POLITICS: Progress in Africa Eroded by Renewed Conflicts

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 30 1998 (IPS) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is worried that limited political achievements in Africa are being eroded by renewed violence in the continent.

Annan noted this week that he was happy at the political transition in Nigeria but regretted the new border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

“Recently there have been positive developments in a number of African countries seeking to escape conflict, or to make the transition from dictatorship to democracy,” Annan said Monday. “But the move away from the rule of the gun, has seemed the exception rather than the rule in recent months.”

On the positive side, the United Nations recently convened two international conferences – one on Guinea and the other on Sierra Leone – to seek economic assistance to restore peace and stability in these two countries. The world body also authorised two new peacekeeping operations, one in the Central African Republic and the other in Sierra Leone, to begin a process of nation-building in both countries.

But these gains have been whittled away by fighting in several African countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea-Bissau and Angola.

At a ministerial meeting on Africa last week, the 15-member U.N. Security Council welcomed the political progress made in three countries, namely Sierra Leone, the Central African Republic and Burundi. It expressed serious concern, however, over the number and intensity of current conflicts in Africa – particularly the border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the resurgence of violence in the the Congo and the impasse in the peace process in Angola.

Additionally, it was critical of the continued violence in Sierra Leone and the complex humanitarian emergencies in Somalia and Sudan.

“These situations, which in some cases threaten the stability of large parts of the continent, call for concerted action by African states, the international community and the U.N. system, to prevent further tragedy,” the ministers said in a statement.

Annan argues that without the determination of the parties themselves to reach political accommodation, there is little the United Nations can do except offer “the band-aid of humanitarian assistance.”

“What will it take for Africa’s leaders finally to reject military solutions to political challenges? When will the realisation arrive that not one – not a single one – of these conflicts can end in the absence of compromise, tolerance and peaceful solution of disputes?,” Annan asks.

“When will the time come when we can say that we did our best for Africa – that its leaders came together and resolved peacefully their differences, and that we in the international community finally did our part to help secure durable peace and ensure lasting development?”

Such questions., however, remain unanswered even as fighting re- surfaces in old conflicts – as in Angola and Sierra Leone – just as when peace appeared to be at hand.

The Security Council has called on African states, and all parties concerned, to “urgently” demonstrate the political will to settle their disputes by peaceful rather than military means and to respect international humanitarian law and the sovereignty, political independence and territorial integrity of states in the region.

At a news conference last week, President Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso, chairman of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), argued that although Africa was now torn by more conflicts than at any time before, “the continent had never been so free in terms of controlling its own destiny and stability.”

He said that Africa’s relative stability of 30 years ago had been brought about by the international struggle between Eastern and Western ideological blocs. “But now, for the first time, Africans held responsibility for their continent’s stability,” he added.

In a report released in July, Annan warned that conflict in Africa poses “a major challenge” to U.N. efforts designed to ensure global peace, prosperity and human rights for all.

“Although the U.N. was intended to deal with inter-state warfare,” he said, ” it is being required more and more often to respond to intra-state instability and conflict.”

In these conflicts, he pointed out, the main aim, increasingly, is the destruction not just of armies but of civilians and entire ethnic groups.

“Preventing such wars is no longer a matter of defending states or protecting allies. It is a matter of defending humanity itself,” he noted.

Since 1970, more than 30 wars have been fought in Africa, the vast majority of them intra-state in origin. In 1996, 14 of the 53 countries of Africa were afflicted by armed conflicts, accounting for more than half of all war-related deaths and resulting in more than eight million refugees, returnees and displaced persons.

“The consequences of those conflicts have seriously undermined Africa’s efforts to ensure long-term stability, prosperity and peace for its peoples,” Annan said.