Editing 78-13-B3 (section)

=== Transcript ===
A citizen of one of the new African states once assured me that
Africans believe in one man, one vote--once. The newly elected then
make sure there will be no need for another election by eliminating
the opposition.

Just recently there was a little news item which you might have
missed. It didn't exactly wind up on Page One.

It seems that Sierra Leone, once considered one of Africa's few
relatively free nations, has verified that statement about one man,
one vote, once. President Sioka Stevens has rammed through a new
constitution for his country. It outlaws opposition parties.

The only party permitted henceforth is his All Peoples Congress
party known as A.P.C. Opposition members of parliament have been given
24 days to change their registration. The leader of the APC party (who
happens to be President Stevens) is the only person eligible to run
for President. No opposition is permitted. The counterbalancing office
of Prime Minister has been eliminated and the President can only be
removed for "gross violations" of the new constitution.

There is word from another of the continent's new nations which
has been largely ignored. Equatorial Guinea, the only Spanish speaking
nation in Africa is, or, perhaps I should say, was 95% Catholic. It
had a population of 350,000, give or take a few when it became
independent in 1968. Now there are 90,000 refugees in Spain and
neighboring African nations and no one knows how many did not escape
and were slaughtered.

Some time ago the President of Equatorial Guinea issued an edict
that his picture would hang above the altar and that when crossing
themselves the citizens would say his name as well as that of God.
When the church refused, the persecution began.

The church has been outlawed, foreign priests expelled from the
country. Native-born priests and nuns are in prison. News of their
fate as well as the extent of the slaughter is not known because the
only embassies in the country are those of the Soviet Union, East
Germany, Cuba, The People's Republic of China and North Korea. It is
possible that the population has been reduced by half.

Catholics for Christian Political Action has called upon all
faiths and races to join in protesting this inhumanity. This laymen's
organization is trying to get information to the public, but says it
has so far been largely ignored.

It forces us to ask ourselves, when we add this to Cambodia and
to the persecution of the dissidents in the Soviet Union, if the world
has lots its conscience. Certainly one group has. The World Council
of Churches has given Joshua Nkomo's guerillas in Rhodesia a grant of
$85,000. You remember Nkomo's guerillas--they're the Patriotic 
humanitarians who recently shot down the civilian passenger plane and
slaughtered the survivors. 

This is Ronald Reagan.

Thanks for listening.
</TD>
<TD WIDTH="10%" ROWSPAN="2">&nbsp;</TD>
<TD VALIGN="TOP" HEIGHT="250">