back to African People's Solidarity Day home page
Chernoh Alpha M. Bah, Africanist Movement
Award-winning
journalist, newspaper editor and former child soldier during Sierra Leone’s
decade-long brutal diamond wars of the 1990s, Chernoh Alpha M. Bah is a featured
speaker at African People’s Solidarity Day events, October 13-21 in cities
throughout the U.S.
Mr. Bah is currently the Director of the popular Africanist Movement based in eight countries in West Africa. The Africanist Movement is a grass roots organization working for self-determination in West Africa for the millions of people forced to subsist on less than a dollar a day.
Despite the fact that the countries of West Africa are rich in diamonds, gold, aluminum, oil and countless other minerals and resources, the majority of people are so deeply impoverished that life expectancy is only 36 years. Mr. Bah believes that “neocolonialism” was at the root of the Sierra Leone war, which saw 50,000 people killed and tens of thousands more mutilated.
Neocolonialism means that the U.S., British and other former colonial governmental and corporate powers still control Sierra Leone, giving crumbs of resources to the country’s elite while the majority of people starve.
The Africanist Movement led by Mr. Bah is a member organization of the African Socialist International which believes that the only future for Africa lies in the abolition of former colonial borders which are still in place today and the formation of one united African state led by working people.
Mr. Bah will speak about the recent elections in Sierra Leone, and how, despite a recently-elected new President, conditions remain the same for the majority of people.
