There Is Hope for Africa

By Jimmy Carter

WHILE ON A VISIT TO THE CARTER CENTER projects in 10 African countries, I read TIME concerning "The Agony of Africa." This was a heartrending description of the continent, with which I agree. It is true that much of the suffering is self-inflicted and some African leaders have betrayed their own people. It is also true that many of the catastrophic conditions have been caused and are being perpetuated by the greed of debtors, the inefficiency of international agencies and the priorities of most major donors who now concentrate their support on Eastern Europe and the fragmented Soviet Union. But the courageous . struggles of the African people toward peace, democracy and a better life deserve recognition and support.

I had not been to Africa since last October, when our center led an international group that monitored a successful multiparty election in Zambia. The new government is typical of a rapidly growing number of democracies in Africa that are struggling to establish free markets and new opportunities for the people despite natural disasters and treasuries robbed or wasted by predecessor regimes.

We began this trip in Ethiopia. I have been to Addis Ababa many times, but am always surprised at the lush greenness and precision farming around the capital city. After overthrowing the communist regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam, acting President Meles Zenawi is attempting to implement a free-market system, protecting human rights, forming an independent judiciary and sharing political power in this poorest of all nations. With some degree of luck and moderate assistance, Ethiopia can become the most dramatic example of progress in recent history.

We went to Togo, where opposing leaders had ended months of violence by announcing a political accord and a firm election schedule the day I arrived. I consulted for hours with President Gnassingbe Eyadema, Prime Minister Joseph Kokou Koffigoh and leaders of the major political parties. Although accused of serious human-rights violations in the past, Eyadema led all the others in urging me to help assemble a body of international observers to ensure that honest elections are held as scheduled in December. This is an encouraging sign that often delayed plans for multiparty democracy will be completed. Togo will soon become the third African country to mount Guinea-worm eradication programs in all endemic villages.

Cotonou, Benin, is a city already transformed by democratic elections and new freedoms, despite the country's continuing poverty. The formerly drab and relatively lifeless streets bustled with activity during our visit. President Nicephore Soglo, who won a free election last year, is struggling to reform the nation's economy by privatizing industry, promoting free trade and rebuilding the agricultural system.

After a two-hour drive northward, we visited one of our Global 2000 agricultural projects. At the end of their second year in this program, farmers were weighing, storing and treating their corn harvest to prevent insect damage. Still produced with rudimentary hand tools, their yields were three times as large as any they had seen before. Directed by Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug, the staff of one Senegalese scientist has trained and supervises 131 native agricultural-extension workers. We have found the 150,000 farmers in this program in six African countries to be eager to learn, hardworking, regular in paying their debts and examples for their neighbors to emulate.

Mali has a new democratic government, but in Niamey, Niger, there is neither a free democracy nor an exuberant spirit. A military general is the head of state, but has been stripped of most of his power by a national assembly. Political leaders seem convinced that a move to democracy, perhaps next year, is the only hope for peace and a better future. Peace in both Mali and Niger is threatened by Tuareg rebels, pastoral nomads who have suffered from years of drought and feel that their plight has been ignored by their central governments.

In Dakar, Senegal, we completed a two-day session of the International Negotiation Network, analyzing with African leaders the dozen existing wars and five other emerging conflicts that threaten peace and progress on the continent. I discussed this work with President Abdou Diouf, whose coalition government will be facing the voters in February 1993. Diouf, who is presently chairman of the Organization of African Unity, supports a stronger role for the organization in peacekeeping and in the monitoring of democratic elections.

As is true in other West African nations, Senegal's primary international concern is Liberia's lack of progress toward peace and the threat of further expanding the present conflict into neighboring states. Recently, Liberian troops moved from Sierra Leone into the northwestern parts of Liberia, occupying territory formerly controlled by Charles Taylor and his National Patriotic Front of Liberia forces. International troops from several West African nations were supposed to maintain the status quo and perpetuate a shaky cease-fire, but the distrust and hatred of Taylor, his equal lack of confidence in the neutrality of the international troops and the almost total lack of communications among the opposing forces are likely to transform this tenuous stalemate into another major war.

These experiences in the sub-Saharan region of Africa demonstrate vividly the poverty of the continent, but also the possibility of a better life as democracies emerge and people are able to realize benefits from free trade and improved health and food production. Unless human suffering is alleviated, the continent is threatened by a rejection of democracy and increasing conflicts, like those among the competing ethnic groups of Ethiopia, the nomadic Tuaregs and the skirmishing military powers in Liberia. These are the kinds of civil wars that are rarely addressed by the United Nations or even noticed in much of the industrialized world. With understanding and help, the agony in Africa can be alleviated.