The Congo -
It Is Not Africa's First World War -
It Is
Tribalism
By JONATHAN POWER
LONDON - When the United Nations pulled its troops out of
the Congo in June 1964 Secretary General U Thant reported
"The UN cannot permanently protect the Congo from internal
tensions and disturbances created by its own organic growth
towards unity and nationhood". That was some kind of relief
after a peacekeeping operation that nearly tore apart the UN
and claimed the life of U Thant's predecessor, Dag
Hammerskjold. Yet the UN did bring a measure of peace to the
Congo in the sense that it ended a civil war fought over the
succession of the mineral rich province of Katanga and
provided an alternative to what was in danger of becoming an
East-West grab for influence that threatened to turn the
Congo into a major Cold War battleground.
Once again the Congo has become a maelstrom. Susan Rice,
the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Africa, warns that
the fighting might become the continent's "first world war",
as Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola and Chad pitch in on the side
of the beleaguered president, Laurent Kabila, and Rwanda and
Uganda support the rebels. This is high exaggeration. Either
Ma Rice has no idea of the carnage and political
disequilibrium delivered to the world by the First World War
or she believes that it is necessary to hype a mainly
guerrilla war, with so far fairly limited casualties, to
engage our attention.
It is true that neighbourly intervention on the opposing
sides is of a different order than in the past, but it's
happened before, most spectacularly Tanzania sending its
army to help depose dictator Idi Amin in Uganda. And the
Congo is a very big country with many neighbours. Moreover,
the military intervention that would really count, that of
Nigeria and South Africa, is not on the cards.
No, what should worry us not that it's going to become
Africa's first world war, but rather (pace Stokely
Carmichael) how does Africa get to grips with its age old
problem of tribalism, that has produced war for centuries
and, given the artificial state boundaries bequeathed by the
colonial powers, is now the possessor of a built-in recipe
for continuing conflict?
The genocide in Rwanda was African tribalism in its most
extravagant form. In the Congo it has not come to that.
Indeed, under strong man, the late Mobuto Sese Seko, who
laid the country economically bare, it was reasonably
quiescent, such were his extraordinary powers of
manipulation and political balance. Only in the final effort
to bring him down were tribal fault lines played upon
successfully by the contenders for power, as they are doing
again right now, turning the tribal tables on Kabila.
But if we are going to discuss the problems and pitfalls
of tribalism we must first understand its strengths. If it
is the gunpowder that can blow peoples apart it is also the
glue that holds ordinary society together. It lives and
breathes in everyday life. In ordinary village (and in much
urban) life tribalism operates like free-masonry or the old
school tie: helping each other along with jobs and
introductions, sharing the burden of harvest, resolving
disputes, whether matrimonial or material and, not least,
fashioning art and music in a distinctive form. It is only
when these virtues mutate into a virulent, spare-no-quarter
contagion, that the wrong tribal scar or nose shape becomes
a death warrant.
It is now a truism that the old colonial boundaries
ignored the mosaic of tribal loyalties. But what is done is
not easily undone, as the first post-independence leaders
recognised with their writing into the charter of the
Organisation of African Unity, the sanctity of these
boundaries. But even if Africa is not to be broken down into
its 800 tribal constituencies some reform of these
boundaries is obviously necessary.
It can be done by amicable divorce, as Ethiopia showed.
After the overthrow of dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam the
Eritreans went their own way, with the most civilized of
transitions. There was a referendum, there was a pause for
reflection and then both sides agreed on a timetable for
separation. (Admittedly, six years on they nonetheless had a
border dispute.)
There are really two choices for those parts of Africa
beseiged by tribal conflict--and that goes for Rwanda,
Nigeria, the Sudan or Angola as much as it does for the
Congo. To start a civilized divorce, if necessary with help
from neutral outsiders. Or to build a federal democratic
state, as South Africa has done. The day when the strongman
can hold sway from the centre, whether he be malign like
Mobuto or benign like former Tanzanian president Julius
Nverere is obviously over. Every foreign investor of
worth--apart from the giant, well padded, oil and mineral
companies--knows such systems will end in disaster and will
always think more than twice before risking a major
investment.
This is what U Thant's "organic growth" must be about for
the Congo. Is Africa prepared to ask the UN to re-involve
itself in the Congo to help bring this about? The present
free for all by its immediate neighbours is guaranteed to
solve nothing.
November 18, 1998
Copyright © 1998 By JONATHAN POWER
Note: I can be reached by phone +44 385 351172 and
e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
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