Confronting Conflict
Secretary-General Annan candidly explores causes, potential cures

United Nations, New York -- 16 April

In perhaps his most important political report to date, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has analyzed in remarkably candid terms the causes of conflict in Africa. In the report, Mr. Annan also proposes a comprehensive set of far-reaching, "realistic and achievable" measures designed to significantly reduce political tensions and violence within and between Africans states.

The report which the Security Council had requested, and will take up for in-depth deliberation at possibly ministerial-level on 24 April, comes against a backdrop of significant political and economic achievements on the continent, and the emergence of leaders with confidence in Africa's ability to chart a path to peace and higher levels of development. These recent successes have sparked renewed international interest in Africa, and as such, the report has the potential to secure wide African and international support at a time when, the Secretary-General observes, efforts to break with past patterns "are at last beginning to succeed."

The Secretary-General's recommendations derive strength in significant part from the candour with which his report analyzes causes -- and responsibility -- for conflict in Africa.

"By not averting these colossal human tragedies [as in Rwanda, Somalia and Liberia]," says the Secretary-General, "African leaders have failed the peoples of Africa; the international community has failed them; the United Nations has failed them." Repeatedly, the Secretary-General calls on all concerned to "summon the political will" to produce positive change in Africa.

"The United Nations stands ready to play its part," Mr. Annan declares. "So must the world. So must Africa."

Africa today must more than ever look at itself, the Secretary-General asserts, given the renewed momentum in the continent's quest for peace and greater prosperity. However, he adds, African efforts need stronger international support politically, as well as in the economic area, where greater debt relief and market access for more diversified African exports are crucial to ensuring the higher living standards that promote stability.In what is one of the most concise and authoritative primers on the causes and cures for African conflict, the report notes that 14 of the continent's 53 countries were afflicted by armed conflict in 1996 alone, and over 30 wars have occurred in Africa since 1970, mostly within states. These accounted for "more than half of all war-related deaths worldwide" and caused over 8 million people to become refugees, returnees and displaced persons.

While no transgressors are named, the report goes on to say that even in this post-Cold War period, foreign interests continue to play a large role in sustaining some conflicts in the competition for oil and other African resources.

African states are not spared either: even as he pays them tribute for their growing peacekeeping and mediation efforts, the Secretary-General points out that the role some of them play "in supporting and sometimes even in instigating conflicts in neighbouring countries must be candidly acknowledged."In focusing on the various actors who help to fan conflict, Mr. Annan strongly criticizes international arms merchants as being among those "who profit from conflict in Africa." He recommends that Member States pass legislation making the violation of Security Council arms embargoes by individuals or corporations a criminal offense under their national laws. Although public identification of arms merchants has been difficult, the Secretary-General asserts that possibly no other single initiative would do more to help combat the flow of illicit arms to Africa. The report asks the Security Council to address this issue as a matter of urgency, including how the UN might support the compiling, tracking and publicizing of such information.

At the same time, while recognizing the rights of states to provide for their own defence, the Secretary-General calls upon African states to reduce their purchases of arms and munitions to below 1.5 per cent of GDP, and to commit themselves to a zero-growth policy for defence budgets for a period of 10 years.

Illicit arms: Calling attention to the role of arms merchants, the Secretary-General has urged all African countries to list their arms imports with the UN Register of Conventional Arms.

Photo: AIM / Ferhat Momade

He notes the "long-term distortions" in Africa's political economy and the authoritarian legacies of colonialism which helped produce the "winner-takes-all" and highly personalized forms of governance seen in parts of the continent. With the frequent lack of peaceful means to change or replace leadership and the "often violent politicization of ethnicity," Mr. Annan says conflict becomes virtually inevitable.

Turning to the United Nations itself, Mr. Annan calls for a reversal of the international community's "great reluctance in recent years to assume the political and financial exposure associated with deploying peacekeeping operations." Memories of the Somalia experience "continue to hobble" UN capacity to respond swiftly and decisively to crises; and within Africa, the lack of forceful United Nations action to stop the genocide has had a "particularly harsh" impact, leading to the tendency of some African governments to marginalize the UN from political involvement in regional affairs. The "horrifying suffering of the Rwandese people sends the clear and unmistakable message that the international community must never again tolerate such inaction," the Secretary-General asserts.

The Secretary-General urges member states to provide renewed and better coordinated support for early and decisive action to prevent or resolve conflict in Africa. He says UN peacekeeping could achieve much if "deployed with a credible deterrent capacity, equipped with appropriate resources, and backed by sufficient political will." Mr. Annan calls for support for regional and sub-regional initiatives, and strongly encourages UN member states to contribute to the UN and Organization of African Unity (OAU) Trust Funds for conflict prevention and peacekeeping. "Such support is necessary because the United Nations lacks the capacity, resources and expertise to address all problems that may arise in Africa," he says. "It is also desirable because wherever possible the international community should strive to complement rather than supplant African efforts to resolve Africa's problems."

He says Africa must demonstrate the political will to rely upon political rather than military responses to problems, protect democratic channels for pursuing legitimate interests and expressing dissent, and respect and legitimize political opposition. Africa must also take good governance seriously -- ensuring respect for human rights and the rule of law, strengthening democratization, and promoting transparent and accountable public administration. "Unless good governance is prized, Africa will not break free of the threat and the reality of conflict which are so evident today."

Renewed international interest in Africa: US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (left photo, lower right corner, with Mr. Annan) initiated, and presided over, the first Security Council ministerial-level meeting on Africa last September (which requested the report of the Secretary-General). Mr. Annan presented the report on 16 April to a Security Council meeting presided over by Ambassador Hisashi Owada of Japan (lower left photo), whose country is hosting at summit level in October 1998 a second conference on African development.

Photo: UN / Milton Grant

Turning to the international community, Mr. Annan development aid should be "restructured, focusing on high impact areas and on reducing dependency." He notes that after more than 40 years of technical assistance programmes, 90 per cent of the $12 bn a year of technical assistance is spent on non-African consultants despite the availability of African experts in many fields. In this light, Mr. Annan urges donors to make sure that "at least 50 per cent of their aid to Africa is spent in Africa."

Mr. Annan calls for "new sources of funding" as well as "better use of existing resources and the enactment of trade and debt measures that will enable Africa to generate and better reinvest its own resources." He says the next meeting of the Group of Eight leading industrialized countries should consider eliminating trade barriers to African products. He also calls for deeper reduction of Africa's "unsustainable" external debt -- $328.9 bn in 1995 -- which would promote and reinforce economic reforms. Such relief should be structured "in ways that will not undermine Africa's future capacity to attract investment, but will instead enhance that capacity by lifting past burdens from present operations," the Secretary-General adds.

Regional and sub-regional integration processes should be strengthened, the Secretary-General says, calling on the UN system (including the Bretton Woods institutions), along with inter-governmental organizations such as the European Union, to reinforce African countries' own efforts. He also calls for "a hard look" at the important international initiatives aimed at promoting peace and development in Africa. These include the United Nations New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s (UN-NADAF) and its implementing component, the United Nations System-wide Special Initiative on Africa (UNSIA), the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), and Commitment 7 of the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development.

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