AFRICA BETWEEN EAST AND WEST

...It was not until the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party in 1956, three years after Stalin's death, that the line began to change, that Communists were allowed to show sympathy for African nationalist movements and their goal of political independence...

...First, Africa is in a revolutionary state in which the rulers of today may become the prisoners or exiles of tomorrow...

...And in those areas where the West appears to be supporting white settler domination—the Portuguese territories, Southern Rhodesia, and South Africa—the Communists are provided a wide open propaganda opportunity to offer training and supplies to guerrilla "freedom fighters...

...It is now believed by many experts that a complete cut-off of oil shipments to South Africa, supported by a naval blockade, would destroy the Nationalist government there...

...Every non-African country will be judged according to its actions in this context...

...A genuine acceptance of Africa as non-aligned in the West-Communist struggle, and in the Sino-Soviet quarrel, is essential to avoid hostility in the continent...

...Thus the new independent governments of the past decade not only had to take over the administration of these hybrid agglomerations, but had to try to instill into their disparate elements some conception of national unity...

...Second, pan-African opinion is now strong enough to deter any African leader who tries to maintain his position largely by enlisting non-African support...

...Colonial administrators often tried to isolate the educated and skilled Africans from the mass of their countrymen and create an elite which would inherit their powers...

...For outsiders to maintain diplomatic lines capable of continuity demands deep, sympathetic understanding of the forces at work, and absolute abstention from any practice or appearance of intervention...

...Every attempt to convert Africans to a cause automatically provokes an attraction for the opposite side...

...Among his books are "Africa Today and Tomorrow," "The Dilemma of South Africa," and "Everyman's Africa...

...South West Africa itself has been virtually incorporated into South Africa since 1950...

...It was Western Europeans, not Communists, who long ago conquered and occupied, and, until recently, ruled Africa...

...Although it is difficult to secure authoritative figures, it has been estimated that between 1954 and 1962, the Russians promised more than one billion dollars of aid to African nations, but disbursed only $70 million...

...Where economic development is concerned, it is time to halt the flow of dollars, pounds, and francs poured out merely to sustain existing regimes, much of which has gone into private pockets, and concentrate instead on aid to area and regional programs which can provide a sound economic base with the capacity to survive political changes in government...

...Above all, colonialism blocked the development of a sense of nationality...

...And the fact that Communism arbitrarily rules many non-Communist peoples in Europe and Asia is of less immediate concern to Africans than their personal experience...

...They were both instigators of discontent and the agents of foreign intervention...

...Their natural inclination to steer a middle course has been enormously stimulated by the fear that these Western policies heralded a new era of colonial domination...

...If, as is expected, the International Court finds that the mandate responsibility has been violated by the South African government, all members of the United Nations will be compelled to decide whether they are prepared to take action in support of U. N. authority...

...Africa must be left to work out her own internal problems and to remain neutral in the field of international ideological battles, judging every issue pragmatically according to her own interests...

...By 1957, the African liberation movement was being described as an ally in the struggle against imperialism...

...In another aspect of African relations the West displays a fatal defensive suspiciousness...

...Those who wish to see Africans rise above the international poverty line and enter the Twentieth Century economic world recognize that strong central government is a sine qua non of the process...

...While the growing sensitivity of the Communist world to the new era of national independence might have been expected to remove some of the hostility between Communism and African nationalism, the African leaders did not forget the earlier Communist attitude nor fail to recognize that Communist policy was dictated by Soviet national interests rather than concern for Africans...

...Their methods of centralizing power often appear as arbitrary as those of medieval Europe...

...And these are only some of the numerous examples of the universal unrest...

...Future relations between Africa and the non-African world will be determined for many years to come by the results of this coming test...

...Colonialism had broken down indigenous cultures and half-heartedly grafted on new ones...

...He therefore condemned most African nationalist movements with the charge that they were either opportunist or in league with imperialism...

...President Azikiwe has recently condemned all these characteristics of his own Nigeria far more forthrightly than has any non-African...

...a state which fights against the new forms of colonialism and the penetration of imperialist capital...

...And over all arose the suspicion that Europeans, Asians, Arabs, or Lebanese were being kept in government employ or in the seats of commercial power to the exclusion of indigenous Africans...

...At the same time, certain elements within these centralizing groups attempt to undermine existing regimes for special interest advantages—as, for instance, trade unions or armed forces demanding higher wage rates while the mass of the peasant population remains far below existing urban standards...

...There may well be new faces appearing at each successive conference of the Organization of African Unity...

...The Western nations, apparently caught unaware and unprepared, have reacted in various and inconsistent ways to these African crises...

...civil wars are still being fought in the Sudan and Algeria...

...Thus a number of African states have adopted the ironic practice of accepting Communist aid while proscribing their own Communist parties...

...These facts render diplomacy within the continent extremely complex...

...Nasser secured Soviet help in building his Aswan dam when Western assistance was refused...

...Meanwhile, one of the almost universal consequences of independence from colonial rule is the growth of corruption, nepotism, and private fortune accumulation...

...In almost every African country which had thrown off colonialism during this period of decolonization, some form of revolt has broken out since independence...

...His use of southern African mercenaries, and his acceptance of American military aid, made it certain that he would not be accepted by either the OAU or the non-aligned leaders who met last year in Cairo, excluding Tshombe from their deliberations...

...Moreover, these same people had usually been taught suspicion of government by the very nationalist leaders who now occupied ministerial chairs...

...When the West describes these trade and cultural activities as Communist subversion, the Africans perceive a cold war motivation...

...the power of American finance and its vested interest in the government of South Africa...

...Not only the Russians and the Chinese, but, often more successfully, the Yugoslavs, Czechs, Poles, and East Germans have been developing trade and cultural ties in Africa...

...They will gladly increase trade with China and take economic aid...

...Its first, from 1956 through 1961, brought thirty national states to birth out of French, British, and Belgian colonies...

...a revolution overthrew the Sultan's government in Zanzibar...

...The Belgians have continually vacillated in the Congo, while the United States, after supporting United Nations action to end Katanga's secession from the Congo, now seems to be intervening unilaterally in favor of Prime Minister Moise Tshombe's new central government...

...the Cuba blockade...

...they were often left without employment, condemned to wander the streets with their shop window displays of goods reserved for the European or Asian elite...

...Finally, Africa will judge the West and the Communists by what they do or fail to do to support their verbal condemnations of apartheid...

...Somalia sought Soviet and Chinese aid because of Britain's refusal to consider claims on Kenyan territory inhabited by Somalis...

...Often the West, particularly the United States, has made this assumption...

...Meanwhile, there is one international issue in which all Africa is deeply concerned...

...Superficially it might seem that the disturbed situation in Africa would provide the perfect opportunity for Communist intervention...

...For the OAU, founded at the Addis Ababa pan-African conference in 1963, was established as a meeting place for all African heads of state to discuss specific African attitudes to inter-African and international issues...

...Anyone—Westerner or Communist —who wants to influence Africans must first come to terms with three basic facts...

...The West, accustomed for so long to regard Africans as children needing protection as well as discipline, continually underestimates African shrewdness...

...Inevitably, the European Communists have been self-conscious over the similarity of this philosophy to their own pre-1956 line...

...Africans steeped in Western traditions appeal to world opinion, on grounds of democratic propriety, against the destruction of constitutional safeguards...

...During the past four years, Soviet and European Communist policy makers have made a determined effort to wipe out past insults and gain acceptance by African nationalists...

...The fact that Gabon is wealthy, and the Congo poor, has not gone unnoticed by Africans...

...Until the last few hectic years of imperial rule, colonial regimes barely perceived the preparations essential for independent nationhood...

...What the West has failed to recognize is that it is only where the West has been identified with obstruction against African nationalism, or where it has refused to assist a new nation's legitimate development, that the Communists made serious political progress...

...But they are unimpressed both with Chinese racial propaganda and with the achievements of China's agricultural policy...

...During Stalin's regime, Kwame Nkrumah was described as a spokesman for the Ghanaian bourgeoisie, Nnamdi Azikiwe of Nigeria as an African Gandhi...

...Yet when a similar attempt was made to depose President Mba of Gabon, it was French troops who restored him to power...

...And the Americans were immediately tarred with the neo-colonial brush...

...Third, the whole continent is united on the single issue of destroying white supremacy in southern Africa...

...To the African, those who accuse the other side of providing aid for selfish motives are hypocrites, for he expects every state to act primarily in its own interest...

...Yet those Africans who are striving to establish strong government often face deeply rooted tribal attachments, traditional separatist communities, historically centrifugal forces...

...several attempts have been made on the life of President Nkrumah of Ghana, and hostilities have never ceased during the four years' life of the Congo...

...For the case of South West Africa, which was mandated to South Africa by the League of Nations and which successive South African governments have refused to place under a trusteeship agreement with the United Nations, has been taken to the International Court by Liberia and Ethiopia...

...The Africans will accept Chinese help, as in the Congo rebellions, the Algerian war, the post-revolutionary administrative chaos of Zanzibar, or the military weakness of Somalia...

...Because it is known that there are large British and American investments in South Africa and Southern Rhodesia, and because Portugal is a rnember of NATO, the West is held to be on trial on the issue of white supremacy throughout this southern region...

...Guinea's appeals to London and Washington for help went so long unanswered that the desperate nation accepted a Soviet offer of aid...

...It overlooks Sekou Toure's dismissal of the Russian ambassador to Guinea, and President Nkrumah's constantly expressed determination to exclude from Ghana all foreign intervention...

...They have had scant success...

...The economic impact of colonial-style development had pock-marked the continent with mining, commercial, and industrial upheavals amid vast areas of eroded land inhabited by subsistence peasants...

...Even before this initial revolutionary period was complete, new turmoil had begun...

...Attempts were made to murder President Houphouet Boigny of the Ivory Coast and President Leopold Senghor in Senegal...

...When Westerners have seen the Russians and Chinese providing help to Somalia and Algeria, to Guinea and Egypt, to Zanzibar and the Congo rebels, they have believed that the Africans were victims of a massive Communist conspiracy...

...The support which America gave to European colonial powers at the United Nations during the period of resistance to decolonization, and which she still gives to Portugal...

...Because Communist parties in Africa were few and small, and the nationalist movements often worked constitutionally within permissive patterns drawn by the imperialist powers, Stalin had no opportunity to recognize proletarian revolutions nor to extend his area of domination...

...Even Nigeria, JOHN HATCH is the Commonwealth correspondent in Africa for the New Statesman...

...Hendrik F. Verwoerd's South African regime...

...The United States promised nearly two and a quarter billion and disbursed one and a half billions...

...It is true that these functions provide opportunities for portraying Communism in a favorable light...

...President Olympio was assassinated in Togo—almost accidentally, during an unorganized protest by soldiers...

...Above all, they are disgusted that the Sino-Soviet quarrel destroys the work of the Afro-Asian Peoples' Solidarity Organization, as it did at Moshi in February, 1963, and again in Algiers last March...

...When Guinea rejected membership in President de Gaulle's community, the French, in a fit of pique, destroyed or withdrew the country's entire administrative apparatus—even removing the light bulbs...

...Often, too, the new African leaders came from particular tribes whose dominance was not accepted by their traditional rivals...

...But each one of them resents every non-African attempt to influence the office holders in any African country...

...revolts have threatened the King of Morocco and the Emperor of Ethiopia...

...which fights against imperialism and its military blocs, against military bases on its territory...

...Yet during this period, European Communists have been embarrassed as never before by the schism in Communist ranks which has precipitated the rival Chinese approach to the African continent...

...For all these reasons, and' many more, every African regime is insecure...

...Just at the time when Soviet Communism recognized that European colonialism sometimes could be removed by peaceful political action, the Chinese arrived with their philosophy of violent revolution...

...It fails to recognize the significance of warnings from Tanganyikan President Nyerere and Kenya's Tom Mboya to their peoples, warnings against colonialism developing from Communist as well as from capitalist sources...

...Thousands of migrant laborers were brought into towns where no houses awaited them...

...and the stridency of American anti-Communist propaganda—all dim the memory of the anti-colonial traditions of the United States...

...lack of American policy at the Geneva Trade and Development Conference...

...Mutinies shook the East African governments of Julius Nyerere in Tanganyika, Jomo Kenyat-ta in Kenya, and Milton Obote in Uganda...

...Although this represents only a fraction of all American aid around the world, the contrast between American performance and Communist promises is well known to Africans...

...Britain refused to recognize the new Zanzibar regime for several crucial weeks, but gave immediate military support to the Tan-ganyikan, Kenyan, and Ugandan governments in their difficulties...

...In these circumstances it is not surprising that a series of revolts and revolutions followed the achievement of national independence...

...military aid in the Congo...

...Africans consider American support for Tshombe as commitment to the conspiracy because Tshombe, who, in his days as leader of Katanga, used to consult Sir Roy Welensky of the hated Central African Federation, is believed to be a stooge of the copper interests, a renegade black leader in the apartheid plan for separate white and black states...

...He is the former head of the Commonwealth department of the British Labor Party and has lectured at Glasgow University and University College in Sierra Leone...

...It is widely believed that a counterrevolution is being mounted by South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, and the Portuguese against the African nationalist revolution...

...Moreover, although there has always been some recognition among educated Africans of America's traditional anti-colonial role, this is fast disappearing as a result of recent events and influences...

...It is also widely believed that when a crucial test comes—as it may well come over the South West Africa issue this year—American and British financial interests will influence Washington and London to put the safety of their investments before their dislike of apartheid...

...Meanwhile, the Chinese have continually played up their colored skins in contrast to European whiteness, their own place in the Afro-Asian developing world, and the relevance of their agrarian revolution to Africa...

...Africans, whose countries have been administratively, economically, and politically tied to the West by colonial strings, were bound to look deliberately to the East to secure greater balance once they became free to make their own choice...

...Even then they did little more than train an administrative elite—and in some cases, notably the Congo, not even that...

...Anti-government hostility could not be dissipated simply by the replacement of white faces with black...

...Some of the new ministers made enemies by an ostentatious display of newly-found wealth...

...By the end of 1960, the assembled Communist parties of the world could recognize "an independent national democracy" as "a state which consistently upholds its political and economic independence...

...The Africans, being realistic and pragmatic, realize that only the West commands enough resources to aid in the huge task of changing their new nations into modern economies...

...The Chinese promised f 70 million, but no one knows what amount was actually distributed...

...During the Stalinist regime Communist policy was almost entirely monolithic, dictated largely according to Stalin's narrow view of human society...

...But the real test will come with the proposal to employ economic sanctions, through the United Nations, against Dr...

...The boundaries of Africa were drawn by Europeans who ignored or failed to consider vital African factors...

...Whoever recognizes this first and most thoroughly will gain the greatest influence now and in the future...

...Zanzibar and the Congo rebels accepted Communist support when Britain and the United States appeared not only unfriendly but to be actively intervening on the other side...

...the treatment of American Negroes...

...These have ranged from providing credit to supplying doctors, accepting students from Africa, making archaeological surveys, exchanging dance groups, administering government departments, and selling machine tools...

...Moreover, several African regimes perceived that their own Communists presented them with a security danger...

...They had to contend with conflicting tribal influences, with traditional, conservative authorities, with discontented urban and rural masses expecting Utopia to follow independence...

...The French allowed President Youlou of Brazzaville Congo to be removed almost without concern...

...Such greed may destroy the effects of centralizing policies as effectively as the schismatic forces...

...Ben Bella's Algerian government even threatened to withdraw from the work of the Organization if the intra-Com-munist quarrel continued to ruin its efforts...

...Apart from lack of resources, the Communist bloc suffers from other disadvantages in its relations with Africans...

...considered the most stable of African nations, has had its state of emergency, its treason trial, and its general strike...

...In Africa's eyes, the only legitimate military aid Tshombe or any other African leader can demand is that provided by the OAU...

...Often boundaries cut across ethnic units, divided economic regions and tribal groupings, and made nonsense of geography...

...Thus Moise Tshombe would have had a much better opportunity to lead the Congo to unity if he had never associated with Union Miniere in trying to secure Katanga's secession...

...but how much economic or cultural aid would the Western states send to Africa if they did not expect it to make a psychological and ideological impact...

...Yet, if the Communists are regarded suspiciously by Africans, the West labors under equally heavy handicaps...

...Thus the Algerians accepted help from Communist countries when France was waging war on Algerians with the tacit support of the West...