JPRS ID: 10275 SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA REPORT

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• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP82-00850R000500020044-6
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• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 31
• Document Creation Date: November 1, 2016
• Sequence Number: 44
• Content Type: REPORTS

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JPRS L/ 10275
22 January 1982
~
~
= Sub-Saharan Africa Re ort
p
- FOUO No. 758
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JPRS L/10275
22 Janu~ry 1982
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA REPORT
FOUO No. 758
CONTEfdTS
INTER-AFRICArT tiFFAIRS
Hamidbu Kane on Economic, ~ultural Changes
(Cheikh Hamidou Kane.Interview; JFUNE AFRIQUE, 9 Dec S1) 1
CHAD
Hopes Pinned on OAU Peacekeepzng Force 'Illusory'
(Editorial, Simon Malley; AFRIQUE-ASIE, 23 No:-6 Dec 81)... 7
GADON
Reciprocal Needs Seen Guiding Bongo-Mitterrand Relationa
(Siradiou Diallo; JEUNE AFRIQUE, 25 Nov 81) 11
GUINF;A-BISSAU
Br.iefs
Bauxite Contract With USSR 14
- MAURITIUS
PM Ramgoolam's 'Readjustments` Examined
(Jonathan M'~iaruia; AFRIQUE-ASIF, 23 Nov-6 Dec 81)......... 15
SENEGAL
PDS Secretary General Wade Diecussee Internal, African Ieauea
- ~(Abdoulaye Wade Interview; AFR.IQiJF.-ASIE, 7-20 Dec 81) 18
Activitiea, Programs of Oppoaition P~r*iea Noted
(Ginette C~~t; AFRIQUE-ASIE, 23 i~ov-6 Dec 81)....~���������� 24
- a- [III - NE & A- 120 FOUO]
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INTER-~A~'RICAN AFFAIRS
HAMIDOU KANE ON ECONOMIC, CULTURAL CH.~NGES
Paris JEUNE AFRIQUE in French No 1092, 9 Dec 81 pp 68-70
Llnterview with Cheikh Hamin~u Kane, minister of industrial develop-
ment and crafts, by Philippe Decraen~
LTex~ Minister of development and crafts in Habib Thiam's govern-
menr, Cheikh Hamidou Kane did not agree tc come back on the Senegalese
political scene until after former president Mamadou Dia, imprisonF,d
for plotting in December 1962, was freed.
A close associate of the ~ormer Senegalese prime minister, he then
fell into disgrac~ and was sent as a diplomat to Monrovia, then to
Lagos. It was theL~~ that he started a career as an international
civil servant by ente~ing UNICEF. After a 13-year stay abroad, he
returnecl to his own country and in 1976 became chairman of the board
of Dakar-Marine, a huge industrial project, destined to make a major
naval repair and construction center of the Cap-Vert peninsula.
Descended from an aristocra~ic Toucouleur family from the Senegal
~ Riv~r valley and born in Matam in 1928, Cheikh Hamidou Kane had his
primary schooling at the School of the Sons of Chiefs in Saint-Louis
and his secondary schooling at the Lyce:. Van Vollenhoven in Dakar.
He received his diploma from the National School of France Overseas,
the former "Colo," With a degree in law and a degree in arts, he is,
along with the English-speaking Chinua Achebe, the best West African
novelist. Author of "L'Aventure Ambigue".LThe Ambiguous Adventur~
published by Julliard in 1961, he was orie of the first to deal with
_ the tragedy of acculturation, a theme that has been developed many
times sincP then, and the only one to do so with such a talent for
expression and writing. His career and his work as a writer, unique
but powerful, have made him one of the prototypes of the African
intelligentsia of the independence generation, being at the same
time a political leader and a man of culture.
"We Are Accomplices of the WesternPrs"
JEUi~1E AFRIQUE: How did you discover the :?hite world?
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rutc ~irrl~inL ~~~r. uivi,z
Cheikh Haniidou Kane: I did it in several stages. I was still a baby
when it started. I was perhaps 2 or 3 when I remember having been
placed in a pagne on a woman's back. I still have a very precise
memory of a white woman dressed in a tropical helmet, strapped tightly
into riding breeches. This sight of a human being who was not black
seemed strange to me.
When I had learned to read, books permitted me to discover the
thoughts of the white man, me who belonged to an oral world where
the only known book was the Koran, a work of divine and not human
origin.
Then I discovered the colonizer through his administrators and
commanders--in the Vichy era, a time of danger and mobi~.ization.
The last stage was the school, with my fellow students and teachers,
- who were all French and very different from the officials in authority
- J.A.: A~d your discovery of France?
- C.H.K.: That took~place in September 1952, when, wanting to become
a prafessor of philosophy, I went to metropolitan France. I then
discovered the French, after having discovered ~shite men. k'estern
thought was not unkno~~n to me, k~ut the potential for violence in the
. world of the whites crushed me. Their riistory baffled me. I was
paralyzed by the contrast between their cultural humanism and the
political violence tY:at they were capable of car~ying out, either
toward themselves or against a third party. I was at the same time
' distraught and fascinated, and it seemed to me that, even if a greater
- mastery of techniques had permitted Af.~icans to go overseas, they
would certainly never have acted in such a bru�cal fashion as the
Europeans did.
- J.A.: Do you think that the West has culturally traumatizzd black
. Africa? ~
- C.H.K.: The inequality of the conditions of exchange between the
West and Africa is especially shocking on a cultural ievel. Only very
few specialists have really paid attention to the ways of Africans.
Ec~.ucated in Europ,~an universities, now placed in positions of command,
we transmit only the concepts of~ this Western civiliza,:.ion, of whic)1
we are thus the accomplices.
- The quarrel between Marxists and non-Marxists seems to ~e quite
secondary, for these categories are still unknown tc+ us. Indeed,
what seems serious to me is the rude break for the child as soon as
_ he enters nursery school, from his traditional surrounding~. Thus,
as far as I am concerned, what forms my being, r.iy irreducible
substance, is my "Foulanity", the fact of being a Toucouleur and
of speaking the Pulaar language. But we are, my fellow ccuntrymen
and I, constantly invaded by foreign culi:ural in~luences, transmitted
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by very powerful media. The different ethnic groups do not react to
these aggressions in a uniforM way. The Wolof of Senegal and the
Yoruba of Nigeria, who are very plastic, very open, resist clever.ly
by creating new cultural mode.].s.
J.A.: Are you worried about, the social changes to which the African
continent is now .ubjected?
~ C.H.K.: The massive urbanization is serious. The destructuralization
of the rural areas; due to the severity of peasant living conditions,
accounts for the difficulties in development outsYde the capitals.
Because of t.his, the political leaders ought to completely re-examine
their strates~y for developing the continent.
J.A.: What do you think of Africa's religious development?
C.H.K.: Being a Strxctly observing Mo~lem, I know nothing of the
traditional religions. If they are thr~ater~ed by destruction, I
~ would consider that a misfortune, even thour~h I woulci not be
- personally concerned by this fact on an emoti.onal le~~el. In any
event, I observe that Islam, which ~ntered West 'lfrica along the
valley of the river where I was born, has continued to develop,
particularly in intensity, above all among the youthtul elements of
the Afircan people. As for Christianity, ever_ though i+.: has
~ suffered from.its colonial affiliation, it still has a considerable
impact, by reason r~f the amount of work achieved by the missions in
terms of education, health, and social assis~ance.
"Yes to Deep-Root~d Islam, No to Ayatollahs" ~
~ J.A.: Do you believe in a real thrust of militant Islam?
C.H.K.: This is a phenomenon that corresponds to a cantinlious
~ movement since tt~e Hegira (622 A.D.)--which can be explained by the
- fact that the vehicles of Islam were and are Africans. However, .
unless they are guided from abroad via television, I do not think
that ayatollahs can truly assert tY�emselves in black Africa. In
any even~, if there were a test of strength between religious power
and political power, politic3l power would rrevail. There i~ an
instructive precedent in thi.s regard, in Sene~al itself, where
- Presi.dent Dia entered into and won the test of strengt:~ against
Che~.kh Tidjane Sy, the uncle of the chief of the powerful Tidjane
brotherhood and his PSS LSenegalese Solidarity Partyf, which was,
however, supported by Gamal Abdel NassPr.
_ J.A.: Are there certain economic changes that seem to you parti-
cularly important3
C.H.K.: I am primarily struck by the spectacular progress in the
developmen~t of�infrastructures, whether it concerns transportation,
schools, hospitals, or dispensaries. In this area, the progress
achieved has b~:en gx~eater than during the previous century. How
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can we not admire the progress in the percentage of children
attendinq school, and in the number of hospital beds? How can we
- not stress the beneficl~l consequences of introducing farming with
animals, fer~tilizers, fungic~de~?
We should not forget the rapid davelopment of new crops, such as ric~
or cotton, and of industries, very appreciable in Senegal, Nigeria,
Ivory Coast, and Cameroon.
J.A.: Do you believe in the inevitability of African dictatorships?
C.H.IC.: Absolutely not. The further we get from the colonial era,
the less certain will become the danger of dictatorships being
estatlished. We have seen more dictatorships ozz our continent than
we will see in the future. We had no political experience, and our
model of government was that of the British or French governors and
not that of the democracy of Westminster or of the Fifth Republic.
= Curiously, we have lost the memory of the consensus tha~. prevailed
in the governments of traditional African societies. Now we are
gradually rediscovering these African models and the "imported"
democratic models.
J.A.: What do you think of the decision made by Pre:ident Senghor
- to vo~untarily relinquish power?
C.H.K.: It was good that an A.frican chief of state gave such an
example to the world. ~ut was it truly th~ right moment? Were
those truly the best circumstances?
J.A.: What judgment would you pass on the African military regimes?
C.H.K.: The invasion of soldiers in the African world has at times
been useful. It was not absolutely necessary, in spite of some
excessive civilian acts of irresponsibility. In any case, this
invasion could only be temporary, aiid the soldiers' duty in such
circumstances is always to withdraw. Alternance is possible and it
is such that it takes away any justification fQr intervention, even
~ teinporarily, by the military.
J.A.: Do the political tensions seem to you to be more serious in
Africa than in the rest of the world?
C.H.K.: No, I think on the contrary they are more serious in Latin
~ America. 3ut among the aftereffects of colonization is this myth
~ that Africans are incapable of governing their own affairs, a myth
that is even more deeply rooted in the fraternalism of the left
than in the paternalism of the right.
- J.A.: What do you think of Africa's place in the "concert of ~
natians"?
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- C.H.K.: We no longer form the infantry in international forums,
neither for the communist countries nor for the former colonial
powers. We have achieved aur autonomy, in rela~ion to tlie nonaligned
nations, in relation to the "big brothe~s" like Fidel Castro, and
in relation to the Arabs. With regard to the Arabs, who, after
ignoring us, then discovered us because they need~d our support for
Dalestine, we have succeeded in persuading them that the inter-Arab
quarrels are of no concern to us.
~.A.: Do you believe in Panafricanism?
C.H.K.: I believe in Africa's dedication to continental unity and
I remain a supporter of the federal idea~ Our small stakes are
scarcely viable and it is absolutely necessary to create larger
entities than those inherited from colonization. We should at least
have kept the_former AOF LFrench West Afric~ and .~EF LFrench Equa-
torial Afric~ federations: perhaps the time has now come to
re-establish them, for we have now made evaluations, worked out the
expenses, measured our exact possibiliti~s, while 20 years ago the
desire to be mastsr~ of our own destiny involved the continuati~n of
decolonization.
J.A.: But do you not then believe at all in the strength of
nationalism?
C.H.K.: The nationalist frontier seems to me to be above. all marked
on either side of the Sahel between black Africans and Arab-Berbers.
J.A.: Do you, like Fanon, think that Africa will remain impervious
~ to any form of ideology?
C.H.K.: Fannn was not African, but came from Antilles, and therefore
' was devoted to Western ideologies. It is unfortunate that our elite
~emains faithful to imported political models. It would in fact be
= logical for African political par~ies to preach specifically African.
principles.
J.A.: Does black Africa seem to you to be "off to a bad start"?
C.H.K.: No, it is being constructed af.ter passing without a major
" shock from th~~ coloni~l situation to independE~nce. In spite of ~the
- difficulties encoLntered, it does not look too bad, having succeeded~
_ in particula:c in oi:;i:.aining a seat in the a.nternational. community.
J.A.: What do you think of the general progress of the world?
C.H.K.: I am an optimist. After the domination of the world by the
West--since the era of the great discoveries--came the reign of the
~ two "major powers". Now we are entering into a new phase, that of
the gradual disappearance of bipolarity and of the emergence o~ the
_ 'I'hird World. The blocs are splitting apart and reforming.
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I do not really think there is a real danger of a world conflict.
One does not enter into a war unless one thinks one can by force
change the course of events in one's favor.
COPYRIGHT: Jeune Afrique GRUPJIA 1981 ~
- CSO: 4719
' 11550
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CHAD
HOPES I'?NNFD ON OAU PEACEKEEPING FORCE ~ILLUSORX~
Paris AFRIQUE-ASIE in French No 253, 23 Nov -6 Dec 81 pp 10,11
[Editorial by Simon Malley: "Chad, the Tllusions of the OAU"]
[Text] What cquld I say to you? That I am far from feeling reassured? That I
_ remain skeptical, if not deeply disturBed, because I know the realities of my
country? That the immediate prospects seem rather cloudy to me and the longer-
term prospects are a cause of concern? The balance of forces in Chad is very
fragile, which dangerously complicates the situation. Why have we suddenly demanded
the withdrawal of Libyan troops when the inter~African force was not ready to come
to our country and our own army was not sufficiently educated, trained, and pro-
vided wi.th officers? We should not loae sight of the crucial fact that all of the
Chadian people owe a great deal to Libya. Libya was the only country in Africa '
to respond to our appeal in December~ 1980, helping us, fighting at our side, to
defeat the traitor, Hissein Habre, who was supported militarily and financially
by Egypt, the Sudan, and many other countries. It was v~ry much due to this dis-
interested aid from Liliya, ungntmously requested by our govermnent (~he GUNT)
jTransitional National Union Goverrnaent]~ that is By agreement of the 10 political
tendencies which are represerited in it, that we have succeeded in re-establishing
calm, security, and stability in tfie country for the f irst time in nearly a year.
"So why, under these conditions, ask me again to expedite this request for a with-
drawal of Li6yan troops? Why do it without consultations, without prior dis-
cussions? First of all, this concerned a decision of the caliinet, which made the
request for the withdrawal of th~ Libyan troops. This was a political decision .
wliich we had to transmit to the Libyan government and whose modalities we had to
negotiate. However, Libya surprised us by announcing the immediate withdrawal of
its troops..."
President Goukouni Oueddei halted his statement for a moment. He was apparently
calm and serene dur~ng this confer2nce of chiefs of state of France and of Africa.
However, his face at this moment showed a certain concern, which he had diffi-
culty in hiding. His colleagues were trying to clear up what a West African chief
of state called a"deep mystery." Many quest~ons were asked of him, to which he
was not yet able to provide an answer. We contfinued to press him. What was he
afraid of? Did he act under domestic or external pressures? From where did they
come? risking for the withdrawal af the Libyan troops in the form and with the
tone used in the communique of the cabinet-~-dtdn't this create the risk that
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'I'ripoli would interpret this demand as a kind of ultimatum which, it is difficult
to believe, could bQ ser.t to a country which sent its troops to fight and die to
_ help you to defend the territorial integrity of your country? Certain governments
allied with imperialism, of course, acted in this way toward once friendly coun-
tries, which they sought to humiliate or to discredit. That was the case of Egypt
under President al-Sadat with regard to the Soviet Union i.n 1972. However, a Chad
which had been torn up, loo,ted, threatened with fragmentation by the mercenaries
under Hissein Habre, guided by the French goverriment under President Giscard--
hadn't it received vital assistance �rom Libya at a decisive, crucial moment of
its history?
_ It is apparent that, whatever were the secret intenticns of certain of his govern--
ment colleagues, President Goukouni Oueddei clearly did not seek to humiliate his
powerful neighbor to the North. It is also apparent that, whatever the amount of
the aid which he could hope for from France or from certa3n African countries, he
knew that too many interests bind Chad and Libya for him to be so naive as not to
understand that the geopolitical situation and the vital in~erests of Libya could
not be accommodated to the presence of a hostile country on its southern frontiers.
This is all the more so since it is notoriously well known that, under the in--
Eluence of American leadership, Egypt and Sudan are trying to enclose the Libyan
regime in a vise aimed at choking it before overthrowing it.
- That is why President Goukouni Oueddei was trying to justify the decision of his
government in order to show that his principal concern was to help what he con-
sidered were the common int:erests of the two, neighboring countries. Do you r~a-
l~ize, he explained in substance to the cYiiefs of state ar~d to close friends, have
you seen what an atmosphere this summit meeting is steeped in? Whatever the
reasons, and we are all aware of them, everyth3ng was well arranged so that the
. star o~ this summ~t meeting would be Chad.
In other words, make Libya the target, From the beginning, one might have said
_ that a password was spread around which brought together the.intereSts and the
purposes of the majority of the leaders present: those whc~ wanted to deflect the
attention of the summit meeting from the orher, serious problems which are cur-
rently outstanding in Africa and those who had every ~nter,st in searching out,
attacking, denouncing, in order to isolate Qadhdhafi's Libya that much better.
An ef.fort was made to distort rf~ality, to confuse public opinion, to invent
fantastic works of fiction. For "public opinion"--and that did not begin only
with the "summit" meeting--Chad had lost its sovereignty, was under the Libyan
_ ?nilitary yoke, no longer had any legal existence. According to such views,
'Cripoli was threatening rhe independence of Niger, of Cameroon, of Mali, of Niger-
ia, of Sudan, and I don't know what other countriesl Public opinion said, have
you forgotten the cry of alarm that a~ent up at the conf erence of the 12 countries
- in Lome last January, against the alleged Libyan danger? And what can be said
of that Western superpower which is continuing its preparations with a view to
carrying out aggression against Libya, with the aid of Egyptian and Sudanese
- forces? And wasn~t it stated that the former French president, Giscard d'Estaing,
had given them his approval and his lalessing?
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'I'iii.~ i~ to say that the request for the withdrawal of the Libyan tzoops, presente,~
on 28 October, in the mind of President Gou~couni was reportedly dictated by one
concern--although it is insinuated that this was mixed with others--and that was
tv free Libya from a dangerous trap which ~ coalition of forces and of hostile
Western, Africfn, and Arab interests reportedly wanted to drag it into. Perhaps
this wa.s so...although we may be permitted to doubt it! For where are we now?
Where do we risk being tomorrow?
WithouL wishing to play the role of a prophet of doom, an analysis of the events
and the realities of the last few days shows clearly that by committing himself
happily to the creation ef an Inter-African force and the sending of its first,
Zairian elements to Ndjamena, the secretary general of the OAU, Edem Kodjo, con-
- tinues faithfully, as head o� the OAU, to follow a course of action which has never
served anything other than the protection of the interests of the African neo-
colonialist regimes. Should one be astonished at this? All of those wha have ob-
served his diplomatic "initiatives" or their de13.l~erate absence, at the moment
desired, know as we do what were the brains which really directed him and continue
to do so. We will content ourselves with asking these simple questiotis: what was
Edem Kodjo doing i.n Faris for the 2;aeeks which preceded the meeting of the Franco-
African sumn?it? Who convinced the Zairian tyrant~ Mobutu, to be the first chief of
state to propose sending his paratroops to Chad in an attempt to gj_ld the escutch-
= eon og his corrupt regime, rather considerably tarnished s~nce his "cousin" in the
Elysee Palace in France was overturned liy the French people? Who suggested to
Hissein Habre and to his Egypt3.an and Sudanese tutors the idea of a ceasefire
on the Sudanese frontier until Tripoli announced the departure of its troops, in
order to encourage subsequently the resumption of the fighting and to ~usti.fy the
speeding up of the dispatch of OAU troops? iniho, among the 50 chiefs of state who
are members of th. OA,U, was consulted before the Nairobi summit resolution was
_ interpreted in KQd;Jo's fashion and the principal candidates were sel~cted, who,
by chance, turned out to be cert~in countries whose ho~t~lity to Libyan was no
secret to anyone? And by virtue of what d3vine right was he allowed to decide
arbi.trarily-~without previously consulting the members ~f the committee charged
with supervising the operations of the inter--African force--the choice and the
date for sending r.he first Zairian contingent to Nd~amena? Finally, why propose
units from countries bordering on Chad when the Lagos res~lution specifically
prohibited it--and for obvious reasons? Of cr~urse, it will always be possible for
Edem Kodjo to pretend that the Nairobi resolution, which did not specifically ex-
clude selecting such countries, ~ade the earlier resolution null and void, How-
ever, since when does the secretary general of the OAU consider that a resolution
- on the same subject makes null and void those which preceded it, parti.::ularly if
tt~is 3.s not specified? On wliat kirid of ~urisprudence is this based?
For tt~e establislament of an inter~African force to have the slightest chance of
bein~; effective, via6le, and useful, it is important for it to meet an indispen-
sable criterion: it must be effectively neutral, impartial, and objective. Now,
is the force proposed for Chad and which Edem Kodjo has confirmed truly neutral?
Neutral regarding whom and regarding what? Just take the troubl~ to analyze,
- even.for a little tiit, the policy of certa~n countr3es chosen for the inter-
- African force and the inevitable tiehavior of their armed contingents! Let us
be sure that the financing, the logistics, the organization,and the leadersh~.p of
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~ this force is really "non-aligned!" In other words, "neutral" and "non-aligned"
~t the same time regarding the various political tendencies which make up the
- GUNT and regarding Libya, which could not, remain indifferent to what happens
in Chad, by virtue of the grave dangers which it faces as 4 result of the
threats from Washington, Cairo, and Khartoum. By.what aberration af mind, to take
only ane example, could one pretend that these Zairian paratroops which have
arrived in Ndjamena remain." neutral," when we all know the scandalous support
_ which Mobutu has never stopped giving his de facto ally, Hissein Habre? Which
observer, then, could ignore the fact--which we have all observed at one time or
Y another in the history of Af rica~-that these paratroops are trained, organized,
and infiltrated by mercenaries of every stamp--includ3ng Moroccans--and spend
their. time drinking, taking drugs, and abusing young women?
Some people have tried hard to state that the most positive result of the Franco-
African su~nit meeting will turn out to have been the beginning of the end of the
drama of the Chadian peo;~le. We didn~t think so at the time and we tliink so even
less today. If the first meeting of ~'rancois NIitterrand with Africa on 3 and 4
November is to be an historic occasion, it will certainly not be due to the
"success" of the Chadian affair. Rather, it will be rememliered because the
- African peoples want to believe that the promises which the French president has
made to turn the page on neo colonial3sm, domination, and interference.in the in-
ternal affairs oJ` other states will be applied in concrete terms.
Regarding Chad, the fire which smolders under the ashes is becoming evident, un-
- fortunately, little by little. The susp~.cions, the antagonisms, the rivalries are
appearing again, and the ~ight3ng, although still limited at the time we write
these lines, is beg~.nning a long the Sudanese fron.tier, where the adv~nturer from
- the SllECE [Foreign Intelligence and Counterintelligence Service] found.refuge.
And why sliould one expect that Hissein Hatire should not raise his head? Hasn't
- he seen achieved his principal demand: the withdrawal of the Libyan forces and
' the fact that no other military force in a position to deal with him is able to
~ relieve the Libyans for a l.ong time to come? Doesn't he hope to find within the
- various contingents of the inter--Africanforce the assistance which would permit
him to make a comeback on the polit~.cal scene?
What more ean we say? The trap in whfich the French Right-~thanks to the formid-
able resources which it cont inues to~have in the means which it manipulates
cleverly and even within the goverrnnent, and particularly the intell~gence ser--
- vices, and thanks also to the friEndships which it still has in tt~e African
regimes which it has nurtur~d since 1960--seeks to enclose the African policy of
tfte I.ef.tist ~overnment of. France, this trap seems to be closing slowly but in-
- exorably. This is the trap of a return to the vicious circle of military inter-
vencioni5m in Africa. Mor eover, this is a kind of interventionism condemned
W~CIlOllt further recourse both by the chief of sr_ate and by the French Social~.st
Party. An interventionism which all the opponents of the overwhelming victory of
10 May 1981 des3.re. For have you ever asked yourself what the French government
would do if unforeseen obstacles were to prevent the inter~African torce from
_ undertaking or continu~ng its mission? For the hope which many people try to
- maintain on the sub~ect of the success of the mission of the inter-Afr3can force,
as it has been conceived and created~ is an 311usion, a mirage in the mov~.ng sands
= oF the Chadian desert.
COPXRtGHT: 1981 Afrique-Asie.
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- GABON
RECIPROCAL NEEDS SEEN GUIDIPdG BONGO-MITTERRAND RELATIONS
Paris J~UNE AFRIQUE in French No 1090, 25 Nov 81 gp 34-37 (excerpts)
[Article oy Siradiou Diallo: "Does Mitterrand Need Bongo?"]
[Excerpts] If most African leaders were disoriented by the victory of Francois
Mitterrand last 10 May, Omar Bongo, Gabon's chief of state, was c~mp letely dumbf ound-
ed by it. Not that he was taken by surprise (highly placed sources in France had
confided such a prediction to him) but because of the privileged relationship that
he had with Valery Ciscard d'Estaing. Gabon's chief of state is convinced that the
interest of his country commands him to establish friendly relations with the whole
French ruling class, beginning at the top. "Communist though he may be," says Omar
Bongo, his hand over his heart, "if Georges Marchais is elected president of the
republic tomorrow, not anly will I try to maintain good relations with him, but I
will also make a friend out of him, unless he does not want anytliing~to do with me."
All the more reason why he does not see why he would not get along with Francois
Mitterrand. Without renouncing the solid friendships which link him to the leaders
of the emerging majority--because "I am not a weather vane"--Gabon's chief of state
is persuaded that he can get along with the French Socialist leader. "Especially
since we do not have;" he says, "any divergence of an ideological nature. On the ~
contrary."
This does not prevent Omar Bongo from being worried the day after Francois Mitter-
rand's victory. Because a crowd of people had deliberately sought to stir up the
fear of Socialists in him. They are going ta try to destabilize your regime, they
had told him: "These are dirty Reds...." Gabon's chief of state was even more .
justified in believing them since the French press made the summer particularly hot
f or him . ~
Certain well-established r.rench milieux in Gabon took advantage of this to sow d is-
cord, even to insinuate to Yresident Bongo that this campaign was orchestrated
behind the scenes by I'rench officials. They assured him that his Gabonese opponents
were from that point on warmly received at the Rue de Solferino (Parisian headquarters
of the Socialist Party). And that in agreement if not with the government itself
at least with the party leaders, the newspapers were getting ready to "pull the
children's massacre coup on him" (allusion to the bloody events of February 1979
- which cost Bokassa his throne).
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_ 1'he operation was all the more believable since it was mounted by well--placed people
in Gabon and since it mobilized a solid and vast network, going from security services
to the large local French companies, passing through business agents, patrons of bars
and well-known restaurants in Libreville.
Likewise, on the matter of nationalization of French companies, for which some of
the highest officials af the country are pushing, the president~seems~to be in
- favor of a more moderate solution. While he is entirely in accord with the princi=
ple of the increase in state participation in the large companies that control the
key sectors uf the economy, he seems to want to set aside, at least for the moment,
ttie idea of a true takeover of E1~f-Gabon. The chief of state is aware of what it
would cost him to raise the current state part (26 percent) to 51 percent, from
the financial point of view as well as on the political plane. This does not take
into account the fact that Cabon does not presently have enough competent staff
personnel to take over the operations of an enterprise as complex as Elf-Gabon.
Which is perhaps not true for other companies such as COMILOG (Mining Company of
_ Ogooue) which works the manganese deposits of Moanda, or COMUF (Uranium Mining
Company of Francevillc).
While awaiting the decision from Libreville, it is necessary to state that this
anxiousness to please has been costly.
As for the government in Paris; it is eager to foil the trap which its opponents in
Gabon had laid for it. In the midst of the crisis, President Francois Mitterrand
did not hesitate to pick up his telephone to talk with his counterpart. And to ex-
plain to him his sincere desire to clear away the cloudS which had gathered, inde-
pendently of his will, over the skies of French-Gabonese relations.
To continue to develop them in the well-understoud interest of both countries.
Since then, not only has his adviser for African affairs, Guy Penne, called on
' Bongo several times, with the mission of warming up relations between Paris and
Libreville, but the two chief.s of state consult by telephone frequently.
In spite of his bonds of friendship with t~.e men of the former majority in France,
Bongo cannot fail to