Africa Conclave

...He does not appear to be a Communist: In his own words, he is for "the African Personality" and neutrality between East and West...

...The Cameroons is now, and may be expected to be in the future, a serious trouble spot in Africa...

...In fact, he has reportedly stated he would invade Djibouti, should France withdraw...

...The press in Africa has played up the danger, even though the tests are reportedly to take place under the sands with little or no fallout...

...President of the banned Union of Cameroonian Populations, an exile from his French-administered country who has lived in Khartoum, Cairo and Conakry...

...Furthermore, Guinea is both politically and culturally akin to the Mali Federation, the autonomous republics of Senegal and Soudan, still members of the French Community...

...These two messages were deeply appreciated...

...Tuesday belonged to President William V. S. Tubman of Liberia...

...France would most probably retaliate with the withdrawal of her Ambassador and possibly a rupture of economic relations as well...

...They "publicly urge a negotiated peace now between the two parties concerned...

...It was therefore appropriate that Tubman should host an all-African meeting—this first to follow the initial gathering of independent states in Accra, Ghana in April 1958...

...Ethiopia and Guinea—who had not formally recognized the rebel regime had hard choices to make...

...Most of Ethiopia's seahome traffic passes through the French port of Djibouti in French Somaliland...

...The actions and attitudes of the North African delegates at the Conference went a long way...

...When France withdraws on January 1st, there may be pitched battles...

...Other states had already made gestures of this kind...

...As Algeria is really quite remote to the average Ethiopian, this announcement may have been made only for bargaining purposes...

...President DeGaulle, at Djibouti on a recent trip, expressed France's strong determination to remain in French Somaliland, which has, apart from the Ethiopian rail traffic, a strategic location at the mouth of the Red Sea...

...last month's Monrovia Conference was the first to concentrate on a single issue—and a very controversial one...

...Each African government attending had conflicting interests at stake and each had already helped Algeria in one way or another to gain the independence it has so long been seeking...

...Pressed by the Algerians and others to take a stand, the Guinea delegation, headed by Ismael Toure, brother of the President, issued a statement...

...They recommended aid for Algeria's refugees...

...The final General Assembly resolution gave independence to the Cameroons on January 1, 1960—without new elections—thus leaving the government in the hands of a prime minister who is widely regarded as pro-French...

...The fact that a number of barter deals with the Soviet Bloc and Western Europe have been made by Guinea since independence does not change this essential dependence or the desire to re-establish French ties...

...After recognition...

...Tubman called on both the French and the Algerians to modify their extreme positions in the tragic conflict that is now almost five years old...

...After long closed sessions, the conferees made a unanimous recommendation to their Liberian hosts that the flag be flown...

...Each has exiled leaders who enjoy some kind of support in their homelands...

...The mediation of friendly states or of the United Nations might be sought...

...Up to now a pacesetter in African events...

...For the new Republic of Guinea, the only one of the 13 French territories to ask for independence last September, the choice on recognition was also difficult...

...For Liberia, which needs foreign investment, this would mean withdrawal of French capital and difficulties with the autonomous African republics of the French Community which border on Liberia...

...The Movement for a Greater Somalia would like to unite not only Italian...

...for the United States, it could be a good beginning...

...Moumie himself says he does not believe in the "cult of the personality...

...the second was all the Africans could want...

...Vice Consul, is currently making an extensive tour of Africa...

...The Republic of the Sudan accredited its ambassador in Cairo to the Provisional Algerian Government...

...The Monrovia Conference put one new link in the long chain leading to unity of the African Continent...

...Representatives came from as far away as the Portuguese territory of Angola, from the Cameroons, Nyasa-land, Southern Rhodesia and Uganda...

...The Conference produced a surprise a day—some were momentary, some substantial...

...This issue, so remote to Americans, seems to have united all Africans—it has become the whipping boy for all those who might otherwise hesitate to take a strong stand against France...

...But Ghana's relations with France are not as extensive as those of Liberia, Ethiopia or Guinea...

...Each government was left to decide the character and extent of such help...

...Where is the United States in all this...

...But the Ethiopian Ambassador attending the Conference seemed to have instructions to stand pat, until Haile Selassie, home from his tour to Russia, the Middle East and Europe, could change his policy...

...It seems clear that United States support for the French position on the Cameroons has been a mistake—perhaps a disastrous one...

...Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, finds the French "presence" at Djibouti preferable to a united Somalia demanding part of his own territory...

...Djibouti elected to remain a territory...

...Negro African delegates, some of whom were very ignorant of the Algerian problem, began to feel a new rapport with North Africa...

...Although it announced its decision later, the Conference decided on that day to refer the matter of France's announced atomic tests in the Sahara to the United Nations...

...The three countries—Liberia...

...Whatever his personal merits, Moumie represents an opposition force in the Cameroons which must be reckoned with...

...Prime Minister Nkrumah had apparently been piqued by France's impolite response to his appeal not to undertake nuclear tests in the Sahara Desert...

...A gesture toward Algeria would add new strains to an already tense relationship...

...At the closing session on Saturday, another telegram told the delegates of a statement favorable to the Algerian cause to be sponsored by 16 U.S...

...Guinea must either take the consequences of recognition or be accused of slowing the pace of African solidarity...

...Neighboring Italian Somali-land, now a United Nations Trust Territory, is due to receive independence next year, and British Somali-land will also get self-government at that time...

...it is the people he represents that count and not any single leader...

...Despite the frequent visits of the French Ambassador to the Executive Mansion...

...But France, Tubman asserted, had made matters more difficult by threatening to cut off diplomatic ties with any state which recognized the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic...

...Should Liberia go further...

...So far the Union of Cameroonian Populations is armed only with knives and hunting rifles...

...where 10 flag poles stood, only nine banners floated in the humid breeze...

...The fact that nine independent African states saw fit to come to this tropical, rain-soaked city for a conference devoted primarily to the war in Algeria is a tribute both to Algeria's great sacrifices and the idea of African solidarity...

...The French Ambassador, who had somehow arrived at this inopportune moment, was seen stalking from the building...

...British and French Somalilands, but also parts of Ethiopia and Kenya which have Somali populations...

...Government urge France to enter negotiations...

...For Africa, the Monrovia Conference was bright indeed...

...Senators and Representatives...

...France's Ambassador, on leave in Paris, did not return to Accra...

...His cause is supported by the majority of the African governments at Monrovia, particularly by Guinea, the only presently independent French-speaking state south of the Sahara...

...When President Charles DeGaulle gave the French African territories a chance to become independent in last September's referendum...

...Moumie is variously accused of being a Communist and of ineffective leadership...

...After the question of status, the matter of recognition of the Provisional Algerian Government was the most important in Algerian eyes...

...The Sahara Desert ran a close second on Thursday...

...Each of these territories suffers from some form of European colonial oppression...

...The French Ambassador, along with the rest of the diplomatic corps, listened attentively in the gallery...

...The last speaker of the day was none other than the Provisional Algerian Government's Minister of Information, M'Hammed Yazid...

...Although the Monrovia powers decided to put the Cameroonian question before the UN once again, and offered their good offices to the Government and the opposition both inside and outside the country, there appears little hope of any real change before independence...

...Guinea's choice on recognition was certainly influenced by Ghana's extension of recognition just a few days before the Monrovia Conference opened...

...We shall not be moved by threats...

...This rather vague clause opened a whole new door for the Algerians, who will now be getting financial and perhaps military assistance from south of the Sahara for the first time...

...Leaders of nine African nations, meeting in the Liberian capital of Monrovia, urge material support for forces now seeking independence in Algeria AFRICA CONCLAVE By Joan Gillespie MONROVIA, LIBERIA THE ROAD FROM Robertsfield to Liberia's capital of Monrovia is long and wet...

...Ghana named a street in its capital for the Algerians...

...The North Africans, someone observed, despite their historical slave-raiding and their white skins, may turn out to be Africans after all...

...Yazid smiled...

...The Africans favored free elections in the Cameroons—a UN Trust territory—with Moumie's party participating, prior to the granting of independence...

...Acting Secretary of State C. Douglas Dillon sent a message to Monrovia assuring the "sympathetic support of the United States for the legitimate aspirations of the peoples of Africa...

...On the roof of the capitol...

...Yazid was Wednesdays child...

...The delegates had to climb through a window on the roof to help hoist the flag...

...Guinea's economy is closely linked to France...

...take the lead in bringing a just termination to the war, and recommended that the U.S...

...The flag turned out to be bigger than the others...

...And "threats are very weak substitutes for negotiations among nations...

...The Liberian JOAN GILLESPIE, who has served as a U.S...

...Amid warm applause, Tubman returned to the business of government and left the delegates to their deliberations...

...Opening the sessions in the new flat-domed capitol building, Tubman struck a note of balance and statesmanship...

...Felix Moumie...

...The problem facing the nations at the Monrovia Conference was how to take some action on the Cameroons without a defeat such as they suffered at the United Nations special General Assembly session in February, when the position of the African group was voted down...

...One never knows whether the petitioner of today will be the prime minister of tomorrow: or, on the other hand, whether the perennial exile, sincerely agitating abroad for nationalist aims, has lost touch with his people...

...There have been African conferences before, but they have discussed a potpourri of issues...

...In addition to the usual appeal to France to recognize the right of Algerian independence, to negotiate, to end hostilities and withdraw her troops from Algeria, the Conference recommended that the African states render material aid to Algeria...

...The need to remain cordial with France, however, did not apparently prevent the Emperor from telling DeGaulle in Paris recently that Ethiopia intended to recognize the Provisional Algerian Government...

...Guinea, it said, did not need to recognize the Provisional Algerian Government, since that Government existed before Guinea itself had become a state...

...To his conciliatory tone was added the moderate competence of Tunisia's Foreign Minister Saddok Mokkadem and Yazid's winning personality...

...Tubman's Liberia, long considered one of the most conservative governments on the Continent, had already made an important gesture when it offered to hold the meeting...

...By acting alone, Ghana put its partner in the newly formed Ghana-Guinea Union on the spot...

...There his views on "going slow" toward a broad African unity prevailed over the more radical, but more geographically limited, concepts of Ghana's Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah and Guinea's President Sekou Toure...

...He came fresh from a personal victory at the tripartite conference of Sanniquellie, a mining town on the Liberian-Guinean border...

...They recognized Algeria's right to independence, suggested that the U.S...

...Shortly afterward, the Liberian Government circulated a memorandum to the press stating that it was "deeply conscious of the heroic struggle of the Algerians," but that "this act of courtesy . . . does not in any way affect the position of the Liberian Government on the question of recognition of the 'Provisional Government of Algeria' which is still under careful consideration...

...Prime Minister Abdullah Ibrahim of Morocco attended the meeting, despite the delicacy of possible talks between France's President DeGaulle and King Mohammed V of Morocco...

...Furthermore, the American Congressmen urged the Eisenhower Administration not to abstain from voting on any responsible resolution at the forthcoming United Nations debate on Algeria...

...President's prestige is on the increase, and his moderate views seem to have the backing of powerful leaders in Nigeria—which is scheduled to be independent next year—and the blessing of the United States...

...His speech was in English—partly because it is the language of many key Africans, partly to annoy the French...

...This was a threat...

...Although he was seated as a delegate, the Algerian flag—green and white with a red crescent and star—was absent...

...Many African delegates plied the path to the Executive Mansion to urge Tubman to "go all the way," but he had not ceded by the end of the Conference...

...Its major weapon is terror...

...Observers talk of another Korea, another Vietnam...

...The most listened-to and controversial of the petitioners was Dr...

...Guinea would therefore be happy (it had always supported the Algerian cause) to "examine with the Algerian Provisional Government all forms of active cooperation, and principally the exchange of diplomatic relations...

...The United States, said Dillon, offers its "understanding support in the great task of realizing Africa's potential in a manner which will benefit all concerned...

...Thursday was Guinea's day...

...Tubman graciously ceded...

...We seek friendly relations and mutual cooperation with the people of Africa...

...The speech itself was not half as important as the fact that it was made...

...Like every other African conference, the Monrovia gathering found many petitioners in its corridors...

...For Ethiopia, the situation is even more complex...

...Friday was the day for the drafting of resolutions...

...And the African "man in the street" seems to have some awareness that a colonial power is again abusing him...

...His opening speech added a new feather to his cap...

...They all serve to increase the prestige and bargaining power of the Algerian regime in any future negotiations with France...

...All these steps fit into the growing pattern of the "Africanization" of the Algerian war...