El Consejo Supremo de la Asociación Abacuá de Cuba - Buro Abakuá - Consejo Supremo Abakuá de Cuba - Asociación Abakuá de Cuba

The Abakuá are traditionally organized into potencias or lodges, which descend from the Ékpè lodges of Calabar in the Cross River Delta in Nigeria and adjoining Cameroon.

The phrase "Buro Abakuá" is the popular short-hand reference to the "Consejo Supremo de la Asociación Abacuá de Cuba," and since many Abakuá don't recognize the Consejo as legitimate, the term "Buro" is a way of saying "administrative," therefore oppressive, since Abakua is essentially an urban cimarron group that repels being administrated.

Despite the terminology, the Buro was originally a creation of the authentic Abakuá potentias. In 1960, as Cuba was nationalizing all property, some Abakuá leaders drew a line and said: "We need separation between state and religion. Abakuá is a religion. We are more Cuban than the palm tree. Leave us alone." They created a "Buro Abakuá" to confront the excesses of the Revolution. That didn't work: in 1967 the state prohibited any Abakuá initiation during the Quinquenio Gris. This lasted until 1977, so it was more like the Decada Gris.

From 1960 to 1991, the state trained Abakuá initiates to infiltrate the lodges and spy on them, and they sought the complete integration of Abakuá into the state. Possibly some of the comrades were reacting to the presence of former Batistianos in the lodges, but there are former Batistianos across most aspects of Cuban life. There were a number of comrades in the lodges: it is a religion and a culture, not a political organization. This is a case of over-reaching, excessive state control, which predates communism and has a lot to do with Cuba's republican heritage, where everyone is equal but no ethnic identities are allowed, except of course for the dominant one.

Just as with Ifa and the Asociación Cultural Yoruba, creating or adapting a body to oversee the numerous expressions of African religion is difficult because there never was a supreme Abakuá leader or organization, just many autonomous lodges (potencias).  Ifa was never centrally organized in Cuba either. Many of the members of the Buro don't know the rituals well and they are not respected by rank and file Abakuá. Their ignorance spills over into the descriptions they give of Abakuá.

In 1991, around the time of the IVth Party Congress, the state approved of the Buro Abakuá (Consejo supremo) to represent - eg, control - Abakuá and mediate between it and the state.

The Buro and the state dismiss the whole issue of African roots as bogus since creolisation or transculturation has supposedly Cubanized everything. Thus they feel that the state has a right to control it. However, the African heritage in Abakuá is among the strongest of any African cultures in Cuba. To deny that is counter factual and AfroCubaWeb has a particularly complete collection of references to this reality.

There is a Buro Abakuá in every town where there are Abakua members, they are organized under the provincial Buros. Each municipal Buro oversees one or more Buros, which are committees made up of state sanctioned Abakuá initiates. The Buros oversee the relationships between the government and the real African structures, which are the old potencias or lodges. The Buro do not have any say in the internal affairs of the potencias.

The Buro structure is completely separate from the traditional potencias originally founded by Africans from Calabar (Carabali in Spanish) in the Cross River Delta. These African potencias are related to the Ékpè lodges in Calabar and carry the same names in a number of cases. It is hard to imagine Ékpè members recognizing the state created Buros as valid or authentic and indeed they don't.

El Consejo Supremo de la Asociación Abacuá de Cuba

Ángel Freire, former President, has fled to the US
Arístides La Madrid, Vicepresidente
Dr. Orlando Gutiérrez Boza, Secretario de Asuntos Religiosos
Ramon Torres Zayas, miembro

Buró Provincial Abakuá de La Habana

Dr. Orlando Gutiérrez Boza, miembro

Past presidents

Gerardo, Mokóngo Akamaroro Efo, president from around 1962 up to around 1969, a police chief under Batista. He could not have been severe, else he would have been imprisoned or executed.
Wifredo, Mokóngo de Ekobio Endure, (emigrated to the US)
Fernando Valdés, who was Ekueñón de Efóri Muñánga Ékue and a member of the communist party. He killed himself recently.
Ángel Freyre, member of the communist party. He recently fled to Miami, allegedly with Buro funds

-- Andy Petit, 2010