Uhuru! Comrades;
Please forgive the delay reporting to you on the status of myself and the delegation of nine others from the U.S. and England that accompanied me to Sierra Leone. As you know I left the U.S. with some trepidation, under the assumption that martial law had been imposed on the country. However, that proved to be technically untrue. Under Sierra Leone Law it takes a vote by parliament to initiate martial law and that has not happened. What is in place is enforcement of some kind of provision that allows the government to set up road blocks and search travelers from the hours between 10:30 p.m. and 7 a.m. While this might be considered martial law in many places this is not the case in Sierra Leone.
It is difficult to access the internet with any kind of frequency here and it is now after 9 p.m., the end of a long day. Briefly let me report that the trip has gone well. Upon our arrival at the airport in Lungi, an island where the airport is located, we moved rather briefly through immigration and upon our arrival in customs one of the customs officers exclaimed rather excitedly, "Oh, you must be with the Uhuru delegation." We made it through customs without any of the problems I expected and heard the cry of "Uhuru" from the customs officer as we walked out to meet the heavy security forces deployed by the movement to greet us.
We had gone to Sierra Leone to participate in a three day conference leading up to the launching of the African People's Socialist Party of Sierra Leone (APSP-SL), the first worker's Party in the country's history. The conference was organized by the Interim Leadership Commitee of the APSP, comprised of leaders and members of the recently dissolved Africanist Movement, an organization that had voted in 2007 to join the African Socialist International. More than 300 mostly young Africans came out each day of the conference to participate in enthusiastic meetings declaring the dream of Garvey, Nkrumah, Malcolm and other African Internationalists would be realized soon with Sierra Leone in the vanguard
I have been participating in news conferences and radio interviews since my arrival and have others to attend before I leave on Nov. 25th. On Friday, tomorrow, I speak at Fourah Bay College. On Saturday we travel to Makeni where we will begin the process of setting up Uhuru Radio, an FM station that will be operated by members of the APSP of Sierra Leone.
On Wednesday, the 25th, the African People's Socialist Party in partnership with the All African People's Development and Empowerment Project will formally launch a fishing boat to assist the people of the community of Oloshoro compete with the foreign corporate fishing vessels that ply the waters offshore, usually beyond the reach of the local fishermen — until now
There is much more to say, but it will have to happen later, when possible.
However, all is well so far and comrades should keep their ears to the ground, because we are being very, very effective.
Black is Back!
Izwe Lethu i Afrika!
Omali Yeshitela, Chairman
