A Continent of Endless Strife

When the Cold War ended a decade ago, many analysts hoped--and predicted--that it would usher in a new, more peaceful era in Africa. Without the superpowers vying to spark and fuel proxy wars, the opportunity arose to greatly reduce the number of deadly conflicts on the continent and enable Africans to focus, at last, on the challenges of development and democratization. But a staggering 7 million to 8 million casualties later, there are more armed conflicts underway in Africa than anywhere else in the world. Nowhere is the clash between past hopes and current realities more evident than in Angola.

Since the blood bath in Rwanda in 1994, when the world watched from the sidelines as roughly 800,000 men, women and children were massacred, the Clinton administration has endeavored to find ways to address the general problem of conflict in Africa. In 1997, it launched the African Crisis Response Initiative, which seeks to train Africa’s militaries to respond to humanitarian crises on the continent. In a major shift from the Angola policy it inherited in 1992, the administration is working to improve bilateral relations with the government in Luanda, Angola’s capital, and cut off arms supplies to rebels led by Jonas Savimbi. But these moves are essentially Band-Aids, worthwhile but meager efforts managed by middle-level bureaucrats. Facing up to the real depth and complexity of the Africa challenge will require much more.

The main problem with the African Crisis Response Initiative is that it comes far too late to have any impact on the continent’s bloodiest wars. A few battalions of newly trained peacekeepers may make a difference in a situation in which, as is possibly the case in Sierra Leone, the parties have exhausted themselves and want to drop their guns in exchange for a share of power. But it’s not going to make a real difference in Burundi, where the death toll is now climbing; in the Congo, where a fragile peace accord seems to be on the verge of collapse; in the Sudan, now in its 16th year of conflict; in Somalia, where there is no longer a government; or in Angola.

Seven years ago, when President Bill Clinton took office, a decisive commitment to back the government in Luanda and give a U.N. peacekeeping operation the wherewithal to disarm Savimbi’s National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) could have been justified and might have succeeded. Today, it is highly doubtful that the United States or any other international actor would be willing to commit the resources necessary to tilt the military balance on the ground, once and for all, in favor of the Angolan government. Nor is it clear, given the narrowing political base of support for the government, that doing so could be justified.

The conflict in Angola, which began 25 years ago when Moscow and Washington decided to use a struggle for power in the then-about-to-be-independent Portuguese colony as a test of their mutual resolve, has become, in the words of one editorial writer, an “absurd war.” While the world has undergone an epochal transformation, the combatants in Angola have remained the same. But the appeal of both UNITA and the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) has been greatly tarnished as they have gone from rivals fighting in a common struggle to liberate their countrymen from Portuguese colonialism, to foot soldiers in a global battle between communism and capitalism, to principle-less cliques fighting for personal power.

Unfortunately, this is the case in most of Africa’s seemingly endless wars. While, as in Burundi and Rwanda, ethnic divisions are tailor-made for exploitation by opportunistic politicians and warriors, the real problem is a lack of institutional order that can prevent ambitious thugs from taking advantage of circumstances that are, in many cases, close to anarchy.

If the United States and the international community were truly determined to end the wars ravaging Africa, they would have two options: One is to create an African intervention force that would be prepared to go into places such as Angola, Burundi, Congo and Somalia and impose order. But this isn’t going to happen. African leaders will not support such a force, and the international community will not provide the resources and troops necessary for it to succeed.

The second option is to pick sides in each of the conflicts and give the least unappealing of the rivals the military wherewithal to win a decisive victory. That is more likely to happen, but in an era in which the “peaceful resolution of conflict” has become an international mantra, few governments, and certainly not the United Nations, will openly adopt such a policy. What, then, are the alternatives?

The United States and the international community should be prepared to undertake humanitarian interventions when large numbers of civilians are immediately threatened, when African governments request and play a leading role in the effort and when there is a reasonable expectation that the intervention will succeed. In light of the missions in the Balkans and East Timor, the failure of the international community to adopt such a policy for Africa would represent a clear and difficult to justify double standard.

But this criteria would offer no guidance in cases like Angola, where there is no reasonable basis to believe that international intervention would achieve any desirable objective in a timely manner. In situations like Angola, the United States should distance itself from both rivals to power, develop initiatives to hold them responsible for human-rights abuses and diminish their financial ability to wage war. Unless the administration is prepared to intervene decisively on behalf of the Luanda government and use the resulting leverage to force the government to adopt reforms, it should stand clear of the situation. Otherwise, it would encourage Luanda to seek a military victory, which would only mean more civilian casualties.

The administration should thus make it clear to the Angolan government that the United States will not provide any economic or other assistance as long as it takes the offensive against UNITA. At the same time, the United States should work with the United Nations to develop and implement a strategy to indict and prosecute individuals and companies doing business in violation of U.N. sanctions against UNITA; it should also consider taking punitive military actions against Savimbi if he widens the war. Finally, it should convene an international conference of donors and independent-sector organizations to fashion a long-term strategy to directly assist nongovernmental organizations in Angola.

These actions probably would not end the war in Angola any time soon. But they might reduce the fighting in the Angolan countryside, which, coupled with a nongovernmental aid program, would provide some relief to noncombatants. By channeling resources through the independent sector, a base within civil society could be built, which might produce leaders deserving of international support. If nothing else, by openly questioning the premise that the U.S. has a policy to end this absurd war, U.S. officials might have to come up with a real alternative.