Memories on African liberation (1956 - 1975): Part 2

The year 1960 was of crucial importance to the National Liberation of Africa, not only because the Declaration of Independence of All Colonised Peoples was adopted by the United Nations on 14 December, but also because it was the year where much was achieved in the way of clarifying the difference between the concepts of formal independence and real national liberation.

In 1960 the Algerian revolution was advancing despite the fierce repression of the French colonialists after their recent defeat in Vietnam. The Algerians had created their government in exile, and that government had a strong representation in Egypt, and was recognised by Nasser as a legitimate government of an independent country. Before that France had maintained that Algeria was simply a French department, and tried to gain as many votes as possible in the UN to corroborate its claim.

Then all of a sudden it granted ‘independence’ to ten French colonies in Africa, hoping to muster their votes in the UN General Assembly, together with some other British colonies granted independence that year. All these newly independent African countries had to decide their position towards the French claim about Algeria, but only a few of them rallied to the strong stand of Egypt that year, despite the fact that world public opinion was slowly accepting the principle of independence for Algeria.

France had taken a violent attitude towards Guinea two years earlier when Sekou Toure refused the constitution proposed by France and unilaterally declared his country’s independence. I recall now the great impact of the articles published by the thinker Ahmed Baha Ed Dine on his return from the celebrations of Guinea’s independence that year. Sekou Toure was a trade union leader, and his clear understanding of the exploitation of colonialism and class struggle was an eye opener for our generation on the essence of liberation from colonialism. This differed greatly from our attitude towards ‘Mau-Mau’ resistance in Kenya under Kenyatta which bore a folkloric guise.

The national liberation countries in Africa were limited to Ghana, Guinea and Mali in sub-Saharan Africa, and Egypt and the Maghreb in North Africa together with the Algerian government in exile. This small group took a distinctive attitude in supporting the popular regime of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo against the imperialist supported Cazavubu and Moise Tshombe. I remember the workers and students’ demonstrations in Cairo against the Belgian Embassy. The name of Tshombe was considered an insult in Egypt at the time.

I must stress here that Egypt’s role in this liberation struggle was not just some fiery speeches of the type common in the Arab world but a serious sense of national responsibility that led to mobilisation of our military forces during the Congolese crisis, and involvement of our diplomatic personnel. I remember how Mohammad Abdel Aziz Ishak accompanied Lumumba’s widow and children, who were smuggled out of Congo by our diplomatic staff after the assassination. They were given the full support of the president, and I was detached to arrange for their accommodation in Cairo, and the proper schooling for the children. Nasser always cited the example of the Congo to stress Egypt’s commitment to help all liberation struggles and make sacrifices if necessary, and the Casablanca group mentioned above supported his position. This was the main topic among Egyptian public opinion, that made fun of Tshombe being ‘sequestrated’ in the Republican Palace when he came to attend the African Unity Summit in 1964.

Here I must make the parallel between the struggle of Lumumba and his comrades in defense of the mineral riches of their country that were coveted by imperialism, and the defense of the Egyptian people of the Suez Canal, which was also coveted by the same imperialism. Indeed, the picture of the assassinated Lumumba and his family as refugees in Egypt had an impact on our public opinion far in excess of any enthusiastic speeches.

The Congolese crisis led to a situation where the newly independent African States fell into two clear cut camps: the Casablanca Group and the Monrovia Group. The first took its name from the meeting held in that city in January 1961 when it was decided to support the legitimate government of Lumumba even by military action. The Casablanca Group had a special significance for our generation as it included the Arab North with various progressive countries both Francophone and Anglophone.

It also grouped the revolutionaries Nasser and Ben Bella with the nationalist King Mohammad the Fifth, and favoured the policies of revolutionary struggle advocated by Fanon. Indeed I was told that when Fanon attended the first Afro Asian Peoples’ Solidarity Conference in Accra in 1958, he was offended when he saw the slogans containing quotations by Nkrumah extolling positive action and non-violence and insisted they be removed.

At the time we were impressed by reading the Arabic translation of Fanon’s books, and thrilled by the revolt of Angolan political prisoners on a Portuguese ship. We were also dismayed by the abduction by France of the Algerian Leaders, but happy for the liberation of Kenyatta, the leader of Kenya. I had the privilege of attending the Uhuru celebrations of Tanganyika’s independence on 9/12/1961 (and later attended the celebration of Kenya and Zanzibar’s independence in January 1963). On such occasions I would wonder at the significance of the independence of this or that country for the peoples of the continent, or the role of this or that leader. At the time, Julius Nyerere was intent on the union of East Africa only, while Nkrumah was campaigning for the United States of Africa, and Tanganyika was somewhat worried by his support for the various liberation movements, many of which were neighbours to Dar es Salam. Nyerere was also worried about Nasser’s influence on Zanzibar and the Arabs of East Africa. Thus we were not very happy in Cairo with his policies until the social changes of Tanzania and the Arusha Declaration in 1966.

The representatives of most liberation movements were unhappy about the policies of Nyerere that did not seem revolutionary enough and in opposition to Nkrumah’s call for African unity. I was acquainted with Abdul Rahman Babu, the progressive from Zanzibar who maintained the necessity of change, and also acquainted with Ali Mohsen who was accused of being an advocate of Arabism there. I was not surprised when Babu with Salem Ahmed Salem led a secession in the Nationalist Party that led to the bloody events on that island. I was dismayed by those events as I had personally known the families of the 40 Zanzibari students in the East Africa House. I recall meeting Babu in a café in Dar es Salam in 1964 and he was frustrated after being ousted by the new regime in Zanzibar, and expected little good from Dar es Salam, such that he chose self exile in Britain as an internationalist who writes about socialism in Africa.

I must admit how I was thrilled when witnessing the British flag being drought down to be replaced by that of Kenya or Tanganyika and thought it was a huge step forward, surely to be followed by other social advances. However, I soon found Nyerere’s policies to be not so progressive and in collision with Nkrumah’s policy of united Africa.

The leaders of the Casablanca Group were also frustrated because of their failure in the events of Congo and the triumph of Tshombe and Mobuto and the fleeing of Gizinga and his colleagues to eastern Congo. Finally, Nkrumah accepted a compromise policy to succeed in gathering both progressive and moderate leaders, and with Nasser called for a summit in Addis Ababa where they declared the creation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). Thus 25 May 1963 was celebrated as the birth of African unity that concentrated the political efforts against imperialism while putting off any social progress to a later stage.

In Egypt we had to face the problem of countering the role of Israel as an imperialist agent in Africa, and in the face of the support it gets from the former colonial states. We were pained in particular by the relation of Israel with Ghana of Nkrumah, while Israel boasted relations with Ethiopia and Tanzania as well. Israel at the time tried to present itself as a developing country, while the statements of the Afro- Asian conferences as well as the Casablanca Group exposed it as an advanced base of ‘new colonialism’.

In the OAU conference, Nasser declared he would not ask the African leaders present to state their standpoint against Israel, but asked them to find out for themselves its reality as an agent of imperialism. He succeeded in leading the conference to a moderate policy and struck the correct balance between Nkrumah and Nyerere and Cote d’Ivoire as three distinct trends in the meeting. Thus Nasser and Emperor Haile Selassie assumed the role of the Big Brothers to all their colleagues. Many were those who came to Cairo after the conference asking for support, especially as Cairo was chosen as the venue for the next meeting in May 1964 - supposed to be the first summit of the OAU. As a token of the organisation’s role in liquidating colonialism, the Coordination Committee for Liberation of the Colonies was created. Thus Cairo took a position between the leaders of Ghana and Tanzania, as well as between Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire.

Those were glorious days for African activity in Cairo. The Egyptian media showed great interest in the activities of the liberation movement’s offices in Zamalek. Liberation activity including armed struggle was acclaimed by everybody without fear of talk of ‘intervention’. A positive factor in this connection was the anecdote of sequestrating Tshombe in one of Cairo presidential palaces with the group of Belgian belles who accompanied him to prevent him from attending the OAU conference in 1964, which caused much fun for the public in Cairo, and compromised the Francophone group that arranged for his uninvited visit to Cairo.

The new liberation movements kept coming to Cairo, especially from the Portuguese colonies looking for support, which they readily got from Nasser, and I watched their happiness after such audiences. Indeed, Fayek and our group of his assistants did a good job in accommodating some 20 such offices. The big number was partly due to receiving more than one delegation from one country, and this was my personal dilemma as I had to coordinate their demands such as to render them acceptable to Fayek’s presidential bureau. Those demands included scholarships for students, military training, allotted time for broadcasting, etc. I was sometimes torn up by my happiness that Cairo was helpful to these young revolutionaries and having to decide who were worthy of that help and who were not, who were ‘authentic’ and who were not. The legitimacy of different levels of liberation struggle was a good reason for such variety, and Cairo was one of few capitals to accept this diversity. The deep reasons for such an attitude were to be understood by me in good time.

At times there were three movements from one country, such as the case of South Africa and Angola. Sometimes we accepted movements that were the outcome of a secession from another, as in the case of ZAPU and ZANU, or SWAPO and SWANU, or even movements that had no weight at all, such as COREMU in Mozambique. Thus some movements would group together as authentic, such as ZAPU, PAIGC, FRELIMO, SWAPO, MPLA and ANC. The others could not meet as authentic, and we labeled them pro Chinese. There was a real Cold War waged at the African Association where the socialist states were competing for the adherence of the different movements in a manner more open than that between the respective embassies.

This cold war would become quite hot when the AAPSO conferences were held, and the Soviets would provide air tickets and accommodation for everybody at the conference held in a friendly city. In such cases, their friends seemed in a strong position and would group as the only ‘authentics’. Such situations were somewhat embarrassing to me. I was a reader of Fanon and Mao Ze Dung and Lin Piao’s article on the centre and the peripheries where the countryside refuses the influence of the cities. In this context the countryside stands for China and the Third World, and the cities stand for the Western bourgeoisies and the imperialist socialists who emulate them.

To a ‘Fanonist’, this was an attractive presentation, but the pro Chinese group in Cairo presented little thought of value, and had little to boast of in the way of active struggle at home. On the other hand, the discussions with the authentic group were always deeper and reflected clear cut concepts, and concrete political and diplomatic action. Also the leftist movement in Egypt had not given much attention to the Chinese revolution and its Asiatic neighbours, and the Cultural Revolution and the red book were rather scorned. The Nasser regime and most Egyptian intellectuals accepted the Soviet concepts including the Non Capitalist Road for Development, the Democratic Revolutionaries and the Countries on the Road to Liberation. All such concepts were welcomed by the Nasser regime and other leaders of the Third World, but rather frustrating to any radical trends, and to radical youth, including myself.

The Sino-Soviet conflict was not the only cause for our concern in Cairo during the 1960s, as the Maoist Group soon began to lose ground as they failed to consolidate their organisations. They looked like a group of unruly persons whose main task was to expose their competitors in public meetings while they showed no progress in their respective fields of struggle. On the other hand the influence of the ‘authentics’ was on the rise and this gave them better ground to counter those ‘Maoists’.

I recall that Neto would not accept my invitation to the premises of the African Association because UNITA and GRAI had offices there, and he established his office and the lodging of his men outside that building. This position seemed more significant when he insisted on not signing the ceasefire agreement with Portugal in Lisbon. President Sam Njoma was more tolerant as he was bolstered by a UN resolution in favour of SWAPO, and the UN Namibia Institute in Lusaka gave him moral support such that the competing SWANU was soon liquidated as its leaders were not worthy of respect.

There seemed to me that there was some sort of competition between Cairo and Algiers over our relations with liberation movements. Cairo seemed more intent on national liberation policies in general, and providing diplomatic contacts and media coverage. Algeria on the other hand was more intent on military training and providing arms for the armed struggle through the Committee for Liberation of Colonies.

I asked Ben Bella about this in Bamako at the World Social Forum in 2003, and he confirmed there had been a sort of gentleman’s agreement with Nasser over a difference in the role played by each country.

I felt that creating the OAU had set aside the liberation activity to the benefit of the ruling bureaucracies, some of which were openly despotic. This was noticed in many cases, such as Ethiopia’s position towards Eritrea, or in the conflicts in Somalia and the Comores. As regards France’s treatment of its former colonies we reduced our former level of criticism as a token of our regard for Gaullist France. Indeed we gave a warm welcome to Senghor in 1966 while neglecting the progressive Cheikh Anta Diop, who extolled ancient Egyptian civilisation in his book. Zambia was oscillating between the role of a confrontational state, and some sort of acceptance of the racist regimes in southern Africa, while Egypt respected Kaunda’s nationalism and considered his dilemma with the racist South, that seemed somewhat similar to our dilemma with Israel. Thus Cairo welcomed Kaunda warmly and omitted taking issue with him as Ghana did - despite the decline of its influence in the OAU embraced by Heile Selassie, and the Committee for Liberation of the Colonies embraced by Nyerere. The liberation movements responded to Cairo’s moderation by deepening their direct ties with the Soviet Union and the states of Scandinavia. This policy of moderation was strengthened by the series of military coups that took place in the Congo, then in Ghana and some Francophone countries.

The moderate national regimes were weakened by this succession of setbacks during the 1960s, while the armed struggle in the Portuguese colonies was getting tougher under leaders such as Cabral, Neto and Mondlane who got active support from socialist countries. I recall that the late great leader Cabral told me in Accra (January 1973), only two weeks before his assassination, that they were on the point of getting anti-aircraft guns from the Soviets, and that would send a message to the Atlantic powers that Bissau would thus become a new Vietnam. I remembered this when only a short time later, these powers decided to get rid of the Salazar Regime when Spinola took over in a coup and decided to start negotiations with their colonies in the mid 1970s.

Njoma took advantage of this change and took a tougher stand towards the UN agencies and consolidated his ties with Angola to provide his guerillas with arms. He was also strengthened by the presence of Cuban forces in the region. As I had warm relations with Njoma I could understand his concerns on relations with the MPLA, due to be stronger after Angolan independence. When I met Netto during the independence anniversary in 1976, he explained to me much of the machinations of the racist regime in South Africa and their trying to sow differences between the nationalist forces in the region to whom most support came from the socialist countries. Indeed, even the Soviets were not so forthcoming in their aid and had to be urged by threats of asking for Chinese help to make good their deficiency.

The 1970s were very frustrating both for my personal duties and for my feelings towards Sadat’s position with regard to supporting liberation movements. At the time Sadat went hand in hand with the Americans in confronting what he called the communist influence in Africa. He stigmatised the Cuban presence in countries such as Ethiopia, Angola and Mozambique.

All progressive forces in Egypt and most national liberation countries faced an impasse, and we would recall the atmosphere of the 1960s that we used to criticize as moderate. In those days, the liberation movements in the progressive countries were supported by popular forces, but the successive military coups changed the situation. The popular bases included the trade unionists in Egypt, Maghreb, Ghana, Tanzania, Sudan and Kenya. At times, there was competition that obstructed the smooth cooperation between Ahmed Fahim in Egypt, Al Sediky in Maghreb, Tettiga in Accra, Kambona in Dar Es Salam and Shafei in Sudan against the moderates such as Mboya in Kenya, Ashour in Tunis and others. The first group would ask the leader for help to liberation movements, and sometimes other forces such as the students in Dar es Salam University campus or the October revolution intellectuals in Sudan, but it was always the leader who took the decision. After the successive coups and the transformations of the 1970s these popular forces lost their influence.

To illustrate the contrast between the two situations, let us compare the reaction to the colonial action in Rhodesia in 1965, and the position towards the racist regime in South Africa in the late 1970s. I recall that when we heard about the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in Rhodesia in November 1965, Egypt was intent on socialist transformation, Ghana was actively developing by building the Volta Dam, in Tanzania there was the euphoria of the Committee for Liberation of the
Colonies, and we all considered UDI as a serious challenge to liberation of the colonies.

I recall that in my position as a researcher in an important institution, I received urgent instructions to gather all pertinent information about the event and in particular the role of Britain as protector and instigator. The same day, I felt similar fervour in the president’s bureau and the ministry of foreign affairs, and the next day a memorandum prepared by Fayek and with the president’s instruction was sent to explore with Ghana, Algeria, the Casablanca Group and others the possibility of severing political relations with Britain as being responsible for its colony Rhodesia. It was thought that the new independent state would bolster the similar type of colonisation of Palestine by foreign settlers, and that at a time of the rise of nationalist resistance in Palestine at the hands of the PLO and support of the Arab Liberation Countries (Egypt, Syria and Algeria), a strong and effective action would surely be taken within days.

Indeed, agreement was reached, and within two weeks Britain found its relations with 11 African countries severed. That action was the cause for great celebration at the African Association for all representatives of the liberation movements.

Indeed, I felt the deep contrast between such reactions and the very limited reaction of the African states at the UN General Assembly when trying to pass a strong resolution calling for Israeli withdrawal from the Egyptian and Arab occupied territories after the Israeli aggression of 1967, and Guinea was the only African country to sever its relations with Israel. Of course there was much American pressure on these African countries, but no doubt the main reason for such behaviour was the attitudes of the new regimes towards the liberation movements. This was a cause of great shame to us of African Affairs after all the support given to the liberation movements.

I remember that Egypt’s defeat in the 1967 war with Israel came as the high point in the series of military coups that included Ghana, Mali, Uganda, Congo and the rest of the Francophone countries and seemed to be the demise of the national liberation movements, and the end of the Committee for Liberation of the Colonies. I felt miserable when meeting our Egyptian nationalist forces insisting on fighting popular war till the full liberation of Egyptian territories. Our only solace was to repeat the slogan coined by some leaders of the Portuguese colonies: ‘Luta Continua, Victoria Certe’ (The struggle shall continue, and victory is certain).

However, the armed struggle was progressing, especially in the Portuguese colonies, and eventually the Polisario Movement started in the Spanish colony of the Rio de Oro in the Western Sahara of Africa. At the same time, the Palestinians started some forms of liberation struggle including armed resistance, and these advances gave us new hope. I recall that the discourse around democracy and social transformations in these struggling colonies was reminiscent of our discourse about the democratisation of the Nasser regime. I would discuss with leftist friends, with a sense of pride as a protagonist of the African liberation movements, about the continuing national struggle, or defend Soviet-Egyptian cooperation. Some of these friends would argue that Nasser was unrealistic trying to go back to war with such a defeated army, but it was those same efforts that resulted in the successful war of 1973. It seems to me that Nasser at last understood the necessity of democratic freedoms as a basis for effective defense of the homeland, and he tried to remedy some shortcomings of his regime by appointing some leftist cadres at the head of some media institutions, and gave more latitude to democratic and leftist trends in theatre, the cinema and some publications.

This meant a more balanced attitude both in the internal situation and the military position as well. Soon, the armed struggle in the colonies began to show positive results, with active support from the Committee for Liberation of the Colonies, and we began to hear of ‘liberated territories’, and I felt great happiness on meeting some African activists who had visited these liberated territories. I was happy when I was nominated as Egypt’s representative in that committee, but ‘somebody’ intervened to block that nomination. I hoped this participation would give me the chance to visit some of these liberated territories, and that hope was eventually fulfilled when I visited some liberated areas in Eritrea in the company of some Eritrean revolutionaries in the late 1970s.

I recall that we the nationalist youth were frustrated by our defeat in the 1967 war with Israel, while we got some relief from the presence of many delegations that came to Cairo from many liberation movements from Palestine, Guinea Bissau, Angola, Mozambique and even Vietnam. The slogan coined by Nasser saying: ‘What was taken by force can only be retrieved by force’ had an encouraging significance and it meant strengthening the ties with the Soviet Union, as China was preoccupied with the consequences of the Cultural Revolution.

I must state here that we sometimes over estimated the social progress in the liberated territories, and the possibility such transformations would make a solid base for the regime after independence. I had little theoretical knowledge at the time except my readings of Cabral and cultural liberation, but I also heard some negative information about what took place in Mozambique or South Africa despite the high theoretical background of the revolutionaries there.

In Egypt we were dismayed by the rejection by the Nasser regime of the idea of the popular resistance to the benefit of the regular army fighting to regain our lost territories. This meant relying on the Soviets supplying Egypt with advanced weapons, but this retains the supremacy of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie instead of developing the social action of the popular masses. However, Nasser’s personal leadership compensated for the great shortcomings arising from his compromises with the religious trends on one hand and the military hierarchy on the other hand.

A sudden end was put to this debate in the cultural and democratic circles by the sudden death Nasser on 28 September 1970. His successor Anwar Sadat made a complete turn around of all Nasser’s policies under the slogan that 99 per cent of the playing cards were held by the United States.

After relying on the Soviets to supply the advanced weapons that eventually helped secure the 1973 victory over Israel, he sent back the Soviet military mission that was training our soldiers on the use of such weapons; he used the limited success of this war to prepare the ground for a peace agreement with Israel; he even threatened to wage war against the regime in Ethiopia with the pretext that it threatened the supply of Nile water; he supported Mobuto against the revolutionaries in East and South Congo; he supported UNITA and Savimbi in Angola; he imported tobacco from the UDI regime in Southern Rhodesia; finally he replaced the development economy with an open capitalist liberal policy. All these policies were the exact opposite of the policies adopted by the previous Nasser regime.

The Bureau of African Affairs of the presidency was dissolved after the arrest of its leader Mohammad Fayek and his sentencing to ten years in prison for allegedly plotting against Sadat. All members of the bureau were scattered among the various government departments. After the 1973 war I was put on pension (after only 15 years of service) in a move to get rid of all Nasserists and Marxists in office.

After 1975, I embarked on a personal tour that took me to the Committee for the Defense of National Culture, the African Association of Political Sciences, the Council for Development of Social Research in Africa (CODESREA), teaching at Juba University in Southern Sudan, the Arab League Educational Cultural and Scientific Organisation (ALECSO) in Tunis and finally founding the Arab African Research Centre (AARC) in Cairo in 1987.

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* Helmi Sharawy is the vice president of the Arab African Research Center, Cairo. [email][email protected], [email][email protected]
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.

AFRICAN LIBERATION MOVEMENTS IN CAIRO

African National Congress (ANC), South Africa
Basoto People’s Congress (BPC), Lesotho
Djibouti Liberation Movement (DLM), Djibouti
Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), Eritrea
Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), Eritrea
Etudiants de Tchad (ET) Tchad
Front do Liberacion do Mozambique (FRELIMO), Mozambique
Governamento do Angola Independente (GRAI), Angola
Kenya African National Union (KANU), Kenya
League for Liberation of Somalia (LIGA), Somalia
Mouvement de Liberation du Congo (MLC), Congo
Movimento Popular do Liberacion do Angola (MPLA), Angola
Parti Africaine do Independence do Guinee, Capo Verde (PAIGC), Guinee and Cape Verde
Swaziland Peoples Party (SPP), Swaziland
South West Africa National Union (SWANU), Namibia
South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), Namibia
Uganda National Congress (UNC), Uganda
Union do Independente Angola (UNITA), Angola
United Northern Rhodesia Independence Party (UNRIP), Zambia
Zanzibar National Union (ZNU), Zanzibar
Zimbabwe African People’s Organization (ZAPO), Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), Zimbabwe
Arab Maghreb Office, Maghreb
Provisional Algerian Government, Algeria

(The last two offices were not affiliated with the African Association.)