Comafrica was founded in 1985 as a result of an initiative to bridge academic research with the implementation of foreign policy by sectors of the Brazilian civil society as a public policy. A decisive factor was the concern with the foreign policy of tolerance and omission regarding Apartheid in South Africa and colonialism in Namibia by successive Brazilian governments of the time.

Hence, COMAFRICA was not the fruit of a sudden awareness of the situation in South Africa and Namibia, but rather the result of years of mobilization of Brazilian public opinion, through the holding of public acts and demonstrations against the apartheid regime, which gradually acquired a voice geared to promoting unity in action.

The academic space provided by INEAFRIC – Institute of African Studies in Rio de Janeiro¹ established 1981, where the Committee was founded, had attracted several sectors of civil society in Brazil for solidarity actions with the national liberation movements ANC² and SWAPO³.

Ineafric, which participated in United Nations activities in support of the independence of Namibia and of the elimination of Apartheid in South Africa, prioritised South-South Cooperation relations with the liberation movements ANC and SWAPO, and with UN bodies engaged in those causes, such as UNIC, DPI, UNHCR, UNU, UNCN and UNIN⁴

In the early 1980’s, the bringing of African Studies content into the study of International Relations⁵ constituted an innovative perspective in Brazil, which Dr. Jennifer Dunjwa Blajberg, a South African and Africanist, founder of Ineafric tried to develop. Brazil, however, was at that time a country in which a tradition of colonial deference in various subjects also created obstacles to the development of Modern African Studies.

Ineafric was a constituent part of IURI – Joint Institutes of International Relations, a project for democratising access to International Relations (IR) as a field of studies in Brazil. The lack of civil society oriented institutions in this field had led Dr Dunjwa Blajberg and Dr. Salomon Blajberg, a Brazilian Political Scientist to formulate in 1980 and implement in 1981 the IURI project, seeing that the tiny Brazilian academic community linked with International Relations (IR) was basically in the sphere of influence of the Ministry of External Relations or in the orbit of foreign foundations interested in influencing the country’s foreign policy.

The IURI Institutes faced a hostile environment, especially due to the lack of scholar traditions in Brazil for the study of International Relations that would not lie within the boundaries admitted by Itamaraty. Civil society lacked civic institutions that would work towards endowing it with instruments to enable that foreign policy be conducted as public policy. In fact Brazilian civil society had in other times demonstrated that it was able to achieve that, such as was the case when in 1942 Brazil declared war to the Axis subsequent to intense popular demonstrations, as Brazilian lives and ships were being lost because of German submarine warfare in the South Atlantic. In the 1940’s the movement for the nationalization of oil under the motto “O petróleo é nosso” [Oil belongs to us] also gained momentum in Brazil, having achieved the establishment of the State Oil Monopoly in 1954⁶.

The world struggle for the elimination of apartheid was in several countries a cause in which civil society engaged transforming the respective foreign policy of their countries in public policy. This happened also in Brazil, mainly with the support to this struggle by civil society at large, and especially by the Movimento Negro[Black Movement] Ineafric was from the beginning (1981) a structure for research and consulting, and used to be a forum for analyses and debates favouring a new approach to international relations in Brazil, namely, that of the relations among peoples and not that of the diplomacy of the time, a conventional one or one with purely mercantile objectives⁷.

A historical seminar on Liberation Movements, as dealt as subjects of International Law, held in June 1985 at Ineafric⁸, unleashed an intense process of discussion and reflection which eventually consubstantiated in the foundation of Comafrica, that soon galvanised the support by civil society in Brazil and by subnational government bodies to the Committee’s objectives to mobilize the Brazilian people and government towards the elimination of apartheid and in support the independence of Namibia.

On 21 March, 1990 with the independence of Namibia and on 10 May, 1994 with the inauguration of the Government of National Unity presided by Nelson Mandela, subsequent to non-racial elections in South Africa, Comafrica had finally achieved its objective to bring the Brazilian people and government to contribute towards the elimination of apartheid. As the ANC and SWAPO were now political parties, Comafrica was no longer committed by its By-Laws to support them, considering that their national liberation movement paths was now part of History.

During the rest of the 90s, the remaining membership and sympathisers in Brazil and in Africa expressed the desirability or possibility of reactivating or restructuring Comafrica.

REBIRTH

On 21 March 2000, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the remaining members met in Rio de Janeiro to discuss the convenience of either dissolving or reactivating and restructuring it. The membership decided not to dissolve the organisation in view of the actuality of facts such as the growth of racism in the world and of the African renaissance.
Instituto Comáfrica, also known, as comAfrica.org, is a not-for-profit private organisation dedicated to social, cultural and educational aims; its aims, activities and membership are carried irrespective of race, religion, or colour.

In this 21st Century comAfrica.org is committed to further the exchange among civil society organisations from Brazil and South Africa as well as from Southern Africa and to collaborate with the United Nations system.

Its institutional mission comprises performing basic or applied research activities of a scientific or technological nature and dissemination of knowledge to facilitate people-to-people International Relations.

In this way, the Institute purports to contribute to the promotion of activities furthering the knowledge on African realities in Brazil and in the Americas, in association with Brazilian, African and international organisations.

As in the case of the former Comafrica we bring together scientists, technologists, technical experts academics and researchers with a transdisciplinary approach and/or open to interinstitutional partnerships, entrepreneurs, journalists, policy-makers, policy managers, social and political leadership from different trends and institutions. Comafrica.org continues to be an institution above political party affiliations, independent, autonomous as regards the State, organized social movements, religious denominations, and political parties.

The site www.comAfrica.org, besides being a virtual meeting point for its membership is open to exchange with the academic community, policy makers, policy managers, press, the media, and to the society interested in the themes of African Studies, International Cooperation, Social Memory, Social Medicine, and of Sports and related areas, as means of social integration and to promote cooperation amongst peoples.

The www.comAfrica.info digital repository (under construction) shall hold funds of digitised works such as periodicals, research reports, bibliographic, iconographic, sound or audiovisual and multimedia materials relating to the themes dealt with in comAfrica.org. Originally digitised works such as, articles, theses, essays, news and events of interest for our Internet target audiences, to be published initially on the site www.comAfrica.org shall subsequently be preserved in the digital repository.

ComAfrica Institute contributes to reconstruct international cooperation by retrieving the heritage of solidarity, providing for the dissemination of information and for the revitalization of public spaces, creating a space for cooperation with Africa in Rio de Janeiro.