Incisive Journalism in Cameroon: The Best of ��Cameroon Report�� (1978 � 1986)

49. Cameroon Report 07/07/1982: The 9th Franco-African Summit

185 49 Cameroon Report 07/07/1982: The 9th FrancoAfrican Summit Introduction: Delegates from some forty-two African countries including twenty Heads of State are returning home after attending the 9th Franco African summit in Kinshasa, Zaire. It is too early to say exactly what the summit achieved concretely for its participants. The only likely beneficiary is host President Mobutu Sese Seko who used the occasion to gain some publicity for his sagging regime. Given the imperialistic objectives of the summit, it is a surprise that so many leaders turned out for the meeting. Eric Chinje has these observations: It must have been this year’s best-kept secret - Africa’s surprise package of the eighties. Some forty African leaders of varied political persuasions, we were told, were going to congregate in Zaire, sit together and, according to French President Francois Mitterrand, informally exchange ideas on some of the major issues confronting the continent. My first reaction to news of the event was one of outright incredulity: It could not be true, it could not happen, at least not in 1982. Who could have accomplished such a feat? Was it France? Was it Mitterrand? Was it Mobutu? Was it an African or a French affair? I felt a little uncomfortable with the news. It had all the trappings of a colonialist decoy. I could almost certainly hear, in the explicatory words of Mr Mitterrand, the voice of some colonial lords, paternalistically informing his overseas subjects that this thing was totally for their own good. Nothing, note 186 you, against President Mitterrand. I am quite aware, as I believe most Africans are, that France’s current leader is possibly the best – or is it truest – friend Africa has had for a long time from among the nations of the West. There had to be some sincerity in the whole thing, but coming in the wake of a year of Chad and the Western Sahara, one could not help but see once again, the discomforting but domineering hand of colonialist authority at play. Given that only nineteen OAU nations finally sat down to talk the issue over! That the Kinshasa gathering would succeed only opens up a bag of disquieting questions: Who is fooling who about African Unity? What does one make of those warm-hearted embraces that African leaders so gregariously exchange each time they meet? Or words like: “my brother, President X or Y?” Who runs Africa? Who really makes things work in this good old Continent? For answers, we can only turn to the leaders of Africa, to those for example, who attended the Franco-African summit. What convinced them to turn up? Was it in interest of Africa or did they go the Zaire because France wanted them there? The Pan-Africanist conscience has always stood out against sugar coated pills dished out from “Whiteman contri”, and has always urged us to accept with deep scepticism all professions of goodwill from fellows of another skin pigment, be they right-minded white-skinned socialists, or red-neck American reactionaries. This time around, we will take Francois Mitterrand in good faith; we will swallow his words like balls of “garri” bathed in “okro” soup. But it is important that we remember, that African leaders remember that Africans should run their own affairs. That, however difficult it is, however impossible it might seem at the 187 moment, the answer to Africa’s problems is in Africa. Eric Chinje 188 ...