April 29, 1971
Page 12710
AFRICAN-AMERICAN DIALOGS – ADDRESS BY SENATOR MUSKIE
Mr. McGEE. Mr. President, on March 8 the Senator from Maine (Mr. MUSKIE), while attending the annual African-American Dialogs in Lagos, Nigeria, made an important address which I wish to bring to the attention of the Senate.
As Senators know, I have just returned from an extensive month-long trip through Africa. This trip impressed upon me the need to show more attention to Africa in this country and in Congress as well. Thus, I am particularly pleased that Senator MUSKIE has at this time shown such an interest in Africa.
In his statement, Senator MUSKIE has identified several points with which I heartily agree.
These are:
First. America should raise the level of development aid;
Second. America should act to stabilize commodity prices, eliminate trade barriers, and establish tariff preferences for goods from developing nations;
Third. America should encourage responsible private investment and local private investment in Africa;
Fourth. America should face the challenges of population growth in Africa; and
Fifth. America should emphasize that racial oppression in Africa and elsewhere is against our best interests.
I commend Senator MUSKIE's views on these and other issues treated in his speech to Members of Congress.
I ask unanimous consent that they be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the address was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
REMARKS BY SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE
AFRICAN-AMERICAN DIALOGUES
It has taken me much too long to make this trip to Africa.
I have looked forward to coming. I am glad to be here.
I would like to see Africa achieve its potential.
I would like to know what America can do to help.
I want to hear what Africans have to say on that subject.
I suspect that given the present mood of Africans, it might be better for an American – especially on his first visit – to listen rather than to speak.
I hope when I have finished, I will not be vulnerable to a criticism which Churchill once addressed to a parliamentary critic in the House of Commons, when he said:
"He can best be described as one of those orators who before they get up do not know what they are going to say; when they are speaking, do not know what they are saying; and when they have sat down, do not know what they have said."
With that reservation, there are some observations I would like to make, as one who has been long interested in Africa, and as an American who has had some responsibility for American policy toward Africa.
An American poet once wrote: "There is only one man in the world and his name is all men."
We are meeting here this week to help translate these words into economic and political facts.
We all remember the fresh beginning of African independence in the 1960's: It was a time when a new relationship between Africa and America seemed inevitable. It was a time when Americans, who had won their independence from a colonial power nearly two hundred years earlier, responded sympathetically to the African struggle for independence and freedom and self-respect. It was a time when we thought we could see the end of colonialism.
We should not be surprised that colonialism has not ended easily, and we should not be surprised that independence has not made nation-building an easy task.
America won her independence through a revolution which did not produce a stable government until eleven years had passed. Seventy-one years after the inauguration of our first president the country was torn apart in a civil war. Our early growth was largely dependent on capital resources from Europe. Today, after two hundred years, we are still struggling with deep and divisive questions about freedom, equality, opportunity and justice.
The process of achieving nationhood – of establishing a country in which men and women can live with freedom from fear, freedom from suspicion and mistrust, freedom from want and disease, and freedom to grow and achieve their natural potential – that process can be long and painful.
We who knew this from our own national experience knew also that struggling nations need help to grow. We took some steps to help, but the promise was easier than the reality. Once independence was achieved, once the new constitutions were adopted and the new flags were raised, once the difficult task of building new nations really began, our support fell short of what it might have been. It is not that the United States could – or should – have tried to manage and solve the problems of Africans. That would have been unwise and impossible. But, looking back, we can see how much more we might have done to help.
America was diverted by her own troubles. We had gone to war in Indochina. Our attention was divided between that war and our internal problems. I am not here to tell you that this has changed. I cannot promise that there will be an upsurge in material support and assistance for African countries. We are still involved in a tragic war, and even if we end our military involvement in Indochina – as I believe we must – many Americans will be reluctant to assume any involvement elsewhere in the world.
The problems in our country, in our cities and towns and small communities, are enormous. They demand and they deserve a far greater share of our attention and our total resources than we have given them in many years.
Nevertheless, we do have concerns and responsibilities in the rest of the world. We have them here in Africa. Out of our traumatic experience in Southeast Asia we are seeking wiser ways to play our proper role in the affairs of mankind. I believe we can do more on this continent than we have been doing. I believe we can do so together with those who seek understanding, respect and friendship. I think the American people have a desire to do so.
This is not because of any direct security interest we may have in Africa, or because we should wish to compete for favors with other great powers. It is simply because we cannot be faithful to fundamental American values, unless we show our concern for the human condition wherever men and women live.
We should, all of us, realize by now that the problems of mankind and the promise of mankind are two sides of the same coin.
What, then, should America do?
First, I believe America should raise, and not reduce, the level of development aid: That aid should respond both to the needs for individual country assistance and to arrangements for regional development. Our support for regional and multilateral efforts should be no excuse for cutting our overall aid commitment, and it should not be a substitute for supporting assistance to specific countries where it is needed.
America's resources for foreign assistance are not unlimited. I would suggest that one of the most productive uses of this conference would be to discuss how these resources might be allocated.
For example, the so-called "brain drain" has been a serious and continuing problem for many nations, especially in the field of medicine. Our programs in the 1960's for training men and women in the United States have been partly responsible. I believe the time has come to reinforce the capacities of educational institutions in Africa so that her people may receive the medical training they need on their own continent. We should assist African countries to develop health care systems suited to their needs.
We should also consider the critical importance of long-term improvements in the quantity and quality of food supplies. The Institute for Tropical Agriculture here in Nigeria is an example of what can be done. I believe we should undertake additional cooperative efforts to help meet the growing requirements for basic foods in tropical areas.
Second, I believe America should do more than express her sympathies for the need to stabilize commodity prices, to eliminate trade barriers, and to establish tariff preferences for goods from developing nations. We should use this conference to discuss how we can act on these matters together.
Third, I believe America should encourage private investment in the independent countries of Africa, wherever it can help, and particularly where it will tend to stimulate local investment. We must do so with the understanding that when local capital becomes available, it has a right to participate in a meaningful way.
Fourth, I believe America should be ready to help where she can to meet the challenges of population growth and distribution. In too many instances in the United States and elsewhere,
we have seen the pressures of increased populations causing problems in education, housing and the environment, undoing the benefits of economic development. We should not presume to suggest population policies, but we can help support the population policies African nations decide to pursue. Above all, we in America must be without preconceptions as to what African countries need. We must listen to African definitions of what should be done in African nations.
That is one of the basic reasons why I am here.
If peace and progress in Africa depended only on friendly assistance, we could be satisfied with addressing ourselves to the practical problems of health, education, housing, food, employment and the conservation of natural resources. But aid alone cannot ensure peace or defend the dignity of man. We know from our experience in the United States that relations among men depend on more than economic development. They also depend on mutual respect and equality.
That is why we must address ourselves frankly and openly to the problems of freedom, justice, discrimination and racial oppression. I did not come here to tell Africans how to solve these problems. As an American, I cannot tell you that our country has yet solved its own problems of racial injustice and racial discrimination. Indeed, before I left for Lagos, a student wrote me in these words: "Senator, please don't be the usual politician who tells it like he wants it rather than how it really is." More and more Americans are coming to recognize racial injustice for what it is. More and more Americans understand that no society can really be at peace so long as it sustains racial injustice. More and more Americans are committed to equal opportunity, in law and in fact.
But concern with the human condition cannot stop at our nation's borders. Every form of tyranny – wherever it occurs – is an outrage; and none is more evil than the oppression of a man because of the color of his skin. That is why I believe apartheid is wrong. That is why I believe white supremacy is wrong. That is why I believe colonial domination is wrong. These are not simply intellectual conclusions. They are convictions rooted in the experience and circumstances of my own life and background.
They are convictions which lead me to the conclusion that support of racial oppression in other countries by words or by silence, is against the best interests of the United States.
I know it is not easy to deal with these questions in terms of our relations with other countries. They are complex and they involve decisions of great difficulty, but they are questions which deeply affect the future development of this continent, and its capacity to achieve peace and justice for all its people, of all races.
How does one deal with questions of apartheid, white supremacy, and colonial interference with the rights of self-determination, particularly if you are a large and powerful nation such as the United States? The easy answer to some might appear to be massive intervention. But we have learned from our experience in Indochina that intervention, even by a powerful country, does not produce the results we may want.
My strong opposition to the military involvement in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos is a reflection of my conviction that we have seen too much direct interference in the affairs of other nations by the so-called great powers. There has been too much exertion of military power in international affairs, with nations attempting to bend other nations to their will.
Does this mean that we should stand aside, ignoring what is happening in South Africa, in Rhodesia, in Namibia, or in the Portugese colonies? We cannot, if we are to do justice to our moral concerns. There should be two guidelines for our policies toward South Africa:
First, we must maintain our own arms embargo, and seek to persuade cur allies to do likewise.
Second, we must recognize that a relations-as-usual, business-as-usual, communications-as-usual approach is inadequate. A neutral attitude, whatever its intent, may in fact contribute to support of apartheid. We need communication with South Africa. if we are to have a positive influence. But it must not be communication which gives a badge of respectability to oppressive regimes, or which is only one-way, or which is only with the dominant minority.
Adopting these guidelines does not give us an automatic answer to the question of what actions would be both realistic and right. The last decade has shown that Americans and others have not yet found that answer. The years since the Sharpeville massacre have been marked by much talk outside South Africa; the tragedy within is no less cruel than before.
We in America cannot ignore that tragedy. It is a matter of importance, and it is urgent. It is no longer enough to try to deal with this festering and explosive situation merely by incantation or by ignoring it.
We must seriously re-examine our policies and practices with respect to South Africa. The conscience of an America determined to solve a racial problem of her own must explore ways and means of stimulating and supporting genuine changes in South Africa's racial practices.
The objective of this re-examination must be to identify every present relationship and form of cooperation which may have the effect of aiding and abetting the present denial of equal rights to all South Africa's citizens. The United States cannot and should not try to solve the problem – which is the right and responsibility of Africans. But it must not – even inadvertently – make their problem worse.
Unless men can find the answer to this problem of relations among races – which spreads across the face of this planet – there can be no peace. It is the problem of all nations. If South Africa were on the road to justice for all its races, it would move us all down the road toward peace and understanding throughout this continent and the world.
The Rhodesian situation continues to be troublesome for all of us. We hope the United Kingdom can work out a settlement to prevent the creation of another South Africa in Rhodesia. But until and unless a settlement respecting the rights of black Rhodesians is achieved, we should be completely scrupulous in fulfilling the obligations we have assumed under the economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations.
In the case of Namibia, I believe the right course for the United States is to support peaceful efforts under the United Nations to stop this spread of apartheid and to make international responsibility for the area effective.
The question of the Portuguese colonies in Africa presents other problems for the United States. We have treaty commitments with Portugal, primarily through the North Atlantic Treaty organization. Those commitments are related to the general defense system developed between the United States and its western European allies. They are not commitments which can be taken lightly by any responsible American leader.
They represent one side of the Portuguese colonial issue for the United States. The other side of the issue is represented by our concerns and interests in Africa. For too long some Americans have held that only our European commitments and only our military-strategic interests are important. According to that view of the world, at any time they intersect with other interest or concerns, narrowly defined military-strategic interests should prevail.
If the world is going to survive, and if American society is not to be ripped to shreds in dissension and disillusion, this way of viewing American interests in the world must be changed.
We do have interests and responsibilities in Europe, but we also have interests and responsibilities in Africa. These interests must be given their full weight and importance in our policy choices.
Some of those interests relate to our increased economic investments in Africa. Some relate to the importance of avoiding the horrors of war and its impact on the world community. More important still are our interests in the principles of human freedom and national independence. We do have an obligation to set an example in human decency, generosity and concern for the rights of others.
How, then, do these general principles apply to our relations with Portugal and the issue of her African colonies? Some of us thought a new government in Lisbon might pursue new policies in Africa. But no real change is apparent. Instead, we have seen a continuation of the fighting to preserve colonial control. We have seen indications that planned movement of more Portugese settlers to Africa will further complicate the problem. We have seen no break in her determination to withhold the right of self-determination from 15 million Africans.
I believe the United States has a duty to itself as a nation committed to the principle of self-determination to make our views known to the Portugese government in no uncertain terms.
I believe we have a duty, as a friend of African independence and peaceful development, and as an ally of Portugal, to work as hard as we can to persuade Portugal to change her colonial policies.
We have an obligation to try to persuade Portugal to see the wisdom and necessity of bringing to a prompt end her military activity in Africa and to grant the right of self-determination to all people in her overseas territories.
If Portugal refuses to end her colonial policies in Africa, we may be confronted with a hard choice between our treaty relations with Portugal and our interests in the peaceful development of self-determined nations in Africa. I hope they change their policies, and we are not faced with that choice. But if we are, then we must not operate on the automatic assumption that these relations with Portugal are more important than our African interests and responsibilities.
I have spoken at some length of the negative actions the United States must take or consider in opposition to racial injustice and oppression in Africa. Such actions are important, but they are not all we can or should do to encourage the growth of freedom and equality in Southern Africa and throughout the continent. Our commitments must include economic and technical assistance to help strengthen the promise of independent Africa.
Americans do not have all the answers in a troubled world. We, know, however, that peace and the dignity of man cannot be maintained in isolation from other nations.
More than ten years ago, before he was President, John Kennedy said that "Every American is now involved in the world."
Our involvement with Africa provides us with an opportunity. We have an opportunity on this continent to prove that cold war politics need not be the basis for American foreign policy. We have an opportunity to prove that compassion and conviction and moral obligation can and should be the moving forces of that policy.
I do not believe we can expect change to be apparent overnight, but I believe relations between Africa and America can be strengthened in the 1970's. I believe they will be strengthened, provided we have the courage always to speak honestly and to continue our dialogue in friendship.