M HKA Ensembles

OSPAAAL

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.

Tricontinental magazine
Tricontinental magazine was launched soon after the Tricontinental Conference as the theoretical organ of the Executive Secretariat of OSPAAAL. It was published in Cuba and a few other countries in Spanish, English, French and other languages. The French edition of Tricontinental was published in Paris by leftist publisher Éditions Maspero despite multiple seizures and bans by the French government. The magazine provided updates and commentary on ongoing independence movements worldwide, as well as speeches and essays written by leading revolutionaries and theorists. The Cuban version of Tricontinental, thoughtfully designed and illustrated, often had a special end sheet mocking American advertisements and revealing the other side of capitalism. The Tricontinental Publishing House also produced films, recordings and propaganda posters. The posters could be found folded and inserted in each issue of the magazine. Although often more radical, the OSPAAAL propaganda material was similar to that of the official Non-Aligned Movement, and shared the same visual language.

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