Forward to a United and Socialist Africa!

African Liberation Day 2026 Statement: Friends of Swazi Freedom

May 25, 1963 marked the formation of the Organization of African Unity which was a transnational organization aimed to foster unity in action among the independent African nations and coordinate to support national liberation organizations who aimed to liberate Africa completely from colonialism. Today, millions of Africans and revolutionaries celebrate this anniversary as African Liberation Day, a day of celebration, renewal, meditation and struggle as we remind ourselves about the valiant and difficult history of revolutionary struggle waged by Africans against imperialists and their comprador stooges that maintain exploitative relations throughout the continent. Today, we remember the valiant Africans who were brutally murdered and tortured by colonialist and neocolonial regimes just for the pure fact that they refused to live a life of servility, they dared to reclaim their human dignity and fight for a just and beautiful world. We recognize that we build upon the legacy of revolutionaries such as Muthoni wa Kirima, Eduardo Mondlane, Maryse Conde, Franz Fanon and so many other Africans who dedicated their life to the complete emancipation of Africans whether they were on the continent or in the diaspora.

We in Friends of Swazi Freedom join our comrades worldwide in celebration and renewal today as we remember that African liberation is at the core of our struggle and the foundation for the worldwide struggle against the world imperialist system. We take this moment to affirm our solidarity with Africans struggling for who are struggling against genocidal situations in the Sudan and Congo. We affirm our solidarity with Africans from Swaziland to Kenya, Mauritania to Madagascar and throughout the diaspora whether they are struggling against colonialist situations in “French” Guiana, Martinique and Bermuda, or are struggling against regimes that are built upon the historical enslavement of Africans and structured upon necropolitical foundations vis a vis the African, such as the United States, Dominican Republic and the United Arab Emirates. African liberation is inherently transnational due to the historical particularities of the development of world capitalism, and we will organize on such a transnational basis until freedom and liberation for Africans and humanity writ large is the rule.

We take the rest of this statement to salute and discuss the struggle in Swaziland as this is the struggle our organization formed around and is truly an intrinsic struggle for the complete liberation of Africa from neocolonial rule that must not be ignored. From forced proletarianization and land dispossession dictated by British colonial officials during the protectorate era to contemporary struggles to overthrow the Absolute Monarchy the oppressed classes of Swaziland have never shied away from challenging oppressive institutions. Remember that although the Kingdom of Swaziland achieved its “independence” on September 8, 1968, the workers, peasantry and progressive petty bourgeoisie have continued to struggle against what they call a sham independence which “legitimized” Monarchical institutions in order to better protect a dependent capitalist order in Swaziland. King Sobhuza II the independence leader waited less than five years to abrogate the constitution and thus electoral democracy due to the growing power of the Ngwane National Liberatory Congress, which put forward a progressive, future based on the principles of “African Socialism” and sought to embed an anticolonial modernity within the Kingdom. In response and conniving with the former British colonizers and the Apartheid regime in South Africa, King Sobhuza II abrogated the constitution on April 12, 1973. This decree led to the banning of all political parties, the construction of a sham system of governance known as the Tinkhundla system, and pure state terrorism by the regime against pro-democracy activists in Swaziland and abroad. April 12 must be seen as a day of infamy for all of Africa and become another date to foster international solidarity and unity to finally overthrow this neocolonial Absolute Monarchy.

Yet, it must be recognized that the ramifications of the April 12th decree was not all rosy for the Absolute Monarchy. Resistance against the government continued and continues to this day. Even in the face of brutal repression such as the Black Wednesday event of November 14, 1990 when the Swazi armed forces were sent onto the Kwaluseni campus of University of Swaziland in order to repress student boycotts which led to hundreds of students injured, to the bloody events of June 29, 2021 in which yet again the Swazi military was unleashed upon protestors comprised of students, workers, the unemployed and other oppressed sectors of Swazi society. This massacre along with lengthy prison sentences was meant to stifle opposition, yet the government has failed.

Today we salute all militants who are struggling for the liberation of Swaziland and Africa. In particular we send our militant solidarity and comradely salutes to the Communist Party of Swaziland and the Swaziland National Union of Students who continuously organize within Swaziland and the diaspora in the goal of overthrowing the Monarchy and instituting a national-democratic revolutionary process in the country. These comrades are the epitome of the bright future that Swaziland and Africa has.

On This African Liberation Day We Reaffirm our Militant Solidarity With The People of Swaziland and All African Peoples Struggling Against World Imperialism!

Forward to a United and Socialist Africa! Death to Imperialism! Amandla!

In Revolutionary Solidarity.

Jason Cohen

Friends of Swazi Freedom