Copyright 2000 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
*** 15-May-0* ***
Title: POLITICS: Has the International Community Failed Africa?
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, May 15 (IPS) - Surveying the economic and
military
crises spreading across sub-Saharan Africa in early 1998,
Secretary-General Kofi Annan blamed both African leaders and the
outside world for "the colossal human tragedies" facing the
devastated continent.
By not averting these calamities - including wars, famines and the
spread of the deadly disease AIDS - African leaders have failed
the people of Africa, he complained.
At the same time, Annan also blamed the international community
and the United Nations for not shouldering their responsibilities
to rescue the beleaguered African continent from the rash of
disasters.
Every one of them - African leaders, the international community
and the United Nations - has failed Africa, he declared.
Last week, Annan's words rang true once again as sub-Saharan
Africa was threatening to go up in flames: a renewed civil war in
Sierra Leone, the escalation of the border war in Ethiopia and
Eritrea and rising military tensions in the Democratic Republic of
the Congo (DRC).
But Western nations and the UN Security Council, both of which
were quick to authorise military forces to Kosovo and East Timor,
remained reluctant to do likewise in Africa - if not on military,
at least on humanitarian grounds.
"There is some anger in Africa in the way the Security Council is
dealing with African issues," Ambassador Abdallah Baali of Algeria
told reporters last week.
Speaking on behalf of the 53-member Organisation of African Unity
(OAU), of which Algeria is the current chair, Baali said that
African countries have demonstrated they are capable of resolving
their own conflicts. "We have been seeking peacekeeping forces
only in post-conflict situations - long after we have settled the
problems ourselves," he pointed out.
"But if you look at peacekeeping operations in Africa, more and
more African countries are sending troops because of the
reluctance of European nations to send soldiers," he complained.
Amama Mbabazi, Uganda's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs,
was
quoted as saying that African nations are conscious of the fact
that Western states are just reluctant to provide troops.
"When it is Kosovo, you are there in one minute spending billions.
When it is East Timor, you are there. But when it is Africa, there
are all sorts of excuses," he said.
The Western states feverishly participated in the Kosovo mission
fearing that a conflict in the former Yugoslavia would drive
hundreds and thousands of refugees into Western Europe. In the
case of East Timor, Australia took the lead fearing a wave of East
Timorese refugees into its own borders. But Western Europe, the
United States and Australia, all geographically far removed from
battle zones in Africa, have no fears of African refugees at their
doorsteps.
The July 1999 peace accord in Sierra Leone fell apart last week
only after the withdrawal of a regional peacekeeping force, the
Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group
(ECOMOG), led by Nigeria. The regional force, which also
consisted
of troops from Ghana, Guinea, Gambia and Mali, succeeded in
keeping the peace over the last few years.
Nigeria pulled out primarily because of a shortage of funds. Annan
had earlier urged UN member states to provide funds, logistical
support and military equipment to the 15,000-strong ECOMOG
which
was responsible for propping up the democratically-elected
government of Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of Sierra Leone against the
rebel
force, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) led by Foday Sankoh.
Aaron Kollie, Press Counsellor of the Embassy of Liberia in
Washington DC, argued that had the United States fully supported
the ECOMOG force in Sierra Leone, the current crisis may not have
occurred.
"But the failure of the West in committing support for the ECOMOG
force, in favour of a UN force, led to the pullout of ECOMOG,
setting the stage for armed renegades to overrun the understaffed
and under-equipped UN peacekeeping force," he said.
Now that the crisis has flared up again, he said, where is the US
government going to find the resources to put the peace back on
track? "Wouldn't it have been cheaper to maintain the ECOMOG
forces on the ground than to begin a new process of troop
mobilisation?" he asked.
Last week Annan made several desperate pleas for a "rapid reaction
force," manned by well-trained, well-equipped soldiers from
countries such as the United States, France and Britain, to
reinforce UN troops in Sierra Leone. But he did not receive a
single offer from any of the Western states.
"I plead with you," Annan told the Security Council last week,
"Let us not fail Sierra Leone. Let us not fail Africa. This time,
in this crisis, let us back words with deeds, and mandates with
the resources needed to make them work." But his plea has fallen
on deaf ears.
Since it lost 17 soldiers in Somalia in October 1993, the US has
backed out of all peacekeeping missions in Africa. Ambassador
Richard Holbrooke of the United States, who designated January
"the month of Africa" when he presided over the Security Council,
sought to turn the spotlight on Africa early this year.
But the United States has paid only lip service in trying to
resolve some of the ongoing conflicts in Africa.
Annan says the United States has made it clear that it will not
provide the type of military assistance he needs in Africa. It is
just not willing to risk any of its soldiers on the ground, he
adds. However, the United States, Canada and Russia have agreed
to
transport UN troops from India and Bangladesh to Sierra Leone. The
United Nations says that Washington is trying to exact a high
price for this service.
Operating its peacekeeping operations on a shoestring budget, the
United Nations has declined the US offer because it is charging
about 17 million to 21 million dollars for the airlift operations
compared with only six million dollars for a chartered commercial
airliner. The Canadians, on the other hand, are providing free
transport on a government Airbus while the Russians are using a
chartered plane.
Since 1970, more than 30 wars have been fought in Africa, the vast
majority of them domestic in origin. In 1996 alone, 14 of the 53
countries in Africa were involved in military conflicts,
accounting for more than half of the war-related deaths worldwide
and resulting in over 8 million refugees.
Currently, conflicts are raging in several African countries,
including Sudan, Angola, Sierra Leone, Somalia, the DRC, Ethiopia
and Eritrea. Additionally, countries such as Uganda, Rwanda,
Namibia and Zimbabwe are also directly or indirectly involved in
conflicts with their neighbours.
Last week British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said that "the
succession of conflicts in Africa will not end unless we tackle
the underlying roots". These include the alleviation of poverty,
the elimination of debt burdens, the reduction of arms supplies,
and the control of the illicit trade in diamonds in Sierra Leone,
DRC and Angola.
Addressing a meeting of the Security Council last September,
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 the United Nations, and in particular
the Security Council, is usually slow and reluctant to support
peace efforts in Africa," he declared.
Ghana's Foreign Minister James Victor Gbeho told delegates that
the time has come for the international community to do in Africa
as much 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 added. (END/IPS/IP/td/da/00)
Origin: SJAAMEX/POLITICS/
----
[c] 2000, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)
All rights reserved
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
