[Back to index] [To Volume13#4 -- full graphics]
From Africa Recovery, Vol.13#4 (December 1999), page 4
Sharing Africa's peacekeeping burden
UN Secretary-General's report stirs Security Council debate on double standards
By Michael Fleshman
In Sierra Leone, international peacekeepers fought a brutal rebel movement to a standstill and created the military conditions necessary for a peace agreement. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, international mediators doggedly pursued a cease-fire accord and an end to a conflict that has embroiled troops from six African countries.
But instead of the familiar UN blue helmets, peacekeepers in Sierra Leone fought under the banner of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). When the warring parties in the Democratic Republic of Congo gathered in Lusaka, Zambia, in July to sign a cease-fire pact, they endorsed an agreement initiated and mediated mainly by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), with the UN playing a supporting role.
Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo are the latest examples of the changing relationship between the UN and Africa in meeting the challenge of peacekeeping and conflict resolution on the continent. Conflict prevention, and the balance between African and international obligations for maintaining peace, were again on the UN agenda on 29-30 September when the Security Council opened debate at the ministerial level. The ministers took up Secretary-General Kofi Annan's progress report on implementation of the proposals in his 1998 report to the Security Council, The Causes of Conflict and the Promotion of Durable Peace and Sustainable Development in Africa.
Mr. Annan outlined a series of steps taken by the UN to implement his recommendations to expand African peacekeeping capabilities, improve and coordinate delivery of humanitarian and development assistance, and accelerate measures to ease Africa's poverty and crushing debt burden. Specific actions include:
-- Adoption of Security Council resolutions to strengthen the enforcement and monitoring of regional arms embargoes; to improve security for African refugees and increase aid to countries hosting refugees; and to expand security cooperation with the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and sub-regional bodies.
-- The appointment of special representatives and envoys to assist African mediation efforts in Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Horn of Africa and Burundi.
-- An increase from 12 to 23 African countries participating in the UN peacekeeping Stand-by Arrangement, in which member states maintain personnel or materiel in readiness for rapid deployment.
As Mr. Annan was speaking, the first UN military observers were being deployed to the Democratic Republic of Congo, following Security Council authorization in early August. Then on 23 October, the Security Council authorized a UN peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone.
Mixed progress
Progress towards resolving and preventing conflicts since the report's release was mixed, Mr. Annan told the Security Council. "Africa today, on the eve of the new millennium, reveals a remarkable combination of accomplishments and unresolved problems, of opportunities seized and chances missed." At a time when half the world's war-related fatalities are occurring in Africa, "There are places in Africa where governments persist in spending money on weapons they can ill afford for wars they should not fight; where conflicts are seen as business opportunities for arms merchants and rebel groups alike."
"Yet there are also places, many more than is commonly recognized, where we are witnessing dramatic changes for the better." The return of elected government in Nigeria, the smooth transfer of authority from Mr. Nelson Mandela to President Thabo Mbeki in South Africa, sustained efforts at economic reform and political pluralism, and African diplomatic initiatives in Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea-Bissau and the Horn of Africa, he noted, are signs that "good governance, accountability, transparency and the rule of law are slowly gaining ground." He called for greater aid to African countries making good faith efforts at reform, telling the Security Council, "What the outside world may not have noticed is that much of what it has been calling for has now happened."
The lack of international attention, Mr. Annan cautioned, can kill. In August, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization reported that nearly 10 million sub-Saharan Africans required emergency food aid. It identified war and internal conflict as the sole or contributing factor in 13 of the 16 most vulnerable countries. The Secretary-General, however, noted that available funding for humanitarian needs in Africa is only half of the $800 mn needed, while landmine removal operations have been sharply curtailed through lack of funding.
"The Secretariat's efforts are severely constrained -- and in some cases even jeopardized -- by the absence of resources," Mr. Annan said. He warned that the disproportionate international response to recent crises in Europe and Asia compared to Africa was damaging the credibility of the UN. "There is no excuse for not doing what is do-able and reasonable. 'Africa fatigue' is an affront to the idea of a caring international community."
Partnership or double standard?
But "Africa fatigue" and African frustration were very much in evidence during the Security Council ministerial debate. A marked reluctance on the part of the major industrialized states to support peacekeeping missions on the continent since the 1992-95 mission in Somalia has shifted greater responsibility to African states and the OAU, ECOWAS and SADC. But the North has failed to provide commensurate financial, logistical and diplomatic resources.
Many ministers from developing countries contrasted the rapid and massive international interventions to restore peace in Kosovo and East Timor with what Gabon's Foreign Minister Jean Ping termed the Security Council's "procrastinating" in places like Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo -- delays that could imperil the success of the fragile accords and allow Council resolutions to be flouted.
Mr. Leonardo Santos, Mozambican Ambassador to the UN, praised the UN partnership with Africa in peacekeeping, but reminded Council members that responsibility for peace in Africa, as in the rest of the world, ultimately lies with them. "Regional peacekeeping missions and other efforts by Africa can therefore be no excuse for the Security Council to shirk its responsibilities to African countries," he said. "We have had to bear such a responsibility in West Africa, for instance, not only because we feel a sense of ownership for confronting and managing conflict, but also because the response of the international community has recently been either muted or lukewarm."
Nigeria has spent billions of dollars and lost hundreds of lives during peacekeeping operations in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Its ambassador, Mr. Ibrahim Gambari, bluntly urged the Security Council "to match its words with deeds and to apply a single standard and not a continuing double standard when responding to conflicts in Africa compared with the response in the rest of the world. It is neither fair nor wise to expect a few countries to shoulder a disproportionate share of the burden."
Ugandan Ambassador Semakula Kiwanuka said that the failure of the Security Council to prevent genocide in Rwanda raised disturbing questions about Africa's exclusion from the global collective security system: "The contrasts between what went on there and what happened in Kosovo and recently in East Timor are too glaring. Many of us Africans see the situation being worse than benign neglect." Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy endorsed the African view, charging that anything less than full and equal attention to African security needs by the Security Council "is as shameful as it is inadequate."
Whose obligation?
However, Portuguese Ambassador Antonio Monteiro rejected the allegation of Security Council delay: "It is unrealistic to hope or to demand that the United Nations provide quick and full solutions to the conflicts in Africaand impose peace on those who deliberately choose war While the international community is accused of showing a lesser interest in, or commitment to, resolving African conflicts than those elsewhere, the decisions of the Security Council that seek to guarantee peace are openly flouted."
US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke also called for greater African efforts, arguing, "Where an international presence is required, the United Nations has a vital role to play. But we must also press the people and leaders of Africa to solve the problems on their own and, above all, to prevent them before they begin."
Many resolutions, few solutions
There was far greater agreement on the underlying economic and social causes of conflict in Africa, yet the debate began amid grim evidence that Africa is continuing to lose ground in the global economy. Figures on global foreign direct investment (FDI) released in late September, for example, showed that while such flows increased by 40 per cent in 1998 to $644 bn, Africa's 33 least developed countries attracted just $2.2 bn in overseas investment. This was up slightly for the sixth consecutive year, but still less than half a penny of every FDI dollar.
The continuing bad news prompted Algerian Ambassador Abdallah Baali, speaking on behalf of OAU Chairman Abdelaziz Bouteflika, to declare: "With a continually declining level of official development assistance, a suffocating debt burden, a still-meagre flow of direct foreign investmentan insignificant level of participation in world trade and among the lowest social development indicators, Africa today is a continent afflicted by serious handicaps."
The gap between the rhetoric of international partnership and the harsh reality of marginalization was underscored by Namibian Ambassador Martin Andjaba, who called on the international community to muster the political will and the material resources to meet the Secretary-General's "do-able and reasonable" standard. "Never before has a region been a subject of so many reports in the United Nations. Yet the situation seems to remain the same."
------------------------------------------
BOX 1:
Annan seeks General Assembly support
On 8 December, Secretary-General Annan took his campaign to accelerate action on his 1998 proposals to a special session of the General Assembly convened by its President, Mr. Theo-Ben Gurirab of Namibia.
Seeking to build support in the universal body, Mr. Annan stated that, while the UN is already broadly active in Africa, it needs to be "engaged more effectively" in order to bring about lasting progress. Africa's standing as a UN priority should be echoed in the Assembly's own financial and budgetary priorities, he noted.
He suggested three ways in which the Assembly could help transform the aspirations expressed in his recommendations into concrete achievements. First, it should take stock of progress made to implement the 1998 proposals and consolidate the disparate actions taken so far. "Otherwise the proliferation of initiatives threatens to create more problems than solutions."
Second, the Assembly could seek innovative means for creating effective partnerships to reduce the incidence of HIV/AIDS in Africa. He urged members to support an initiative -- currently being forged between the UN, African governments, developed countries and NGOs -- aimed at mapping new ways to fight the epidemic.
Lastly, he asked the Assembly to focus on new ways of enhancing assistance to post-conflict societies, including cancelling external debt obligations. "Given the essential link between peace and prosperity, we cannot hope to achieve lasting development as long as conflict goes unchallenged and prevention is not a priority."
A Working Group, made up of a cross-section of African countries and other states concerned with Africa's future, could undertake this work, he suggested. "What gives me confidence today," Mr. Annan concluded, "is that African states are more than ever taking hold of their destiny and finding solutions to their own problems."
[Back to index] [To Volume13#4 -- full graphics]
Material from this article may be freely reproduced, with attribution
to "Africa Recovery, United Nations".
We would appreciate a copy of the reproduction.
Africa Recovery
Room S-931
United Nations
New York, NY 10017 USA
Tel: (212) 963-6857
Fax: (212) 963-4556
Email: africa_recovery@un.org
Website: www.africarecovery.org
Contact us by email: africa_recovery@un.org