 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 4 - 10 May 2000 Issue No. 480 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 4 - 10 May 2000 Issue No. 480
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Talk time
By Gamal Nkrumah
Various African peace initiatives are gathering momentum. This week, a seven-nation Congolese peace summit took place in Algeria, and in Djibouti there was a Somali national reconciliation conference. The two meetings could not have been more different, with Djibouti's well-planned conference contrasting with Algiers hastily-convened summit. Both, however, were under-reported by the international media.
Organised by Djibouti's president, Ismail Omar Guelleh, the Somali conference saw some 400 delegates congregate in Djibouti. Clan leaders, civil rights activists, politicians and at least one warlord -- Ali Mahdi Mohamed -- attended. The participants stressed self-organisation, financial autonomy, solidarity and non-violence.
The Algiers summit was an official affair, more in the mould of traditional African summit meetings. African leaders of the calibre of South Africa's former President Nelson Mandela and the late Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere traditionally presided over such initiatives in their official capacity as peace-talk facilitators. However, as the Djibouti gathering shows, what is needed above all else is the assiduous involvement of representatives of social movements and civil society groups, along with governments and individual leaders, as peace negotiations facilitators. It is not the role of governments to determine who attends peace talks, especially in situations where the governments concerned are not even democratically elected and brazenly disregard constitutional rule.
On Sunday, President Laurent Desiré Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was joined by a coterie of African heads of state, including South African President Thabo Mbeki and his Nigerian counterpart, Olusegun Obasanjo. The summit was hosted by Algerian President Abdel-Aziz Bouteflika, who is also the current president of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), and held at a luxury resort on the outskirts of Algiers. Also in attendance were Presidents Federick Chiluba of Zambia, Joachim Chissano of Mozambique, Alpha Oumar Konare of Mali and Salim Ahmed Salim, secretary-general of the OAU.
The group met to find a solution to end the 21-month armed conflict that has ripped the country apart, but ominously, the leaders of the main warring countries in the Congolese conflict were conspicuously absent. Presidents Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda failed to show up in Algiers, and so did Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos, and Namibian President Sam Njoma.
Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola are the main backers of Kabila, while Uganda and Rwanda support the armed opposition groups who now control over half of the vast and mineral-rich country. Reports abound of Ugandan, Rwandan and Zimbabwean magnates making enormous profits spiriting away the Congo's diamonds, gold, and other precious stones. Meanwhile, the warring countries are believed to have easy access to copper, cobalt and uranium deposits.
The Algiers meeting has been lauded as an opportunity to promote the Lusaka peace accord, signed last year by six African nations in the Zambian capital. But such optimism may be misguided, as fighting has intensified in the past few weeks. This week, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned of indications that warring Congolese factions "may be preparing for new military activities," citing increased arms purchases and military training.
Kabila, however, retorted that the UN's own record of peacekeeping in Africa is abysmal. The UN Security Council has approved a 5,500-strong peacekeeping force (MONUC), but has yet to organise the mission. "The UN is dragging its feet and we do not see when the UN peacekeepers will arrive," Kabila explained in Algiers.
When it comes to paying for peacekeeping forces, UN officials dodge the issue. The UN's own development programme budget has been slashed from $1.2 billion to $700 million in the last five years. How soon an Algiers initiative, in conjunction with the UN's, is delivered and the manner in which it will be implemented and funded will together prove the acid test of whether broken UN and governments' promises have been followed by empty words.
After failure on such a scale, Kabila said, the Congolese expect the UN to act more quickly. As part of the larger UN contingency, Nigeria and South Africa pledged in Algiers to send troops to the DRC. Both countries have experience in peacekeeping in Africa. South Africa, in the land-locked and impoverished southern African Kingdom of Lesotho, and Nigeria's controversial peacekeeping initiatives in the West African countries of Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The DRC, like Somalia, disintegrated after the demise of a dictator -- Mobutu Sese Seku in the case of Congo and Mohamed Siad Barre in Somalia. The two war-torn countries are desperately poor in spite of enormous economic potential. The Congo's per capita gross domestic product is estimated to be $710.
There is nothing wrong with African governments offering their good offices to facilitate negotiations and stand by to help if a deal cannot be struck. What is unacceptable today, is that they do so in an arbitrary manner and deliberately exclude representatives of civil society.
The salience of military power and patronage, which overrides the claims of political authority in countries like Somalia and the DRC, makes it imperative that autonomous non-governmental organisations participate in peace talks. Official gatherings all too often seem infected by complacency. Often, widespread illiteracy and restricted access to information are some of the constraints to a fuller participation of civil society groups, and in particular women's peace groups, which have proliferated in countries like Somalia. And, constructing the capacity and institutional structures for peacekeeping is critically important.
Groundwork preparations are also important. There are no certainties in this fast-moving, gun-toting culture that has enveloped countries like Somalia and the DRC. Last month the Djibouti government dispatched a fact-finding mission to Somalia, venturing into inhospitable territory. One delegation even went to Baidoa and met with leaders of the Rahanwein Resistance Army, a warring faction hitherto opposed to the Djibouti peace conference.
But if an agreement cannot be reached, then what? Another try is the only option.
