The First Anti-imperialist Struggle by the World Anti-imperialist Platform in Africa
Dakar Platform Joint Statement: The Imperialist Camp’s Aggression Threatens Palestine, Africa, the Oppressed Nations, and the World
Today, Africa’s situation mirrors the global political landscape. Amid the imperialist camp’s schemes for division, manipulation, and aggression, the revolutionary advance of anti-imperialist forces, pushing forward, is leading the African people through a period of upheaval and transformation.
The popular forces in Mali (2020), Burkina Faso (2022), and Niger (2023) have achieved critical victories in their anti-imperialist resistance wars, resulting in the expulsion of French and U.S. imperialist forces. This has set the stage for further anti-imperialist liberation. In response to sanctions imposed by ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) and the threat of military intervention in Niger, the three nations jointly declared their withdrawal from ECOWAS in January 2024 through a joint statement by the newly-formed Alliance of Sahel States. Strengthening military ties with Russia, these countries are resisting imperialist sanctions and pressures, drawing closer to the anti-imperialist resistance. Meanwhile, in Senegal, the people’s uprising has overthrown the fascist neo-colonial regime which ruled the country for 12 years, imprisoning opposition leaders, torturing and killing thousands of prisoners of conscience, dissolving political parties, and postponing the elections in February 2024, all of which brought forth the fierce resistance of the people. These anti-imperialist revolutionary changes in West Africa reaffirm the truth that only the people’s struggle can transform the world.
The collision between anti-imperialist forces and pro-imperialist reactionaries is intensifying. In May 2024, the U.S.A. for the first time designated an African country, Kenya, as a “Major Non-NATO Ally”, revealing its blatant plans to use Kenya as a lever for the imperialist agenda across Africa. In response, the Kenyan people have risen up in protest against their pro-U.S., war-mongering, livelihood-devastating, and corrupt government. Widespread anti-government protests have escalated since mid-2024, leading to extreme political instability.
Since 2024, the intensifying anti-government popular mobilizations have led to plunging Kenya into deep political turmoil and have created favourable conditions for the seizure of political power in Kenya by the people including workers.
Imperialist schemes are also evident in the armed conflicts that have been stoked in Nigeria’s Plateau State, and in the tribal clashes in disputed areas between South Sudan and Sudan. The African masses are bearing the brunt of all this turmoil, which leaves them perpetually at risk of the looming threat of massacre.
Across Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe, the U.S.A and its imperialist allies continue to orchestrate “color revolutions,” to wage economic warfare through sanctions, and to spread propaganda via Western media. Notably, the U.S. imperialists have imposed sanctions on Venezuela, falsely framing the country’s recent election as ‘illegitimate’ and ‘unfair’ while inciting far-right coup attempts to undermine the people’s popular government.
It is noteworthy that the upheavals in Africa and U.S. imperialist attempts to overthrow anti-imperialist regimes worldwide are coming within the situation of a Third World War. The imperialist system, led by the bloodthirsty U.S. aggressors, is the root cause of a Third World War. The war in Ukraine, which erupted in February 2022 and marked the onset of a Third World War, has its roots in the 2014 ‘Euromaidan’ fascist coup—a product of the ‘color revolution’—and has escalated through eight years of the war between the fascist forces and the revolutionary forces in Donbass. This illustrates the devastating consequences of the imperialist camp’s instigation of so-called ‘color revolutions’ and of their schemes to suppress all opposition to their domination.
Moreover, this Third World War, which is in essence a war between the anti-imperialist and imperialist camps, poses a grave threat not only to the people of Africa, Asia, and Latin America but also to the dignity and lives of the people within the imperialist countries themselves. The just struggle of Palestinian resistance in the face of a fascist war of genocidal extermination by the Israeli Zionists is accelerating global awareness that “imperialism is fascism and war”. Therefore, the masses all over the world must unite with the anti-imperialist camp to overcome the hardships and adversities imposed by the imperialist economic and political system.
This year marks the centennial anniversary of the birth of the great Amílcar Cabral, and reminds us of the achievements of the African communists who fought for national and social liberation in Africa. Through the establishment of the PAIGC and the waging of an armed struggle, Cabral secured the independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde while working tirelessly for the realization of combative pan-Africanism. Tragically, he lost his life to neo-colonial reactionary violence after striving to build social emancipation. The spirit of anti-imperialism and the will for national and social liberation, as embodied by Cabral and other African communists, are reflected in combative pan-Africanism, which serves as a banner of unity and struggle that unites the African people. True pan-Africanism, untainted by pro-imperialists and neo-colonial opportunists, unites the African peoples in the common pursuit of anti-imperialism, true sovereignty, socialism and independence for all humanity.
Kwame Nkrumah’s statement, ‘We Must Unite or Perish,’ is not only relevant to Africa. Only through the united anti-imperialist revolutionary struggles of the oppressed and exploited working masses can we overthrow the root cause of a Third World War—imperialism—and advance towards global independence, true peace, and a genuine democracy where the people become the master of political and economic power.
More than ever, “proletarians and oppressed peoples, unite!
Defeat U.S. Imperialism! Smash the Imperialist Camp!
Victory to the Anti-Imperialist Liberation Struggle!
Victory to the Forces of Anti-Imperialism and independence!
