PRETORIA– The Pretoria Hands Off Uhuru! Hands Off Africa! mobilization primarily consisted of organizers from the townships. Some came from Johannesburg South, while the majority were from Johannesburg West in the Kokosi Township. This is where the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) — organization of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) that Chairman Omali Yeshitela founded in 1972 — has a branch.
InPDUM being a mass organization, it took up the responsibility of getting to the masses and mobilizing them for the action. Twenty young African workers from Kokosi traveled to the capital city of South Africa where the U.S. embassy is located. On the bus, Uhuru struggle songs broke out raising the revolutionary spirit needed to confront the powers that be.
When we got to Pretoria, about 145 kilometers (90 miles), the demonstration started immediately at the park adjacent to the U.S. embassy. At this point, APSP Southern Africa Director of Economic Development Molefi Morosi began speaking, condemning U.S. imperialism for its terroristic activities across the colonized world. We read the official statement of the African People’s Socialist Party in solidarity with the people of Palestine.
A few minutes later, the security moved us from the park, and we marched straight to the gates of the U.S. embassy to deliver the memorandum with all our demands including for the charges against the Uhuru 3 to be dropped. The Uhuru 3 are three leaders of Uhuru Movement organizations whose homes were among those attacked along with Uhuru Movement offices in the early morning raids on July 29, 2022, by U.S. Federal Bureau of Information (FBI).
The Uhuru 3 — APSP Chairman Omali Yeshitela, African People’s Solidarity Committee Chair Penny Hess and Uhuru Solidarity Movement Chair Jesse Nevel — have subsequently been charged with bogus charges of “conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government.” The security personnel refused to receive the memorandum, despite the fact that we had made an appointment with the embassy earlier in the week to do so.
We nevertheless made our statement right there and then proceeded to the union building where the South African presidential office is — similar to the White House in the U.S.
Africans in South Africa, Namibia, and Zambia demand Uhuru 3 charges be dropped
At the union buildings — which is a colonial structure with the statue of the first prime minister of the settler State Union of South Africa Louis Botha on its lawns — a solidarity statement from APSP Southern Africa Regional Chairman Vistoh Sabisa was read before the official statement was made by APSP-Occupied Azania Chairman Tafarie Mugeri.
The statement by Chairman Vistoh was sharp and directly called for Africans to unite in condemning U.S. imperialism in its attack on the African freedom struggle. After the reading of Chairman Vistoh’s statement, Chairman Tafarie came through with chants such as “Touch One! Touch All!” to indicate that our struggle is one struggle spread around the world. He gave a thorough explanation of the case of the Uhuru 3.
At the same time across the colonial border in Namibia, APSP Southern Africa Regional Chair Vistoh Sabisa visited the highly fortified U.S. embassy where he made the statement that, “…this is the U.S embassy in Namibia, of which it has been occupying Namibia and its policies for decades now. The setting of this embassy is that it is going to be expanding its influence and reach throughout the Southern Africa region with the recently built ‘military base,’ I would want to call it because that structure that they recently built here on Namibian soil is so vast that it can actually host 5,000 people for an indefinite period of time. So, when we speak of colonial occupation, we speak of these structures and institutions. This is just a reflection of how vast the net of oppression and deception is throughout the African continent.”
Chairman Vistoh is not off at all when he refers to the embassies as military bases because in many parts of the African continent, they function side by side with actual military bases that are meant to execute the mandates of the U.S. Africa Command. The U.S. Africa Command is but just one of the imperialist and neocolonial initiatives that Chairman Omali Yeshitela has been exposing and openly fighting against for decades. Then how can the U.S. government claim that he is suddenly a stooge of Putin and the Russian Federation?
This is what got us to Pretoria, South Africa and Windhoek, Namibia demanding that the U.S drop the charges against the Uhuru 3. Organizers in Zambia also got Africans signing the Hands Off Uhuru petition to show that the struggle for African self-determination is everywhere, and we will not let U.S. imperialism undermine its leadership.
West Africa Nov. 4 March Mobilization
The Nov. 4 Mobilization in Sierra Leone and Liberia took place in the midst of turbulent political struggles throughout the region. West Africa has been facing many coups by military personnel — from Guinea-Conakry to Mali, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, and Niger — while other countries have gone through presidential and parliamentary elections.
The military soldiers who took State power in some of the aforementioned countries referenced the lack of proper welfare for the citizens of those countries by France controlled neocolonial petty bourgeoisie leaders, who had ruled the people since the so-called independence of those countries.
On the other hand, the elections that were held in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Liberia continue to expose the fracturing of the neocolonial edifice that the whole social system rests on. In some cases, like in Sierra Leone, the working class has been left with nothing other than to see how the opposition parties are willing to help the ruling party stay in power.
This is pushing the masses to believe that the electoral “democracy” is only an entrenched kleptocracy by neocolonial politicians who have only served to aid colonial capitalism’s continuous exploitation of the region’s natural resources that started centuries ago.
All these military coups and kleptocracies were orchestrated by the colonizers who hand-picked African neocolonial puppets that sweetened their comfort at the expense of the people whom they governed. The November 4 Hands off Uhuru Fight Back Coalition marches in West Africa under the leadership of APSP-Sierra Leone Chairman Morlai Conteh, Preacherman and Weh were the first liberation marches in West Africa organized by members of the Uhuru Movement under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party in the region.
These events were held in Liberia and Sierra Leone respectively. Comrades came from different locations and marched to the international airports of both countries to register their dissatisfaction with the United States government in their trumped-up charges against Chairman Omali Yeshitela and the Uhuru Movement. The marches demanded that they drop the charges against the Uhuru 3.
It was a colorful scene as the working class gathered in front of these two airports to also show support for the Palestine people who are currently struggling against Israel’s colonial occupation of their land. We had to make the point that there is no contradiction between the African Liberation struggle and the struggle of the Arab people of Palestine as white liberals would have us believe.
“This is a victory for the working class,” a motorbike rider said as he watched the march going to the airport.
The event brought revolutionary ideology to the mindset of the people. As a cogent fact, one student said, ”The proletarians are rising to tell the ruling class that enough is enough.”
The African working class is taking up the leadership of the struggle to liberate Our Africa, and the imperialists must take their hands off our leadership!
Hands Off Uhuru! Hands Off Africa!
Forward Ever Backwards Ever!
One Africa! One Nation!
