POLITICS: African Diplomats Told to Get a Taste of Bush Life

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

ARUSHA, Tanzania, Jan 23 1998 (IPS) - Kenya’s Bethuel Kipligat gained fame as the first African official to travel to the remote bush in Mozambique, meet with rebel leaders and open up a channel of communications between the insurgents and the outside world.

That was in the late 1980s and since then, Kipligat says, he has been promoting the idea of what he terms “African bush diplomacy” to revolutionise the face of conflict resolution and diplomacy in Africa. “African diplomats should get out into the bush and talk with rebels,” he said here. “There are so many wars going on in Africa of which we don’t know the root causes.”

The retired diplomat, who played a key role in ending the 1976- 1992 civil war in Mozambique, made his remarks at an international conference organised here to share experiences on mediation in Africa.

The Jan. 21-23 conference, organised by the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Foundation in collaboration with the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), brought together over 100 experts, mostly from the United Nations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) involved in conflict resolution in Africa.

Kipligat said he planned to run a course on his ‘African Bush Democracy’, through which aims to introduce Africa’s diplomats, most of whom are from urban areas, to the feel of bush life. “Diplomats should get out, remove their shoes and ties and talk to the rebels,” he said.

Kipligat recalled that when he travelled to Mozambique in 1988, the leadership of the Mozambique Resistance Movement (RENAMO) rebel group was shocked. “They told me I was the first African leader to visit the Renamo in the bush,” he said. “As a matter of fact, when I went there Renamo had already been fighting for 11 years.

“And nobody had bothered to get into contact with them.”

The idea of ‘African Bush Diplomacy’ was backed by Aldo Ayello, former U.N. mediator in the Mozambique conflict and now the European Union’s Special Envoy to the Great Lakes Region of East/Central Africa. He said he made a similar trip into the Mozambican bush to contact Renamo leaders.

“I was received at the airstrip and carried on a motorcycle by Domingos, a local Renamo commander,” he recalled. “And I was escorted back on a motor cycle by (Renamo) president Afonso Dhlakama.”

Confirming the visits by both men was another conference participant, Domingos Rui Manuel, who led Renamo delegations to successive talks with the Mozambican government in 1990-1992 and now heads the Renamo faction in Mozambique’s parliament.

According to Kipligat, the African bush diplomacy course would help people outside a conflict, including the international community, get first-hand information as well as the views of insurgents.

“Relying on government statements will not end conflicts. You need to get the other side of the story too,” he told IPS on Friday, adding that dissidents were always “demonised by the authorities in their respective capitals.”

Felix Mosha, formerly attached to the UN political office in Somalia, agreed.

“I remember a similar incident when I was sent by the Secretary-General of the Organisation of african Unity (OAU) to Sierra Leone in 1994 to find out about RUF (Revolutionary United Front) leader Foday Sankoh,” he said. “I talked to the leadership in the capital, Freetown, and three-quarters told me that Foday Sankoh did not exist. And they demonised the RUF rebels, calling them bandits and all kinds of names.”

Adding his voice to the debate, Sam Ibok of the OAU Friday urged Africans to go out and help end conflicts on the continent. “Currently we spend 70 percent of our time attending conferences and workshops instead of being in the field to help our people,” he said.

OAU Assistant Secretary General Pascal Gayama also felt people should do more to rid their continent of strife. He called on Africans to commit themselves to greater networking and the pooling of resources and energies to address the scourge of conflict that afflicts parts of the continent.

“This, we believe, is the surest way of promoting a climate of peace, security, stability and understanding necessary for the economic development and integration of our continent,” he said.

The absence of peace has taken a heavy toll on parts of Africa. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that more than 30 million people have become refugees or displaced persons as a result of the continent’s various conflicts.

Kipligat, who now works with the Nairobi-based All Africa Council of Churches (AAAC), insisted that the time had come for Africa’s diplomats to shed their business suits and get into the bush.

“That’s the only way to seek the truth. They should be prepared to walk on foot, sleep rough and share the little food offered them by rebels,” he said.