A recent issue of the South African Financial Gazette had some advice for Western leaders concerning their attitude towards Africa. It is worth quoting to illustrate the scarcely-concealed glee which South African circles feel about the mess the Americans have got into. It also outlines an alternative strategy for the U.S. leaders which may very well appeal to them after their recent defeats.
"Western powers, and more particularly the United States, can hardly avoid some rethinking ebout Africa as the result of the tragedy at Stanleyville. The Africa of today is, to a large extent, the outcome of American diplomacy. Not the outcome that it was intended to produce, of course, although American policy makers were often enough and insistently enough warned by those who know Africa, of the type of situation they were likely to create.
“They were warned that a premature, complete withdrawal of European leadership would not make freedom, in the Western sense...Misgivings were expressed as to how it would affect what Africa needs more desperately than anything else - economic development, education, and improved standards of living and the intellectual and material wellbeing of peoples....
"Finally, Americm policy makers were warned that the absenee of real authority and the emergence of internal rivalries would open the floodgates of Communist intrigue upon Africa. Western powers, it was maintained, would either have to lock on while the Russians and Chinese were putting their stooges into power, or step in and forcibly prop up their own inefficient and,by themselves, helplese allies in what were going to be continuously 'aid' requiring territories....
“Britain has already had to send troops to Tanganyika, Kenya and Uganda in support of supposedly friendly disposed leaders against Communist inspired insurrections. French soldiers have had to put Mr. Mba back into power in Gabon, and now Americans and Belgians have had to rush to the assistance of Mr. Tshombe in the Congo to prevent what Mr. Spsaak described as "an historic tragedy of our time."
" eeeoetne withdrawal of European leadership has left a vacuum of real authority in Africa, Opportunities have now been ofened to the Communist powers to compete on equal terms with the West - to set intrigue against old-fashioned Western diplomacy on a Continent that is, in the years to come, to be the world's most fertile field for intrigue. The Communists will apply whatever is called for, including force,to secure powep for their supporters everywhere in Africa and to keep them in power once they are there. The West will have to do the same - and forget the unrealistic nonsense about Western democracy in Black Africa,
"Tt will, by the very nature of the terrain, be a difficult and costly struggle, and President Johnson, having thought again, would be well advised to impress upon Mr. Wilson the stupidity of adding Rhodesia to the burden already undertaken,"
from Julian Atkinson,