Strife ravages Africa

By Batuk Gathani

BRUSSELS, MAY. 12. The fast escalating regional and territorial conflicts expose Africa to the threat of a continent-wide conflict. The various United Nations peace-keeping missions have so far failed to yield satisfactory results.

The crises have further been compounded by corruption, bad governance and the lack of a pan-African leadership.

Major African countries have consistently been near the top of international corruption tables. International financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank have so far made only token attempts to root out corruption from the African civil service, provincial administration, local government and above all the judiciary.

The suspension of financial aid as a punitive measure has hardly helped. A minority of affluent Africans are the beneficiaries of the rampant corruption in public life. Even as African authorities try to unearth the secret bank accounts in Western tax havens, fresh revelations emerge about the ``tip of the iceberg.''

Further, a series of regional crises threaten to turn these local conflicts into wars across the entire continent. The civil war in Sierra Leone once again shows the U.N. peace-keeping operation in a poor light. Africa is today facing the prospect of a widening conflict on a broader pan-African horizon as racial, tribal and regional tensions deepen across the continent. The long-standing conflict in Congo, where several African countries are involved, looks nowhere close to resolution. Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia are backing the controversial President, Mr. Laurent Kabila while Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi support Mr. Kabila's foes in eastern Congo. South Africa remains neutral but others have their eyes on the vast mineral resources of Congo which range from copper to diamonds and precious metals.

The U.N., which is already bogged down by the crisis in Sierra Leone, is under pressure from Washington to launch a peace- keeping operation in Congo.

Relations between former allies Uganda and Rwanda have recently deteriorated which could give new dimensions to the ethnic and military conflict in eastern Congo. Another small war in the Horn of Africa may be on the horizon due to the rapidly deteriorating relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea over territorial claims.

In Congo, the Zimbabwean President, Mr. Robert Mugabe's controversial deployment of some 11,000 troops is fast depleting the foreign exchange reserves of Zimbabwe. Mr. Mugabe's conflict with white farmers has escalated with major Western countries threatening to scale down economic cooperation with Zimbabwe.

Last year's agreement to end the civil war in Congo has broken down and the country looks set to become Africa's Balkan region. Then there are the ethnic and regional wars in Sudan and Angola. In Sudan, the Christian Africans are demanding independence from the Islamic fundamentalist Government.

The prospects of a hostile Christian State emerging in the region surrounding the Nile delta has Egypt worried, which is making diplomatic efforts to broker talks between the two groups. The civil wars in Angola, Sierra Leone and Congo are mainly financed by the sale of illegal diamonds. The European governments have so far made only feeble attempts to tackle the illicit diamond trade.

Two decades of economic decline has placed Sub- Saharan Africa under an enormous strain. A new dimension to the crises in Africa was added when the U.S. warned about the impact of AIDS on the world generally and Africa in particular.

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