Page 160 - Afrika Must Unite

SOME ATTEMPTS AT UNIFICATION 145
Declaration of the Afro-Asian Conference held in Bandung,
with the aim of promoting co-operation among all the people of
the world, and of consolidating international peace.

In my speech at the closing session of the conference, I warned
against the dangers of delay in achieving unity:

I can see no security for African states unless African leaders,
like ourselves, have realized beyond all doubt that salvation for
Africa lies in unity . . . for in unity lies strength, and as I see it,
African states must unite or sell themselves out to imperialist and
colonialist exploiters for a mess of pottage, or disintegrate
individually.

Certain sections of the foreign press gave great publicity to the
Casablanca conference. Some saw in it a step forward on the way
to unity; others seemed to take great delight in pointing out that
only a handful of African states attended, and it could therefore
not be regarded as truly representative of African opinion.
Nigeria, Tunisia, Ethiopia, Liberia, Sudan, Togoland,
Somalia, India and Indonesia were all, in fact, invited to the
conference. French Community states, which coalesced round
the meetings in Abidjan and Brazzaville at the end of i960, were
not asked. There seemed, therefore, some justification for the
view that three different ‘blocs’ were emerging in Africa.
This view received added support when the Monrovia
Conference took place in M ay 1961. The sponsors of the con­
ference were Cameroon, Liberia, Nigeria, and Togoland. Out
of the twenty-seven independent African states twenty sent
delegations, and fifteen of them were led by Presidents and Prime
Ministers. The President of Liberia was elected chairman.
The seven absentees were Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Morocco,
Egypt, Sudan and the Congo. The Congo had not been invited,
because of the lack of settled government there.
Four main topics were discussed, namely, ways and means to
achieve better understanding and co-operation and ways of
promoting unity in Africa; threats to peace and stability in
Africa; the establishment of special machinery to which African
states might refer in case of disputes amongst themselves; and the
possible contribution of African states to world peace. It was