Mehdi Ben Barka
The OSPAAAL was born out of the Tricontinental Conference in Havana, which Mehdi Ben Barka was preparing before his October 1965 assassination. OSPAA gathered for the first time in Cairo, Egypt in 1957. 500 delegates from 35 countries represented their national liberation movements and parties rather than states. It was led by Ismaël Touré, the brother of Ahmed Sékou Touré, president of Guinea. Ismaël Touré presided the board responsible of the solidarity funds, assisted by two vice-chairmen: Mehdi Ben Barka of Morocco and Chu Tzu-chi of the People's Republic of China. At that time, AAPSO (Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Organisation) was debating the inclusion of Cuba and the rest of the Caribbean and Latin America to the group, a question posed again in Cairo in June 1961 by the new commission, the Commission on Neocolonialism, which was presided by Ben Barka.