If there is one thing the leaders of Africa's underdeveloped new nations have developed it is a taste for conferences−preferably fullscale, formal summits complete with swarms of presidential airplanes, motorcades sirening through flag-draped streets, and earphones for simultaneous translation. So far this year, there have been nine major conclaves on the African continent, and there would have been more but for the simple confines of the calendar. There is just no way for everybody to talk at once.
Faced with this fact last week was Algerian Foreign Minister Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was on...