EAST AFRICA-POLITICS: Anti-Drought Body Struggles to Keep Afloat

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Feb 28 1996 (IPS) - The armed conflicts in and around the Horn of Africa and hostility between some governments of the countries of the area have all but paralysed an institution launched a decade ago to fight drought and instability there.

The Inter-governmental Authority on Drought and Development (IGADD) was formed in 1986 with the twin aim of combatting the droughts that constantly plague its member countries and resolving conflicts in the region.

It has so far achieved much less than it could have, even though, in conjuction with the UN’s Operation Lifeline Sudan, it has helped stave off starvation in Southern Sudan.

IGADD’s work has been hampered by the discord between its leaders. Even getting the heads of government of its seven member countries to sit at the same table has proved difficult. Kenyan Foreign Minister Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka told a local newspaper last week that conflicts between member states had delayed the holding of an IGADD summit that had been scheduled for last year.

IGADD is made up of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda, a group that includes some of Africa’s most troubled nations.

Black Southerners are fighting against Sudan’s Muslim fundamentalist-backed government and Somalia is in a state of near anarchy as a result of an ongoing war between its various clans. Ethiopia is grappling with a low-intensity guerrilla war while rebel groups have been battling against Uganda’s army along that country’s northern border.

Uganda and Sudan accuse each other of backing their respective rebel groups, a charge which Khartoum has also made against Eritrea and Ethiopia. The three nations have all severed diplomatic ties with Sudan.

Strangely enough, Musyoka claimed that IGADD was becoming an important tool for conflict resolution in Africa. “It is trying to resolve the situation in Sudan as the initial step,” he said.

But IGADD, through its committee on Sudan, has already made four failed attempts to mediate between Khartoum and rebel groups, some of which want independence for the South, while others say they are fighting for greater autonomy.

And it is hardly likely that the committee will achieve much unless its composition changes since Khartoum has objected to two of its members, Uganda and Ethiopia which, it claims, have taken sides in the Sudanese conflict.

Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi, who is chairman of IGADD, has begun a diplomatic offensive to salvage the Djibouti-headquartered institution, according to sources in the Foreign Ministry, who say he has been contacting other members of the group with a view to sorting out the problems that are plaguing it.

On Tuesday, he discussed IGADD’s future with his Sudanese vis-a- vis, Lt.Gen. Omar Hassan el Bashir and according to a statement released by Moi’s office after the meeting “the two leaders agreed to revive IGADD.”

“They also agreed that regional problems be solved by leaders in the region,” added the statement.

Moussa Sidahmed, the director general of the Sudanese government’s High Council for Peace, said Khartoum would make further contact with other IGADD members and with Sudanese rebel groups after Sudan’s elections, to be held in March.

Transforming official statements into concrete action could prove difficult, given the deep hostility between IGADD member states, even though some Western nations have been trying to inject some life into the institution.

Last week Musyoka warned that the donor community was keenly observing the performance of IGADD and hoped that the regional body would act fast to help settle the problems in the sub-region.

The minister, who was meeting here with his Eritrean counterpart Petros Solomon, said Western nations were keen to see IGADD restructured, revitalised and its charter revised so that it can perform effectively.

He was apparently referring to the Friends of IGADD, a group comprising Britain, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and the United States, and which last year promised financial and technical assistance to the sub-regional group.