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Edinburgh, Libreville and HanoiKaye Whiteman aa General Manager/Chief Executive of West Africa magazinePublished online: 15 Apr 2008.

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The Round Table (1998), 346 (139-147)

EDINBURGH, LIBREVILLEAND HANOI

KAYE WHITEMAN

Three summit meetings took place in four weeks towards the end of 1997—theCommonwealth, the ACP, and La Francophonie, If the ACP is apprehensive atthe forthcoming talks on replacement of the Lome Convention, theCommonwealth and La Francophonie have taken on a new lease of life. Lomeis a unique trade-and-aid agreement governing relations between the membersof the European Union and their former colonies in the African, Caribbeanand Pacific regions. The Libreville summit of ACP nations in the autumn of1997 was stimulated by concerns that the convention was being underminedby the arrival of the World Trade Organization and diminished access toEuropean markets. Talks over its future are to be completed in the year 2000with two possible outcomes—a revived partnership with the ACP countrieswith Africa the priority zone for aid, or a development policy which does notfavour any specific region. Despite the desire in Brussels to see the post-colonial era buried, the strengths of the Commonwealth and La Francophonie,however contrasting in style and content, may well ensure its continuation.

'The post colonial period is over.'Joao de Deus Pinheiro1

'The Lome Convention was not about post-colonial reparation ...the effort was about newness—a new partnership, a new way ofcooperating for development.'

Sir Shridath RamphaP

The ACP and the future of Lome

OF THE CULTURE OF SUMMITS, which have almost come to be thebenchmarks of contemporary international ties, there is no end. The latest

new gathering to come before us is the ACP Summit, the first of which washeld in Libreville, capital of Gabon on 6 and 7 November 1997.

The ACP are the African, Caribbean and Pacific group, a coalition ofdeveloping countries formed as a result of initiatives from Europe arising fromthe need to put in place a more coherent policy for what was then called theEuropean Economic Community (EEC).3 It was British entry to that body on1 January 1973 which necessitated this convergence, because of the need to

Kaye Whiteman is General Manager/Chief Executive of West Africa magazine having been Editorfor many years. He also worked for nine years in Brussels in the European Commission.

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fulfil obligations in Britain's Accession Treaty, which dealt with the ending ofCommonwealth Preference and of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement.Previously the EEC's treaty arrangements with developing countries had beenlimited to the Yaounde Convention with 18 mainly francophone states, and ahandful of other limited association accords.

As Sonny Ramphal (former Commonwealth Secretary-General and asGuyana's foreign minister one of the principal architects of the 1st LomeConvention in 1975) said,4 'what eventually emerged, despite Communitymythology to the contrary, was a sui generis agreement—the Lome Convention.That this was the result of the negotiations between 1972 and 1974 was in largemeasure attributable to the emergence and solidarity of the ACP'. He adds thatdriving the thrust of ACP unity was the determination for something that wouldnot be in the mould of 'colonial' arrangements, even if 'history, includingEuropean colonialism had brought them there', but 'the response to theiryearning for a new economic order in the world and their commitment toSouth-South cooperation'. It is also important to keep Ramphal's point in mindthat the ACP are a group in their own right, set up in Georgetown in 1975 afterLome was signed.

There has been a tendency in recent statements on the European side todownplay this aspect of Lome, and present it as Dieter Frisch has complained,as a 'post-colonial anachronism',5 when in fact it was a major breakthrough in anew kind of international relations, even if it could not entirely maintain this. Itdid appear tailored to suit British and French interests in particular. Thisbecame more apparent as the Community enlarged to include first Greece,Spain and Portugal in the 1980s and then, in the early 1990s, Sweden, Finlandand Austria. Spain in particular felt that the special relationship with the ACP inLome did not take properly into account its strong interests in Latin America,although Portugal, whose former colonies in Africa had joined Lome someyears before Portugal's own accession, was less worried.

In general, however, as Europe enlarged, the need for a rethink of the wholespan of relations with developing countries became more apparent. Thedichotomy in the EU's external relations between the ACP (whose number hadgrown from 46 in 1975 to 71 in 1997) and other aid recipients has become moreand more marked. Initially aid went principally to Asia and Latin America; butsince the beginning of the 1990s the amount going to eastern Europe and theformer Soviet Union has risen to 25 per cent of the total; sub-Saharan Africanow receives less than 40 per cent where it was around 70 per cent in the1970s.6

At the same time, since Lome had the unique feature of joining aid with tradein a contract, many of the trade privileges of Lome7 have become eroded, andare now seriously at risk with the arrival of the World Trade Organization(WTO). It is also important that in the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 there wasincluded for the first time a chapter setting out a global development policy.8

Thus Lome, as a special relationship is generally perceived as not being whatit was, or what it was hoped to be. Even the Commission's own Green Paper9

on future relations speaks of 'the patchy achievements of ACP-EU cooperation'leading to 'a degree of scepticism for developing the ACP countries against thebackground of tight budgets in donor countries and an inward-looking tendency

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borne of social difficulties in Europe'. To this has to be added the changedinternational political climate in the wake of the 1989 fall of the Berlin Walland the demise of the Cold War, which has given liberal democracy a globalinfluence leading to more political conditionalities being attached to aid whichis now mainly focused on the archaic but noble sounding 'good governance'.

In this context, the decision of the ACP to call their leaders to a summit inLibreville was an attempt to fight against the tide. There was first of all a fear ofdivision. The possibility of breaking up the ACP had been discreetly floated inthe White Paper, but although there have been tensions within the ACP (notsurprising in so large and disparate a group), especially in recent years, facedwith the imminent prospect of a particularly difficult negotiation, they preferredto stick together to try and preserve what was left of their privileges. If theCaribbean and the Pacific had preferred separate accords, as posited in theGreen Paper, the Africans (who have sometimes seemed to resent the presenceof clusters of mainly'mtni-states to what they saw as an accord to which Africawas central) would probably have let them go. One message sent very clearlyfrom Libreville, however, was the determination of the ACP to stick together.

Faced with serious threats, especially in the trade sector, the need forsolidarity (as demonstrated to advantage in the original Lome negotiations priorto 1975) had never looked more important. Bananas have been a test case, andthe will of the EU here has so far been wanting, but they only represent a smallpart of what is under threat. The ACP feel additionally aggrieved because theyhad accepted all manner of limitations not originally in Lome because ofpressures for economic reform, but now that many of those reforms are in place,the special access to the European market is to be diminished.

Although non-reciprocal access had been there since 1975, very few apartfrom Mauritius had been able to take advantage of it. Now that more may beable to do so, it is apparently going to be denied. The ACP still feel that, on ajoint platform with the EU, pressures could be put on the WTO, but when evena staunch defender of developing countries, like Britain's current Secretary forInternational Development, Clare Short, seems to accept the inevitability ofchanges, and starts to talk of 'differentiation' and 'framework agreements', thenLome as we know it may well be doomed. The development policies of the EUare to be, as the French say, 'banalized'.

When the talks are completed in the year 2000, there will either be a newpartnership with the ACP, worthy of a revival of the rhetoric of the 1970s, withAfrica still the priority zone, or development policy may cease to feature anyprivileged region. This indeed, may be the trend of the future, with a fullemphasis on the thematic, related to levels of development, and focused on thetargets of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) relating to povertyalleviation by the year 2015, of which Ms Short makes so much in her WhitePaper of November 1997. But a bureaucracy has developed, and bureaucraciesare often remarkably durable.

Commonwealth and francophonieThe summit in Libreville was neatly sandwiched between two other summits:the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Edinburgh

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(24-27 October 1997), and the Francophone Summit in Hanoi, capital ofVietnam (14-16 November 1997). Other than the fact that many leadersattended two of the three summits, and a handful, such as Prime MinisterRamgoolam of Mauritius, attended all three, there are a few common strandsworth examining between Commonwealth and francophonie.

There was a clear general consensus that CHOGM was a success (exceptfrom those who wanted stronger action on Nigeria). Being held in Britain (thefirst for 20 years) highlighted the fact that, in the 1990s, after years of wrestlingwith the issues of, first, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe and then South African sanctions,the arrival of South Africa at true democracy helped to usher in 'a golden age'for the multi-racial Commonwealth. Although the issues of Nigeria and SierraLeone continued to be vexatious, the very fact that the institution was grapplingwith such questions as conflict resolution, human rights and democracy, wereyardsticks of a new maturity. This was symbolized by the benign presence ofPresident Nelson Mandela, whose enthusiasm to join as soon as he achievedpower was a serious boost that encouraged a number of other applications tojoin.

Edinburgh also saw a further prioritization of economic issues, with theEconomic Declaration and the holding prior to the meeting of the firstCommonwealth Business Forum. This marked a kind of full circle, as theending of preferences and other accords in the early 1970s had meant that theeconomic side of the Commonwealth had been seriously downsized, andlimited to the modestly funded but highly effective Commonwealth Fund forTechnical Cooperation, as well as the self-funding Commonwealth Develop-ment Corporation, also a proven force. It has only lately come to the British, atleast, that their linguistic connection has a serious market value.

It was in part the flourishing of the Commonwealth in the 1990s that hascaused the French to develop further their own version of a 'Commonwealth ala francaise'. In the 1960s, General de Gaulle, then President of France, waswary of the idea when it was proposed by President Senghor of Senegal andPresident Bourguiba of Tunisia. The General had seen how Britain had been onthe receiving end of much aggravation over Rhodesia at Commonwealth meet-ings and he also suspected that in the French case it would be a device forblackmailing the former colonial power to retain an interest in (and continue tofund) its erstwhile possessions. Although never publicly hostile, he wassuspicious of anything that limited his freedom of manoeuvre. He was suscep-tible, however, to the emotional idea of the French language as a manifestationof the rayonnement of France. Hence his 'Vive Quebec libre' speech in 1968.

Thus it was only after de Gaulle left power that it was possible to set up theAgence de Cooperation Culturelle et Technique (ACCT, also known asAGECOOP) in 1970. This had been pressed for by the Canadians, mindful ofthe Quebec issue, another reason for French reticence: its subsequent historysaw a series of power struggles over control.

President Houphouet-Boigny of Cote d'lvoire, who over a period in office ofmore than 30 years, often had considerable influence on French policy, was alsodoubtful about francophonie as une idee fumeuse de Senghor (a woolly idea ofSenghor). The next stage envisaged by the Senegalese President was the estab-lishment of francophone summits, but despite his best efforts in the 1970s, it

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proved impossible to achieve take-off before he resigned as President in 1980.It was President Francois Mitterrand, deeply committed as he was on cultural

questions, who took the matter further after he became President of France in1981. Apart from setting up a High Council of Francophonie as a sort ofsteering body, he took advantage of a more relaxed attitude in Canada on thepart of the government of Brian Mulroney towards independent ties for Quebecin France, to initiate the first Francophone Summit, which was inaugurated withappropriate pomp at the Palace of Versailles in February 1986. This was amajor step forward and led to biennial summits curiously parallel to those of theCommonwealth. That in Quebec in 1987 preceded the CHOGM in Vancouverby two months. The next ones were either in France (Palais de Chaillot in 1991)or in Africa (Dakar 1989, Mauritius 1993, Cotonou, Benin in 1995). The stresson Africa was an indication of the continued dominance of the francophoneAfrican sphere of influence in French foreign policy thinking. But attempts toconsolidate the grouping by setting up a full secretariat were a long timecoming.

One major impulsion for moving to the summit stage was the increasingconcern in the French-speaking world that they were missing the bus in thebooming US-based sector of information technology, where English was by farthe dominant language. Although there was apprehension that here, too, theCanadians might prove to be a Trojan horse. But Canada's own internalpolitical dynamic made the development of francophonie as a parallel to theCommonwealth an important priority. But as a grouping it was always morenarrowly concerned with discussing matters arising from 'having the Frenchlanguage in common', as the participating states were archly described.

Thus, when the Hanoi summit gather, it was the Canadian Prime MinisterJean Chretien who was openly satisfied that the institutionalization of the secre-tariat, which the summit approved, marked the completion of the process ofestablishing a Francophone Commonwealth. For the French, too, the wholeevolution of their foreign policy demanded this maximizing of the best sphereof influence they had.

The context was two-fold: the triumph of the West in the ending of the ColdWar had highlighted other rivalries within the West. There had always beentensions between France and the USA (witness de Gaulle's pulling out ofNATO in the 1960s), but post-1990 there was an increasing fixation on the'French exception' in the face of the spread of globalization, seen, particularlyin Paris, as a mortal danger to individual and national identity. This was seen,for example in the struggle to keep cultural commodities out of GATTAVTOfor which backing was even obtained from all francophone states at theMauritius summit in 1993.

The other crucial factor shaping policy was the beginning of disengagementin francophone Africa, where from 1960 France had maintained a remarkablyeffective sphere of influence, in which, apart from language, the two mainpillars were the economic and financial muscle provided by the unique natureof the franc zone, and the military bases that, alone among Western countries,France was allowed to keep on the continent from Dakar to Djibouti.

The sphere was underpinned by the personalization of policy, often on apresident-to-president basis, and the preservation of a remarkable series of

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networks, the model of which was that of de Gaulle's adviser Jacques Foccart,and which also depended on the Ministry of Cooperation, which serviced thecountries of the sphere of influence.

The policy came unstuck with the crisis in the franc zone (overvaluationleading to capital flight and lack of liquidity) which led to the 50 per cent deval-uation of the CFA franc, the first change in parity since the zone was estab-lished in 1948. Although this eventually proved beneficial to some of theAfrican economies concerned, it involved a break in trust, and a cutting of theneo-colonial umbilical cord. Above all it crystallized the moving of the ultimateeconomic sanction and control in Africa, from Paris to the Washington institu-tions (IMF and World Bank) which had engineered the devaluation. It was anadmission that, faced with the economic and social crisis that shook Africa inthe 1980s, France could no longer act by itself as guarantor of its formercolonies. The growth of an Africa centred development policy at the EEC/EUin Brussels marked an earlier attempt by France to see this burden shared. Thereis also a continuing suspicion as to what will happen to the franc zone after thecreation of the Euro. In spite of multiple assurances from Presidents down thatall will go on as before because the CFA franc is linked to the Treasury and notthe Bank of France, there are continuing reports emanating from Germany thatthis may be a problem.

Along with this economic retreat, there has been a more serious crisis ofconfidence relating to France's politico-military presence in central Africa. Theimprudent and ultimately futile attempt to use French troops to prop up theextremist Hutu regime of President Habyarimana in Rwanda in the face of arebellion led by Uganda-based Tutsi, ended in disaster with the genocide ofnearly 1 million Tutsi and moderate Hutu that followed Habyarimana's death ina plane crash. There was a grievous indirect linkage of French troops with thegenocide, and the purportedly humanitarian military intervention OperationTurquoise was seen as covering up the fatal involvement. This was followed bythe even greater political setback of continuing to support the doomed Mobuturegime in Zaire when it was well past its sell-by date, but not to the extent ofsending troops to save him. Although there were subsequent interventions,notably after the mutinies in Central African Republic in 1996, the myth ofFrench invincibility had been broken. The bluff had been called.

The deaths of Houphouet-Boigny (1993) and Jacques Foccart (1997), the twogreat minders of the sphere of influence only served to symbolize the change:and the arrival of the new Socialist leader Lionel Jospin as French PrimeMinister after the 1997 parliamentary elections ushered in that era of change inFrench African policy which Mitterrand had failed to achieve in 1981, andabout which Gaullist President Chirac could do nothing. But there wasgenerally a mood of disappointment and suspicion which had unfortunateeffects on the Hanoi summit.

The French had proposed the former UN Secretary General, the 75-year-oldEgyptian Boutros Boutros-Ghali to be the first Secretary-General of Franco-phonie, because they had strongly backed him while at the UN, and had foughtUS attempts to unseat him right up to the last deadlock in the Security Councilin December 1996. It was thought that because the francophone Africans hadsupported him then they would continue to do so, but suppressed resentments

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bubbled over. It emerged that many of the Africans had never really thought ofBoutros as having represented them at the UN, and they put up an Africancandidate in Hanoi, the equally elderly former President of Benin, Dr EmileZinsou. Chirac, who had become heavily committed to Boutros, had to forcethe candidature through to unanimity (it was noted that Jospin did not even goto Hanoi), but a rearguard action continued. There was unseemly criticism ofthe size of Boutros's emoluments, and limitations on his power as Secretary-General, not least over the ACCT. However, in spite of these unfortunatehiccups, there was still the basis of a grouping of 44 countries and nine regionsetc that would go beyond the purely linguistic.

A Hanoi Declaration outlined features remarkably similar to those pro-nounced by the Commonwealth in such sectors as economic cooperation,human rights, if there was perhaps a greater emphasis on the 'risks ofuniformization'. There was also a continuing ambiguity seen in Chirac's ineptcontradiction of Jean Chretien at the closing press conference (at whichBoutros-Ghali did not even turn up), saying, perhaps with Iraq in mind, thatsanctions on human rights issues were 'not in the tradition of the francophonearea', although this actually found favour with Mme Binh, the Vietnam Vice-President, and some of the African delegations.

Moreover, the fact of being in Vietnam had been useful to France in helpingto pull Vietnam a little way back into its sphere of influence which it had longsince left (since Dien Bien Phu in J954). It was also a help in France's stepstowards creating an influence zone that is not Africa-based that is indeed morelike the Commonwealth in its global spread. Even the Hanoi Declarationsaluted the holding for the first time of a francophone Summit in Asia 'under-lining the universal dimension of francophonie and its presence in a regionknown for its dynamism'. The next two summits, interestingly, are also not inAfrica, but in Hamilton New Brunswick (1999) and Beirut (2001).

It is a paradox occasionally observed that the British and the French oftenapproach a subject from opposite ends and end up more or less in the sameplace. In the colonial period, the French went for the platonic ideal of assimila-tion founded on egalite and tried to make Africans into 'black Frenchmen',while the British pursued 'indirect rule' based on respect for local cultures, andwhere possible chiefly or kingly authority, drawing above all on their seminalexperience in India. In fact the French often found they had to have a measureof indirect rule (as in the Mossi kingdom in Upper Volta) while the Britishfrequently had to put away or exile quarrelsome chiefs. Also, the British foundtheir colonial experience was willy-nilly assimilationist.

Again, in the current situation, with the Commonwealth and francophonie,you find that where the Commonwealth, like the British Empire evolved almostunplanned ('in a fit of absence of mind'), the French approach to francophoniehas had a logical basis, that of language. The Commonwealth in fact also had alinguistic basis, but it was always assumed, never articulated. Indeed, even inthe recent text approved in Edinburgh on the criteria for membership, the use ofEnglish was tucked in there among compliance with Harare principles, constitu-tional links with existing Commonwealth states, and observance of Common-wealth texts and conventions, a text that it was only felt was needed becauseunwritten rules had been stretched too far when Cameroon and Mozambique

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were admitted in 1995. Here the French have been more inclusive in theirapproach, with many countries with French-speaking minorities being encour-aged to participate.

The most important similarity between the two groupings (apart from theobvious fact that both cross the international rich-poor divide in a remarkableway, a phenomenon shared by the Lome Convention) is the way that both havea dense network of non-governmental associations, especially of a professionalvariety that serve as cement to the structures, and prove to the citizens of themember states the direct value of the connection, which is one between allcountries and not just a tie to the former metropolis. The networks are differentfrom the development NGOs that are now an increasingly important feature ofthe development policies of both (as in the EU development policy).

Where does all this fit into the prospects for the future of the Lome Conven-tion? Where is Libreville situated between Edinburgh and Hanoi? Apart fromBritain and France, there are 13 other EU member states and there will soon bemore. Most of them, with the exception of Spain and Portugal, Belgium and theNetherlands, and to a more indirect extent Germany and Italy, do not come withpost-colonial baggage. Hence, perhaps, the desire in Brussels to see the post-colonial era buried. However, judging by the surprising increase in robustnessof both Commonwealth and francophonie, to deem the era over may be prema-ture. It will be interesting to see if the ACP summit becomes a regular featureinto the 21st century. Likewise, will the Europe—Africa summit agreed at theEuropean Council in Amsterdam really take place?

To the extent that Lome was made possible through an Anglo-French under-standing in 1972 between Premier Heath and President Pompidou, arrival at akind of parity of post-colonial arrangements outside the EU's own treatyarrangements may even help achieve a new equilibrium in Brussels. After thefriction over central Africa in 1997, where the French accused the Anglo-Saxons (mainly the Americans in fact) of poaching in their sphere of influencein the former Zaire, a Commonwealth-francophonie understanding would be afitting way to mark the centenary of the Fashoda incident (the celebratedAnglo—French stand-off of 1898 which nearly led to war). It did after all lead tothe Entente Cordiale. As the Millennium turns, the survival of these connec-tions based on language and history may prove more durable than anyonewould have imagined 40 years ago.

Notes and references1 EU Commissioner: speaking at the first ACP Summit in Libreville, quoted in

Marches Tropicaux, 14 November 1997, p 2451.2 Commonwealth Secretary-General, now Chief Caribbean negotiator in the forth-

coming negotiations to replace Lome, speaking at the UK consultation on theEuropean Commission's Green Paper on the future of EU-ACP relations, London,June 1997.

3 One of the three communities involved in European negotiations. Since the SingleEuropean Act of 1989 the term European Union (EU) has been used.

4 Ramphal, ibid.5 Dieter Frisch, former Director-General, Development, European Commission,

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'The future of the Lome Convention: initial reflections on Europe's Africa Policy(ECPDM)'.

6 See Understanding European Community Aid, by Aidan Cox and AntoniqueKoning, ODI, London, 1997.

7 These trade advantages, it is often pointed out, have not been used very much.ACP share of European trade fell from 7 per cent in 1980 to 3 per cent in 1997.

8 In the Maastricht Treaty (Article 130U) it says development policy should providesustainable development, particularly in the most disadvantaged countries; thefight against poverty, and the smooth and gradual integration of the developingcountries into the world economy.

9 The Green Paper on Relations Between the European Union and the ACP coun-tries on the eve of the 21st century, European Commission, Brussels, 1997.

10 Christopher Stevens, at a conference on the future of Lome in January 1998organized by NGOs in the context of the UK Presidency of the EU, estimated thatthe return to trade reciprocity for the ACP represents a loss of as much as 40 percent of one year's and in 1994 under Lomé 4. Reported in West Africa,26 January-1 February 1998, p 159.

11 At the University of Dakar in December 1965, Senghor called for a 'French-styleCommonwealth' which would be able to 'give the enormous means necessary forthe progress of our states', quoted in Le Monde, 18 February 1969.

12 See 'Francophonie, culture and development: the experience of the ACCT', byKaye Whiteman, in Economic Development in Africa, edited by Barling andAlednninade, Pinter, London, 1989.

13 Cited in La Politique Africaine de Houphouet-Boigny, by Jacques Oubet-Baulin,Editions Eurafor-Presse, Paris, 1980.

14 For excellent details of the networks of the French special relationship see Cesmessieurs Afrique, vols 1 and 2, by Stephen Smith and Antoine Glaser, Calmann-Levy, Paris, 1995 and 1997; and Fuceaut Parle, vols 1 and 2, as told to PhilippeGailland, Fayard/Jeune Afrique, 1995 and 1997.

15 Le Monde, 18 November 1997.16 The most outstanding recent contrast in French and British policies has been in

their attitude to ministries handling development/cooperation. Although both wereset up in the early 1960s, the British ministry, even when downgraded to be an'administration' has always been global. The French have, in contrast, alwayslimited their Cooperation Ministry to francophone Africa, although in 1995 thescope was enlarged to include all the ACP, and now that the ministry is incorpo-rated into the Quai D'Orsay, it is theoretically global, although there is to be a stillundefined 'zone of priority solidarity' (see Le Monde, 5 February 1998 and 6February 1998).

17 Although it is beyond the scope of this article, it should be noted that Portugal hasits own linguistic grouping set up in July 1996, when seven Portuguese-speakingcountries (Portugal, Brazil and five in Africa) agreed to establish a Community ofPortuguese-speaking countries, a grouping of 200 million people, 80 per cent ofthem in Brazil.

18 The Europe-Africa summit was originally proposed by the Portuguese although itwas taken up by the French, who have always hankered for the dubious notion of'Eur-Africa'.

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