African meeting attracts few heads of State

Press, 29 July 1987, Page 10

African meeting attracts few heads of State

NZPA-ReuterAddis Ababa A three-day African meeting which opened in Addis Ababa yesterday has attracted the presidents of only 17 of the Organisation of Africa Unity’s 50 member States, the lowest turnout for years. The heads of State of Congo, Zambia and Ethiopia — Colonel Denis Sassou-Nguesso, Mr Kenneth Kaunda and Lieuten-ant-Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam — set the meeting’s tone with speeches on South African apartheid and the continent’s economic plight as falling .. export earnings undermine its ability to repay a SUS2OOB debt. Colonel Sassou-Nguesso was speaking as outgoing chairman of the panAfrican organisation. Mr Kaunda was elected as his successor at the opening session. Two guests of honour, the United Nations Secre-tary-General, Javier

Perez de Cuellar, and the Norwegian Prime Minister, Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, also condemned Pretoria’s policies and called for fresh aid to help African States revive their economies. Dr Brundtland, chairman of the United Nations-sponsored World Commission on Environment and Development, drew applause when she described inequalities in South Africa as obscene and said more grants and soft loans from the industrial north were the answer to Africa’s debt problem. Other heads of State attending included those from Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Egypt, Gambia, Madagascar, Mali, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and Tanzania. The Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Mr Robert Mugabe, was also present.