West Africa tastes peace
2004-02-06 13:50
Dakar, Senegal - Machete wounds are healing in West Africa's conflict zones. Child soldiers are laying down their AK-47s. Warlords languish in jail, in exile or in the ground - terrain now patrolled by the world's largest deployment of UN troops.
The news out of West Africa today is nascent peace, after nearly 15 years of wars that killed more than a quarter of a million people.
Peace deals in Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and, since August, perennially unstable Liberia have brought six months without major bloodletting in west Africa.
Africa watchers praise the calm but say stretching tranquility into years will take commitments of outside money, peacekeepers and attention.
Could return to conflict
"It's good news that there are no wars, but a lot of these situations are tenuous and could return to conflict if mismanaged," analyst Ross Herbert said at the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg.
The effort to make the peace last picks up on Thursday, when envoys from rich nations gather at the United Nations in New York for a conference on donations for Liberia.
International groups bill the conference - to be headed by US Secretary of State Colin Powell and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan - as a not-to-be-missed opportunity to steady one of the world's shakiest regions.
Analysts and West Africans hope that if the outside powers help, the peace in West Africa could be durable and lasting.
Counting your chickens
"Casting hope on the donor conference now is like counting our chickens before the eggs are hatched," said Moses Tenway, a 45-year-old taxi driver in Liberia's bullet-pocked capital, Monrovia.
"Let's see what the international community has to give us, and let's see whether in fact what will be given will be used for the intended purpose," Tenway said Wednesday. "Sincerity and honesty are still difficult to prevail in Liberia."
Maintaining West Africa peace won't be easy, or cheap. A UN-led assessment team put the price tag for Liberia's needs over the next two years at nearly $500m.
Failure to shore up the peace could mean the recent European and US-backed peace deals, peacekeeping troops and transitional administrations will provide only an interlude to the violence, observers say.
Generous funding
"Unwavering political commitment and prompt, generous and sustained funding are needed to meet the ambitious plans for the next two years" in Liberia, the human rights group Amnesty International said Wednesday.
Even if power-sharing deals and interim governments hold, the roots of West African conflicts remain firmly planted: corruption, mismanagement, autocratic or elitist rule and rampant poverty.
"The absence of war is not the same as a thriving economy. The region has a long way to get back to where it was 15 years ago," before Liberia tumbled into conflict, Herbert said.
Liberia the lynchpin
Liberia, a rubber- and gem-exporting country of three million, is seen as the lynchpin of the region's stability. Under ousted President Charles Taylor, the country spread conflicts across borders.
In 1989, Taylor, then a warlord, launched his insurgency from neighbouring Ivory Coast. The fighting that followed destroyed what once was one of sub-Saharan Africa's most prosperous nations.
Small arms began flooding the region. Job-seeking, disaffected young men from around the region found in Taylor a top employer in a new industry - war.
Taylor was accused of directing or aiding rebels in a 1991-2002 uprising in Sierra Leone, and a nine-month civil war in Ivory Coast in 2002-2003.
Last year, a Liberian rebellion allegedly backed by Taylor's angry neighbours put Taylor under siege in his capital and on August 11, Taylor flew into exile in Nigeria.
A UN peace force in Liberia is due to build to 15 000 soldiers, the world's largest. And a peace deal on August 18 established a power-sharing government meant to arrange elections in 2005. But it is already under pressure.
Rebels have splintered
Liberia's main rebel movement has splintered - raising fears of a return to the factional fighting of the 1990s, when Taylor and his one-time warlord allies turned to battling among themselves for power.
While Sierra Leone announced a successful end to its disarmament program this week, disarmament in Liberia under United Nations auspices has stalled.
UN officials postponed the start of Liberia's disarming late last year, after rebel groups balked at giving up arms. At least nine people died when gunmen went on rampages to demand cash on the spot for their AK-47s.
Analysts say the episode underscores the fragility of Liberia's peace and the difficulties of disarming its estimated 40 000 fighters. Of that, 15 000 are said to be children.
One plus for peace, analysts say - Taylor is gone.
"Charles Taylor; if he's kept out and kept under control, the prospects are much, much better," said Princeton Lyman, a Washington D.C-based fellow for the Council on Foreign Relations.
In Sierra Leone, the UN-backed war crimes tribunal that has indicted Taylor for directing rebels there is deliberating. Many of that war's most notorious warlords are in custody or dead.
In Ivory Coast, 4 000 French and 1,200 West African peace troops patrol front lines between rebel and government forces and the United Nations is considering assuming and expanding the mission.
Associated Press writer Jonathan Paye-Layleh contributed to this report from Monrovia, Liberia.
- AP