ABSTRACT
The colonial experience developed unbalanced economies that were geared principally to benefit their metropolitan states and only consequentially the African colonies. These state economies depend on subsistence agriculture or on the export of a few minerals, all of whose prices in turn depend on global economic forces over which the African governments have no control. Accusations by Third World leaders that they are subverted by developed nations are a daily occurrence. Internal upheavals or instability is linked to covert operations of some external power. As a source of instability, poverty does become very relevant primarily because of the winner-take-all philosophy and practices of postindependence leaders, exacerbated by the existence in most cases of diverse ethnic groups who may feel acutely alienated. In Africa, before the formation of the Organization of African Unity in 1963, the Monrovia group of states consistently accused the Casablanca group of using subversion of neighboring states as an instrument allegedly for promoting African unity.
