Sen. Tsongas Decries Policy Toward Africa

Sen. Paul E. Tsongas (D-Mass) told a seminar sponsored by the Council for African Studies yesterday that an American foreign policy modeled after the interests of Africans would ensure the self-interest of the United States.

The present policy of the United States toward the continent views Africa in terms of East and West, overlooks the real ambitions of African nations and drives these nations away from common policies with the U.S., Tsongas said. said.

The nations of Africa, Tsongas told the group of about 30, are looking for social and economic development, and the United States has an "enormous capacity to be quite effective" in providing that aid.

"I am not the least bit concerned with the Soviet and Cuban presence in Africa because what the USSR wants is an extension of their ideology which is not what Africans want," he said.

The United States, Tsongas said, "is in for some rough sledding" in Africa until it sees the continent in terms of the interest of Africans, not in terms of the "geopolitical interest" of the U.S.

Tsongas restated his call for the divestiture of investments in corporations active in South Africa, which he said will best promote the interests of non-whites.

Last May Tsongas proposed a national program of "phased conditional divestiture under which universities would sell 20 per cent of their holdings in companies with operations in South Africa each year for five years, achieving complete divestiture by 1983.

Tsongas also challenged President Bok last spring to a debate on the question of Harvard's South Africa-related investments. President Bok, however, declined to debate Tsongas.