THE TRUE STORY OF THE 9TH PAN AFRICAN CONGRESS - ALL THE BACKGROUND

SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARTICLE in TOWARDS FREEDOM: THE TRUE STORY OF THE 9TH PAN AFRICAN CONGRESS

“Mr. Siphiwe Baleka, New Afrika. I have the honor to inform you that Togo is hosting the 9th Pan African Congress, scheduled from 29 October to 02 November 2024 in Lomé on the general theme: Renewal of Pan-Africanism and Africa's role in the reform of multilateral institutions: Mobilizing resources and reinventing itself to act. . . . The general programme of activities includes a session entitled "Words to Pan-Africanists" to enable the delegates to benefit from your rich experience, your contributions to the advancement and consolidation of Pan-Africanism, your vision and the current and future role of Africa on the international scene, as well as your expectations for the 9th Pan-African Congress. I have therefore the honour to invite you to lead the work of this session. I remain convinced that your participation will bring inestimable value to the 9th Congress, by enriching the discussions between the congress participants.” 

- Professor Robert Dussey, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and Togolese Abroad, Republic of Togo, 13 September 2024

You could imagine my excitement and pride, being invited to lead a session at the 9th PAC, to become a part of this historic legacy that is the PAN AFRICAN CONGRESSES. It’s a history that started in my hometown of Chicago, in 1893. The Chicago Congress on Africa held that year was attended by both Africans and people of African descent in the New world, including Alexander Crummell, Bishop Henry Turner and Bishop Alexander Walters of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. A Pan African Repatriation plan was initiated two years later in 1895 by black businessman William Ellis, who helped Bishop Turner organize the Congress on Africa in Atlanta at the end of 1895. Bishop Alexander Walters would, five years later, chair the London Congress in 1900. That Congress declared that the problem of the new century is “the problem of the color-line, the question as to how far differences of race… will hereafter be made the basis of denying over half of the world the right of sharing. . . the opportunities and privileges of modern civilization.” Haitian born Benito Sylvain, the former secretary of the Haitian Legation in London and serving as Aide-de Camp to the Imperial Household of Ethiopian Emperor Menelik, attended the London Congress in 1900 as the Ethiopian Representative. Three years later, Sylvain introduced Ellis to Emperor Menelik who repeated the words first spoken by Martin Delany in 1853 - “Europe for Europeans and Africa for Africans!”, later to be attributed to Marcus Garvey.  The First Pan African Conference Address concluded by demanding that the Congo Free State “become a great central Negro State of the world”, a demand that both W.E.B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey re-iterated in separate proposals to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Pan African Congresses were then held that year in Paris, and again in 1921 in London, Brussels, and Paris again; in 1923 in London; in 1927 in New York; in 1945 in Manchester (5th PAC); in 1974 in Dar es Salam, Tanzania (6th PAC); in 1994 in Kampala, Uganda (7th PAC); and in 2014/15 in Johannesburg, South Africa and Accra, Ghana (“dueling” 8th PACs).

By the time of the Fifth Pan African Congress in 1945, the imperative of the African World was an end to colonialism, which led to the formation of the Organization of African Unity in 1963. The challenge for the participants of the Sixth Pan African Congress in 1974 was how to harness Africa’s new independent power, deconstruct neocolonialist regimes, and unite the diaspora under a common Pan-African agenda. To achieve this, the 6th PAC sought dual citizenship for Africans from the West and establishing a Permanent Secretariat. Thirty-eight years later, that unqualified citizenship had still not been granted to the Diaspora, prompting The Declaration of the Global African Summit 2012 to recommend that, 

“‘diaspora issues should be a standing item on the programmes and agenda of AU Summits….,’ and that ‘a Diaspora Advisory Board be set up which will address overarching issues of concern to Africa and its Diaspora such as reparations, right to return and to follow up to the WCAR Plan of Action.’”

The 8th Pan African Congress (PAC8.0) held in Accra, Ghana 5-7 March 2015 concluded,

“We acknowledged the need for strong collaboration, especially through citizen input, with existing Pan African entities and initiatives, such as Agenda 2063 of the AU, and especially those identified to promote the Sixth Region of the African Union . . . We recognized the need for African leadership to immediately implement processes and structures that incorporate the 6th region of the African Union, the Diaspora, in implementing Agenda 2020 and Agenda 2063 . . . Recommend that the identification of appropriate organizations to be a conduit for Africans of the Diaspora to partner with the PAM initiatives at all levels and facilitate the involvement or inclusion of Africans from the Diaspora who have repatriated back home to Mother Africa. Strongly support the actualization of the concept of the 6th Region of Africa, being the Diaspora, by the 8th Pan African Congress”

Such is the historical foundation from which I wish to discuss how the 9th Pan African Congress(es) scheduled for 2024 were organized and postponed based on my understanding from my involvement in trying to connect and harmonize them. 

TOWARDS THE 9TH PAN AFRIKAN CONGRESS

In July of 2022, the African Diaspora Development Institute (ADDI) under H.E. Ambassador Arikana Chihombori-Quao, former AU Ambassador to the United States, solicited for delegates to attend what was originally announced as the African Diaspora Pan African Congress and later as the “9th Pan African Congress” to be held in Harare, Zimbabwe from 14-19, 2022 hosted by the Government of Zimbabwe. According to their solicitation for delegates,

“Since the amendment of the AU constitution, it has been brought to our attention the onus has been left to the African Diaspora to organize and collectively, in a united manner present demands to the African Heads of State as to how we wish to organize and formalize the 6th Region in the same way as the other 5 regions on the continent of Africa. . . .The African Diaspora Pan African Congress will primarily focus on the formalization of the 6th Region.”

I took great interest in the African Diaspora/9th Pan African Congress called by H.E. Ambassador Arikana Chihombori Quao, especially since I was the only African American who, in February 2003, attended the 1st Extra-Ordinary Summit of the Assembly of the African Union in Addis Ababa that approved the Article 3(q) amendment to the Constitutive Act of the African Union that officially “invite(s) and encourage(s) the full participation of Africans in the Diaspora in the building of the African Union in its capacity as an important part of our Continent.” I also founded and directed the AU 6th Region Education Campaign that initiated the election process for the African Diaspora’s representatives to the AU’s Economic, Social and Cultural Council under ECOSOCC Statute Article 5 Section 3. However, twenty years later Ambassador Quao was calling attention to what I had been publicly lamenting: that the African Diaspora still has no representatives in AU ECOSOCC and the “6th Region” is just a concept with no formal structure within the AU. After spending a week in February 2023 in Zimbabwe listening to Ambassador Quao share the details of her 9th PAC agenda, I became a true believer in our shared mission and she appointed me Coordinator of the Agenda for what became known as the “8th Pan African Congress part 1” since the 2014/2015 Dueling PACs were “nullified” and there were objections all around for calling it the “9th PAC”.

Meanwhile, on May 3, 2023, the African Political Alliance (APA) first ministerial conference in Lomé, Togo announced, “The Ministers stressed the need to move towards a synergy of action by Pan­ Africanists and welcomed the project to organize the 9th Pan-African Congress in Lome, in 2024, by Togo, in collaboration with the African Union. . . .” That effort had started back on February 10, 2020, within the framework of the 33rd Summit of the African Union, when the Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Integration and Togolese Abroad, Professor Robert DUSSEY, representing HE Mr. Faure Essozimna GNASSINGBE, President of the Togolese Republic, presented a communication on behalf of Togo on the launching of the “Decade of African Roots and Diasporas”. This Togolese initiative is known as the “Lomé Framework”. On May 7, Ambassador Quao and I sent a letter to Minister Dussey “inviting Your Excellency to a meeting (date and time to be determined) of the leadership of the various major entities to discuss possibilities for harmonizing our respective efforts.” A favorable response was returned.

On July 4, 2023, however, the late Professor Ikaweba Bunting, the Secretary General  of the Global Pan African Movement (GPAM) issued the Call to Convene 8th Pan African Congress Phase II which emanated out of a July 8-11 2022 meeting in Kampala. Immediately I sent Professor Ikaweba Bunting a copy of my 73-page strategy document, entitled THE FUNCTIONAL ESTABLISHMENT OF THE  AU 6TH REGION: HARMONIZING THE AU-AFRICAN DIASPORA SIXTH REGION (AU-ADS) HIGH COUNCIL, THE AFRICAN DIASPORA DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE (ADDI) ADPAC AGENDA, AND THE "DECADE OF AFRICAN ROOTS AND DIASPORAS" PROPOSED BY THE REPUBLIC OF TOGO AND ADOPTED BY THE AU GENERAL ASSEMBLY  EX.CL/1420(XLII) as well as the draft DECLARATION FOR THE HARMONIZING OF THE PAN AFRICAN CONGRESSES AND THE EFFORTS TO ESTABLISH THE AFRICAN DIASPORA AS THE 6TH REGION OF THE AFRICAN UNION asking him and Presidents Museveni, Mnangagwa, and Gnassingbe along with H.E. Kahinda Otafiire, Minister of Internal Affairs of Uganda and Chairman of the Governing Council of Global Pan African Movement (GPAM), H.E. Professor Robert Dussey, H.E. Ambassador Arikana Chihombori – Quao, and Dr. Barryl A. Biekman, PhD., Coordinator of the African Union African Diaspora 6th Region Facilitators Working Group Europe & Co-Facilitator of the Monitoring & Policy Working Group to sign the Declaration. The Declaration would then be sent to Pan Africanists to endorse and sign. The exchange I had with Robert Musasizi, Director of Communications for GPAM-Governing Council is worth sharing:

Robert: "Have read through your document, it's good you have now acknowledged PAC  Ghana 1. How I  wish we started from here yesterday. How I wish you came as a team and met with Chairman of GPAM Gen Otafiire in Kampala and empowered our Secretariat so that it unites all these different gatherings on the continent. We need to unite. . . . Chairman Gen. Otafiire is Museveni's long time special envoy on Pan African matters on the African continent and Diaspora. I think Amb. Arikana should have checked on him and harmonized these Pan African issues. . . . If Pan African groups on the continent can not unite, then who will unite and integrate Africa? It's very ironic.  At one point I will share with you the latest letters from Museveni instructing Otafiire to organize the 8th PAC in Uganda 2024."

Me: "This is why I am working so hard to help them ‘harmonize’ and signal to the rest of us grassroots that a new chapter has begun and the time is now. . . . Well, now we are together. So I will need your help to get GPAM on board. . . . Maybe she didn't know Gen Otafiire or have any contact/connection to him. . . . After arriving in Harare, Zimbabwe on February 7th to join H.E. Ambassador Chihombori-Quao’s planning committee, I asked her why the conference was now being called the ‘8th PAC Part 1’ when it was originally announced as the ‘9th PAC’. Her response was that it was on the insistence of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who intends to host the ‘8th PAC Part 2’ next year in Uganda to commemorate the 30th Anniversary of the 7th PAC that was held in Kampala, Uganda. I know she felt fully empowered by Museveni after meeting with him in Kampala as you will soon discover, it was Museveni's idea for the Ambassador’s ‘PAC8.1’. In any event, there is a good roadmap now on how to unite all these different gatherings. Do you have any suggestions and/or instructions now? . . . Since President Museveni is supporting both of us, there should be no problem in our uniting under the Declaration framework. The Ambassador is with the Ambassador of Togo as we speak, securing their support...."

On July 25, H.E. Ambassador Quao traveled to Kampala and presented the plan to President Yoweri Musevni who agreed  to call both President Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe and President Faure Ayedemen of Togo as well as to host and sponsor a pre-summit meeting of 150-200 leaders of African Diaspora from around the world to come to Uganda to discuss the way forward under the umbrella of the Pan African Secretariat which currently is housed in Uganda according to the outcomes of the 7th PAC. There also exists a Memorandum of Understanding Between the African Union Commission and the Pan African Movement signed by H.E. Dr. Aisha L. Abdullahi of the AU Commission for Political Affairs and Gen Kahinda Otafiire, Chairman of the International Committee of the GPAM in Kampala, on May 22nd, 2015. That memorandum states that they must work together in organizing any Pan African Congresses. In her follow-up letter to President Museveni, H.E. Ambassador Quao stated, “To host a gathering of a truly representative group of the African Diaspora from all over the world there is a need for as many Diaspora leaders to meet and discuss the agenda for the three PAC’s.  This is the only way we can move forward united . . . .”

Following a request for GPAM’s Constitution, Robert Musasizi, writing for the Chairman of GPAM on August 7, stated, 

“Following our meeting in Kampala on 26th July 2023, the Governing Council of GPAM will meet soon to deliberate on the serious issues you addressed to us. Therefore, as we keep on planning and working around the clock for pre-Congresses within Africa and the 6th region as precursors for the main Pan African Congress in Kampala 2024, let’s wait for the Governing Council’s decision before we start sharing with you any of our classified documents.” 

Finally, during the Accra Reparations Conference in November 2023, I met with Gnaka Lagoke, Chair of the Scientific Committee of the 9th Pan-African Congress in Lomé and chief coordinator working for the Togolese government. I presented him with the plan for harmonizing the Pan African Congresses and we agreed to work together. He asked me for the list of the 150 to 200 Diaspora Pan Africanists. He also asked me to submit a concept note for gaining the support of Pan Africanists outlined in the plan that was based on my work for the PAC 8.1 that convened five preparatory Town Hall Zoom meetings, each of which were attended by 400 to 600 people. Unfortunately, the detailed plan was presented and rejected by the 9th PAC Organizers.

It should be noted that all of this was preceded by the Global RootsSynergy Roundtable (GRSR) held in Accra, Ghana in November 2019. The resultant 2019 Accra Declaration requested, 

“That a Secretariat for the implementation of the Decade of Return consisting of Professional Diaspora Cadres should be placed under the Diaspora Department of the A.U. Commission. This Secretariat would have the mandate and responsibility to drive the entire process of the Decade of Return: 2020-2030.”

What’s interesting is that after this, His Excellency Professor Robert Dussey held working sessions with the Citizens and Diaspora Directorate (CIDO), the department responsible for leading the AU’s engagement with non-state actors in Addis Ababa in October 2021, on the sidelines of the African Union Executive Council. The purpose was to agree on the importance of aligning the Decade's activities with ongoing initiatives of the African Union Commission. CIDO undertook to transmit to Togo a draft action plan for the Decade which would take account of this requirement and based on the Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union Agenda 2063. How did CIDO develop this draft action plan? Was it based on the 2019 Accra Declaration? Why wasn’t the GRSR included, since this is exactly what they proposed? And why wasn’t GPAM included as mandated by the MoU that specifically states an agreement to “facilitate the implementation of a Joint AUC/PAM Action Plan”? Here I would like to quote the great Pan Africanist, Dr. John Henrik Clark, who said, 

“We are the meetings and the talking -ist people in all the world. We call more meetings, pass more resolutions and get less done than any people in the world. We will meet and vote and forget what we voted for . . .”

It should also be noted that also in October 2021, Mrs. Grace A James from Jamaica but living in Tanzania, Co-President of the African Diaspora Alliance (AfDA), retired Judge D. Peter Herbert O.B.E. in the United Kingdom, and myself, completed a motion to the African Union Executive Council 39th Extraordinary Session upon the request of Shem Ochuodho, East Africa's Representative to the AU ECOSOCC who stated, “Our current term in ECOSOCC ends in 2 years. It would really have been my/our wish, within that time, to bring diaspora into the ECOSOCC system. At a time when we have about 15-20 pro-diaspora members in the General Assembly! With a good Framework, they would assist us push it through.”  The motion was to be submitted to the AU ECOSOCC Secretariat through the Zambian Minister of Foreign Affairs, but for whatever reason, the motion never reached the African Union.

GRSR, led by the African Union African Diaspora 6th Region Facilitators Working Group (AUADS) then went on to host the Addis Ababa Summit in May 2022, which was attended by representatives of both CIDO and ECOSOCC and which the Resolution from this Roundtable was submitted to the African Union Commission in cooperation with the CIDO, AU ECOSOCC and the African Commission For Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR). GRSR then hosted the Maputo Summit 10-13 July, 2023, presided over by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of the Republic of Mozambique and included a representative the AU ECOSOCC Standing Committee, to establish an AUADS High Council (HC) that would provide a coherent governance organizational voice for Diaspora participation in the African Union.

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Endnote

1. Memorandum of Understanding Between the African Union Commission and the Pan African Movement signed by H.E. Dr. Aisha L. Abdullahi of the AU Commission for Political Affairs and Gen Kahinda Otafiire, Chairman of the International Committee of the Global Pan African Movement (GPAM) in Kampala, on May 22nd, 2015. The Memorandum states: “GUIDED by the ideals of Pan Africanism, African unity, self-reliance . . . CONSIDERING further that PAM is a mass movement that aims at promoting Pan Africanism among African peoples within Africa and in the diaspora with an ultimate aim of uniting Africa under a union Government of African states; RECALLING that PAM and the Commission have a historical standing relationship that dates back to the immediate post-independence where the founding fathers of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU)/African Union (AU) were also the founders of the PAM;. . .  DESIROUS of further improving and strengthening the existing relationship between the Commission and PAM by establishing appropriate working arrangements; . . .  HAVE AGREED AS FOLLOWS: ARTICLE 2(e) Convening PAM Regional stakeholders’ consultations (Pre-Congress Conferences in all the 12 PAM regions and the four Special Interest groups of Women, Youth, Workers and Intellectuals) and Pan African Congresses within the agreed upon intervals . . . . (h) Conducting joint resource mobilization initiatives to facilitate the implementation of a Joint AUC/PAM Action Plan. . . ARTICLE 4 (a) Each Party undertakes to regularly inform the other of the priority areas for cooperation as identified by their respective organizations; (b) the Commission shall consider any proposal made by PAM considering projects and programs that relate to activities set out in the Joint Action Plan for strategic partnerships; (c) PAM shall similarly undertake to consider any proposals made by the Commission that relate to activities set out in the Joint Action Plan. . . .  ARTICLE 5 Subject to consultations and their respective internal rules and procedures, the Parties shall endeavor to invite each other, as an observer, to attend meetings on matters of mutual interest as deemed appropriate. . . . ARTICLE 8 1. The Parties have agreed to hold regular consultations with each other on all matters arising from this MoU that may be necessary for the smooth running of their cooperation. . . . ”

1. Accra Declaration 2019: 

“Ghana Year of Return not in vacuum 

The Year of Return declared in September 2018 in Washington DC by the President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, with reference to the 400-year remembrance of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the enslavement of African people does not stand by itself nor is it a vacuum. The Year of Return must be considered as an event in the series of various instruments that have been established in the framework of declarations and resolutions on the People of African descent in the last twenty years . . . .

Diasporans as development bridge-builders and agents of change 

In 2020, we are on the eve of the 5 years mid-term review of the UN International Decade for People of African Descent; in 2021 20 years of commemoration of the DDPA. And in the middle of those processes is the Year of Return. It had to be so. A Year at the crossroads of the transition to a new decade 2020. A Year whereby thousands of African Diasporans, many in united partnerships accepted the invitation of the Ghana President. Each in its own way. This has more than ever, made it clear that the African Diasporans are ready for reunification. The required task to bring this engagement to fruition is to the ending of the slow pace of the implementation of the May 2012 Sixth Region African Union African Diaspora Declaration. . . . 

III.2.3 CALL TO ACTION

 The Global RootsSynergy Roundtable calls on

“The African Union Commission [and] respective AU Heads of State 

To adopt its next session the AU Decade of Return 2020-2030 with the aim to invite the ‘historical’ Africans in particular, to ‘Return to their Continent’. 

To use this Decade of Return as a tool to end the slow pace of the implementation of the May 2012 African Union African Diaspora Sixth Region Declaration as far it concerns the Legal and Political Framework and Structure with the aim: Sustainable Integration of the Diaspora Legalization in the diverse political, socioeconomic and social organs and bodies of the African Union. 

III.2.4 RECOMMEND 

That the Programme of Activities for the implementation of the Decade of Return must be developed in close cooperation with an appointed “Technical Working Commission Decade of Return” with a consultative voice for the Ghana Presidency Commission Year of Return, because of the learning and experience aspects. 

III.2.5 REQUEST 

That a Secretariat for the implementation of the Decade of Return consisting of Professional Diaspora Cadres should be placed under the Diaspora Department of the A.U. Commission. This Secretariat would have the mandate and responsibility to drive the entire process of the Decade of Return: 2020-2030.”