Statement by Movement for African Emancipation, 22nd October 2020
The Movement for African Emancipation joins the masses and youth of Africa in condemning the arrest of political activist, Bobi Wine, and the brutal repression of protesters, many of them youth, by the Uganda Police.
Like Nigeria, Uganda is essentially a country where dictatorship is hidden behind a democratic face, as Nigerian activist DJ Switch has said about Nigeria. Yoweri Museveni, a tyrant in power since 1986 who has recently amended the constitution to allow him to rule beyond the legally set age limit of 75, was once a Pan Africanist who took power with the people’s support but deserted the people by signing up to the imperialist policies of the World Bank and IMF, forcing through Structural Adjustment Programmes to Suffer the African People. To cover up for his pro rich and anti poor policies, Musuveni has adopted repression of the voices of the poor alongside using tribalist sentiments. The police has become a force beholden to him and his party. In this context came the leadership of Bobi Wine who gained popularity among the suffering urban poor and the youth. He has suffered acts of violence and repression just for daring to speak truth to power. We in Nigeria demand for his release from unjust detention and for the repression and killings of the youth and masses to stop.
African neo colonialist rulers, mostly made up of old dinosaurs who have no ideas to move the continent forward beyond going with begging bowls to the West and making the countries of our continent simply exporters of raw materials to the industrialised parts of the world, should now realise that their time is up.
Across the continent, the masses, led by the youth who make up the majorities of our countries, are arising to demand economic and social justice. Across Africa, the people are suffering from slavery and increasing in their demands that they should be free. In Cameroon, another neo colonialist dinosaur ruler is severely repressing the cries of freedom of a section of the country and utilising ethnic and tribal divisions to maintain his hold on power. In Congo, the richest part of the world in natural resources, children are enslaved in order to work in mines and many are being killed due to a struggle to control the resources of the people by foreign bandits and their local agents. We also note that our African brothers and sisters in Ayiti (Haiti) are suffering police repression from tyrannical neo colonialist puppets as they rise to resist anti people policies.
Because the mis-rulers fear the power of the masses, our uprisings are met with heavy repression in colonial style of brutality. If these mis-rulers learnt anything from the colonialists, it is that the people of the African country do not matter, rather they must be treated like slaves. As Bobi Wine said, “Let Musuveni know that we are not slaves and we shall not accept to be slaves. We shall be free.”
And indeed we join with the call from Bobi Wine for Ugandans to be freed from tyranny, a call that echoes across all of Africa. We also call on the masses of Africa to unite their struggles for liberation, to support each other’s struggles, so that we may achieve the goal of one United Africa that will finally ensure genuine liberation and democracy.
