The Foreign Service Journal, November 2019

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2019 51 Europe Changed, But Africa Didn’t Mark G. Wentling Lomé, Togo l omé, on the west coast of Africa, is a long way from Berlin. Yet when the Berlin Wall came down in Novem- ber 1989, the repercussions were felt in Togo and other countries in Africa, where people were struggling to overthrow dictators and establish multiparty democracy. We all thought the fall of the wall marked the end of the Cold War, and we believed that a huge peace dividend was just around the corner. I was USAID’s representative for Togo and Benin, based in Lomé, at the time. Violent protests against the dictatorial regime in power for 22 years were frequent. The people had had enough of an authoritarian one-party system and wanted a democracy that reflected their hopes for a better future. The dismantling of the Berlin Wall raised their hopes of achieving lasting democratic change; it strengthened their case and the justness of their cause. We thought the end of Cold War politics would mean an end to the superpower alliances in Africa, where superpowers would vie for client countries in the region, often propping up bloody and corrupt national regimes. For example, U.S. foreign aid was tor would not hesitate to use deadly violence against his own people. Kay remembers telling some U.S. government visitor to Bucharest that, regrettably, it didn’t look like Romania would follow its Eastern European neighbors anytime soon. Brian had limited contact with political dissidents in the capital (it was technically illegal for them to talk to us with- out written permission from the Securitate), but most of the mid-December opposition activity in Romania was centered in Timisoara and other locales distant from Bucharest. We did not anticipate that just six weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Romania would follow suit, going down in the record books as the only country in Eastern Europe whose people freed themselves through a shooting war in the streets. (Our experiences during those scary, but ultimately heady, December days is a story for another time.) Retired FSOs Kay Kuhlman (Foreign Commercial Service) and Brian Flora (State) live in Oak Park, Illinois. often lavished on those African countries that were staunch opponents of communism, despite the despicable acts of their autocratic rulers. We believed that in a post–Cold War era, the United States could determine its level of assistance to African countries with- out applying international political considerations. It could also decide more clearly what its strategic interests in each country were beyond providing humanitarian assistance. The fall of the wall thus gave renewed hope to Togo and other African countries. Sadly, in Togo’s case, these hopes were shat- tered, and the promise never realized. Togo’s dictator, Gnass- ingbé Eyadéma, who stayed in power for another 16 years until his natural death in 2005, was replaced by his son. The legacy of Gnassingbé Eyadéma proved far more powerful for Togo than the collapse of the wall. In hindsight, the fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago has had little, if any, consequence for Africa—or for my lifelong pursuit for the betterment of this vast continent. There are still many critical “walls” of injustice and poverty to break down in Africa. Retired FSO Mark G. Wentling joined USAID in 1977 and was serv- ing in Togo when the Berlin Wall fell. His work and travels over the past 46 years have taken him to all 54 African countries. It Couldn’t Possibly Happen Here Kay Kuhlman and Brian Flora Bucharest, Romania I n November 1989 we were serving in Bucharest. Brian was head of the political section, and Kay was the commercial officer. The Romanian government suppressed all news of the Berlin Wall’s demise, but we in the embassy were aware of Eastern European developments from cable reporting and Voice of America broadcasts. And we were envious. The region was opening up, and there we were in a country seemingly stuck tight under the thumb of despot Nicolae Ceausescu and his Securitate goons. Even next-door Bulgaria, in those early days of November, joined the revolutionary movement and ousted Communist Party leader Todor Zhivkov. Brian believed that street demonstrations would not be enough to overthrow the Ceausescu regime because the dicta-