DEVELOPMENT: African Leaders Cry Foul Over UN Indifference

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 23 1999 (IPS) - African leaders at the annual session of the UN General Assembly have been bitter over alleged indifference by the world body – and the international community generally – to a continent plagued by political, economic and military problems.

Ghana’s Foreign Minister James Victor Gbeho declared the time had arrived for the international community to do as much for Africa as it has done in other areas, particularly the Balkans, to guarantee peace.

“African member states feel discriminated against when the response of the international community to conflicts on the continent is muted or lukewarm,” he said.

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe directed his attacks on Western donors who had cut back on development assistance at a time when “prospects for aid effectiveness in Africa are improving significantly.”

“Official development assistance (ODA) to Africa has fallen to its lowest level,” he complained.

Between 1993 and 1997, total aid receipts in Africa fell by nearly 13 percent, from 21.5 billion dollars to 18.7 billion dollars.

At the present rate, Mugabe told delegates, ODA flows would fall far short of the 30 billion dollars a year that economists estimated was needed to reduce poverty in Africa.

The net rate of return on investment in African countries, he pointed out, remained higher than in other developing countries: 20-30 percent during 1990-1994, on average, as opposed to 16-18 percent for all developing nations.

“Yet in contrast to this great potential, Africa has not been a significant beneficiary of the dramatic increase in global foreign direct investment (FDI) flows,” he added.

FDI flows to Africa amounted to only 4.8 billion dollars in 1997, the same level as in 1996, representing a “minuscule three percent of global FDI flows,” he said.

Addressing a meeting of the Security Council Wednesday, Zambian President Frederick J.T. Chiluba criticised the world body for paying little or no attention to some of the ongoing conflicts in the African continent.

“There is a perception that usually the United Nations, and in particular the Security Council, is slow and reluctant to support peace efforts in Africa,” he declared.

Chiluba, who played a lead role in the year-long regional mediation effort for a cease fire agreement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), appealed to the Security Council to send in a peace-keeping force to the conflict ridden country.

The Zambian president also expressed concern that the Council, which had responded rapidly to quell trouble spots in Europe and Asia this year, appeared to be dragging its feet “even though Africa formed the largest component of the UN membership.”

Currently, Africa is represented at the United Nations by 53 nations, the largest single regional grouping in an organisation of 188 member states.

Arguing that cost should not be the determining factor in establishing a peace-keeping force, Chiluba asked the Council to quickly dispatch a technical survey team to the Congo, provide adequate resources for a UN mission and help reconstruct the war- battered country.

“In other regions of the world, where conflicts had occurred, no expense was spared in the pursuit of peace,” he noted.

Jean Ping, Foreign Minister of Gabon, said Africans could not understand why the Security Council was reluctant to establish a peacekeeping force in the Congo-Kinshasha.

His understanding was that refugees and displaced persons in Africa “did not carry the same weight as refugees in other continents.”

Amara Essy, Foreign Minister of Cote d’Ivoire and a former president of the UN General Assembly, admitted that conflicts besetting Africa had received special attention at the Organisation lately.

Peace would be achieved only if the United Nations mobilised its efforts and provided assistance to the efforts of Africa, Essy said..

Noting UN initiatives in Sierra Leone, the Congo, Guinea- Bissau, and Western Sahara, among others, he said that the United Nations had acted at various stages of the crises, joining regional and subregional peace efforts.

Still, he said, there was “discriminatory treatment” of the crises in Africa as compared with other regions of the world.

“What had been possible in Kosovo should have also been implemented in Angola, DRC, and Sierra Leone,” he said.

He added, however, that the reluctance of great powers to get involved in complex conflicts was understandable.

Still, “if priority were given to regional (peace) efforts, it should not be a pretext for the lack of involvement on the part of the Security Council,” he said.