ACCRA, Ghana—"For centuries the Atlantic Ocean was a barrier between Africa and the Americas, which was slowly crossed only in agonizing pain and suffering," Ghana’s President and host of the Fifth African-African American Summit told the Presidential Plenary session May 19. "Yet those who crossed over kept alive through the generations the memory of the homeland far away across the wide sea."

More than 4,200 delegates from throughout the United States and the Diaspora, were joined here this week by 12 African heads of state, five vice presidents and prime ministers, and 14 more delegations led by ministers of state, and more than 300 businesses at this the largest and most successful in the series of meetings first convened in 1991 in Cote d’Ivoire by the Rev. Leon Sullivan, founder of the Opportunities Industrialization Centers (OIC).

"Today the Atlantic is a highway," President Rawlings continued, referring to the metaphorical "bridge" between the continents envisioned by the Rev. Sullivan in his call for this meeting. "It can be crossed in a few hours, or in seconds with the use of modern technology. On both sides, our people are free and ready to embark on an exciting new adventure of development together," Mr. Rawlings said.

The Summits have become a "rallying place" for Africans, the Rev. Sullivan told the plenary session and have already been responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in badly needed new investments in the continent and in billions of dollars in forgiveness of the crippling debts African countries owe to their former colonial masters. In addition, he pointed out, tens of thousands of wells have been dug to provide fresh water to villages throughout the continent, hundreds of schools have been built, and thousands have been trained and educated.

The Rev. Sullivan pledged to continue the effort and to use the Summit platform as a launching pad for a world-wide campaign to institute his well known "Sullivan Principles" of corporate social responsibility on companies doing business throughout the entire world.

"This means that every country in the world that does business in Africa will have to elevate Blacks to better jobs, to become supervisors; to elevate Blacks to boards of directors," he said to the closing session of the Summit. "This means elevating women. This means building schools, helping clinics, helping hospitals, by the grace of God, we’re going to get it done. And every company in the world is going to have to help this thing or else I’m going to be on their case.

"This was the greatest meeting we’ve ever had," the Rev. Sullivan said, thanking Pres. Rawlings and several other Ghanaian ministers who organized the conference. The meeting was "a watershed in the future of Africa, a new day that will never be forgotten.

"Until now, Africa has been at the bottom of American foreign policy, and it’s time now for Africa to be raised higher to the top where it belongs. If America can help the rest of the world with billions and billions of our tax dollars, send it to Poland, and Israel, and Palestine, and Bosnia, and Indonesia, and South America, and now Kosovo, and other parts of the world, then America can do more to help Africa."

Africans on the continent and Blacks in America must help that effort, he said. "I ask you leaders to please, strengthen my hand. As I travel through America and speak to the Congress and to the president, please, strengthen my hand. As I go to Europe and to Asia, appealing for you, strengthen my hand. I’ll call on the world to support you, but please, strengthen my hand.

"Strengthen my hand by ending corruption in the nations of Africa," the Rev. Sullivan said to an ovation. "Strengthen my hand by stop lining your pockets. Strengthen my hand and let democracy work. Strengthen my hand."

Blacks in the U.S., he said, must increase the consciousness about Africa among their churches, and they must contact their legislators and other government officials about their concerns for placing a higher priority on Africa.

The Rev. Sullivan promised to "launch a war against the continuing spread of AIDS" throughout Africa. He also announced the formation of a People’s Investment Fund for Africa (PIFA), to take $500, $1,000 and $2,000 investments from Americans, in cooperation with the African Development Bank and the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) to be invested in small start-up businesses throughout Africa. And he promised that the next summit will be a "global summit," including Black participants from the Caribbean and Latin America as well as from Africa and the United States.

These Summits should lead to an "African-African American Movement to work all the time," Pres. Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe told the plenary. "Africans are ready to stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States, based on mutual respect and our shared values."

Such a movement, said Mr. Mugabe, host of the Fourth Summit in 1997 in his capital city Harare, requires "deeds, deeds, and more deeds, action, action and not just words."

President Rawlings emphasized the same theme in his remarks. "It’s not enough to say ‘I’m sorry.’ Words are not enough. We need action. The good Lord is waiting for a prayer of action. The prayer of words is not enough."

Senegalese Pres. Abdou Diouf, host of the Third Summit in 1995; and Cote d’Ivoirian Pres. Konan Bedie, successor to Pres. Felix Houphouet Boigny who hosted the First Summit, also addressed the plenary, emphasizing in their remarks this year’s theme that "Africa Can Compete" in the world economy.

Presidents Omar Hasan al-Bashir of Sudan; Nyasingbe Eyadema of Togo; F.G. Mogoae of Botswana; Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania; Lasana Conte of Guinea; J.A. Wijdenbosch of Surinam; Ahmed Tejan Kabbah of Sierra Leone; and King Mswati III, monarch of Swaziland also attended; as did the Secretary General of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) the vice presidents of Kenya, Zambia, Lesotho, Gabon, and Ghana, and a representative of United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan—a native of Ghana who had to travel instead to refugee camps in the Balkans region where NATO forces had waged a relentless bombing campaign for two months—also attended this Fifth Summit.

"In the past half century, Americans have committed their strengths, resources, generosity and will to development of Europe and Asia, with remarkable results," said Ibrahima Fall, U.N. Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs, reading the remarks prepared by Mr. Annan. "It is my sincere hope that Africa will now benefit from a similar commitment. There is much to build on since the ties between Africa and the United States are already strong.

"For that same half century, the United Nations has also been Africa’s partner: a champion of African rights and self-sufficiency; and a supporter of Africa’s work for peace and prosperity. In an era of fundamental change in Africa and the world, it is time to seize the moment and bring about the Africa that Africans deserve."

The official U.S. delegation was led by Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman, 1996 Republican Vice Presidential nominee and former HUD Secretary Jack Kemp, and by Rainbow-PUSH Coalition president Rev. Jesse Jackson, President Clinton’s special envoy to Africa for Democracy.

Before arriving here, the Rev. Jackson detoured to Lome, the capital of Togo, where he helped Togolese President Eyadema broker a cease-fire agreement to be followed by peace talks between Sierra Leonean Pres. Kabbah and jailed rebel leader Foday Sankoh whose forces have fought for eight years now. For a short time last May, Mr. Sankoh’s Revolutionary United Front (RUF) troops supported junior military officers who toppled Mr. Eyadema’s democratically elected government. That regime was ousted nine months later by a Nigerian-led West-African intervention force, ECOMOG.

The cease-fire accord, scheduled to take effect May 24, one day before peace talks begin, will allow for vital food and medical aid to reach areas previously cut off by fighting.

Heading the Nation of Islam delegation to the Summit was Mother Khadijah Farrakhan, wife of Nation of Islam leader Min. Louis Farrakhan, who is recuperating from prostate cancer treatment. The delegation included Nation of Islam Chief of Staff Leonard F. Muhammad; Min. Farrakhan’s daughters Donna, who is the wife of Bro. Leonard, and Maria; International Rep. Akbar Muhammad, head of the Ghana Mission; Final Call Editor-in-Chief James Muhammad and Summayyah Aziz, daughter of Min. Akbar.

Other representatives from the United States included Mrs. Coretta Scott King, widow of slain Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Dr. Dorothy Height, president emeritus of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW); and Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, president of the National Council of Mayors, led an inter-racial delegation of two-dozen mayors to the Fifth Summit. The Hon. Andrew Young, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.; NAACP President Kweisi Mfume; National Urban League President Hugh Price; Dr. Andrew Brimmer, former Federal Reserve Board Member were also delegates from the United States.