Conflict, the common denominator throughout Africa, is a recipe for human rights violations, writes Jedida Oneko
Africa seems to be a continent plagued by humanitarian and human rights crises.The majority of the population in most countries is affected, and people have watched as progress achieved since they gained their independence has been eroded by political instability and the humanitarian predicaments faced by the poor. Injustice and insecurity go hand in hand with poverty, disease and displacement.
Somalia, which has had no effective government since 1991, is described as one of the most dangerous countries in the world. With most of the population armed to the teeth, decades of conflict have seen more than a million people displaced. Coupled with drought and famine, this has left three million people (a third of the population) with inadequate access to water, food and health services.
President Abdullahi Yusuf, who recently resigned, had control over only Baioda and parts of the capital Mogadishu. The rest of the country is run by warlords who rule with impunity. Hardline Islamist groups impose Sharia law of the type that recently saw a 13-year-old girl stoned to death because she had been raped. (see Human Rights Defender December/January/February 2008/9)
Sharia law is applied in Nigeria too – but only to the poor, with the wealthy seemingly exempt from punishment for their crimes.
Coup culture
In many other parts of Africa judicial institutions are under the control of authoritarian governments. There has been a trend for African leaders to attain power by force and retain it by military control. Guinea, for example, is facing further military rule since the death of President Lansana Conte late last year. He had come into power through a military coup over Sekou Toure.
Guineans have had their freedom curtailed for half a century and are among the poorest peoples in Africa. Bad governance has left a legacy of no water, no electricity and very little infrastructure. Most children do not complete primary education and have little prospect of employment as adults.
The military leaders have promised to hold elections and have set up a 32-member National Council for Democracy and Development – but the Guinean population is conditioned to hold out little hope for stability, let alone democracy.
The African Union (AU) called the military take-over in Guinea a “flagrant violation of the Guinean constitution” and suspended Guinea from the AU, with a six-month deadline to return to constitutional government. The junta has named Kabine Komara as the interim Prime Minister but says it will not hold elections until 2010, when President Conte’s term would have ended.
In August last year Mauritania experienced its fifth successful coup since gaining independence in 1960 – and only a year after the country’s first democratic presidential election. It was a bloodless coup, but Mauritanians nevertheless lost their short-lived right to freedom of choice.
The oppressed have become the oppressor in independent Africa. The emancipators from colonialism have become despots. This is epitomised by Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, who sees his role in liberating his country as a license to plunder it. “Only God can remove me from power,” he says.
It is impossible to calculate the rate of inflation in Zimbabwe (see Human Rights Defender September/October/November 2008) and its people are reduced to finding foreign currency for basic foodstuffs and household items – when these are available. The once-prosperous country’s smooth roads are riddled with potholes and the once-efficient health system is completely incapable of dealing with rampant AIDS, or with the cholera outbreak that has killed more than 200 and has now spread to South Africa and Botswana.
What hope is there for the future generations of Africa? If African leaders do not adopt a new form of governance, The Millennium Development Goals will not be achieved in 100 years, let alone by the 2015 target. Africa’s youth knows no world other than one in which leaders declare themselves elected for life and change constitutions or declare one party states to stay in power.
Child soldiers
Disaffected youngsters see conflict as a way of life and play war games in the street. They are easily recruited by militias as child soldiers in countries such as Sudan, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda and Central African Republic.
In the DRC children are abducted by Laurent Nkunda’s rebel National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) and serve as porters, fighters or sex slaves. In the CAR and northern Uganda, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels under Joseph Kony are guilty of the same practice.
The lucky ones end up in the care of UK-based charity Save the Children, which attempts to return them to their families (if they are still alive) and rehabilitate them back into society.
In the DRC it is not only the children who live in fear. Displaced people are rounded up and used as human shields by the CNDP and the Democratic forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). In these countries as well as Sudan, Chad, Liberia, Rwanda, Kenya and others, rape is used as a weapon of war, leaving women too frightened to leave their camps or villages to collect firewood.
The plight of most African refugees is dismal. The estimated 4 million Zimbabweans, Malawians, Somalis and others who have fled to South Africa risk becoming victims of xenophobic attacks by locals protecting their jobs at a time of rampant unemployment and poverty. The problem is not confined to South Africa, with Sudanese refugees in Egypt reportedly being the target of racist attacks and falsely imprisoned.
As if human conflict is not enough, Africans seem in a perpetual conflict with nature. The Sahara desert is growing at 10 km a year, aggravating the traditional battle between Arabs and Africans for fertile land. Somalia and Ethiopia have suffered successive famines, with relief agencies often unable to reach those in need of help due to the fighting.
The breakdown in health services too takes its toll on the poor, with HIV/Aids pandemic and malaria still responsible for more deaths than Aids.
NOT ALL DOOM AND GLOOM
While the overall picture may be bleak, there is hope in many African countries. Ghana, for example, recently saw the type of peaceful and democratic transition of power that is an example to others.
President John Kufuor stepped down after prescribed two terms in office and President John Atta Mills, of the opposing National Democratic Congress, was elected. His rival, Nana Akufo-Ado conceded defeat gracefully. The peaceful handover was a far cry from the series of coups in Ghana between 1957 and 1981.
The positive impact made by local and international human rights and aid organisations does not grab the headlines in the same way as war and revolution – but it has a tremendous impact on the lives of people. For example, in Kenya the Kibera Women for Peace and Fairness is a movement inspired by the post-election violence that rocked East Africa’s ‘oasis of stability’ in December and January 2007/8. Formed in response to the police brutality, the group works to quell ethnic tensions in Kiberia slums, which were a hot-spot during the violence.
Justice seems to be finding its way through traditional African institutions as well as through international bodies.
Rwanda, through the communal gacaca courts, has successfully tried the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide which left almost a million die in 100 days. The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, based in Arusha, Tanzanie, is due to wrap up this year and has to date convicted 34, acquitted six and is still trying 23 people in relation to the genocide. Among the penalties was a life sentence for Theoneste Bogosora, then Director of Cabinet in Rwanda’s Ministry of Defense and mastermind behind the genocide.
The International Criminal Court has paved the way for justice through the indictment and arrest warrants issued for the LRA’s Joseph Kony, CNDD’s Laurent Nkunda and the Sudanese President Al-Bashir – the first time a sitting head of state has been indicted. All three are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, putting aspiring warlords on notice that they are not beyond the law.
Human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have put African issues on the world agenda through research, reporting and bringing the world spotlight to bear on the darkest corners of abuse. The plight of individuals, communities and entire nations has been highlighted and there have been some major outcomes from their advocacy, such as the UN’s decision to send peacekeeping forces into Sudan and the June 2008 UN classification of rape as a tactic of war.
Many African countries are signatories to UN human rights agreements and the rest of the world must continue to put pressure on African governments to honor these commitments.
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