Conferees Try to Ignore Col. Schramme's White Mercenaries, Nigerian Civil War - The Organization of African Unity opens the pageantry of its annual summit conference today with the main actors trying to shut their eyes to the two great problems tormenting Africa. The Nigerian civil war and the white mercenaries of Col. Jean Schramme may fill the thoughts and darken the spirits of the African foreign ministers meeting here now to discuss African problems and prepare the agenda for the fourth annual conference. But, so far, the ministers have managed to keep their pronouncements and the agenda free of the two embarrassments. The foreign ministers have faced diplomatic realities and concentrated on safer subjects, like the appointment of a special committee to choose an emblem for the OAU. The federal government of Nigeria insists that the civil war is nobody else's business, and the government of the Congo maintains that the white mercenaries are now of only trifling importance. And the OAU - at least its council of foreign ministers - is too weak to dispute them.

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