Borrowed time
Foreign troops keep the peace in Africa even as African governments scout the militant Islamists. Gamal Nkrumah assesses developments
December has turned out to be a difficult month for much of Africa. Halfway through the month, beleaguered governments and armed opposition groups are sitting around negotiating tables desperately trying to iron out their many differences and clinch ground-breaking deals. The outcome of two peace talks in particular, the Congolese and Sudanese crises, are destined to have far-reaching economic and political repercussions throughout the continent.
There was relief all round when the Congolese government and its main armed opponents struck a peace deal in the South African capital of Pretoria this week. The government of President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) signed a peace agreement with Congolese Rally for Democracy and the Congolese Liberation Movement, better known by their French acronyms RCD and MLC respectively.
The RCD, with tacit Rwandan connivance, controls much of the eastern and central parts of the vast country -- the size of Western Europe. The MLC, in conjunction with its Ugandan protectors, holds sway in the northern third of the country. The Congolese government is left with the western and southern third of the country including the copper mines of the mineral-rich Katanga and the Congolese capital Kinshasa.
A wake-up call from the country's capital came when the Congolese government sounded the alarm bells and asked the United Nations Security Council to demand the immediate withdrawal of Libyan troops from the north of the country. More than 1,000 Ugandan troops remain in northern Congo at the express request of the UN. Libyan troops, meanwhile, are stationed in the neighbouring Central African Republic (CAR), separated from the DRC only by the Ubangui River. President Ange Felix Patasse of CAR petitioned the Libyan government to send troops to help quell an uprising in October.
The deployment of foreign troops in Africa has increased dramatically in the past year following an upsurge in politico-religious violence in several parts of the continent and a marked increase in the incidence of international terrorism, invariably of the militant Islamist variety. The twin missile attack on the Arika airliner and the suicide bombing of the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel beach resort complex in Mombasa, Kenya are a prime example of the latter. The Sudanese and Ivorian civil wars, and attendant political impasses, where Muslim north and Christian south are pitted against each other, epitomise the former.
This week France sharply increased the number of its troops stationed as peace-keepers in its former West African colony the Ivory Coast. The main Ivorian armed opposition group, the Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast (MPCI), which controls the northern half of the country, objected, warning that France was not an impartial player and that it was largely sympathetic to the Ivorian government's cause.
France wants to double its peace-keeping force in Ivory Coast to 2,500 soldiers, ostensibly to protect French and other foreign nationals. The armed opposition Movement for Justice and Peace (MPJ) which is active in western Ivory Coast objects. The MPJ is battling Ivorian government forces for the control of the strategic western town of Man.
But there are caveats. It would be tempting but wrong for either the French or Ivorian governments to dismiss this as so much whingeing. Many in Africa today fear that the presence of large foreign forces as peacemakers in many African countries, especially former colonial masters, will not make the search for peace on the continent any easier.
Meanwhile, West African leaders are meeting in the northern Togolese town of Kara, hometown of Togolese President Gnassingbe Eyadema, a former military ruler and one of Africa's longest serving heads of state, who now officially heads a team of West African mediators in the Ivorian conflict. Eyadema was authorised to assume the role of chief mediator by the 16-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) -- a regional economic grouping.
Four West African leaders also met in the Senegalese capital Dakar to discuss the deteriorating security situation in Ivory Coast. West African leaders agreed to send in 1,500 troops to the war-torn country, once the region's most prosperous.
At the other end of the continent, French and American troops are being deployed in the tiny but strategic city state of Djibouti, which sits astride important shipping lanes linking the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, the oil-rich Arabian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.
The US has more than 1,000 troops stationed on warships anchored off Djibouti, another former French colony. France has more than 2,000 troops in Djibouti and there is also a is a strong German contingent.
All over the continent, African governments are handing over information, secret files, and terrorist suspects to Western governments and pro-Western Arab governments. Togo handed over a Lebanese national, Abdallah Mohamed Al-Mohtadi, to the Lebanese authorities. There is, of course, a thriving mercantile Levantine community of Syrians, Lebanese and Palestinians.
The Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki officially offered the US access to Eritrea's military facilities during a visit to Eritrea by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who embarked on a four-nation tour of the Horn of Africa last week. Relations between Asmara and Washington cooled off in the immediate aftermath of the 1999-2000 border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Rumsfeld also visited Ethiopia, Djibouti and the oil-rich Gulf state of Qatar, where US troops are stationed.
There are more than 200 million Muslims in Africa south of the Sahara, and they by and large feel as strongly for the Palestinian cause as their co-religionists in Arab countries. Moreover, the public at large in Africa does not want to be panicked with every terrorist scare when there are far more pertinent and pressing developmental concerns.
The Kenyan authorities offered a $6,000 reward to anyone who can provide information about a 23-year old Kenyan national Saleh Ali Saleh of Mombasa. The Kenyan authorities say that they suspect Saleh bought the four-wheel drive vehicle, a Mitsubishi Pajero, that the suicide bombers used in the attack on the Israeli-owned Hotel Paradise, Mombasa, on December. The vehicle, was packed with explosives, and the Kenyan authorities say that Saleh might be one of the suicide bombers.
There were unconfirmed reports that Saleh phoned his wife from the Somali town of Baidoa. "There are no confirmed reports yet about Saleh's escape to Somalia. His wife is assisting Kenyan police," Kenya's Ambassador to Egypt Mahmoud Mohamed Maalim told Al-Ahram Weekly. Ambassador Maalim, himself an ethnic Somali, denied that Saleh is of ethnic Somali origin. Saleh holds a Kenyan identity card, number 21426812 and is an ethnic Arab. Tens of thousands of Kenyans are of Arab origin -- mainly Yemenis and Omanis. Kenya's Arab community is geographically concentrated in the country's Indian Ocean coastline. The Kenyan authorities also detained his mother, Aisha Saleh, and his brother, Mohamed Ali Saleh.
The bombing of the Mombasa beach-front hotel owned by Israeli businessman Yehuda Sulami comes in the run-up to Kenya's elections scheduled for 27 December. Tour operators report an exceptionally high number of cancellations to Kenya in the wake of the Mombasa attacks. Kenya is dependent on revenues from tourism which is an important source of hard currency in the country.
A statement dated 6 December, purportedly from Al-Qa'eda network, claimed responsibility for the attack. And both Kenyan and Western intelligence sources claim that local militant Islamist groups collaborated with Al-Qa'eda on the Mombasa attacks. There are increasing suspicions by Ethiopia and a few other East African countries that Somalia and ethnic Somalis are involved in terrorist activities. As early as 1992, Osama Bin Laden's deputy head of military operations Mohamed Atef, was a frequent visitor to Somalia, cementing ties to militant Islamic Somali groups such as Al-Itihad Al-Islami. In 1993, the group, in tandem with the late legendary warlord Mohamed Farah Aidid, allegedly forced the withdrawal of US troops from Somalia after killing scores of US marines in the process.
With Africa set for more ethnic and religious turmoil, the continent's political establishments must remain committed to the process of democratisation and the strict separation of religion from politics. If untackled, the twin evils of ethnic violence of sectarian strife will fester on.
