U.S.-AFRICA: Christopher to Push Africa Peace Force on Visit

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Oct 4 1996 (IPS) - U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher will be touting a new plan for the creation of an all- African peacekeeping force during his swing through Africa Oct. 7- 15, U.S. officials said here Thursday.

The 5,000-10,000-man force, which Washington is trying to recruit from 10 African countries, would intervene in civil wars to set up “safe zones” where innocent civilians could be protected, according to Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs George Moose.

So far, four African countries — Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, and Uganda — have indicated interest in contributing troops to such a force, according to officials here who are waiting to hear from other key countries, including South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Senegal, and Botswana.

Christopher’s trip — the first extended visit to Africa by a U.S. secretary of state in a decade — will take him to five nations over eight days. They include Mali, Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Africa, and Angola. The purpose of the trip, according to Moose, is to “stress that Africa matters to the United States” and to encourage governments undertaking democratic and economic reform.

In addition to the leaders of those countries, he is scheduled to meet in Addis Ababa with the head of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), Salim Ahmed Salim, who has reportedly encouraged the peacekeeping initiative. Invitations to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi to meet with Christopher in Arusha, Tanzania, have also been sent out.

Also in Arusha, Christopher will hold talks with former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere about the situation in neighbouring Burundi and take part in a meeting about Burundi and Rwanda of the foreign ministers of the Great Lakes region. Nyerere, who was in Washington last week, is leading diplomatic efforts to prevent the current bloody conflict in Burundi between the Tutsi-led military regime and Hutu rebels from escalating into a full-scale civil war.

While in Arusha, Christopher will also visit the offices of the Rwandan International Tribunal which has just begun prosecuting cases against the alleged perpetrators of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

In South Africa, Christopher will travel to Johannesburg and Pretoria to meet with President Nelson Mandela and other top officials and to highlight his interest in that country’s efforts to curb population growth and protect the environment, Moose said this week.

In Luanda, Angola, where he will spend only about four hours October 13, Christopher has asked to meet with the head of the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), Jonas Savimbi. But Savimbi, who last week formally rejected an offer by President Jose Eduardo dos Santos to become vice-president of a coalition government, is considered unlikely to show up, U.S. officials say.

As many as 25,000 UNITA troops are believed to remain under arms in Angola despite a Nov. 1994 peace agreement that was to have ended a bloody, 19-year civil war. The accords, which are being monitored by the United Nations, call for the integration of UNITA forces into the national army and the formation of a government of national unity.

“We all recognise that this is going to be a critical phase in this process,” Moose said this week.

Many analysts here are worried that Savimbi’s failure to abide by the accords threatens the entire peace process and could re- ignite a war that has already taken hundreds of thousands of lives. After losing to dos Santos in U.N.-monitored elections in Sep. 1992, Savimbi returned to the bush and resumed fighting.

“UNITA still has a substantial military capability,” says Bill Minter of the Washington Office on Africa. He thinks Washington should now place “additional pressure on UNITA” by moving to close down UNITA offices abroad unless Savimbi makes tangible steps to show his commitment to peace.

But Moose seemed to rule that out. He said that Christopher is not going to Angola to “try to make scapegoats or blame anybody. What we want is to try to deal with whatever real concerns or problems are there in order to get people to continue to move forward.”

Washington’s proposal to establish what it calls an African Crisis Response Force (ACRF) has drawn somewhat mixed reviews. While analysts generally applaud the idea of building up Africa’s peacekeeping capacity, some critics say it should not be used to excuse western non-participation in peacekeeping forces on the African continent.

Moose said this week that the idea builds on discussions with European and African governments over the past three years and has taken on greater urgency as a result of the downward spiral of violence in Burundi since the military coup d’etat there Jul. 25.

Washington recently sent a delegation through Africa to canvass support for the idea and has also broached its European allies about contributing financially and logistically to such an operation.

Moose said the force could not be deployed in the absence of U.N. Security Council approval, and that any operation in which it was engaged would be financed in the same way as other U.N. peacekeeping operations.

Washington estimates the cost of training and equipping the ACRF at between 25 to 40 million dollars of which the United States is prepared to pay its “fair share,” according to Moose. Other officials say Washington may be willing to pay up to half the cost. The United States has also proposed that the force be trained in Botswana, according to knowledgeable sources.

Critics, such as Salih Booker, Africa director for the influential Council on Foreign Relations, are worried that the ACRF is also designed to ease western consciences about not contributing soldiers to peacekeeping efforts in Africa.

“It seems to be a case of double standards,” he says. “For peacekeeping in Europe and the Middle East, Washington concluded that U.S. leadership — in the form of contributing ground troops — was required to get the job done,” he says. “But, for Africa, the U.S. seems unwilling to provide that kind of leadership.”

“Besides,” he adds, “we already have an all-African force in Liberia. That experience should have demonstrated that we need troops from other regions.”

Booker also complains that by limiting the powers of the ACRF to setting up “safe zones,” Washington is inviting the kind of situation that bedevilled and ultimately humiliated the U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in Bosnia.