Word: kaunda
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Chile's President Eduardo Frei and Zambia's President Kenneth Kaunda have been friends ever since 1960, when they met at Oxford University for a symposium discussing the problems of underdeveloped countries. Lately the camaraderie has revolved around copper, featuring quiet exchanges of missions across the Atlantic on the possibilities of cooperating, rather than competing, in the metal. Last week Kaunda himself flew to Santiago. At the end of two days of talks, the presidential pair announced heady plans for a copper cartel designed to control the free world market...
Chile and Zambia account for about 65% of the copper traded on the free world market, and Kaunda and Frei figure that this gives them enough leverage to dictate prices. On the highly speculative London Metal Exchange, the cost of copper this year has ranged from 98? to 44? per lb. Basically, Chile and Zambia want to reduce their vulnerability to copper's wild price fluctuations. The swings have been made especially violent by demand and supply uncertainties resulting from strikes and, not least, the tension between Zambia itself and Rhodesia, which has virtually cut off Zambia...
...deal is simply to end the "distorted exaggerations" in the market caused by speculation, and to assure "a stable and just price." How the "just price" would compare with the London rate (currently 53?) will probably not be known until next May, when details of the Frei-Kaunda agreement are to be worked out at another meeting-this one in Zambia. Just to make sure that the policies stick, Peru and the Congo will be invited to join the cartel, and thereby boost its control to 75% of the market...
Barely more than half of the chiefs of government are expected to attend. Many of the missing will be protesting Wilson's Rhodesia policy, which so far has failed to cripple the country's economy. The most vocal absentee: Zambia's Kenneth Kaunda, who threatens to leave the Commonwealth entirely unless a full-scale invasion is mounted to bring force against its southern neighbor. Another absentee, Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta, is almost equally adamant. Arriving in London for the conference, Sierra Leone's Sir Albert Margai offered Britain an alternative: either invade or turn...
...further leverage on Wilson, Kaunda decided to withhold all hardcurrency payments to Rhodesia, due as its share of the jointly owned and operated railway that is Zambia's lifeline for copper exports and coal and consumer-goods imports. By jeopardizing his own economy, Kaunda hopes to put Wilson over a barrel and force him into more decisive action. To calm Kaunda down, last week Wilson sent Judith Hart, the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations, to Lusaka. When she arrived, only two minor protocol officers were waiting to meet her, and toward week...