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Uneven Record on Africa
Merely for the record, the Peace Accord that was signed in Lome between the warring parties of Sierra Leone was brokered by African countries themselves and not by so called Western nations. The U S was represented by the Rev. Jessie Jackson, who most time than not was seen as not informed by most Sierra Leoneans.
In my view, the Western nations only contributed for the failure by not giving Sierra Leone the importance that was afforded to a country like Kosovo. It was stated that Sierra Leone's problem was an African one and had to be resolved in Africa. I had a sinister feeling that Sierra Leone was treated worse than a maid, only to be see out through the back yard! I know this of fact because I had tried to offer Malta as a venue to the warring parties where peace talks could have been carried out like in the case of Zimbabwe, and also the Bush/Gorbashov summit which ended here in bug success.
The fact that Malta was not chosen, in my view, was because the warring parties gave in to the pressures of the Western nations' 'impositions'. History, in time, will give us the real truth. If you say that the Peace Accord timing was ill timed, as the parties were not ready for peace, would they be ready for peace only when diamond mines would become completely exhausted? I wonder!
J. A. Dougall. Honorary Consul for Sierra Leone in Malta. Wicklow9@aol.com wrote: Thursday, August 24, 2000
Uneven Record on Africa
President Clinton deserves much credit for putting Africa on the map of U.S. foreign policy. He has pushed for an international plan to write off the poorest countries' debt and battled for legislation to open U.S. markets to African imports. He went to Africa in 1998 and is going again this weekend. The president has some unfinished business there. The administration has a decidedly mixed record in trying to broker peace agreements to settle civil wars on the continent.
Clinton now is repeating his past mistakes, this time by prevailing on Burundi's Hutu rebels and its Tutsi-dominated army to sign a peace accord during his visit. The 7-year-old civil war in East Africa has claimed more than 200,000 lives and displaced more than 1.2 million people, but the warring factions are not ready to agree to a cease-fire, much less sign a peace deal.
As Angola, Congo and Sierra Leone in recent history clearly show, peace agreements before their time only raise false hopes and legitimize anti-government insurgencies. The benefits of Clinton's economic policies toward Africa will not be seen until the International Monetary Fund's debt forgiveness plan is implemented, the trade bill takes effect and contributions from foreign nations start filling up the newly created World Bank trust fund to help battle AIDS.
In a significant new focus for Washington, the administration has also placed heavy emphasis on development in Africa, recognizing that reforming national economies, such as Nigeria's, can create markets in which U.S. companies can find business. That's better that the old, ineffective practice of pouring in aid, and the overall effect is to offer greater economic cooperation with countries that make progress on democracy and economic reforms.
It is,
regrettably, on the political front that the administration has shown
the same mixture of expediency and naivete that marked its Cold War predecessors.
It brokered a peace agreement in Sierra Leone that allowed a tin-pot warlord
to carry on his murderous anti-government campaign and backed a peace
deal for Congo that has done nothing to diminish the violence. Now it
is doing it again in Burundi, pushing the warring parties into a peace
agreement neither side wants. Ironically, to make room for Monday's signing
ceremony in A Arusha,Tanzania, the staff of the international court set
up to punish men convicted of atrocities in Rwanda is being kicked out
of the premises, a bad omen on an often star-crossed continent.
Copyright 2000 Los Angeles Times
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