Chairperson, with my two minutes allow me to remark that Africa Liberation Day is the fruit of a long African struggle for freedom. Through the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Africans were sold like animals. In 1885, the imperialist Berlin Conference turned Africa into British Africa, French Africa, Portuguese Africa, German Africa, Italian Africa and Spanish Africa. There was no African Africa left for Africans. Africa's richest were looted and used to develop and enrich western countries.
Africa Liberation Day was given birth by a resilient political philosophy which has refused to die even when a super power built on a competing ideological school of thought crumbled under Mikhail Gorbachev. Henry Sylvester Williams coined this stubborn African political philosophy "Pan- Africanism" in 1900. Pan-Africanist giants such as George Padmore, CLR James, Du Bois, Nkrumah, Sobukwe, Lumumba, Lembede, Sekou Toure and Modibo Keita took the Pan-African vision to what it is today.
The African Union, the Pan-African Parliament and the present struggle for the economic liberation, social emancipation and technological advancement of the African continent are some of the achievements of Pan-Africanism.
On this 45th anniversary of Africa Liberation Day, let it be reiterated that Pan-Africanism demands that the riches of Africa must be used for the benefit, uplifting, development and enjoyment of the African people. Pan- Africanism is a system of equitably sharing food, clothing, homes, education, health care, wealth, land, work, security of life and happiness. Pan-Africanism is the privilege of the African people to love and give themselves their way of life, respect and preference.
Attacks on Africans by other Africans from the same Mother Africa manifests the extent to which colonialism has poisoned the minds of Africa's people. The message of Africa Liberation Day today is that African nations will not progress rapidly unless they act in unity, pursue peace, development and social justice. [Time expired.]