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Al-Ahram Weekly 12 - 18 August 1999 Issue No. 442 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 12 - 18 August 1999 Issue No. 442
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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A week in the world
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By Gamal NkrumahClashes between ethnic Albanians and French KFOR peacekeepers intensified in Kosovo over the weekend. Massive confrontations in Kosovo's third-largest city, the mining centre of Kosovska Mitrovica, revealed the extent of disgruntlement among the ethnic Albanian population in Kosovo. French troops were attempting to seal off the ethnic Serb section of the city, supposedly to protect its inhabitants from ethnic Albanian revenge killings. The Albanian returnees complain about conditions in Kosovo and most of them have lost property and personal belongings when they fled the war-torn province in the face of Serb repression. Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic withdrew army and police forces from Kosovo in June in exchange for the end of NATO's bombing campaign.
While hopes steadily dampen for Kosovo's ethnic Albanian returnees, the refugee situation continues to deteriorate in Africa. Civil wars rage and prospects for peace look dim as opposition forces are locked in protracted battles with African governments that have split into warring splinter groups. For every ethnic Albanian returnee there are twenty African refugees. The scale of the refugee problem is fast reaching an unmanageable level. Last year alone, an estimated one million people were uprooted from their homes because of the Angolan civil war which has raged since the country gained independence from Portugal in 1975.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, warring factions of the opposition Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) fighting the government of President Laurent Kabila have turned against one another with unprecedented ferocity. The infighting within the RCD delayed the signing of a peace accord concluded on 10 July and already approved by the rival opposition Congo Liberation Movement (MLC) and six neighbouring countries drawn into the Congolese civil war. Angola, Chad, Namibia, Sudan and Zimbabwe back Kabila's government which holds roughly about one half of the country's territory, while the two RCD factions and the MLC share control of the other half between them.
On Monday, South African President Thabo Mbeki organised a summit meeting with the heads of state of Rwanda and Uganda who back rival factions of the RCD. Earlier, on 26 July, Kabila visited South Africa and asked Mbeki to put pressure on the RCD to sign the 10 July agreement.
Meanwhile, in Sierra Leone the release of 35 aid workers, United Nations observers, foreign and local journalists and West African intervention troops kidnapped last Wednesday on the outskirts of the capital Freetown by renegade forces of the opposition Revolutionary United Front (RUF) raised hopes of a political settlement in the war-torn country. In Sierra Leone, like in the Congo, the armed opposition forces have split into warring factions. Former junta leader Johnny Paul Koroma said "rogue gunmen", formerly under his command, were prepared to allow the rest of the hostages to go free after kidnapping them five days ago. "I told them to make sure they release them today without any precondition. They've accepted that, they are going to release them," Koroma told the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Koroma was held briefly by mysterious captors after being sent to negotiate on behalf of the RUF, with whom Koroma has a somewhat murky alliance.
The kidnapping took place during what was to have been a handover of some 150 civilians abducted by the gunmen during Sierra Leone's eight-year civil war that ended with a peace accord signed on 7 July in Lomé, Togo.
The kidnappers demanded food, medical supplies and asked for the release of Koroma, whom they claimed had been detained by their rebel allies. Koroma, who refuted the captors' claims that he was a prisoner, was under tight guard Sunday in a luxury mansion owned by the rebels' main foreign ally, Liberian President Charles Taylor. Koroma led Sierra Leone's military regime for 10 months beginning in June 1997 until he was toppled by a Nigerian-led West African intervention force loyal to the democratically elected Sierra Leonean President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah.
In Nigeria, the death toll following ethnic clashes topped the 500 mark in the western and northern Nigerian cities of Kano and Sagamu. Ethnic Yoruba, Hausa and Fulani groups have been battling each other for political control of the cities' local councils. Meanwhile, in the southern part of the country, ethnic Ilaja and Ijaw groups are warring over control of local councils and resources. Local leaders identify the Nigerian government and multinational oil corporations as the main instigators of the violence. "God gave us wealth to live like sheikhs, and we are living like animals in the jungle," explained a local Ijaw politician. The locals complain about a lack of representation in Nigeria's new civilian government. No person from the Niger Delta has been appointed to a key ministerial position in the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo. The indigenous peoples of the Niger Delta are furious about the massive ecological rape of their land and have resorted to the vandalisation of oil pipelines. Oil produced in the region encompassing the four states of the Nigerian federation accounts for over 90 per cent of Nigeria's exports and foreign reserves.
