Pretoria sets puzzle for O.A.U.

Press, 3 May 1984, Page 20

Pretoria sets puzzle for O.A.U.

From ‘The Economist,’ London

A posthumous vote of thanks to Ahmed Sekou Toure. In death in March, Mr Sekou Toure, the late un-great President of Guinea, did more for the Organisation of African Unity than he had ever done for it in life, when he imprisoned as a plotter and then starved to death a fellow Guinean who had been the O.A.U.’s first secretary-general. Mr Sekou Toure was to have been host to this year’s summit of O.A.U. heads of State in Conakry on May 25, the twenty-first anniversary of the signing of the organisation’s charter “to promote unity and solidarity among African States.”

No longer. The upheaval associated with his passing, and with the military coup in Guinea’s capital a few days later, is likely to provide a pretext for the leaders of Africa’s other black-and Arabruled nations to move the meeting

to a new place and time. The likeliest alternative site is Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital and permanent home of the O.A.U. secretariat. The possible date is mid-year or later, probably November — to avoid conflicts with Ramadan, Ethiopia’s 10-year celebration of military rule, and the opening of the United Nations assembly in New York. The O.A.U. can use the extra time. A summit now would almost certainly fail, given the organisation’s inability to resolve three problems — two old and familiar, the third old with a baffling new twist. The first of the problems is how

to bring peace to Chad, where French ana Libyan troops prop up government and anti-government forces. The second is how to settle the quarrel over the western Sahara, between Morocco and the Polisario guerrilla movement.

Polisario wants a “Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic” to become the O.A.U.’s fifty-first member. Morocco, which runs the useful bit of the territory and has been at war with the guerrillas since 1975, does not. Repeated attempts to make Morocco hold a referendum have failed. Agreement on either issue seems as far off as ever.

The old problem with the new twist is what to do and say about white-ruled South Africa. Condemnation of apartheid has long been almost the only item on the O.A.U’s agenda for which unity has been real, not orchestrated. South Africa’s friendship pact with Mozambique in March and its ceasefire agreement with Angola in February will not remove the issue from this year’s summit, whenever it is eventually held. But the heads of State cannot ignore these successes for South Africa’s Prime Minister, Mr Botha. The political map of southern Africa has changed.

They have three options. The first, to go on as if nothing had happened, is the least sensible. A continued barrage of rhetoric against South Africa, by States geographically far removed from it, will embarrass not only Mozambique’s President Machel and Angola’s President dos Santos, but also Messrs Nyerere of Tanzania, Kaunda of Zambia and Mugabe of Zimbabwe, who backed the decisions to deal. The second possibility is to attempt to hoist South Africa with its own petard. The O.A.U. could try to manoeuvre South Africa into a corner where, to keep its promises to Angola and the United States, it must move forward on Namibian independence. One way of doing that would be to offer an O.A.U. force to replace the 25,000 Cuban troops who now protect Angola’s Government, thereby meeting South Africa’s

main condition for a Namibia agreement. It is true that O.A.U. peacekeeping forces are expensive, and usually unsuccessful; and South Africa might find another way of wriggling out of a deal. But the Cubans are now the main obstacle to the peace the O.A.U.’s front-line States are yearning for.

The third choice is to keep quiet and wait to see whether this year’s agreements keep black Africans from dying before South Africa’s guns. The O.A.U.’s council of ministers last month took this course, expressing “sympathy and deep understanding” to Mozambique and Angola, but refraining from total endorsement.

If the agreements break down, a return to the old script will be in order. But so long as they hold, the O.A.U.’s rear echelon may have to accept that it can for the moment do nothing about southern Africa. Copyright — The Economist.