African Liberation is Incomplete Without Democratic, Egalitarian And
Socialist Government Says Lester Lewis




The Independent (Banjul)

August 5, 2002
Posted to the web August 5, 2002

Seedy Bojang
Banjul

"African liberation is incomplete without a democratic, equalitarian and
socialist government for the whole continent," according to Lester Lewis.

Delivering lectures on "A Diasporan African view of the African Union, NEPAD
and Pan Africanism," at the Amnesty International office in Bakau, as part
of activities marking the launching of its Annual Report for Year 2002,
Lester Lewis, a representative of a UK Pan-African association, said in the
first Pan African Conference held in 1900, organised by Henry Sylvester
Williams, a Caribbean African, members of the conference resolved for the
intensification of African revolution to establish a democratic,
equalitarian and socialist Pan African Union ruled by African culture in
which Africans shall produce what it consumes and consumes what it produces.

He said when African begins to produce what it consumes and consumes what it
produces, we will begin to solve most of the problems that afflict Africa,
including underdevelopment, mass unemployment and shrinking economic
situation. All the money saved can then be utilized for further economic and
social development, he said.

He said the fifth Pan African Conference was organised by George Padmore in
1945, who politically educated and trained Kwame Nkrumah, the man of the
millennium. It was that congress that decided on the confrontation with
imperialism to free Africa from the ravage of colonial domination and
economic exploitation, which was personally attended by Nkrumah.

"This ignited Kwame Nkrumah to return to Ghana and create the Convention
Peoples Party as an instrument of transformation, and when he attained
Ghana's independence, he called for the setting up of a union government,
supported by Sekou Toure, Modibo Keita, Gamal Abdul Nasser and King Muhammad
of Morocco, but a majority of African governments opposed him, so we had a
comprise in the OAU."

On NEPAD, he said there is titanic struggle going within the African Union,
as few African leaders want to make it a neo-colonial appendage of western
imperialism, while others want Africa to be self-reliant in its economic
development.

"Kwame Nkrumah who was very active in the struggle for the complete
liberation of Africa was murdered in an organised coup by the American
Central Intelligence Agency, which toppled his government. His party, The
Convention Peoples Party established as an instrument for African liberation
was banned from the political arena for 34 years from 1966 to 2000. Yet
Africans on the continent voted Kwame Nkrumah as African Man of the
Millennium. In doing so they are saying that what Kwame Nkrumah stood for is
what we want. In the drive towards African Unity we must make Kwame's
birthday as an African holiday and his life history school be taught to all
children in African schools.

"I cannot understand why the Obasanjo-Mbeki-Wade axis thinks that Africa
need a partnership with imperialism for its economic development when those
who enslaved, colonized, and neo-colonized us, and imposed poverty on us,
causing structural adjustment programmes are only interested in looting,
raping and plundering Africa's vast natural resources.

Furthermore, he said NEPAD emphasizes and promotes liberalism-capitalist
development in Africa, which is the archenemy of African people, because it
causes poverty. "I am not convinced that those who colonized, oppressed and
enslaved us, have the interest of the continent at heart", he said, adding
that "African Union that does not consult African intellectuals, hence they
reject NEPAD because it is a neo-colonial constructs that depends on
handouts from Europe and America", he concluded.




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