Once again the Great Lakes region is hurled into the uncertainty of political turmoil as Africa searches for African solutions to African problems, writes Gamal Nkrumah The Congolese government has run into embarrassing difficulties in trying to assert its authority over its armed forces. Brigadier-General Germain Niyoyankana, the head of the Burundian army, pointed an accusing finger at the Congolese army for taking part in a massacre of Congolese ethnic Tutsi refugees fleeing ethnic clashes in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC); an allegation vehemently denied by Congolese authorities. Details of just what went wrong inside Gatumba refugee camp were hard to come by. But according to UN figures, an estimated 150 people were slaughtered in a massacre at the camp. Indeed, observers believe that the massacre was premeditated, designed to instill fear in the hearts of Tutsi in refugee camps in the region. Indeed, the Tutsi refugees were the target of a coalition of disgruntled ethnic Hutu militias in tandem with elements of the Congolese army. The ethnic Burundian Hutu armed opposition group, the National Liberation Forces -- better known by its French acronym FNL -- claimed responsibility for the slaughter. There are signs, however, that members of the former Hutu-dominated army were involved. Certain sections of the Congolese army periodically indulge in anti-Tutsi revenge killings. The armies of Tutsi-dominated Burundi and Rwanda were among forces from six African countries embroiled in the five-year civil war in the DRC that formally ended in 2002. During the Congolese civil war, the Congolese ethnic Tutsi were closely aligned to Rwanda and Burundi while the Congolese ethnic Hutu took up arms against the forces of Rwanda and Burundi. The conflict in Burundi is inextricably intertwined with the wars in neighbouring Rwanda and the DRC. Both Tutsi and Hutu, and other closely related ethnic groups, are found in the three countries as well as in Uganda. Because of intense international pressure to end the Burundian civil war, several Hutu-dominated armed opposition groups signed a power- sharing deal with the Tutsi-dominated Burundian government. Under the agreement the former Tutsi Burundian president was forced to step down and was replaced by Domitien Ndayizeye, the current Hutu president. Even so, the Burundian government has come under intense criticism for its handling of the refugee situation. Burundi had systematically ignored the long-standing request by the United Nations and humanitarian relief agencies to relocate the refugee camps to a safe distance away from the Congolese border. "Burundi had agreed to give us a site for a camp farther away from the border area. In the meantime, the massacre has taken place. There is no way to bring back the lives of those who were killed," said UN spokesman Fred Eckhard, so aptly summing up the sorry situation. The UN suspended negotiations with the FNL after the latter admitted responsibility for the Gatumba massacre. Again, like in Darfur, the vast majority of victims are women, children and babies. The weapons are crude: machetes, guns and grenades. Like the Arab Janjaweed militias of Darfur, the perpetrators set fire to the homesteads of peasants and gang raped women and girls -- many as young as eight and nine. Today, conflict resolution has emerged as a key to the continent's economic development and social and political stability. In the 1950s and 1960s a liberation front was a movement very much deserving of the accolade. Today, there are half a dozen liberation fronts in every African nation, many of which are composed of bandits and are led by warlords. The existence of such groups has become an issue of continental concern. Governments, however, have learnt to their peril that regional efforts at peacemaking have often been handicapped by gaping holes in their strategies. Yet they know that collective action, often backed by international pressure, is the only way forward. Even as regional African efforts to resolve the Great Lakes conflict in East Africa are underway, African leaders are pooling efforts to end the civil war in Ivory Coast. Indeed, the Ivorian conflict topped the agenda of the summit meeting of African leaders in the Ghanaian capital Accra last month. One of the key features of African conflict resolution mechanisms today is that the major players on the African political scene, such as South Africa and Nigeria, are throwing their weight about in a bid to exert pressure on warring parties to stop fighting. South Africa, for example, is involved in ending the fighting in both the Great Lakes region and in Ivory Coast. Nigeria, on the other hand, is deeply involved in mediation in Sudan and Ivory Coast. South African President Thabo Mbeki, leader of Africa's economic powerhouse, and his Nigerian counterpart President Olusegun Obasanjo, leader of the continent's most populous country, met in the Ghanaian capital Accra with leaders of a dozen other smaller nations. The Ivorian conflict is currently West Africa's biggest headache, as the civil wars in neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone were stopped mainly through foreign intervention, American in the first instance and British in the second. Little was left to chance at the Accra summit. The host Ghanaian President John Kufuor and United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, a Ghanaian national, put pressure on Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo to accommodate the armed opposition groups suspected of being supported by France, the former colonial power, which has a large peace-keeping force in Ivory Coast. Widely acclaimed as a model of good governance, the Linas-Marcoussis Accord was signed between the Ivorian government and the armed opposition groups known collectively as the New Forces. The New Forces include such groups as the Ivory Coast Patriotic Movement -- better known by its French acronym (MPCI) -- the main armed opposition group based in the northern, predominantly Muslim half of the country. Representatives of two main armed Ivorian opposition groups based in the southwestern part of the country -- the Ivorian Popular Movement of the Great West (MPIGO) and Justice and Peace Movement (MJP). The peace accord was clinched in Paris 19 months ago, but a tense state of only relative calm persists, with ethnic and religious tensions still simmering. "We have to get the government of national reconciliation back in place, begin to implement the Linas-Marcoussis Accord; mainly the legislation that needs to be passed, and the disarmament process," said Mohamed Ibn Chambas, another Ghanaian national. "We have to have a timetable for effecting that," Ibn Chambas added. Ivorian presidential elections are due to be held in 2005 and it is hoped that the withdrawal of French troops will soon follow after. Ivory Coast, like Sudan and Nigeria, suffers from a politico-religious fault-line dividing the northern predominantly Muslim parts of the country from the mainly Christian and animist south. Northerners have welcomed French intervention, but southerners resent the French military presence in Ivory Coast. With 3,000 legionnaires currently stationed in Ivory Coast, the name of France is already written in muddy letters in the book of the Ivorian government and its southern and predominantly animist and Christian supporters. The different reactions to French intervention reflect deep chasms at the centre of Ivorian politics today. It also represents more. The Ivorian experience, akin to the Congolese experience specifically and the Great Lakes in general, highlights the risks associated with foreign intervention. In the name of restoring order and calm, foreign powers can often intensify further already stark political and ethnic divisions.
