Disunity in Addis

Isolated Addis Ababa seemed an odd place for the hot-eyed young nationalists to hold their big conference of independent African states. Many were irked at having to bow and scrape before their host, Emperor Haile Selassie, whose regime is one of Africa's most authoritarian. But the Lion of Judah had worked hard to make his capital presentable. The girls who staff the city's 5,000 bordellos were ordered not to call to passing delegates. Wandering cows and insistent beggars who normally clog the streets were hustled out of town. Haile Selassie also arranged to keep from delegates the nasty story of the massacre at the town of Yirga-Alam last March, when his police shot down hundreds of peasants who revolted against their feudal landlords.

Who's Dreaming? The earnest delegates had come to discuss solidarity among the emerging states of Africa. But from the very first session in Addis Ababa's modern, glass-roofed Parliament Hall, the angry squabbling showed that the fond dream of unity was still a myth. Nigeria's Maitama Sule attacked Ghana's President Kwame Nkrumah, who dreams of himself as the leader of a united Africa. "If anyone makes the mistake of feeling he is a messiah who had a mission to lead Africa," cried Sule, "the whole purpose of Pan-Africanism will be defeated. Hitler thought he had a mission, too."

Guinea and newly independent Cameroon brawled openly. Rising to attack the Mali Federation--Libya, Tunisia and Morocco--for permitting foreign bases on their soil, Guinea's Foreign Affairs Chief Abdoulaye Diallo also lit into Cameroon for permitting French troops to stay. Cameroon Delegate Charles Okala promptly pointed out that the Guinea police state had accepted arms from Czechoslovakia, hinting at the well-known fact that some of these weapons ended up in the hands of dissident Cameroon tribes men. "If there are troops in Cameroon, whose fault is it?" Okala demanded. "We have all tried to get rid of foreign troops, but Guinea has Czech arms with which people are being assassinated, and we have documents to prove it."

Who's True? With neat timing, Russia had arranged a trade fair to coincide with the conference, and sent 100 officials to man it; they spent more time buttonholing the conference delegates than minding their stalls at the fair. On the conference's opening day, cables of greeting from Khrushchev and Red China's Chou En-lai were read to loud applause ("The Soviet Union is the truest and most disinterested friend and ally of the African peoples," cabled Khrushchev). The companion greeting from U.S. Secretary of State Herter was ignored. After the U.S. embassy protested, the message was read the following day, received only scattered handclaps.

At week's end the delegates headed homeward. In their briefcases were schemes for an African development bank and an African economic council to coordinate tariffs and study currency problems. But their week had proved that, deprived of the threat of colonialism as the overall enemy, many of the new African states have about as many differences as causes in common.

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