The Organising Committee for the United Kingdom Pan African Congress (1998) hereby issues a call for a Global Pan-African Congress to be held in September 2000, on the hundredth anniversary of the Conference held in London in 1900. We call on Pan-Africanists everywhere to mobilise and organise for a democratic, nonexclusive Pan-African Congress to discuss WHAT IS TO BE DONE to implement the Pan-African solution to the many problems faced by Africa and the Africans every where.

Africans have the longest history and experience in comparison to other nations and races in the world. The struggle for Africans to develop and order their society, to relate to the rest of the world, guided by social justice and progress, is the basis of Pan Africanism. This African path of development reached its peak in the civilisation of ancient Egypt. It was however, disrupted by Arabic and European barbarism: invasions, conquests, enslavement, colonialism and cultural oppression. After this disruption European colonisers moved further than the Arabs and intervened directly and politically in AFRICA. The Berlin conference held in 1884 divided the continent into today's neo-colonial states.

The latter developments changed the character of the African world, in particular its relation to the rest of the world and its global spread. The vision of rebuilding AFRICAN UNITY AND RECLAIMING African self-hood and dignity led Marcus Garvey to mobilise Africans under the banner of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Regular consultation and the fashioning of tactics and strategies for mobilising the African people to change their position internationally, and thus to change the international situation brought about the Pan-African Congress.

The fifth Pan-African Congress in October 1945 accumulated the experiences of earlier congresses and addressed in a concrete way the question of fighting global exploitation and the task of building a system of social justice and progress. Its working committee embarked on a programme of action which set in motion the independence movement on the African continent.

Ghana's initial success in attempting to replace White rule by Black rule introduced new questions about the opportunities opening up for future struggle. The leader of the anti-colonial movement in Ghana, Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, accurately captured this in his statement that the independence of Ghana was meaningless without the total liberation of the African continent. The process of true independence and liberation was moved further on by the convening of the All-African Peoples Conference in Accra in 1958. Nkrumah's overthrow in February 1966 by foreign-instigated traitors was a serious setback for the All-African People's Liberation struggle. The works of our great warrior Ancestors, both female and male, continue to drive the present generation of warriors to pursue the cause of meaningful independence, i.e. the total liberation of Global Africa.

In this the AGE of Aquarius, the African world needs to chart a path of entry which is one of positive change and enhancement. We recognise that the millennium celebrations being trumpeted by the Europeans represent a European celebration of 2,000 years of European exploitation, oppression and suppression of non-European peoples and cultures, and that we, as Africans, have been at the receiving end of this exploitation, oppression and suppression.

In order to ensure a democratic and non-exclusive Global Pan-African Congress, we propose that Africans everywhere in the world organise local and national congresses in 1998 and the early part of 1999. In this way an international preparatory group could emerge consisting of delegated representatives of these congresses and other interested parties. In the spirit of Black Power (African Independence) and following the example of Marcus Garvey, we recommend that this initiative be unconditionally and totally independent of all neo-colonial governments, imperialist powers, non-African organisations and non-African individuals.