able to marry is being used to elevate certain political officials to higher office. Even through the issue passed both the Senate and the House the bill will not be signed into law by legislators. It will go to a referendum and the people will decide the issue.

This is a tool that relives Maryland States political officials of having any real commitment to the issue, not only that but the bill can still be defeated by gathering 18,579 signatures to stop it from going to the November 6, 2012 ballot. Del. Neil Parrot, a Western Maryland Republican is believed to be heading up the opposition to this bill. He has established a websites making it easier for people to see exactly how their names are listed on the Maryland voters roll so that you can see if the petition is signed correctly. The Ujima People’s Progressive Party (UPP) is establishing such a program in order to become the first Black official independent political party in the State of Maryland.

As we have suggested to a few of our comrades in the Liberate Baltimore Coalition (LBC), the LBGT community must take the lead on this issue. They must be willing to establish and give direction within the campaign, not only must these members be willing to do this they must seek the support of the coalition in order to develop strategy and tactics (goals and objectives) that can be achieved realistically. They need to recognize the fact that this campaign is far from being over.

Malcolm X was right when he said that we have to demand Human Rights not Civil Rights. Civil Rights get passed as Amendments into law and or voted on every 10 or 20 years to see if they are still of importance. The Voters Rights Act is such an issue. Human Rights are the right that you are born with and the rights that everybody must recognize

In closing I want to encourage the people involved in the fight for human rights for the LGBT community keep their heads up and come out swinging with both fist on this issue. If they wait for someone else to take charge of this campaign, they may never get another chance.  

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Meet the People Where They Are - Replace Rhetoric With Reality

Abasi Shomari Baruti

In trying to understand the weaknesses of the African Liberation Movement in the 21st century, and what needs to happen to fix those weaknesses, it is important to have a decent understanding of how things have gotten to be the way that they are. My PICC comrades and I have lain out in other places before now, what we see as the general character of the African liberation movement (ALM) at this point. Our position is that the movement is isolated from the main life of the African working class and is struggling to revive the African revolution. We recognize that there are a number of forces doing good work and we see the advances that are being made, especially in what has become an era of mass rebellion against naked imperialist robbery and rape. However, the positive tendencies are still in the minority of the ALM and those of us who are fighting to win still have plenty work to do in order to get the movement back on track.

One of the things that we are faced with in our struggle to re-mount the African revolution are the traps we set for ourselves. After severe repression by the U.S. government, and some real backwards nonsense coming from within the movement, the masses of African workers do not relate to revolutionary ideas in a serious way. In fact, if you have tried to recruit our people into revolutionary work in the last ten years, you have probably heard all kinds of responses about why our people just do not unite with "that black power shit.” This attitude is reflective of the effect of U.S. government propaganda, but it is also tied to our own mistakes and errors. Many of us have either fallen into the traps set for us by our enemies, or we have shot ourselves in the foot and hindered our own progress. Of the many ways that we trip ourselves up, one is of deep importance: being so caught up in our own rhetoric that we lose the people when we talk with and try to organize them - in short we, too often, confuse ideological principles with strategic principles.

All too often, the discussions that happen among us play out like arguments in petty-bourgeois families where one spouse is a republican and the other a democrat: its bloody war to the knife. How many times have we seen it: a fervent believer, normally new to the belief, goes on a rampage like a European crusader, demanding that everyone get with their ideas or perish? How many times have we seen, right in the midst of our movement, die-hard believers dismiss everything that is not of their own understanding and leave nothing but destruction and disarray in their wake? And, how many times have we seen people dress up nonsense, negativism, and pessimism in the clothing of "passion" and "commitment"? And when it has all been said and done, usually more has been said than done. This is a real problem. What is worse, is that, while we criticize the religious believers for their vehement "bible-thumping" or even "Qur’an-thumping,” we turn right around and beat our people upside the head with our ideologies, special language, and theories. The real fact is that the leading elements of the ALM must do more of what have not been doing, and that is leading - effective leading.

I want to deal with the question of working with the masses of African people, because, in the final analysis, our ideologies, platforms, programs, rap, and fieldwork must be aimed squarely at winning our folks to struggle. There is the tendency, for some of us, to confuse rhetoric with what is real. There are comrades who are so focused on being correct in theory, that they completely miss the point of our theory, and that is to win the people. In a place like Kansas City, MO where, as far as I can tell, there has not been a truly revolutionary organization that was anything more significant than a small study group since the 1980's, the strategy and tactics that have to be used to build the movement here are far different from what must happen in a place like New York, Atlanta, or Chicago. Here, African people continually reject overt radicalism, and stay away from African revolutionary politics. We know the score, we understand the why's and what for's However, since the 1980's, organization after organization has sprung up in this town, simply to die out due to near complete isolation from the African working class. My experience, and the experience of others, has pointed to a number of problems with the previous attempts. The one problem that seems to stand out is that the revolutionaries have been so caught up in showing just how revolutionary we are that we could never really understand or get past the resistance that African people put up to the kind of organizing we have tried to establish. Time and again, we have fallen back, disgusted; rejected by phrases like

"I ain't fuckin' with that black power shit", or "Man, I'm tryin' to get this money, and that shit you talkin' 'bout ain't 'bout to make me no paper, so I ain't really tryin' to hear it"

and so on. And, almost like clockwork, the despondent revolutionary organizer blames the inability to organize the people ON THE PEOPLE!

"Niggas don't want revolution." "Niggas scared of struggle."

And so on.

Now, last I recalled, if the revolution fails, it is the fault of the revolutionaries. In other words, if we claim to be the leaders, the advanced force, the most conscious of our people, but fail to get our folks on freedom's road, then we have got to begin with a self-criticism and proceed from there. The easy thing to do is to close one's ears and eyes to the truth, regurgitate the "line" to those who already believe it, blame the people, and run in place, mistaking activity for progress. It is simple to do what we can, remain at the fringes of the African colony, talk about the '60s and hope that the ruling class will make a mistake so openly despicable that the people will come running to us, begging for us to tell them how to make the revolution. That is the easy thing to do. The only problem is: it ain't worked all this time, and, regardless of what anyone thinks, it ain't bout to start working.

Let's begin with the basics. The first problem, especially in a place like Kansas City, MO, that so many of us find out the hard way, is that the language we use is so foreign to the masses of our people that when they hear it, they immediately tune out or go into defense. We go to the streets with revolutionary jargon on our lips and come back with little more than frustration. However, when the idea is proposed that we try to talk to folks in language that they understand, it is rejected as non-revolution, backwards, and incorrect. When the idea is suggested that we begin with simple programs that the people can get with, instead of more advanced strategies, our comrades look at us as if we have lost our minds. And so, we find ourselves in a trap, running on a revolutionary tread mill to nowhere, and in the mean time, the people, the ones we are supposed to be the "vanguard" of, continue on, working out their own problems with little concern about whatever the hell we talkin' about.

What we must do is take a hard look at our rhetoric and ask the honest question: is this working? If it isn’t, then we have got to take the next step, and honestly, ask the next question: what will work better? As dialectical materialist, we talk endlessly about investigation and scientific struggle, well, the most basic thing a "scientist" or "dialectician" can do is investigate and find out the answer to those question. After some years of working in Kansas City, MO, finding a little success here, and a little success there, but mostly finding failure, I had to swallow the hard pill, and admit that if the revolution is going to happen here because of something I said or did, I had better find a better way to say it or do it. What I have come to find is that on the one hand, we don't have to be non-revolutionary in our strategy and tactics, but on the other hand, our strategy and tactics have to meet the understanding of the people. So instead of focusing on producing a revolutionary news paper that talks about the merits of scientific materialism and the dynamics of socialist economic theory, for instance, we need to produce something that is begins with how dope, unemployment, and the democrats are all linked together. Instead of putting on programs that castigate the people about being unhealthy and points the finger of blame at the people and our self-destructive habits, we need to build programs that seek to demonstrate a better way through servicing the real needs of the people. We begin with a simple screening, then talk about some simple ways get the high blood pressure under control, and continually follow up. At some point during our interaction with our people, we can discuss Monsanto and why HMO's are a bunch of crooks and how genetically modified foods are harming our people. Once the people trust that we are serious about what they are serious about, we can some real success in winning our people to pick up a healthier lifestyle. In short, the African working class in this town is like any other group of people, if they don't understand it or don't see their self-interest in it, they ain't getting ready to deal with it. If we want the people here to not only deal with, but commit to revolutionary struggle, we have got to start with words and actions that don't require a whole lot of explanation, that the people understand right away, and build from there.

When we let the letter of our ideals and positions become more important than the realization of the content, we are, in the illustrious words of my Uncle Gregory, "baggin' the fuck up" - we're losing. But when we get serious about dealing with the reality as it is, then we can start winning, and then it won't be long before Kansas City, MO becomes a place where a revolutionary is born every day. When we let being ideologically pure and squeaky clean in the way we approach the mission become more important than actually accomplishing the mission, what we are doing is being the dogmatists we claim to hate; we are setting ourselves up to be isolated and marginalized. If it is the masses of the people that make the revolution, then the last place the revolutionary organizer can afford to be is on the sidelines.

The Chinese Communist Party, before it became the vanguard of Chinese imperialism, developed a slogan that I think is one of the best formulas a revolutionary could ever adopt: "From the People, to the Party. From the Party to the People." In other words, we have to go to the people and see what THEY want, take that back to the huddle, sharpen it, and take a position and program back to the people that reflects the their  point of view and interests. When we do this, we can start winning the people to basic work. Once we win them to basic work, then we set ourselves up to winning our people to intermediate work. Once we get them into intermediate work, then winning them to become advance, revolutionaries is not far off.

In the end, we must never forget that our task is to meet the people where they are, win them to unity right where they are, and then walk with them, arm-in-arm, to where we all need to be - free from oppression and exploitation for all time.

Uhuru Sasa! Uhuru Daima!

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From the Ground Up: The Strategy and Tactics of Pan-African Internationalism in the Current Period

 

Overview

The struggle for African liberation is a long one. It has spanned centuries, its history full of victories and defeats. In every period of struggle, we have witnessed our fight for freedom move forward and then pushed backwards. At each stage, we eventually learn from our mistakes and expand on our strengths in ways that ultimately produce the next surge of forward movement. Generally, these surges forward begin on a small scale and if given the right kind of input, develop into large-scale mobilizations of African people towards the end of freedom.

At this point in the history of our struggle, we find ourselves between the close of the last period of our resistance and the beginning of the next major surge. It has become common among the revolutionary and progressive sectors of the African liberation struggle to speak of what must be done next, and there is no lack of ideas and programs being developed and pursued to answer that question. Pan-African Internationalism is among the proposed answers to the question.

It is clear that there is a growing tendency among African people to reject the ideas and way of life pressed on us by forces other than ourselves. This tendency, along with the growing crises of the capitalist-imperialism, continues to prepare the ground for the African liberation movement to make its next great leap forward. Pan-African Internationalism is a part of this tendency, and seeks to advance the cause of our people in a significant way; it seeks to open a new era of struggle and achieve the kind of progress that our movement must have.

However, what separates Pan-African Internationalism from the vast majority of other ideas within the African liberation movement is its ability to see the reality of our struggle clearly and without dogmatic adherence to philosophies and opinions which are no longer, if ever, valid. Pan-African Internationalism recognizes that the attempt to make struggle in this period in the same way it was made in the last period, is a mistake. The practices which characterized the African revolutionary period of the 1960’s and ‘70’s, while still having some value, are no longer capable of propelling us forward. What we know and believe about waging struggle must be updated to reflect the reality we live in now, while retaining a clear understanding of what happened in the past.

What this means is that, in order for African people to advance into the next stage of our struggle, we must rework our strategies and tactics and wage our fight in ways that are best for current times, as opposed to trying to turn back the hands of time and relive the struggle of the 1960’s.

However, before a new set of strategies and tactics can be developed, we must first establish a clear view of where we are now, and under what conditions we must wage our fight. In this way, we can be sure that the conclusions we come to about what must be done are correct because they are based on realistic judgments and not romantic idealism that is divorced from the real world.

Summing Up the Current Period

The African liberation movement, as it is right now, must be summed as being weak. While there are pockets of strength in various places, the main character of our movement is that it lacks the strength necessary to overcome the obstacles which stands in our path, and resolve the internal problems which slows us down. The historical ability of the African liberation movement to organize and mobilize great masses of people has been so eroded that it is difficult for the movement to organize more than a hundred committed people, much less mobilize anything close to thousands in a sustainable way. What we are left with is a movement full of all kinds of contradictions and that spins its wheels more so than it moves forward. 

To some, this assessment may seem cynical or defeatist. It may strike a chord with the sincere and committed forces that labor daily to make advances. It may insult the sentimentality of our comrades in struggle. The hard fact is, regardless of our feelings towards our work we must be rigorously honest with ourselves and spare no feelings in summing up our general reality. If we are going to build a successful revolutionary movement, which brings the masses of African people into direct conflict with our oppressors, we must have a winning strategy. If we are going to develop such a strategy, then we must have the best possible understanding of where we have been and where we are now.

The African Liberation Movement: Headless and Divided

The weakness of the African liberation movement have two main aspects: reactionary counterrevolutionary struggle waged against us by the bourgeoisie and the absence of deep, principled unity throughout the movement.

The first aspect is not so well understood, as some forces would claim. The fact is the counterrevolutionary struggle that the ruling class has waged against us was no simple matter. More correctly, it was a multi-level complex system of attacks that amounted to the military defeat of the African revolution and the ongoing repression of anything that might become revolutionary. This process is correctly defined as counterinsurgency warfare, and it has effectively sought to root out our struggle at the most basic levels. However, the very fact that the bourgeoisie ruling class exists means that there will never be a time when the germ of revolutionary resistance does not exist, no matter how small because as long as there is exploitation and oppression, there will be rebellion and resistance. Still, we must be clear that the ruling class engaged in total war against the African revolution and once it liquidated the major revolutionary forces and organizations of the last period, it turned its attention to the repression of the masses of African people.

To this day, a significant part of understanding our struggle is the task of understanding our opposition. We must firmly understand that the ruling class has been continuously undermining all attempts to win the people to struggle via political repression, economic bait and hooks, and social integration. The sophisticated machinery of the capitalist-imperialist state, along with their neo-colonial sub-states and representatives, has made revolution look either impossible or undesirable to our people. The weakness of the African liberation movement cannot be correctly summed up without identifying the counterinsurgency war as the main force that holds back our progress.

On the other hand, we must also sum up the internal contradictions that contribute to the current weakness of the African liberation movement. This internal weakness appears as a deep level of disunity and disarray. It is no secret that there are probably as many different organizations as there are ideologies within our movement. The disunity among the best forces of our movement in addition to the existence of significant fringe ideologies, plus the under-organization of the masses of our people amounts to what academics call hyper-pluralism. There is an overabundance of factions in our movement, and all of them vie with each other for influence and seek their own interests. This creates the current situation where one the hand, there are a large quantity of organizations but a low quality of work being produced. On the other hand, African liberation organizations are concentrated in certain areas and almost non-existent in others. It follows then that there are large gaps in our movement. Pan-African Internationalism understands that in order to achieve our end goal, a critical number of people from the masses of African people must be won into some form of active unity with the aims of the struggle. This being the case, it can be seen that the extremely uneven development of our struggle is a major part of our weakness.

However, what the masses of our people do is a direct reflection to the kind of leadership they unite with. It must be said, without any intention of slandering African working class people, that our people have been won over, in large part, to the uniting under the leadership of capitalist imperialism. Because of this unity, the African proletariat has become more interested in acting on the bourgeoisie agenda than acting in its own interests, as a class. This is a direct reflection of the most critical contradiction in the African liberation movement: the lack of a strong, capable working class vanguard. The lack of a leading social force within the African working class has given the bourgeoisie all of the room it needs to win our people to itself. The faithfulness that African workers demonstrated to the ruling class is not a genuine one, but a faithfulness to what our people perceive as being our best option. The lack of a vanguard force means that there is no serious alternative to the current conditions that our people can really grasp onto. While the African liberation movement offers certain kinds of alternatives to life as an oppressed worker, the fact is, we have yet to develop the infrastructure in the real world that people need to meet their basic needs. This is at the root of the weakness of the African liberation movement. The effectiveness of the counterrevolution in liquidating leading revolutionary forces and organization has left our movement without capable leadership. This lack of leadership is the basis on which the hyper-pluralism of our movement has developed.

The Main Objective of Pan-African Internationalism In the Current Period

So, with a clear understanding of the main problem that holds our movement back, we must come to a point where we recognize what we must do to solve the problem. The most important work of the African liberation movement in this period is the development of a revolutionary, vanguard force. Once the movement has developed its own leadership, one that is capable and effective, one that can lead the African working class forward in sustainable struggle, the work to rebuild the African revolution can be consolidated and our struggle will advance. This is the main objective of Pan-African Internationalism in this period. With this objective established, we must then turn to developing a plan of action that seeks to amplify our strength, and minimize our weaknesses; takes full advantage of the opportunities presented to us, and reduces or removes the threats which undermines our work.

The work to develop a vanguard force is not a simple one, yet it is not a task that is new to us. In each period, the African working class has produced its own leadership that was capable of leading the masses of African people into new periods of struggle. However, it is clear that the best forces of the African liberation movement have yet to develop the conditions necessary to produce the vanguard. This is a reflection of the fact that we, collectively, have yet to update our view of what must be done to meet the current needs of our struggle. There are forces that have the potential to be vanguard forces, yet, they have not been able to win sustained leadership of the African liberation movement. At the heart of this contradiction is the fact that our leading forces have lost sight of the need of revolutionaries to win influence among our people. Leadership is the result of having influence with the people to be led, and until we develop influence, we cannot win our people to struggle. It is the position of Pan-African Internationalism that in this period, we must develop the capacity to build the kind of institutions and infrastructure that supports the lives of our people. In doing so, we demonstrate to our people that participating in the movement is actually in their best interests. When the masses of African people begin to believe that involvement with the struggle will benefit them that they will begin to unite with participating in the African liberation movement.

Controlling the Ground: The General Strategy of Pan-African Internationalism

The main strategy of Pan-African Internationalism, in this period, is to organize and mobilize the masses of African people to fight for and gain control over the territory that we occupy. On the one hand, we must continue to engage in direct political struggle with the class and national enemies of African people, however, in this period, we must finally perfect the work of establishing dual and contending power.

Dual and contending power is the ability to establish an alternative system of political, economic, and social organization that is in direct contention with the system of capitalism. It seeks to engage oppressed people to participate in the work to develop projects, programs, and institutions that serve our needs in a revolutionary way. In doing so, we begin to undermine the ability of the ruling class to control the lives of our people through their power to administer our communities. The establishment of dual and contending power weakness the ruling class from below, in a manner that force the ruling class to reveal its true nature. As we continuously deepen this basic form of self-determination, the ruling class will perceive its own loss of influence and begin to act to antagonize our work. The combination of dual power, continued political engagement, and the open reactionary response of the ruling class will push more African people to abandon their unity with the ruling class and take up unity with the African liberation movement. As a result of their participation in the movement, more and more African workers will become developed into leading revolutionary forces. The combination of an abundance of well developed, organized, revolutionary African workers and growing material resources and infrastructure controlled by the movement will produce the conditions that are necessary to finally organize an African working class vanguard. Based on solid forces and real material capacity, this rebuilt vanguard will then be capable of leading our people in a serious, effective way.

The re-established vanguard must then combine ongoing political action, aimed at advancing and defending the interest of African people, and dual and contending power that functions to develop independence among the African working class. Once these two elements of our movement have are being conducted on a consistent basis, the various elements of the African liberation movement will either be won over to the vanguard or exposed as be counterrevolutionary, eventually leading to the consolidation of our fractured movement into a single force.

Developing influence with the African working class through the consolidation of a vanguard force which can effectively lead African working class people to establish dual and contending power alongside sustain political action constitutes the main strategy of Pan-African Internationalism in the current period.

By Bcde. Abasi Shomari Baruti

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Pan-African Internationalism and the Land Question

The Pan-Africanist International Coordinating Committee has pledge itself to further develop and propagate revolutionary Pan-Africanist ideas and strategies so that African liberation forces worldwide can be more prepared and capable of leading a struggle to liberate Africa and African people from the grips of imperialism. As a part of this process, we want to explain our position on the land question for Africa and African people world wide.

It has often been stated that basis for all revolution is land. For colonized and neo-colonized people, the need to free the land from the grips of imperialism is fundamental. We initiate this discussion on the land question with the primary understanding that Africa is the national homeland of all African people, those in Africa and those of us forcibly dispersed throughout the world as a consequence of the transatlantic slave trade. Africa, her culture and all her wealth are the sole birthright of African people. We believe that African people no where on the planet Earth will know neither justice nor freedom until the parasitic relationship Africa has to the U.S., Europe, Japan and China is severed and Africa is able to produce for her own children’s interests.

We recognize that the crimes of slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism are attacks committed against Africa. Slavery is not simply an attack against so-called African-Americans, Jamaicans or Afro-Brazilians, instead is a part of a series of assaults against Africa to facilitate the looting of Africa; with each phase of attack helping to disperse African people and exploit our labor.

The transatlantic slave trade first looted the human resources of Africa. Then, with a dispersed African population, came the subjugation and division of Africa and African people to implement colonialism in order to carry out the extraction of natural resources and launch international capitalism. Finally, to sustain imperialism and keep Africa dependent, neo-colonialism was implemented so that we could never feed, cloth and house ourselves on our own terms.

The economic and political domination of Africa is a key component in the maintenance of international capitalism. The socio-political structures of neo-colonialism have escalated many times over the theft of resources from Africa to maintain the capitalist development of the U.S., Europe and increasingly China. The poverty of African people, as a group internationally, is directly tied to the lack of wealth produced and controlled by Africa for herself. Nations in Africa and the western hemisphere controlled by large populations of African people are forced to have economic relationships with imperialist nations because Africa is not able to establish its own economic relationships to serve itself and its children. This state of existence has to be undone.

African people need to be free of imperialism and the neo-colonial governments that conspire with imperialism to hold the masses in check. A struggle for power, lead by African workers, to seize state power wherever we may be, under the principle African proletarian nationalism, should be the task of all revolutionary forces. In the process of building this organizational strength and capacity, the life of African workers, poor people and peasants must be transformed. In most places in the world, the immediate task of revolutionary parties lead by African workers will be to deal with neo-colonial forces functioning as gatekeepers protecting the interests of imperialist forces in their national territories. In Europe and North America, African workers are often the lowest paid or least employed while in Africa and the Caribbean, African workers and peasants are forced to produce wealth at near slave wages to supply international capitalist interests with materials to be sold at considerably marked up prices on the open market. The end result is that African workers and peasants are no longer producing resources that can be used to feed and cloth themselves and are forced to purchase products imported at cheaper prices than they can produce for themselves.

As the capacity of the revolutionary forces increase, the program of creating dual and contending institutions to serve the people must be use to seize liberated territory. These liberated zones must be established to create working models of socialist society that empower the masses of African people and gives them the ability to have power over their own lives. In the liberated zones, the influence of the African working class must rise and all efforts to undermine the African petty bourgeoisie must be carried out. The revolutionary capacity of the masses of African workers and poor people to challenge neo-colonialist governments must be heighten and used to win more space for the revolution. Revolutionary action that is able to overthrow neo-colonial governments should do so and implement a socialist workers’ state.

Once these liberated territories are secured, revolutionary forces leading the struggle must find ways to get resources and international support to revolutionary forces on the continent to sustain and support the struggle to liberate Africa from imperialism. History shows us that the existence of liberated territories will always be under threat while international capitalism is still able to function. To quicken the defeat of imperialism, resources liberated by the people must be sent to the legitimate revolutionary forces making struggle in Africa and other African nations in the western hemisphere to assist in the overthrow of imperialism.

Furthermore, liberated territories under the leadership of African workers must be consolidated and utilized to forward the building of a united Socialist Africa under the leadership of African workers and poor peasants. This means that on the African continent, African workers must over throw neo-colonialist forces to build a People’s Republic of Africa out of the liberated territories, regardless of the borders defined by imperialism. Citizenship most be bestowed on all African descendants world-wide you unite with the workers state and should have the right to repatriate to the Africa to assist in the building of the People’s Republic of Africa as full citizens.

In the Caribbean, African workers must overthrow neo-colonialism and implement workers states that are organized under the policy of proletarian nationalism domestically and Pan-African Internationalism internationally. The suppression of the comprador, African petty-bourgeoisie and building of a socialist society that distributes the wealth to African workers and poor peasants must begin. Resources, both human and material, badly needed by the revolutionary forces in other areas should be set up as quickly as possible to forward the defeat of imperialist.

In South America, the masses of African people led by African workers must unite with the indigenous peoples struggle to liberate their land from neo-colonialist and imperialist forces. In places where African workers have significant numbers, a national plebiscite should be called to determine the national destiny of African people in those regions to determine if they should repatriate back to Africa, create an independent workers’ socialist state or live in the states established by the indigenous liberation forces. Negotiations with indigenous forces as to the availability of land to build an independent state should begin when liberated territories are established to ensure principled acquisition of land by African people. Failure to secure land from the indigenous forces should not stop African people from taking control of resources created by our ancestors to serve autonomous African territories until repatriation to Africa can be secured.

In North America, the masses of African people led by African workers must unite with the indigenous peoples struggle to liberate their land from neo-colonialist and imperialist forces. It is incumbent of the revolutionary African front in North America to make it impossible for the reactionary forces of the U.S. to be able to deploy its sizable military and economic might to impact the revolutionary struggles of African workers in Africa and throughout the world. The liberating and deployment of material and human resources to key forces in Africa and other locations is fundamental as the U.S. has plundered and horded the wealth of the world in quantities never seen before. Liberated space in the African community must be won and consolidated through the strategy of dual and contending institutions. A national plebiscite should be called to determine the national destiny of African people in the U.S. and Canada to determine if they should repatriate back to Africa, create an independent workers’ socialist state or live in the states established by the indigenous liberation forces. Negotiations with indigenous liberation forces as to the availability of land to build an independent state should begin when liberated territories are established to ensure principled acquisition of land by African people. Failure to secure land from the indigenous forces should not stop African people from taking control of resources created by our ancestors to serve autonomous African territories until repatriation to Africa can be secured.

In Europe, African workers should unite with legitimate revolutionary forces to overthrow imperialist governments. Liberated zones should be established, where possible, in order to begin the process of preparing the African masses for self-rule. Since Europe is a major benefactor in the theft of African resources, revolutionary forces must work to liberate resources for the use by African revolutionaries to wage struggle in Africa or regions outside of Africa. A continental plebiscite should be called to determine the national destiny of African people in Europe to determine if they should repatriate back to Africa, create an independent workers’ socialist state or live in the states established by European revolutionary forces. Negotiations with revolutionary forces as to the availability of land to build an independent state should begin when liberated territories are established to ensure principled acquisition of land by African people. It is a general stance of the Pan-African Internationalist Coordinating Committee that Africans in Europe repatriate back to Africa or another African workers state with the liberated resources consolidated by the revolution.

Those this position does not go into detail how the land question should be resolved in any particular location; our intent is to present our overall position on how the liberating of land should play out as the demise of imperialism is complete.

Brother-Comrade Nnamdi Lumumba, UPP State Organizer

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