MONOCULTURE | A Recent History

The Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa and Latin America (OSPAAAL) was founded in Havana, Cuba, in January 1966 as the outcome of the first Tricontinental Conference. OSPAAAL was intended to unite the revolutionary national liberation movements of the three ‘Third World’ continents (Africa, Asia, and Latin America), together in the spirit of international anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist solidarity. In the general declaration of the first conference, which took place during the active US intervention in Vietnam, the organisation explicitly criticised “Yankee imperialism”. Delegates at the Tricontinental Conference not only condemned racial discrimination and the South African apartheid regime, but also expressed their support for Civil Rights movements everywhere and advocated for global military resistance. Other topics included new models of economic development with the Global South as one entity. The distinct socialist stance of the Tricontinental movement, which emerged just four years after The Cuban Missile Crisis, was opposed by the United States through the extensive counter-revolutionary activities carried out in the region by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The spirit of Tricontinental prevailed throughout the 1970s, but began to fade in the 1980s.