Volcanoes and violence

War and natural disaster in Congo and political turmoil in Zimbabwe overshadowed the deliberations of last week's Southern African leaders' summit, writes Gamal Nkrumah
Last Thursday, Mount Nyiragongo in eastern Congo violently erupted, hurling up clouds of volcanic lava and creating a humanitarian disaster of catastrophic proportions overnight. The blanket of lava that covered Nyiragongo's slopes resembled scenes at Mount Etna in Italy when it erupted in March 2000. But although tourists soon flocked to Etna's slopes, Nyiragongo's only visitors were humanitarian relief workers -- while hundreds of thousands of inhabitants fled the city and its environs.
Relief agencies estimated that over 80 per cent of Goma -- a city some 1,500 km from the Congolese capital Kinshasa -- lay buried beneath lethal lava. Although it falls inside Congolese borders, Goma is virtually run and policed by Rwandan troops and Congolese rebels allied to them. It was to Rwanda, therefore, that Goma's frightened inhabitants turned. Over 300,000 refugees poured into the Rwandan city of Gisenye, just across the border from Goma.
Nevertheless, Congolese President Joseph Kabila dispatched an inspection mission to Goma -- an unprecedented development for a city which has been closed to government officials since it fell to Rwandan-backed armed opposition groups in 1998. The move has led to speculation that the natural disaster may force the protagonists in the Congolese civil war to work more closely with each other and relief agencies.
Goma's population had swollen in recent years as refugees fleeing war-torn eastern Congo streamed into the city, which is the region's largest. Before the volcano erupted, Goma's refugee camps sheltered around 2 million people and the city itself had a population of 700,000. Disease, hunger and malnutrition were widespread in the camps even before last Thursday's disaster.
After the eruption, only very few people trickled back into the city to claim lost possessions. Widespread looting of property, shops and humanitarian relief food by militias has also been reported.
Last Thursday, Mount Nyiragongo in eastern Congo violently erupted, hurling up clouds of volcanic lava and creating a humanitarian disaster of catastrophic proportions overnight. The blanket of lava that covered Nyiragongo's slopes resembled scenes at Mount Etna in Italy when it erupted in March 2000. But although tourists soon flocked to Etna's slopes, Nyiragongo's only visitors were humanitarian relief workers -- while hundreds of thousands of inhabitants fled the city and its environs.
Relief agencies estimated that over 80 per cent of Goma -- a city some 1,500 km from the Congolese capital Kinshasa -- lay buried beneath lethal lava. Although it falls inside Congolese borders, Goma is virtually run and policed by Rwandan troops and Congolese rebels allied to them. It was to Rwanda, therefore, that Goma's frightened inhabitants turned. Over 300,000 refugees poured into the Rwandan city of Gisenye, just across the border from Goma.
Nevertheless, Congolese President Joseph Kabila dispatched an inspection mission to Goma -- an unprecedented development for a city which has been closed to government officials since it fell to Rwandan-backed armed opposition groups in 1998. The move has led to speculation that the natural disaster may force the protagonists in the Congolese civil war to work more closely with each other and relief agencies.
Goma's population had swollen in recent years as refugees fleeing war-torn eastern Congo streamed into the city, which is the region's largest. Before the volcano erupted, Goma's refugee camps sheltered around 2 million people and the city itself had a population of 700,000. Disease, hunger and malnutrition were widespread in the camps even before last Thursday's disaster.
After the eruption, only very few people trickled back into the city to claim lost possessions. Widespread looting of property, shops and humanitarian relief food by militias has also been reported.
The vast majority of the region's population is now reduced to surviving on high calorie biscuits provided by the World Food Programme. Meanwhile, the United Nations Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has warned of the possible spread of epidemics. When Mount Nyiragongo last erupted in 1977, cholera ravaged the entire area.
Nevertheless, despite the widespread catastrophe, Nyiragongo's eruption is a double-edged sword. Volcanic ash is an exceptionally rich source of natural fertiliser -- the reason why people flock to the vicinity of such hazardous volcanic mountains unheeding of the obvious dangers involved.
Even as the Congolese disaster was unfolding, leaders of the nine Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries were meeting in Malawi for their annual summit meeting. The three-day summit in the Malawian commercial capital Blantyre focused on the political crises in two SADC member states -- Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zimbabwe.
The crisis at Nyiragongo brought Congo's civil strife and regional African politics to light, and focused international attention on the Blantyre meeting.
Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola, all SADC member-states, are supporting the DRC's beleaguered government in its fight with armed opposition groups backed by Rwanda and Uganda, both of which are non-SADC states. Nevertheless, the presidents of Rwanda and Uganda, Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni, were invited to the Blantyre summit.
The Congolese had initially objected to their presence, but Congolese President Kabila later relented. "My hopes are that we will make headway, especially with the two presidents who are coming from Rwanda and Uganda," Kabila told reporters in Blantyre.
Also in Blantyre were leaders of the two main armed opposition groups backed by Uganda and Rwanda -- respectively, Jean-Pierre Bemba of the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC) and Adose Onusumba of the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD). All Congolese leaders -- both government and opposition forces -- are also scheduled to participate in a "Meeting of National Dialogue" in South Africa next week.
Zimbabwe's political situation is no less explosive. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe used Blantyre as yet another opportunity to defy his Western detractors. Mugabe blames the British for his country's current predicament. Under former British colonial rule, European settlers appropriated the most fertile land in Zimbabwe and herded African peasants into barren and overcrowded reserves. Britain then reneged on its promise to fund Zimbabwean land resettlement schemes as stipulated at the 1979 Lancaster House agreement.
While much of the European-owned "commercial farms" remained fallow, African peasants were left hungry, landless and penniless. The advent of mechanised farming exacerbated the problem, as it led to a lack of employment for African farm workers. The Africans were then faced with a stark choice: either forcibly reclaim their ancestors' land or drift into the cities in a hopeless search for employment.
The Western failure to grasp these basic facts is largely to blame for the present-day crisis. Britain and the British media lashed out against Mugabe. Western leaders, it seemed, were straining at the leash to slap down Mugabe, whom they branded as an impudent African dictator.
Mugabe may be a maverick, but to his many supporters he is a politician with principles, one who fully understands that the liberation struggle -- especially in southern Africa -- did not end with political independence and the dismantling of formal colonial rule. The Chimurenga -- Zimbabwe's war of liberation -- was primarily fought over rights to land. The redistribution of land was as important as political power, and the two were inextricably intertwined.
On Sunday, violence erupted in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city, ahead of a visit by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to discuss Zimbabwe's political crisis. Zimbabwe goes to the polls in March, and Mugabe fully intends to bid for another term in office.
Although Mugabe has been in power since Zimbabwean independence in 1980, he has not overhauled the constitution or obliterated opposition parties in the mould of "traditional" African dictators since the 1960s. Opinion polls suggest that Mugabe will win re-election to the presidency, along with a majority in the new legislature. Morgan Tsvangirai, chief of the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), is trailing by at least 10 points in opinion polls. Tsvangirai, a former trade unionist, is backed by Britain and local Zimbabwean-European settlers.
Mugabe's local and Western critics charge that he is a control freak whose elite followers egg him on to commit gross human rights violations. In particular, they resent Mugabe's successful enlistment of the armed forces and veteran freedom fighters in the service of his ruling ZANU-PF party. Mugabe's detractors also claim that electoral laws are being pushed through parliament to disenfranchise certain segments of Zimbabwean society before the March elections. A sizeable number of indigenous Africans also support Tsvangirai, especially in urban centres. They blame Mugabe for Zimbabwe's long- term economic decline.
The party's detractors stress that ZANU-PF is riddled with corruption and cronyism. There is also evidence of widespread discontent in the labour movement. Mugabe has hit back by branding the opposition MDC as "counter-revolutionary."
Tsvangirai, on the other hand, claims to speak on behalf of a new generation of Zimbabweans who want to institute a vibrant African democracy. The MDC's strong showing in urban centres in the June 2000 parliamentary elections is cause for concern for Mugabe and his ruling party. The country is deeply divided.
Despite concerns about the impairment of democracy in Zimbabwe, there remains a cogent argument for the redistribution of land in Zimbabwe. The land question has long been considered unfinished business across southern Africa, and preoccupies other SADC member states like Namibia and South Africa too. Zimbabwe's land grab was aided and abetted by the Mugabe regime, but other SADC states have refused to criticise him. South African President Thabo Mbeki has come under fire from the British for not criticising the seizure of white-owned farms in Zimbabwe by landless peasants.
There are growing signs of a rift between South Africa and Britain, with Pretoria more preoccupied with peacefully mitigating the negative effects of Zimbabwe's political crisis and London more concerned with propping up anti-Mugabe forces. Mbeki and other leaders of SADC are reluctant to provoke Mugabe -- it seems they secretly sympathise with the land grab.
Throughout this sorry episode, Western critics have used only one approach, the threat of aggression and the stopping of funding. Many in the region, however, feel that a more sympathetic tone to the Zimbabwean land question might have won Mugabe over.
The focus in Blantyre was on closer collaboration on security matters. SADC leaders discussed HIV/AIDS, debt, democracy, poverty and regional conflicts. African solidarity was stressed and SADC leaders praised the joint task force launched by SADC and the Community of Eastern and Southern African countries (COMESA).
The task force aimed at coordinating and harmonising the position of nearly 40 African countries in international forums such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the African Carribean Pacific-European Union Cotonou Agreement and the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act of the United States -- which last week warned that Zimbabwean officials might be banned. The joint task force proposal was first agreed to at a meeting in Cairo between then SADC Chairman Sam Njoma and COMESA Chairman Sir Anerood Jugunauth, the Mauritian prime minister.
On the economic front, SADC leaders discussed poverty reduction in southern Africa, which they stressed was a top priority in SADC's integration policy. The leaders had finalised arrangements for a free trade zone in southern Africa at a 2001 summit meeting in the Namibian capital Windhoek.
Southern Africa's recent economic record is decidedly mixed. Most SADC member states reported positive growth rates, but all fell short of their joint target set at seven per cent a year. "In order to achieve this, a number of protocols have been developed -- particularly the Trade Protocol, launched in September 2000, which is currently under implementation," explained SADC Executive Secretary Dr Praga Ramsamy.
SADC's ironclad commitment to IMF-dictated policies has failed to trigger economic growth or to improve deteriorating socio-economic conditions. Most SADC member-states have now implemented all the policies demanded by would-be foreign investors. Investment, however, has not been forthcoming.
Poverty is a major obstacle to peace and stability a region ravaged by civil wars and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Per capita gross domestic product (GDP) stands at $302 in Zambia, $243 in Zimbabwe and Tanzania, and $242 in Mozambique, SADC's poorest country.
It now seems obvious that investors will not simply put their money in countries committed to IMF dictates and policy recipes. Rather, they seem to be investing only in politically stable and promising countries. Mauritius and Botswana, for example, have the region's two highest GDPs per capita -- $3,582 and $3,117 respectively. Both are countries with small populations of less than two million. They have a slightly higher GDP per capita than the regional economic powerhouse South Africa, which has a GDP per capita of $3,041 and a population of 40 million. Mauritius and Botswana are the two SADC member states that have sustained the highest growth rates over the past three decades, and are also the region's two longest- standing democracies.
Southern Africa, it seems, is caught between two equally undesirable poles. In Congo, Zimbabwe and other SADC member-states, any government that threatens the vital interests of Western powers in the region is ostracised and threatened. Nevertheless, any government imposed by Britain or other Western powers without the consent of dispossessed peasantry and which does not work hard to eradicate poverty is unlikely to last either. A balance needs to be struck soon, as time is fast running out.
Recommend this page
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
Send a letter to the Editor