AFRICAN LEADER SCORES A POINT
Today's main problems tend to become polarized between the great powers. However, the situation is also characterized by the incapacity of the top leaderships to maintain strict control over all the forces that are bringing about the big transformations occurring in the world, Thus it is not without interest to stress the fact that certain. forces, apparently insignificant in relation to the great powers,°can express points of view and indicate tendencies of the highest. importance.
For. example, the president of the Republic of Guinea, Sekou Touré, the head of a quite small country, who began by saying "no" to de’ Gaulle, and who.for a few years appeared to be among the vanguard in Africa, then went backward, recently wrote an article dealing with the question of peace, The article was published in Nouvelle Démocratie, a magazine edited by French Communist party leader Jacques Duclos but in which various fellow-travelers like P, Cot, exercise considerable influence,
The article appeared during Chou En-laits tour of Africa. How-.
ever, it is not clear whether it was written before or after he reached the continent. Whatever its connection with that, the article expresses a point of view that will certainly not sound alien to many African revolutionists, .
Sekou Touré disputes the idea that peace "should concern only ‘the great powers," And here is what he adds:
"Tr anyone thinks that the tripartite agreement on stopping | nuclear tests in the atmosphere is determinant, Africa has the right «- Africa which is still under foreign domination -- to believe that the liquidation of Portuguese fascism and the South African dictator~. ship would better serve to guarantee world peace than the agreement in question. Because, after all, among the signatories of the agree~ ment dontt we find those who, under one pretext or another, continue. to arm the mercenaries of Portugal and who are preparing to grant South Africa remote-control rockets? Such facts speak more eloquently to the peoples of Africa and to the conscious people of the whole world than does the Moscow tripartite agreement,"
No one can accuse the government of Guinea of ambitions about ‘having nuclear armaments. Sekou Touré's point of view flows directly from a realistic appreciation of the immediate dangers facing the peoples of. Africa and those responsible for these dangers.
A statement like this one casts fresh light: on the disputes at certain conferences of peace or youth organizations (like the Helsinki festival some three years ago) where the Chinese and Soviet represen~ ‘tatives argued over the priority of tasks -~ the struggle for world peace or the struggle against imperialism, Their quarrel also reflected genuine preoccupations among representatives of peoples who, if they have already gained formal political independence, understand how uncertain this remains,
A