Pan Africanist Congress of Azania
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Pan Africanist Congress of Azania
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| President | Luthando Mbinda |
| Founder | Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe |
| Founded | 6 April 1959 |
| Split from | African National Congress |
| Headquarters | 10th Floor, Marble Towers, cnr Eloff & Marshall Streets, Johannesburg, Gauteng |
| Student wing | Pan Africanist Student Movement of Azania |
| Youth wing | Pan Africanist Youth Congress of Azania |
| Women's wing | Pan Africanist Women's Organisation |
| Paramilitary wing | Azanian People's Liberation Army (formerly) |
| Ideology |
Democratic socialism, Pan-Africanism, Black nationalism, African socialism |
| Political position | Left-wing |
| Slogan | Izwe Lethu!! Our Land!! |
| National Assembly seats |
1 / 400
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| Party flag | |
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| Website | |
| www |
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The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (once known as the Pan Africanist Congress, abbreviated as the PAC) is a South African Black Nationalist movement, and is now a political party. It was founded by an Africanist group, led by Robert Sobukwe, that broke away from the African National Congress (ANC).
The PAC was formally launched on 6 April 1959 at Orlando Communal Hall in Soweto. A number of African National Congress (ANC) members broke away because they objected to the substitution of the 1949 Programme of Action with the Freedom Charter adopted in 1955. Further they objected to the inclusion of other national groups such as the Communist Party of South Africa. Robert Sobukwe was elected as the first president, and Potlako Leballo as the Secretary General.
On 21 March 1960, the PAC organised a campaign against pass laws. People gathered in the townships of Sharpeville and Langa where Sobukwe and other top leaders were arrested and later convicted for incitement. Sobukwe was sentenced to three years and Potlako Leballo to two years in prison. Sobukwe died in Kimberley, Cape Province, 1978 of lung cancer. Immediately after the Sharpeville massacre the National Party Government banned both the ANC and PAC on 8 April 1960. The PAC responded by founding its armed wing, the Azanian People's Liberation Army.
The PAC followed the idea that the South African Government should be constituted by the African people owing their allegiance only to Africa, as stated by Sobukwe in the inaugural speech of the PAC:
"We aim, politically, at government of the Africans by the Africans, for the Africans, with everybody who owes his only loyalty to Africa and who is prepared to accept the democratic rule of an African majority being regarded as an African."
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Wikipedia