Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 23, 1993 TAG: 9305230012
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: C-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ABIDJAN, IVORY COAST LENGTH: Medium
The six-day African-American Summit opens today and will likely feature a black backlash to the West's preoccupation with the former Yugoslavia.
Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder is expected to embrace that theme in his keynote address Thursday in Libreville, Gabon's capital.
"In this administration, much of the attention has been toward Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Little attention has focused thus far on Africa," said Glenn Davidson, the spokesman for Wilder, the first elected black governor in U.S. history.
Summit organizer Rev. Leon Sullivan, a retired Philadelphia preacher and human rights activist, is calling for a Marshall Plan for Africa, similar to the U.S. effort that helped postwar West Germany become an economic power.
Among Africa's trouble spots:
Angola, where more than 400,000 people have been killed in a civil war that erupted in 1975. U.N.-mediated peace talks collapsed Friday in Abidjan, and mediators predicted the war will intensify.
Liberia, another nation at war with no end in sight. Rebel leader Charles Taylor is fighting a Nigerian-led West African force that has been blamed for blocking and even attacking relief efforts. The United Nations says up to 80 percent of Liberia's 2.3 million people are refugees.
Zaire, a lawless nation which has 3,000 percent inflation, an army that riots at will and two rival governments, one led by dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who has balked at democratic reform.
Somalia, which was the recipient of a U.S.-led relief effort that ended a famine but where poverty and disease continue to be widespread.
Sudan, where an estimated 4 million people face starvation, disease and homelessness because of fighting between government and rebel forces.
Those are the hottest spots in a continent that owes its wealthy creditors $255 billion, where the average annual wage in Mozambique is $70 a year and where the country with the world's worst quality of life - Guinea - is located. The United Nations gave Guinea that ranking on Monday.
The demise of the Soviet Union ended Africa's importance as an ideological battleground and gave the West more power to pressure African nations to embrace democracy, with some measure of success. Pro-democracy opposition parties won multiparty elections in seven African states since the Cold War's end.
But African nations say that quick shifts to democracy and World Bank-imposed austerity programs have worsened social chaos, and few countries are islands of stability. Even Senegal, the continent's showcase democracy, was rocked by last week's assassination of an election official.
by CNB