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                                                                                TRAVELER'S NOTES, Page 13

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 prog ress 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.