Alternative Insight

The African Wars
A Dark Continent Struggles

---

If an atlas depicted the continents by their importance to the American media, Africa would be a dot on the world map. U.S. Department of State actions and policies govern the media neglect - conditions in Africa don't affect American pocketbooks. In addition, Americans are not familiar with the African countries whose struggles contain a confusing mix of rapidly changing groups, leaders, ethnic rivalries and political movements. It is difficult to differentiate between the "good guys" and "bad guys," the winners and losers and determine who deserves sympathy and support. The tragedies of war, hunger and pestilence that are fodder for those eager for sensationalism, cannot be hidden for long. Happenings in other continents, especially the Middle East, cannot indefinitely crowd out reports of events in Africa or limit them to catastrophes in North Africa's Arab nations.

About forty independent countries comprise the continent of Africa. Major wars are occurring in three countries; Sudan, Uganda and Somalia. Other countries are still smoldering from the conclusions of long-time conflicts.

Copyright: FOTW Africa map by Mark Sensen and boundaries’ data by Guiseppe Bottasini; courtesy of Flags of the World at http://fotw.digibel.be/flags/

---

North Africa
Algeria was subjected to years of senseless slaughter of innocent civilians by terrorists who protested the government's cancellation of 1992 elections that an Islamic party had been expected to win. However, terrorism in Algeria might have preceded the election.

As early as 27 November 1991, about ten soldiers of the Algerian army were savagely massacred in Guemmar (in south east Algeria) by an Islamic terrorist group, practically all of whose members had received training in camps in Afghanistan. This attack, the first of its kind, launched the terrorist campaign in Algeria and revealed to national public opinion the existence of groups structured, armed, trained and organised with the aim of seizing power to install a theocratic state.
Institute for Security Studies, Monograph #74, July 2002, Chap. VI
M Boudjemaa, Africa and Terrorism, Joining the Global Campaign.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is credited with ending much of the violence by awarding an amnesty in 1999. Estimates, which might be exaggerated, have 100,000 murdered since 1992. Now, reminiscent of Argentina during the 1980's, a government-appointed human rights commission claims that individual security officers are suspected of abducting 5,200 Algerians from their homes and workplaces. Algeria, after a promise of peace, finds itself once again subjected to armed terrorism.

Morocco has one unresolved problem that is rarely reported in the western press - a conflict in the Western Sahara. Spain abandoned the area in the 1970's, and since then it has been contended by Morocco and the indigenous Sahwari people. Morocco seized the territory and the Sahwari armed wing, the Polisario Front, could not regain the land. To survive as a people, a Sahwari pro-independence movement established an exiled government in refugee camps of Western Algeria. The movement has its supporters.

More than 70 countries, mainly in Africa, Latin America and Asia have recognized the exiled Sahwari Republic. Algeria has economically assisted the Sahwaris in their struggle and supported their separatist movement. The UN established a Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara that completed a task of drawing up a roll of the 200,000 Sahwaris eligible to vote in an unscheduled referendum on the future of the territory. Morocco is not agreeable to an autonomous Sahwari state and a stalemate exists.

Sudan appears ready to end the civil war between Southern animists and Christians (mostly animists) of the Sudan People's Liberation army (SPLA) and the northern Islamic government led by President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. However, in Darfur, the Sudan Liberation army (SLA) has attacked government troops who have relied on a local militia, the Janjaweed, to counter the SLA. The chaos has caused a huge crisis, 70,000 reported dead and 1 million forced into refugee camps. The United States has accused Sudan of genocide but the European Union (EU) has denied this assertion and characterized the situation as a major humanitarian crisis.

Sam Dealey NYT (International Herald tribune) August 2004, in an article, Misreading the truth in Sudan, placed the conflict in perspective:

....three myths of one of the worst humanitarian crises - that the Janjaweed are the sole source of trouble and are acting only as proxies for Khartoum; that the conflict pits light-skinned Arabs against black Africans; and that the Sudanese government can immediately end the war whenever it wishes. Until the international community puts aside these simplifications, no sustainable solution can emerge.

A peace agreement between the SPLA and the Sudanese government is scheduled to be signed on Jan. 10, 2005. The agreement includes a new constitution and a power-sharing government. After five years, the southern Sudan will be permitted to vote on secession.

Talks between the SLA in Darfur and Khartoum are stalemated.The intrusion of foreign nations in the conflicts has aggravated the issues:

• Khartoum has accused Israel of arming the rebels;
• There is an appearance that foreign forces are fueling the crises for several reasons- (1) desire to dismember Sudan, (2) attempt to replace the Khartoum government and gain Sudan's rich oil resources and (3) propaganda to arouse international animosity against an Arab government;
• China has made oil agreements with Sudan and sends armaments to the Khartoum government.

Horn of Africa
The Horn of Africa countries have achieved a measure of stability after years of instability, war, drought and starvation. Some conflict continues.

Somalia has a new president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, who had to go to Nairobi, Kenya last October to be sworn into office.

Fighting between warring factions has continued since the country’s dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991. Up to one million Somalis have died in the civil war due to fighting, famine and disease, and around two million have fled the country. Mogadishu, the capital, remains divided between tribal leaders with an estimated 60,000 armed men still roaming the streets. Yemen Times. Dec. 29, 2004.

On Dec. 19, the UN Security Council requested all countries to enforce an arms embargo against Somalia.

Ethiopia and Eritrea are still disputing some minor borderlands.

After a two-and-a-half year war over a border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea, a cease-fire has remained fragile. Ethiopia turned down a demarcation proposal established by an independent border commission last September and Eritrea warned that the rejection could lead to more fighting in the future. Yemen Times. Dec. 29, 2004.

The Heart of Africa
Civil wars, border wars, refugee creations and population shifts are ongoing in parts of Central Africa.

Uganda experiences tragedies and crises equivalent to those of Sudan. Due to an insurgency in northern Uganda:

About 1.6 million Ugandans-90 percent of the population of three provinces-have been displaced by the fighting. Rights workers estimate the rebels have kidnapped 30,000 people. Craig Mauro,
Crises in Several African Nations Rival Sudan's But Getting Little Attention Worldwide, Washington Diplomat, Dec, 2004.

Yet, Uganda's problems have not received attention from the international community. The reasons are simple: Uganda does not have Sudan's potential as an oil power and is not an Arab country.

A peculiar insurrection, raging for 18 years, has a rebellious force called Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) fighting the government of President Yoweri Museveni. Joseph Kony, the LRA leader, is a self-proclaimed prophet who claims to take orders from the holy spirit and has no clear goal except overthrowing the government and possibly installing a society based on the Ten Commandments. The conflict is essentially fought by young boys that have been abducted by the LRA.

The Ugandan government and seven rebel commanders had direct talks on December 28, 2004 with the purpose of ending the war in northern Uganda. The talks failed to resolve the conflict and the war continues.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is governed by a coalition and national elections are scheduled for July, 2005. However the DRC remains with pockets of conflict after a devastating war that is estimated to have taken 3.5 million lives.

Government soldiers sent to reinforce the east have clashed in recent days with former Rwandan-backed rebels, supposedly part of a unified army, in Kanyabayonga, 180 km (112 miles) north of Goma.
Reuters UK, Congo fighting rekindles war fears, Dec 18, 2004

Added to the threat of renewed war is the displacement of people from the Goma war, estimated recently by Jan Egeland, U.N. Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs. at 2.5 million, war related disease and malnutrition. According to the International Rescue Committee, and reported by the Voice of America on Dec. 9, 2004, more than 1,000 Congolese civilians are dying each day from the latter problems

West Africa
A semblance of stability has returned to part of West Africa, but tribal rivalries provoke tendencies to civil war.

Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa producer has pushed itself into a civil war due to the duplicity of president Laurent Ghagbo. After promising to allow the main opposition party, composed of the Muslim North, to participate in scheduled elections, Ghagbo banned the opposition party and challenged the right of its members to citizenship. Rebel forces that consist of a mix of legitimate dissidents, disgruntled officers from the Ivory Coast military and criminal elements have managed to control northern parts of the country. Ghabo's antagonism to French forces stationed in the Ivory Coast and that he accuses of assisting the Muslim north and harming Ivory Coast citizens has complicated the problem. An outgrowth of this antagonism has been an Xenophobia that have led to attacks on foreigners and withdrawal of western persons and investments from the country.

The UN has imposed an arms embargo on the Ivory Coast and has threatened both sides with sanctions.

Liberia and Sierra Leone experienced years of ferocious civil war. After two years of peace the two nations still have the conditions that caused the wars.

"The international interventions in Liberia and Sierra Leone are failing to produce stable sovereign states. A fresh strategy is needed if both are not to remain vulnerable to new fighting and state collapse," the International Crisis Group (ICG) said.

....disarmament has not reached the whole country and in the capital Monrovia (Liberia), which still has no power grid, sewerage or water systems, groups of Christian and Muslim youths fought battles at the end of October, killing 18 people and wounding more than 200.
Reuters, Dec, 9, 2004, a report by Nick Tattersall.

In October, 2004, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Sierra Leone said that the poverty, corruption and lack of basic rights that pushed thousands of youths into its decade of war remained.

Nigeria, one of the world's leading oil producers, has constant violence with glimmers of war. In the oil-rich river delta, a rebel leader threatened in September 2004 to attack Western oil companies. A militant group calling itself the Iduwini Youths, a faction of the dominant Ijaw ethnic group that inhabits the vast Delta, took a Royal Dutch sub-contractor hostage and eventually released him.

Kidnappings, extortion, sabotage and uprisings against the government are frequent in the delta, where community leaders say their people have been deprived of development despite the oil wealth pumped from their tribal lands.

Officials say Nigeria has lost billions of dollars over the years to ethnic fighting, hostage taking and the seizure of oil facilities by militants. AlertNet Dec, 28, 2004

One complaint: Shell has failed to live up to a memorandum of understanding that promised community development and jobs as part of an agreement that allowed development of a nearby oil field.

Happenings in other continents, especially the Middle East, have crowded out reports of events in Africa or limited them to the catastrophes in North Africa's Arab nations. The wars in Africa deserve equal attention and should receive media coverage comparable to that in other parts of the world. Otherwise Americans will learn about the events when it's too late to control them and impossible to resolve them.

alternative insight
january 1, 2005

 HOME PAGE     MAIN PAGE
 

alternativeinsight@earthlink.net