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Ending Conflicts
in Africa
By TONY IYARE
From the troubled
Horn to the Senegambian region, Mano River, Sahel, Great Lakes and
the Maghreb, Africa is bleeding profusely. Virtually everywhere
you turn from Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo DRC, Uganda,
Guinea, Liberia, Morocco, Eritrea, Somalia, Rwanda, Sudan to Ethiopia,
a protracted blood bath is raging. Some other countries like Zimbabwe,
owing to the intransigence of a failed vision and rudderless leadership
may just be waiting to boil. The continent seems to have been plunged
into a huge theatre of operations, threatening to smother it into
shreds. Scarce resources are also frittered on this endless war
as both government and rebel armies contend for space in the exploitation
of minerals to oil arms supplies. Yet Africa could ill afford this
wanton drain of its resources.
Sub-Saharan
Africa, worst hit by internecine conflicts is said to spend $8 billion
annually on arms, according to the UNDP. This does not include the
investment in arms and the cost of hiring mercenaries by rebel armies.
It however would make some difference if this whopping amount were
to be spent on education, healthcare, housing and eradicating hunger.
For a continent with 220 million of its population still living
below one dollar a day, this expenditure could be a path to suicide.
An estimated 2 million of its population is also said to die from
Malaria scourge annually. Achieving the UN Millennium Development
Goals to reduce poverty, illiteracy, infant mortality and increase
life expectancy in 2015, could be a mirage if the conflicts persist.
Although the
Human Development Report 2003, projects it will take Sub-Saharan
Africa until 2129 to achieve universal primary education, until
2147 to half extreme poverty and 2165 to cut infant mortality by
two-thirds, this may be forlorn if the practice of committing a
huge slice of its resources to arms build up is sustained. Worse
is the increasing use of mercenary armies, now dressed in the fine
garb of Private Military Companies (PMCs), by both government and
rebel movements. In fact it is being suggested in some quarters
that what Africa need to end the skirmishes on the continent, is
to engage the PMCs for a fee of $750 million. A scholar, called
Dough James from the South African Institute of International Affairs
and some others, may have been enlisted by the mercenary companies
to parrot this jaundiced view. At a recent CNN debate on the relevance
of the PMCs, James re-echoed this view, calling on African leaders
to patronise commercial armies in the drive to terminate the mindless
blood letting on the continent. We are also being told to dissolve
our national armies and replace them with PMCs because many nations
here are prostrate securing its citizens or borders.
The protagonists
of this line are embolden by the comparative cost of UN Peace Keeping
Operations in Sierra-Leone against that of hiring the South Africa
based Executive Outcomes EO to oust the Revolutionary United Front
RUF from Freetown. I fear that many African leaders could be vulnerable
to this growing preposterous suggestion which looks attractive on
cost saving but short on morals, ethics and vision. Apart from making
mincemeat of the semblance of independence, it contains the seed
for the virtual withering away of the state in Africa. Why the Sierra
Leonean government hired Executive Outcomes EO for $36 million to
rout the RUF from its capital, Freetown, it cost the UN $260 million
to maintain its peace keeping force UNASIL in just six months. The
EO, which destroyed the bases and mines of the RUF compelled its
leader, Forday Sankoh to the negotiation table in November, 1996
after a 21 month onslaught. However to give the EO, which relied
heavily on the support of the Kamajors and the ECOMOG the sole credit
for the crippling of the RUF, would be simplistic. Just like the
economy of Africa, which is controlled largely by foreign multinationals,
the invitation to PMCs is a veil to hand over the security of the
continent to outsiders.
Others have
pointed to the much more fundamental moral and ethical problems
that may be thrown up by the increasing use of the PMCs, an army
that kits and fights merely for dollars in Africa’s wars. What is
significant however is that war has become the biggest business
in Africa with the PMCs angling for a huge slice of the booty. PMCs
like Executive Outcomes, the London based Sandline International
or the American based Military Professionals Resources Initiative
MPRI are hardly fired by the objective of any war. The name of the
game for them is if the price is right. It is little surprising
why they are available to do the bidding of both government and
rebel movements locked in a feud. Our continued patronage of PMCs
in Africa will imperil the continent. We must resolve to rid the
continent of the antics of soldiers of fortune and blood-thirsty
men, intent on making sport of our brothers and sisters. When I
remember that Cote d”Ivoire, one of the most peaceful countries
in Africa is now held by half by government and rebel armies, my
heart bleeds. It is equally disheartening watching Liberia, a country
whose citizens speak with a peculiar southern American ascent torn
to shreds.
Founded 150
years ago by returnee freed slaves from America, this West African
country of 3.2 million people has been enmeshed in bloodletting
in the last 12 years, with close to one sixth of its population
killed. President Olusegun Obasanjo says Nigeria has spent $12 billion
halting the war of attrition in Liberia during this period. We need
to urgently end the carnage in Africa, which is said to have half
of the world’s estimated refugee figure of 700,000. The figure for
kid soldiers is equally grim. The continent is also said to have
80 per cent of child soldiers put at 500,000 globally. In Liberia
alone, where rebel fighters are now being lured to surrender their
arms in exchange for $75, the number of child soldiers is put at
15,000. It is sad that war lords are gradually emerging as the role
models for the African youth. The reasons for the rise in conflicts
in Africa could be summarised thus: The near break down of governance
in most countries in Africa, the virtual collapse of social institutions,
upsurge of prevailing abject poverty and the upswing in the availability
of small arms particularly on the continent. More and more governments
in Africa do not think they owe their citizens any obligation to
improve their lives.
Their yearly
budgets are tall on paper but short on delivery. A large chunk of
moneys voted for education, healthcare, housing and other social
infrastructure end up to meet the primitive accumulation appetite
of the ruling elite. Social institutions are in complete decay.
Election officials are hired to rig elections. The police and judiciary
could hardly be trusted as impartial arbiters. This is true of Nigeria
and other countries where the police and even the judiciary is available
for hire to every bidder. Poverty walks on its legs almost everywhere
with 220 million Africans enlisted as part of the world’s 1.3 billion
people living below one dollar a day. It is imperative to strive
to reverse the trend. The most frightful picture remains the prevalence
of small arms in the hands of non-state actors. Out of an estimated
one billion small arms in the world, 100 million is said to be in
Africa. The figure for Sub-Saharan Africa is put at 30 million.
This has made
AK-47, Kalashnikov, grenades and other hand-guns cheaper than bread
in a continent where many still look with envy at the pristine condition
of the early man. The fact that a large chunk of these arms are
in the hands of rebel armies, militant thugs and other armed bands
makes life very cheap in Africa. Iyare, a Journalist and International
Relations Analyst is Editor-in-Chief, The Gleaner news online.
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