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Obi Ebguna Simunye
The 8th Pan African Congress has been scheduled for March 4 to 7, 2015 in the birthplace of Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the first
republican president of Ghana who was deposed by Western-organised coup nearly 50-years-ago. Because of the political and historical ramifications that come with the territory, when a collective grouping assumes the undertaking of organising a gathering of this magnitude, we know that Africans at home and abroad do not have the luxury of analysing the organising process in isolation from the actual organisers.

One of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah’s most faithful and obedient disciples, Kwame Ture, reminded all of us that Pan Africanism was not an ideology, but an objective due to our geographical composition and makeup this cannot be ignored.

It is for this reason that the role of Professor Horace Campbell in both the North American Local Organising Committee and the International Organising Committee, could go an extremely long way in discrediting your genuine efforts as a collective body.

The role that Prof Campbell has played in both political and academic circles in discrediting Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe, is without question in absolute harmony with US-EU imperialism’s desire to force an illegal and racist regime change in Zimbabwe.

Your choice to empower Prof Campbell suggests if US-EU imperialism has its way in Zimbabwe, the circle of Pan Africanists you belong to, will let off a long awaited sigh of relief.

When Prof Campbell’s book, “Reclaiming Zimbabwe: The Exhaustion of the Patriarchal Model of Liberation” was published in 2003, US-EU imperialism was searching for individuals and organisations in the diaspora, who would attack both Zimbabwe’s role in stabilising the Congo and Zimbabwe’s embarking of the historic land reform programme.

Before the Inclusive Government/Global Political Agreement between zanu-pf and both factions of MDC in 2009, Prof Campbell claimed to represent a grouping of Africans in the Diaspora who felt blind sentiment to President Mugabe and zanu-pf, prevented us from raising contradictions that needed to be raised in the name of Pan Africanism and revolution.

The next political angle Prof Campbell began to propagate, was just because one condemns President Mugabe and zanu-pf, does not make you neo-colonialist and pro-MDC.

What Prof Campbell failed to mention is he had strong ties to Sekai Holland, one of the most influential voices in MDC since its inception. During her stint as the MDC-T representative of the Ministry of National Healing, Reconciliation and Integration, Prof Campbell brought her to the United States on a national tour.

Ms Holland used the platforms afforded to her to compare the political situation in Zimbabwe to Rwanda, of all places!

The next point Ms Holland raised was that development through NGO activities was impossible under President Mugabe, since the NGOS were committed to regime change in Zimbabwe, than any humanitarian projects Ms Holland’s point is well taken.

We understand that a seasoned politician like Prof Campbell knew that supporting MDC outright was indeed the equivalent of supporting UNITA in Angola and RENAMO in Mozambique.

However, working with a Zimbabwean who received the Sydney Peace Prize in Australia, which is a distinction that Ms Holland shares with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, could be an easier way out.

Since Bishop Tutu said when it comes to Zimbabwe a military option should not be ruled out, it would be interesting to know if the 8th PAC Organising Committee in general and Prof Campbell in particular share the feeling of the peace-loving Bishop.

On the North American Delegation’s website the issues they list include a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, effective functioning of the African Union, Libya, Sudan, Haiti, Somalia, Australia.

The first question is could Prof Campbell be guilty of manoeuvring to keep Zimbabwe off the agenda?

The second is what is the 8th Pan African Organising Committee’s position on US-EU sanctions on Zimbabwe?

It would truly be tragic if Prof Campbell has persuaded your collective body to stay away from this crucial question, this puts your organising committee on a collision course not only with the entire region of SADC, the AU, but with progressive and revolutionary forces around the world.

The NAD goes on to say that no serious Pan Africanist would deny Ghana’s leading role in advancing the vision of Pan Africanism, which forces us to raise a point with the sisters in the Pan African Women’s Liberation Organisation and the LOC in Ghana.

Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah said, “The best way to measure the degree of a country’s political awareness is by the maturity of its women.”

It would be extremely difficult to find a Ghanaian-born woman who fits that profile better than Amai Sally Mugabe, who left Ghana three years into independence to organise women on the battlefield in Southern Rhodesia.

The next point is the role of civil society groups and labour movements at 8th PAC.

In Zimbabwe 400 civil society groups are clothed and fed by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, the National Endowment for Democracy and the National Democratic Institute.

During an era where African youth worldwide are in a tug of war concerning, what to embrace working class or ruling class values, it would be historically responsible to discuss the AFL-CIO’s International Labour Solidarity Centre ties to the CIA.

For Zimbabweans reactionary with trade unionist backgrounds from Reuben Jamilah to Morgan Tsvangirai, not only impeded progress on the ground, but manipulated trade unionists that hitching to their star was politically the correct move to make.

Because President Mugabe is the current chair of SADC and the AU, a decision to make Professor Campbell a central figure in the 8th Pan African Congress, at the same exact historical moment wreaks of disaster.

The one positive outcome would be if Prof Campbell reveals to your circle who embrace him as a comrade two invaluable pieces of information: why he was deported from Tanzania and when he decided to no longer support Zimbabwe?

Once upon a time, Prof Campbell worked with one of Zimbabwe’s endearing national heroes Dr Nathan Shamuyarira in Tanzania, not too long after this brought the former Solidarity for the Zimbabwean Ambassador to the US Dr Simbi Mubako to Syracuse University to lecture his students.

During Dr Mubako’s tenure as Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to the US, Prof Campbell never extended that invitation again.

The purpose of this letter is to share some of Prof Campbell’s anti- Zimbabwe background with you, for the purpose of ensuring this distinguished body will not be able to profess to be ignorant, if these contradictions are raised at another point and time.

As the 8th PAC LOC is well aware that, when Osagyefo Nkrumah was overthrown by the US and British Governments, his schoolmate from Lincoln University Franklin Williams was the US Ambassador to Ghana, he claimed to have no knowledge of US imperialism’s plans all the way till his last breath on earth.

The 8th PAC Committee issued a statement entitled, “Pan-African Solidarity for the People of Burkina Faso” in 2015.

Inside US, certain sisters and brothers have to masquerade as Pan Africanists all too well and some throw forums with Pan African character and exclude comrades they don’t like personally.

Others claim to have been royally anointed to be the voices of the Pan African movement.

We don’t know what the outcome of 8th PAC will be, however if efforts to intensify the struggle to lift US-EU sanctions on Zimbabwe, consider yourselves guilty of mocking our tradition of resistance.

Obi Egbuna Jr is the US Correspondent to the Herald and a US based member of the Zimbabwe-Cuba Friendship Association his email address is [email protected].