The African scramble for independence has led to two major political trends which have at least the superficial look of being contradictory but which may still turn out to be complementary. One is the consolidation of states, and, it may be, of nations, within the frontiers traced on the map of Africa with an imperial flourish by the colonial powers. The other is the unceasing agitation and conferring to secure some sort of African unity which would bring together within a common framework either all the African peoples or such more limited groupings of them as are now prepared to join forces for general or particular purposes. The unanswered, and still unanswerable, question is whether the states which have been emerging in such quantities, with more still to come—29 African Members of the UN at the end of 1961 as against five in 1955—will serve as the building blocks for a greater African union or whether they will jealously guard the separate identity which they have now achieved.

When Africa emerged with unexpected haste as an independent political force in the world, the Commonwealth was still adjusting itself to revolutionary transformations in Asia. There was no doubt that it had entered on a new phase, but the phase was hard to define. Because the nature of the Commonwealth is implicit, there is always considerable diversity of view on its significance even among its own citizens. There is always a time lag as well. Many people, particularly in the “Old Commonwealth,” had just begun to grasp the significance of “The Commonwealth,” no longer “The British Commonwealth,” no longer a blood relationship; and now they had to cope with its rapid expansion and the imminent prospect that white members would be in a minority. Neither citizens nor foreigners had even made up their minds whether they were viewing the decline and fall of the British Empire or the finest hour of the Commonwealth. The doctrine that the new multiracial Commonwealth was the blessed culmination of the virtues of the Empire, the triumph of its good instincts over its errors, had certainly become the official view celebrated in speeches and communiqués, but public opinion lagged behind—not so much resistant to the new idea as captive of traditional attitudes. Not only the white people's view was anachronistic; Asians and Africans were themselves slow to recognize and accept their new position of equality and of responsibility.

No consideration of the place of Africa in the United Nations or of the role of international organization in the progress of this continent would be thinkable without an authoritative expression of views upon the subject by Africans themselves.

It is possible to distinguish roughly two periods in the history of the United Nations. During the first, which lasted until the middle nineteen fifties, the Western powers had a fairly secure majority in the General Assembly, and Cold War issues tended to dominate. The supreme test of that first phase was the Korean War. It showed both that the new International Organization refused to practice appeasement and that in a bipolar world whose main antagonists were engaged in an ideological struggle and endowed with nuclear weapons, UN intervention in the conflicts between the blocs would either expose the Organization to a demonstration of impotence or submit the world to the risks of escalation. A second phase began when membership of the UN increased, and the newly-independent nations became the biggest group within the Assembly. Now, as Dag Hammarskjöld put it in his report to the fifteenth General Assembly, the main task in the area of peace and security shifted to “preventive diplomacy”—rushing to the scene of fires which break out “outside the sphere of bloc differences” before the arrival of the major contenders. The biggest challenge has been the Congo crisis. It has tested all the assumptions which had been made—by scholars as well as by the late Secretary-General—about the role of the UN, its possibilities and its limits, and about the relations between its principal organs and its main groups of members.

The United Nations is now playing a key role in the economic and technical development of the African continent and will undoubtedly be called upon to assume an even greater responsibility in this field during the next ten years. This development was correctly forecast five years ago by the late Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld. For he saw that the transition from the colonial era, which had made the European countries directly responsible for the development of the vast majority of the territories and peoples in Africa, prior to independence, would thrust upon the United Nations a very specific burden. As it happened, the question of the Congo has overshadowedthe other aspects of UN activity in Africa, although one can note a remarkable continuity in the progressive implementation of a coordinated program where all agencies of the United Nations family have to play their part.

Within the space of less than six years, the African membership in the United Nations has increased from three to twenty-eight Members constituting the largest geographical group in the Organization. Furthermore, as many as seven other territories may become independent and seek membership before the end of 1965.

The numerous unification efforts now under way in Africa represent one of the most significant developments in the brief post-independence era of that continent. Freedom has brought withit increased recognition in many African quarters of the interdependence of the African statesand the need for unified approaches to common problems. The new countries together with the handful of older independent African states have nearly all become involved in one or more of theintensified drives toward some form of integration. Paradoxically, the issue of how to achieveunity is becoming one of the principal divisions between African states.

The second part of the sixteenth session of the General Assembly met at UN Headquarters from January 15 through February 3, 1962, when it was adjourned. The Assembly considered the following agenda items, discussion of which had been deferred from the first part of the sixteenth session: 1) complaint by Cuba of threats to international peace and security; 2) the situation in Angola; 3) question of the future of Ruanda-Urundi; and 4) information from non-self-governing territories.

The Security Council at its 990th meeting discussed briefly the India-Pakistan question, which had once again been brought to its attention in letters from the representatives of India and Pakistan on the situation prevailing with regard to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The repre-sentative of Pakistan had charged in the initial complaint that since efforts for direct negotiation had failed, there was a grave danger to the maintenance of peace in the Kashmir region. Following a presentation of the question by Chaudhri Zafrulla Khan (Pakistan), the Indian delegate, Mr. Jha, asked the Council to postpone considera-tion of the issue until after the general elections in India so that the new govern-ment formed after the elections could fully participate in the discussion.

The First Conference of Independent African States, attended by representatives of the independent states of western and northern Africa (Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Libya, Morocco, the Sudan, Tunisia, and the United Arab Republic), was held in Accra, Ghana, from April 15 to 22, 1958. The purpose of the conference was: 1) to discuss problems of common interest; 2) to formulate and coordinate methods aimed at accelerating mutual understanding; 3) to consider means of safeguarding the independence and sovereignty of participating countries and of assisting dependent African territories in their efforts toward the attainment of self-government; and 4) to plan cultural exchanges and mutual assistance schemes.

The First All-African People's Conference, a nongovernmental assembly attended by more than 300 political and trade union leaders representing 200 million Africans in 28 countries plus observers from Canada, China, Denmark, India, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, took place in Accra, Ghana, from December 8 to 13, 1958. The conference was called by a preparatory committee composed of representatives from eight independent states (Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and the United Arab Republic); the 28 dependent and independent African countries participating were: Angola, Basutoland, Belgian Congo, Cameroons, Chad, Dahomey, Ethiopia, French Somaliland, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Occidental Afrique, Senegal, Sierre Leone, South Africa, South West Africa, Tanganyika, Togoland, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zanzibar. Mr. Tom Mboya, general secretary of the Kenya Federation of Labor, was reported to have been designated chairman of the conference by the preparatory committee.

The first meeting of the twelve French-speaking African states which subsequently became known as the “Brazzaville group”—Cameroun, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo (Brazzaville), Dahomey, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Malagasy, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, and Upper Volta—was held at Abidjan in the Ivory Coast in October 1960. The meeting was organized by President Félix Houphouet-Boigny of the Ivory Coast for the purpose of discussing whether the independent African states could mediate or in some other way help bring the Algerian conflict to an end without alienating France. The final communiqué stated that the conference had examined the Algerian, Congolese, and Mauritanian questions, that all the countries attending would support Mauritania's application for membership in the UN, and that further meetings would be held.

A summit meeting of the Presidents of Ghana, Guinea, Mali, and the United Arab Republic, attended also by the Libyan Foreign Minister, the Ceylonese Ambassador in Cairo, and Premier Ferhat Abbas of the Algerian provisional government, was convened in Casablanca by King Mohammed of Morocco in early January 1961 for the purpose of coordinating policy on the Congo and of considering a suggestion for the formation of an African high military command. Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Liberia, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Togoland, and Tunisia were invited but did not attend the conference. Excluding Ghana, all those states present which had troops with the UN Operations in the Congo (ONUC) had announced their intention of withdrawing them prior to the meeting.

Representatives of twenty independent African states [Cameroun, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo (Brazzaville), Dahomey, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Libya, Malagasy, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Togo, Tunisia, and Upper Volta] met in Monrovia from May 8 to 12, 1961, to consider four major items: means of promoting better understanding and cooperation toward achieving unity in Africa; threats to peace and stability in Africa; establishment of special machinery to which African states might refer in case of disputes among themselves; and possible contribution of African states to world peace. Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Morocco, the Sudan, and the United Arab Republic were unrepresented at the conference.

At a meeting in Accra, which took place from April 27 to 29, 1961, Presidents Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Sékou Touré of Guinea, and Modibo Keita of Mali signed a charter formally establishing a tripartite Union of African States. The charter came into effect upon its simultaneous publication on July 1 in the capitals of Ghana, Guinea, and Mali after the three heads of state had met at Bamako, Mali, on June 26 in order to examine the extent to which decisions reached at their April meeting in Accra had been implemented. The drafting of the charter evolved out of a decision announced by the three government leaders at Conakry, Guinea, on December 24, 1960, envisioning common diplomatic representation and the creation of committees to draw up arrangements for harmonizing economic and monetary policies.

Meeting in July 1959 at Sanniquellie, Liberia, President Tubman of Liberia, President Touré of Ginea, and Prime Minister Nkrumah of Ghana pledged themselves to work together for the formation of a “Community of Independent African States.” To this end, they decided that a special conference should be held in 1960 after Nigeria, Togoland, and the Cameroons had attained independence. They agreed on the following principles to be presented to the projected conference as the basis for discussion: 1) Africans, like all other peoples, had an inherent right to independence and self-determination; 2) the name of the proposed organization should be the “Community of Independent African States;” 3) each state or federation which became a member of the Community should maintain its own national identity and constitutional structure; 4) each member should accept the principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of any other-member; 5) the acts of states or federations members of the Community should be determined in relation to the essential objectives of freedom, independence, and unity of the African personality; 6) the policy of the Community should be to build up a prosperous African unity for the benefit of the peoples of Africa and of the world, and in the interests of international peace and security; 7) a main objective should be to help accelerate the independence of African territories subjected to domination; 8) the Community should set up an economic council, a cultural council, and a scientific and research council; 9) membership should be open to all independent African states and federations and to nonindependent countries upon their attainment of independence; 10) the Community should have a flag and an anthem, to be decided upon at a later date; and 11) the motto of the Community should be “Independence and Unity.”

PAFMECA was formed at a conference held in Mwanza, Tanganyika, from September 16 to 18, 1958, for the purpose of coordinating regional activities toward the achievement of independence for territories in East and Central Africa. The conference, which was attended by representatives of political parties from Kenya, Nyasaland, Tanganyika, Uganda, and Zanzibar, considered the following issues: 1) the position of those present toward (a) the non-African minorities in Kenya, Tanganyika, and Uganda, and (b) the Central African Federation (Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia, and Southern Rhodesia); 2) methods for achieving coordinated action among the nationalist movements in East and Central Africa and for pooling resources in a concerted drive against imperialism; and 3) the development of a fundamental philosophic creed for the emergent African nations.