David Anderson

One should approach the subject of Africa with caution. Like a horse, it is dangerous at both ends and uncomfortable in the middle. 1981 has been dominated by continuing conflicts in southern Africa and in the Western Sahara, Chad and Eritrea. In northeastern Africa, past and present conflict has swollen the flood of African refugees to almost half the total number of refugees in the world, at a time when a gravely worsening economic crisis, exacerbated by unusual climatic conditions stretching over a period of years, has brought to millions in sub-Saharan Africa the prospect of death by starvation. The assassination of President Anwar el-Sadat in October was a dramatic reminder that Africa's troubles cannot be insulated from the rest of the world, that external dependence which ignores internal political and economic realities is dangerous--that there are limits to America's ability to control events in Africa.