NEWS ANALYSIS : In Africa, Signs of Hope Amid Turmoil : Progress: However bleak the immediate future may seem, many believe one tragic era has ended and a more promising one is beginning.

Against the blood-stained backdrop of Rwanda’s torment, two events in Africa--one the culmination of a generation’s struggle, the other a historical footnote--signaled the end of an era last month.

The widely chronicled milestone was the inauguration of Nelson Mandela to the South African presidency. A continent that 47 years ago had been ruled by whites was now in the hands of the black majority. The Organization of African Unity responded by dissolving its liberation committee; Africa’s last war against white domination had been fought.

What South Africa’s election showed the continent was that participants in a conflict could negotiate their differences without Western mediators or a U.N. military presence. The players understood the risks and the stakes, and in a region starved for leadership and new ideas, Mandela was treated as a messiah when he traveled to Tunisia for the OAU summit this month.

The other event was the defeat in Malawi’s first free election of President H. Kamuzu Banda, 91. The creator of his own personality cult--his name adorned schools, airports and stadiums, and government-controlled newspapers referred to him as “Savior” or “Messiah”--”Life-President” Banda was the last of Africa’s founding fathers who led their nations from colonialism to independence.

A few weeks ago he moved out of his luxurious Sanjika Palace, ending a 30-year autocratic rule, and into a modest residence on the outskirts of Blantyre. As he made his last official trip through Blantyre in a convoy of 30 cars, waving his fly whisk, the Malawians who had lined the street booed.

Though the yardstick is an arbitrary one, the ascension of Mandela and the defeat of Banda seemed a symbolic end to the first chapter of sub-Saharan Africa’s independence era. It lasted just over 30 years and was characterized by economic stagnation, political instability, deteriorating social services, repression of individual liberties and the death of hundreds of thousands of innocents in wars the world has long since forgotten.

There has been a considerable amount of stock-taking in the African media in recent weeks, much of it prompted by the tribal slaughter in Rwanda. Most commentators seem to agree that although some encouraging fundamental changes are taking place, politically and economically, Africa begins the next leg of its independence journey in an unenviable position.

About 6 million Africans are refugees. Thirty-one of the world’s 41 countries with critical food shortages are in Africa, 18 of the world’s 20 poorest countries are in Africa. Africa’s debt burden stands at $300 billion. Wars are being fought in Rwanda, Sudan, Niger, Angola, Mali, Liberia and Sierra Leone. In Mozambique, a just-concluded war claimed 1 million dead and wounded. Somalia, where people walk the violent streets of Mogadishu at their own peril, hasn’t had a president or a government since 1991.

“The leadership of Africa today is in a state of deep-seated bewilderment,” said Jonathan Moyo, a Zimbabwean political scientist at the Ford Foundation in Nairobi. “Everywhere there is a vacuum. We need ideas, but who is going to produce them?

“The scholars haven’t. They sound worldly, but they have not yielded usable or intelligible policies, and the universities and research centers of yesterday have collapsed. The entrepreneurs? They’re despised by people as collaborators with the West and have never developed a sensible business culture. All three groups--political, academic, business--are bewildered, and even the Africans themselves seem to think this is a hopeless continent.”

Such an assessment stands in stark contrast to the heady days of 1957, when Britain’s Gold Coast became the Republic of Ghana, black Africa’s first ex-colony. The next year, France’s Guinea became the second. In 1960, 17 new African nations would be born.

Africans dreamed in those days of a united Africa stretching from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic. “Since then,” Kenya’s newspaper, the Nation, said in a recent editorial, “the dream has turned into a nightmare and now (with Rwanda) . . . a horror.” The sheer size of Africa (four times larger than the United States, spanning seven time zones) and its diversity (600 million people who speak 2,000 languages and dialects) were sufficient in themselves to render the dream implausible.

But other forces were at work. Some blame the colonialists who divided up Africa in the 1880s and, believing there were no African political systems worthy of emulation, set up Western-style institutions; most crumpled soon after independence. Others blame Western donors who created a welfare continent, or the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, which encouraged indebtedness. Many say the gravest problem rests squarely with African leadership.

With a few notable exceptions, African presidents, kings, emperors and generals have devoted their energies to defending themselves. This meant putting tribal concerns ahead of national interests. They sought total control, and this entailed destroying any institution capable of providing checks and balances--the media, the judiciary, the opposition. In the process, these leaders became Boss Tweeds and their countries, Tammany Halls.

“The economic crisis that is threatening African society today has been caused mainly by the political elites who are interested only in clinging to power and looting the resources of their country,” said Yemane Ghebreab, head of political affairs for Eritrea’s ruling party.

However bleak the immediate future may seem, the Ford Foundation’s Moyo and numerous African commentators believe one tragic era has ended and a new, more hopeful one is just beginning. Time, they say, is on Africa’s side and the world must take account of the fact that, in terms of independence, most of Africa’s 52 states are young and still struggling to put in place institutions that will work.

“It took Africa 30 years to realize that the one-party system was not workable,” Moyo said. “After three decades of coups, this is not going to become a happy story overnight, but what is wonderful is that the values for change--the whole question of succession, the need for multiparties and freedom of expression--those new values are now accepted by Africans. They will not be willing to turn back.”

Indeed, in a scenario that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, dozens of countries have marked the 1990s by drafting new constitutions, holding multiparty elections, loosening the restraints on freedom of expression and moving toward free-market economies.

For every Zaire, which simply no longer exists as a nation-state, and every Nigeria, where the military seems to have become institutionalized, there is a country that has lifted itself out of warfare, tribalism and economic ruin and now appears to be making genuine progress. The common denominator in each case is a strong president who has not depleted the treasury and who does not practice the politics of tribalism.

Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda--given up for dead as political entities a generation ago--all have made impressive strides in healing ethnic wounds and promoting democratic reforms and internal security. Mozambique has unified its army and the Renamo guerrillas into a single military force and will hold elections in October. Togo held its first elections in February. In Zambia, Mali and Congo, entrenched leaders have been voted out of office--and abided by the electoral results.

The initiative for political reform and increased respect for human rights generally has not come from Africa itself but from Western donors who have demanded rehabilitation as a condition for continued aid. Kenya’s Daniel Arap Moi, widely regarded as one of Africa’s most proficient thieves, cut down on detention and torture and agreed to elections only after the West suspended its entire $350-million aid package.