OCCUPIED AZANIA––The U.S. Consulate in Occupied Azania (South Africa) denied African Socialist International Comrade Tafarie Mugeri’s request for a U.S. visitor’s visa.
The request for the visa was made so that he could attend the African People’s Socialist Party’s (APSP) July 2016 Cadre Development School (CDS) at the Party’s headquarters in St. Petersburg, Florida.
The All African People’s Development and Empowerment Project (AAPDEP), our 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization that carried out incredible development projects in Sierra Leone, submitted a letter of request for Comrade Tafarie.
Whenever Africans outside the U.S. try to secure visas for entry into the U.S. and other parts of the European world, we are forced to prove to the oppressor nation’s government that we will return to our homeland and refrain from living in the U.S. “illegally.”
This is one particularly criminal arrangement among the many set in place to maintain U.S. and European imperialism, manifested as global white domination.
White power prevents Africans who live in “Third World” countries from attempting to take back our resources by traveling to imperialist countries that have looted our resources from Africa.
The AAPDEP letter of request outlined all the details of Tafarie’s travel.
It stated how Comrade Tafarie would be transported to the United States, how long he would stay, how expenses for his stay would be met, and it detailed what training he would receive in order to help build AAPDEP in South Africa.
The process for securing a visa is criminal
There are no uniform standards and procedures around securing U.S. visas for Africans across the Continent.
In Occupied Azania, the cost of applying for a visa is $160 USD.
When Africans pay the application fee, we are required to go to the U.S. Consulate and wait in line for an interview with a representative.
There is no pre-determined interview time and African applicants are not provided with the name of the representative with whom they will interview.
In Tafarie’s case, a letter of request was submitted and weeks later he went to the consulate and waited for his number to be called by one of the many interviewers.
He waited in line all day for his interview, only to be asked questions that were already addressed in his letter of request, thus indicating that his interviewer had not reviewed his documentation.
In fact, his interviewer did not even have his letter on hand.
This is a common experience for Africans.
Africans are most often forced to wait in long lines for hours in unsheltered areas—exposed to all environmental elements—to wait for an interview during which their application is likely to be denied and their application fee withheld.
The only option we have is to appeal the decision by paying the expensive application fee for a second time and going through the process again.
The African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) is clear that the U.S. government, wherever they are represented throughout the world, is illegitimate.
It should not be up to the State to tell Africans and other colonized people where we can travel to.
This is particularly why, during the entirety of July, the APSP is rigorously training its members to become cadre, so that comrades can take our revolutionary knowledge back to our respective regions and build our areas.
Comrades will come away from the CDS with the tools to organize our people to struggle against our colonial oppression wherever we are in the world.
Join the only Party that is building revolutionary leaders––the African People’s Socialist Party!
Uhuru!
Freedom In Our Lifetime!
