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FREEDOMWAYS    FIRST QUARTER 1973

determined by factors external to us, and often against us. The price of cocoa has dropped by a half which is disastrous. The export quotas for coffee have been cut down. Nearly two-fifths of our coffee is sold below world prices, which anyway are low enough..."*

The consequences are serious because agricultural products represent eighty to ninety percent of exports in the non-petrol producing countries. In the Common Market rules, there are many quantitative restrictions on African imports, both for agricultural products as well as for manufactured goods.

French imperialism is therefore not trying to promote development. The control and exploitation of Africa's mineral wealth was the main aim of the great operations from 1960-66. Between 1959 and 1968 the value of the production of mines in French-speaking black African countries and in Madagascar multiplied one hundred times, from one hundred and two million francs to one billion, one hundred million francs. This policy has been extended beyond the traditional French sphere of influence, to Nigeria, the Portuguese colonies and South Africa.

As for oil, the policy of diversifying the sources of supply means prospecting throughout Senegal, Angola, South Africa and Madagascar by the French Oil Company. ELF-ERAP exploits oil in Gabon and the Congo. After the setback of the Biafra secession the French companies were able to resume their activities in Nigeria.

For uranium, like oil, there is an overall policy carried out by French imperialism: the opening of the Arlit mine in Niger, the Bakuma works in the Central African Republic, production in Gabon since 1961, This exploitation requires an infrastructure, sources of contracts for the French undertaking. But these works are so broad that France is trying to obtain a contribution from the States concerned, and is prepared to take part in multinational operations.

As a signatory of the Yaounde Convention, France participates in the European Development Fund and the Aid Committee for the development of OCED. French enterprises are often in the best position to profit from these sources of enlarged public finance. But France's partners are more and more penetrating the traditional French sphere of influence. If France still predominates in the equipment industries, the FRG, Holland and Italy are winning an increasingly important place in the small substitution industries which

*Houphouet Boigny: Message to the Secretary Generals of Under-Sections of PACI-RDA. 6/11/71

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