Sierra
Leone: Returning From North American Tour, Africanist Director
Addresses Journalists
The Independent (Freetown)
May
17, 2006
Posted to AllAfrica.com May 17, 2006
Isata
Lebbie
Africanist
Movement Director, Chernoh Alpha M. Bah has told journalists
that the African working class can no longer continue to
endure the oppression and exploitation of Africa by western
imperialist nations and their neo-colonial agents.
Bah,
who was speaking at a press conference held at Paddy's Beach
Bar in Aberdeen, Freetown says this is the period that the
African working class has to rise and take back their right
to self-determination.
"This
is the time for self-determination and the African working
class must rise to take control of our economy, our resources
and decide for ourselves what our future should be,"
he says, adding that for five hundred years African people
have been held hostage by an exploitative capitalist system
that is built on the oppression and extraction of the resources
of African people around the world.
"We
have called this press conference to inform the suffering
masses of our people in Africa and around the world that
the time is ripe for us to rise up and concertedly fight
against this stinking and wicked foul social system responsible
for our misery," he said, adding, "the Africanist
Movement have joined the effort led by the African Peoples
Socialist Party and Uhuru Movement to build the African
Socialist International because we believe this is a significant
period indicating a global transformation in which all oppressed
peoples of the world are struggling to get back our independence
and our right to self-determination and we are convinced
that this can only be achieved under a single international
organization that has the capacity of giving our struggle
its requisite direction and leadership."
"That
is why we consider this press conference to be significant
to us and equally significant to all oppressed people around
the world because what we are saying here reflects the genuine
desires of the suffering masses of African people to take
control of our resources and decide how these resources
are to be used," he explained.
Speaking
about Sierra Leone, Bah says the government of Ahmed Tejan
Kabbah is a failed neo-colonial puppet government that is
in the pockets of the British and their various imperialist
allies who are continuously raping the resources of the
African people in Sierra Leone.
"I
don't have to tell you the reality of this situation. As
press people you have access to this information more than
anyone else. Look around you and ask yourself, who train
our police and who train the army? Look at the office of
national security and see how many British soldiers work
in that department or look at the courts and see how many
British judges they have in them. What is the British Department
for International Development and British International
Military Advisory Training Team doing in this country? This
is why we say the celebration that happened yesterday is
not a celebration of independence as this cohort of sellouts
claim but it is a commemoration of 45 years of neo-colonialism
and our people have to understand this, and it should be
the responsibility of the press to help them understand
this," he stated and added that "45 years of the
so-called independence has meant nothing to the masses order
than increased misery and poverty, poor health facilities,
no electricity, no water supply, poor roads, poor quality
education, low wages and absolutely nothing to be proud
of than a corrupt group of kleptomaniacs masquerading as
leaders of a failed neo-colonial puppet state and living
off the exploitation and oppression of the poor people."
Aminata
Thullah, the Movement's Acting National Organizing Secretary
earlier revealed to the press that the Director has been
on tour in the United States and England during the last
two months as part of the work to draw world attention to
the struggle of African people in Sierra Leone and West
Africa and the need to build a single organization of Africans
that would overturn the social relationship that exist between
Africa and the rest of the world.
"The
tour organized by the African Peoples Socialist Party is
also in relation to our role and participation in the effort
led by the Uhuru Movement to build the African Socialist
International, a single international organization committed
to unite Africans worldwide to fight for the speedy liberation
of Africa from neo-colonialism and imperialism," she
said and adds that, "journalists have a responsibility
to be part of the liberation process like the Director of
our Movement who is a colleague of yours, a journalist,
writer and activist who has dedicated himself to the struggle
for the liberation and unification of Africa and African
people worldwide."
Explaining
about the progress being made in London to build the African
Socialist International, Sowande Eyidiyiye says the next
ASI conference will be held in October to plan for the founding
congress of the ASI.
"We
will be having Africans from all over the African world
to come to London to participate in this process and we
will be looking at what is happening to Africans around
the world and try to find appropriate ways to address these
problems," he said and explained that capitalism was
born as a world system as a consequence of the oppression
and exploitation of Africa and African people around the
world.
"It
is this system that is responsible for the miserable conditions
that we face everywhere as Africans and this is why we think
it is important for us to build the ASI, a single international
revolutionary organization that will have the responsibility
of giving ideological training, financial support and other
kinds of support to the struggle of African people to overturn
this system," Sowande explained and added that African
people in England live under constant fear due to police
attacks and other forms of abuse.
"We
face the same problems everywhere we live as Africans and
this is because of our relationship with imperialism. It
is a parasitic relationship that can only be destroyed by
a revolution of the workers and peasants," he stated.
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