Long Live the Struggles for African Liberation, Self-Determination, and Anti-Imperialist Unity!

The African Liberation Day commemorated every May 25 stands as a symbol among African peoples and all oppressed nations struggling against colonialism, imperialism, and neocolonial domination.

This day traces its roots from the 1958 Conference of Independent African States in Accra, Ghana that gathered newly liberated nations asserting their independence and forging solidarity. It was formalized in 1963 with the founding of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), now known as the African Union (AU), as a day to recognize the struggle of African peoples in resisting centuries of slavery, colonization, and exploitation.

The ILPS Commission 10 raises fists in solidarity with our African brothers and sisters across the continent and the diaspora. African Liberation Day is not only a celebration of past victories—it is a living, breathing reminder of the ongoing struggles for independence, land, and self-determination faced by oppressed peoples worldwide under the imperialist and neocolonial domination.

For Indigenous Peoples and National Minorities across the globe, African Liberation Day reinforces the inalienable right to self-determination. The historic struggles in Africa against apartheid in South Africa, colonialism in Algeria, and today’s plunder of the Congo’s mineral wealth by Chinese, US, and EU corporations, mirror the struggles of Indigenous Peoples and national minorities resisting militarization and mining, fighting land dispossession resisting occupation, and resisting extractivism and settler colonialism.

Today, Africa continues to be a frontline of resistance against neocolonial control through debt, military bases, and extractive industries. There is the impacts of multinational mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where child labor and environmental destruction prop up the imperialist industries’ demand for cobalt. In the Sahel, foreign troops and interventions often obscure neocolonial agendas under the guise of counterterrorism and stability. Yet, from Burkina Faso, where movements have overthrown neocolonial leaders, to Kenya, where land defenders face state violence, while rising against the claw of IMF-World Bank and its loans and policies against the poor.

We salute the revolutionary legacy of African leaders and movements—from Thomas Sankara, who declared the need for “a united front against imperialism“, to the Pan-Africanist movements that built bridges between Africa, the Caribbean, and Black liberation struggles in the Americas. We call on everyone, from the grassroots defenders of land and rights, to food sovereignty advocates, workers, Indigenous communities, and the youth to trace back and understand the radical traditions of liberation in Africa and the world.

On this African Liberation Day, ILPS Commission 10 stands supporting the struggles of African peoples for liberation and self-determination, understanding the inseparable fight from slavery, racism and discrimination to the fight for freedom against modern-day colonization, oppression and marginalization.

Long live African Liberation Day!
Long live international solidarity!
Down with imperialism and colonialism!
Forward with the struggles of Indigenous Peoples and oppressed nationalities!

Reference:
ILPS Commission 10 Secretariat
ilpscommission10@gmail.com