Rising hopes for African peace

Jan 10th 2005
From The Economist Global AgendaIs

peace breaking out across Africa? It is too early to be sure but the year has begun on a hopeful note

TRUCES are common in Africa, and often signal no more than that the rainy season has made the roads impassable, or that both sides need a break to buy more bullets. So no one paid much attention when, in the dying days of 2004, three African countries announced strides towards peace. On December 31st, the government of Sudan signed a “permanent ceasefire” with rebels from the south of the country. The day before, separatists in Senegal agreed to end a 22-year insurgency. And the same week, Uganda’s government held its first direct talks with the apocalyptic rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army, who have terrorised northern Uganda for nearly two decades.

It is wise to be sceptical about such announcements. Sure enough, in Uganda, the shooting started again within days. Nonetheless, it would be wrong to dismiss the recent flurry of peacemaking in Africa as a sham. The deals in Sudan and Senegal are likely to stick, and they are part of a wider, if fragile, trend.

In fits and starts, Africa is getting more peaceful. Ruinous civil wars in Angola, Liberia and Sierra Leone are over, while Madagascar’s fizzled before it could really start blazing. Ethiopia and Eritrea have ended their senseless border conflict. In Burundi last week, all but one of the country’s various rebel groups were formally merged with the national army.

Even the continent’s two biggest war zones, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, are looking calmer in parts. Congo’s monstrous conflict is more or less over, although the east of the country is still lawless and its aggressive neighbour, Rwanda, still attacks from time to time.

Sudan is equally confusing, because it is the scene of two separate wars. The bigger one, between north and south, which has cost 2m lives since 1983, is over. Ceasefires have been honoured, and the details of how to set up a government of national unity that includes the southern rebels have been agreed: a comprehensive peace deal was signed by both sides in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, on Sunday January 9th. The agreement even allows the south to vote for secession in six years' time (though no one thinks Sudan's leaders will let a sizeable chunk of the country break away without a fight). This bright picture is begrimed, however, by the smaller but still awful conflict in Darfur, where an estimated 70,000 people have been killed and the government has sponsored breathtaking atrocities.

The trend towards peace in Africa is uneven, as the outbreak of fresh wars in Darfur (in 2003) and Côte d'Ivoire (in 2002) shows. But it does seem to be real, and wherever peace has taken hold, the lives of millions have grown less fearful and, often, less poor. So who deserves the credit? Wars end for a variety of reasons. Sometimes one side wins, as in Angola. Sometimes both sides are exhausted, enabling skilful mediators to coax their leaders into negotiations. Thabo Mbeki, the South African president, has worked frenetically to broker such talks in several countries, with some success.

Outside pressure can help—America’s more robust approach to violent Islamists since September 11th 2001 was crucial in persuading Sudan’s Islamist government to make peace with its southern rebels, though it has yet to make much difference in Darfur. And it goes without saying that domestic leadership matters. Senegal’s president made peace a priority, and seems to have secured it. Côte d'Ivoire’s president didn't, and his country is sliding towards catastrophe.

Making peace is hard enough, but tackling the underlying causes of war is even harder. In Africa, the most important of these is the continent’s crisis of governance. Predatory, incompetent states command little loyalty, and often cannot control their own territory. Congo’s war, for example, began because neighbouring countries invaded, but they were able to invade only because the Congolese state had ceased to function, leaving a vacuum. When soldiers are never paid, they fight to loot. When there are no other jobs, young men may feel that joining a rebel army is the least bad career option.

Not only are ill-governed countries more prone to war, but war tends to destroy much of what is left of the state. For example, according to the International Rescue Committee, a campaigning charity, Congo’s war, despite being more or less over, is still killing 1,000 people a day. Few are shot or hacked to death; 98% of this alarming figure is an estimate for the number who have died of hunger or disease, over and above the number who would have died anyway had there not been a war. This is the roughest of approximations, but it gives a clue as to the woeful effect the fighting has had on Congo’s already woeful health-care system, infrastructure and economy.

The main responsibility for rebuilding Africa’s failed states rests with the people who live there. The trouble is, the best-educated of them tend to emigrate. Foreign peacekeepers are often prepared to stay long enough for elections to be held, but not long enough to make sure that newly elected governments survive. Occasionally, outsiders can preserve peace on the cheap. The mere promise that British troops would defend the young government of Sierra Leone, for example, discourages rebels from attacking it. But what is practical in a small coastal state such as Sierra Leone would be out of the question in, say, Sudan. It will be a long time before Africa is truly stable, but at least the continent is moving in the right direction.

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