Changing Patterns of African International Relations

Whatever happened to the “radical,” “moderate,” and “conservative” African states we used to talk about not so long ago—say in early 1961? One wonders if the snapshot of African orientations, then in fair focus, has not become badly blurred.President Sekou Touré, once the radical foe of neo-colonialist African regimes, has more recently offered assurances that his nation opposed intervention in the internal affairs of other states and thus tacitly acknowledged the legitimacy of the states he had formerly condemned. Touré helped to prepare the way for the reconciliation of “radical” and “conservative” states at Addis Ababa, in May 1963, where the Organization of African Unity was formed. At that conference, another stormy petrel of West African radicalism, President Modibo Keita of Mali, observed that though the colonial system divided Africa, “it permitted nations to be born.” “African unity,” he declared, “requires full respect for the frontiers we have inherited from the colonial system.”