Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 29, 1993                   TAG: 9312290159
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

WILDER SETS OFF FOR FINAL AFRICAN TRIP AS GOVERNOR

Last year, Wilder became the first American governor to travel to sub-Saharan Africa on a trade mission. He returned in May and will go again Sunday to open trade offices in Senegal and Botswana, said Lisa Katz, his spokeswoman. The governor is to return to Richmond about a week before he leaves office Jan. 15.

"Virginia is committed to Africa for the long term," Wilder promised Nigerians during his first trip to the continent last year.

Gov.-elect George Allen, however, has said he will focus his trade efforts on Europe and Latin America. He wants to open a Virginia trade office in Eastern Europe.

Virginia already operates offices in Brussels, Belgium; Tokyo; Seoul, South Korea; Hong Kong; and San Paulo, Brazil.

Wilder said he picked Gaborone, Botswana, and Dakar, Senegal, for the new offices because they are safer and more stable than other African cities. The General Assembly has appropriated $250,000 to open the offices.

On his seven-nation African tour last year, Wilder met with African leaders, toured a former slave trading port in Dakar and went on a safari in South Africa.

Wilder also got into a tiff with Lannon Walker, then American ambassador to Nigeria, who said Wilder did not do his homework.

The governor complained that Walker said the Nigerian government was corrupt and the Virginia delegation shouldn't expect to make many deals.

Wilder made news again when he returned to Africa in May to address the African-African American Summit in Libreville, Gabon. He pledged to build a slave museum in Jamestown, where the first slaves were brought to North America.