http://www.boston.com/dailynews/141/world/In_Africa_Powell_visits_contin:.shtml

In Africa, Powell visits continent with half the world's wars

By Todd Pitman, Associated Press, 5/21/2001 04:43

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) Millions dead. Millions displaced. Millions faced with famine. These are some of the realities of life on a continent torn by war.

Secretary of State Colin Powell will see other realities beginning Tuesday on his tour of Mali, South Africa, Kenya and Uganda four nations that have claims to democracy and stability in line with what the Bush administration says is its plan to promote the positive in Africa.

Much of Powell's trip will focus on the specter of AIDS, which has devastated the lives of millions of Africans. But the specter of violence, which has haunted Africa for decades, has been equally catastrophic.

More than half the world's conflicts are being fought in Africa, which as a result is also home to a third of the world's refugees.

Wars either between states or within them have flared in more than a dozen African countries: Angola, Burundi, Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia.

Other countries, including once-peaceful Ivory Coast, have been wracked by attempted coups, ethnic violence and tensions within their armies that threaten to add them to the list.

''This is a continent deep in crisis and in decline,'' said Stephen Morrison, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. ''There's been some progress, but the overall picture is not pretty.''

Some wars have dragged on for years with no end in sight. Rebels in Angola have fought for 26 years, rebels in Sudan for 18. Somalia has been in a virtual state of anarchy for a decade. Burundi's civil war has ground on for eight years.

In West Africa, a simmering conflict along the borders of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea has intensified in recent months, threatening a new, all-out war.

''Bloodshed is liable to be a reality in Africa for the next 50 years,'' said Tim Bork, director of the Carnegie Endowment's Africa Policy Initiative. ''Given the length of time that these countries have been independent ... it's unrealistic to expect too much more.''

Most African countries gained independence only in the early 1960s, and economic growth vital to stability has been slow or nonexistent.

In countries where soldiers and civil servants are often not paid and corruption is rife, incentives are plentiful for politicians and military leaders to take power by force.

Powerful Western countries, faced with risking their own troops or money in Africa, have been reluctant to get directly involved in peacekeeping.

In Mali, Powell is expected to visit local troops that are part of the U.S.-backed African Crisis Response Initiative.

The United States, criticized for its slowness to act during Rwanda's 1994 genocide, set up the program in 1996 with the goal of training 10 to 12 African battalions for peacekeeping. So far, Washington's hands-off peacekeeping program has failed to make much of an impact.

Not all the news is bad.

Hostilities between Ethiopia and Eritrea, estimated to have cost 100,000 lives and $1 billion, have ended under a year-old, U.N.-monitored peace accord.

Prospects for peace in Congo, where a 2½-year-old war has drawn in the armies of at six African nations, have gained momentum since Joseph Kabila inherited power from his assassinated father, Laurent, in January.

In Sierra Leone, fighting also has eased. Rebels, who signed a cease-fire with the government in November, ventured into the capital, Freetown, last week to talk peace and discuss disarmament.

The United Nations, after failing to keep the peace in Somalia and Rwanda in the early 1990s, has begun or boosted several peacekeeping missions.

About 4,200 U.N. soldiers have deployed along the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Several thousand peacekeepers are fanning out across Congo. The U.N. mission in Sierra Leone, already the world's largest at 12,000 men, is to expand soon to more than 17,000.

Bork added that the entire continent isn't ridden by hostile environments, despite how it often seems from outside. Many capitals are full of cell phones, Internet cafes, art shows, skyscrapers and peace.

''It's true a lot of people live in environments where there are conflicts,'' Bork said. ''But I think one has to take it objectively and realize that 80 percent of the continent isn't.''

-- Anonymous, May 21, 2001