International Forum Concentrates On Problems of African Nations

The International Seminar Forum focused on Africa last night, as an African and two Europeans discussed the problems of decolonization and the emergence of new nations on the Dark Continent.

A Belgian Government aide, Miss Gilberte Denoux, defended certain aspects of her country's policy vis a vis the Congo. She strove to demonstrate that European colonization has not been an unmitigated disaster for Africa.

She noted the following as positive contributions of Belgian control in the Congo: (1) unification of the region, saving Central Africa from the ravages of Balkanization. Belgium's colonial policy sought a centralized state, she noted, adding that prior to the liberation Belgium a dfavored Lumumba over Kasavubu on account of the latter's separatist leanings.

(2) Belgium protected the rights of the native population and avoided racial conflict; (3) establishment of internal improvements, notably in transportation, electric power, and distribution and storage centers; (4) mass education for the people, including the training of skilled workers. (Miss Denoux did grant that Belgium may have made effective Congolese independence more difficult by neglecting to educate a native intellectual elite.)

On the other hand, Miss Denoux pointed out, Belgian rule in the Congo shared in some of the general failures of European colonization throughout Africa, notably in its failure to encourage a sense of Congolese national consciousness and in its policy of paternalism. The latter policy deprived the native population of a sense of responsibility and a will to act for themselves, she added. Miss Denoux argued that the problems of the newly emergent African nations require the assistance of all of the industrialized countries of the West, as well as the former colonial power.

Bennett Makalo Khaketla, Minister of Education and Health in Basutoland, discussed the peculiar problems of his land, a British protectorate in southern Africa completely enclosed by the Union of South Africa.

Michel Crozon, a French atomic physicist, surveyed the entire African scene, describing the needs that are common to all of the newly liberated African nations.