Reconstruction, sovereignty, and education
An East German medical school dedicated to internationalism
An East German medical school dedicated to internationalism
From 1960 to 1968, the Republic of Mali was at the forefront of social revolution in Africa. The country’s governing party, the Union Soudanaise, had refused to settle for formal political sovereignty and declared in 1960 that the republic would opt for “l’option socialiste” to secure economic independence from imperialism and social liberation for the Malian people. This brief episode of revolutionary upheaval in Mali offers insights into several central aspects of anti-imperialism in the 20th century.
Achim Reichardt, born in 1929, had served as a diplomat for the GDR in Sudan, Lebanon, and Libya. From 1982 to 1990 he was general secretary of the Solidarity Committee of the GDR, an organization emerging in the 1960s to administer the financial and material donations collected by the GDR’s mass organizations to support the liberation movements and newly independent states in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Solidarity Committee became a central coordinator of the GDR’s solidarity worldwide.