While the this Administration's attention, like many before it, is not necessarily focused on sub-Saharan Africa, our Government is nonetheless spending plenty of time and money watching all the developments across the sub-continent, dispatching peace missions to war-torn regions and evacuating Americans from numerous African countries in crisis, if not at war. Here is an overview of some of the ongoing crises with which the foreign policy, national security and intelligence communities have been wrestling over the past year. Situations in Africa move remarkably rapidly sometimes so some of the descriptions of political and military situations in various African countries will have changed by the time this goes to press.
West Africa is beset by crisis. There have been so many evacuations of all Americans or ordered departures of official Americans over the past year or so that we've probably lost track. Sierra Leone remains a country at war between a dubiously elected president supported principally by Nigerian forces and rebels who are committing atrocities we have only just seen in Rwanda in 1994, though not on as large a scale. In Guinea-Bissau the President, who has been supported by the Senegalese, appears to be just coming to terms with his former army commander who had rebelled against him and causing several months of conflict within this small country. Liberia purportedly achieved democracy with the election in 1997 of former warlord Charles Taylor as President. However, in reality Taylor's ensuing autocratic rule has prevented any semblance of democratic and economic development in that war-torn country. On a brighter note Nigeria just had national elections after many years of despotic military rule and newly elected President Obasanjo is due to be inaugurated on 29 May. While it remains to be seen how long the military will allow this former general to lead his country in the democratization process, there is greater hope for Africa's largest country than ever before. There are other smaller crises and relative success stories -- like Ghana -- but space precludes recounting them all.
Central Africa is a region at war and perpetual crisis. There are no less than eight southern and central African countries involved in the ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DROC) as well as an assortment of rebel and insurgent groups with differing agendas. Little progress is being made towards bringing the combatants to the bargaining table and the Congolese war has the potential, according to some analysts, to absorb an even greater number of African players. Meanwhile an insurgency has once again arisen in DROC's western neighbor -- the Republic of Congo. Apart from Angola which already had troops stationed in what is also called Congo-Brazzaville, the ongoing conflict in that country has not spilled over yet into the DROC. However the potential exists. Then in the Central African Republic (CAR), the UN has deployed peacekeepers for an indefinite period. Of course ongoing insurgencies in both Uganda and Rwanda have repercussions on the degree to which those countries support the Congolese rebels in the DROC. Arguably the central African region is the most conflict-ridden in sub-Saharan Africa right now.
Southern Africa's relative stability since the end of apartheid in South Africa has been shattered by both the DROC conflict and the resumption of open and larger hostilities within Angola between the government and the principal rebel movement -- the Union for the Independence of Angola or UNITA. Since both Angola and DROC are members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), one of Africa's most successful regional groupings, the SADC countries have been embroiled in both conflicts to varying degrees. The conflicts portend a negative impact on business as usual for that regional economic organization. Then there is internal political, economic and social turbulence in normally calm Zimbabwe which may threaten the nineteen years of relative stability in that country as well as its leader -- Robert Mugabe -- and his regime. South Africa is fast approaching its second set of elections in its post-apartheid era without the benefit of the stature of its great statesman and current President -- Nelson Mandela. Recent political violence exacerbates an already significantly violent crime rate and less than hoped for economic development. Southern Africa and all its potential for stability and leadership of the rest of the sub-continent is clearly being rocked back on its heels by both international conflict and internal difficulties within its most significant member countries.
Eastern Africa has not been spared the trials and travails of the rest of sub-Saharan Africa. A border war broke out in May 1998 between two friends -- Ethiopia and Eritrea -- over some real estate. That conflict unfortunately has continued into 1999 with little success envisioned at the bargaining table despite the best efforts of the USA and several others. The "E" War (for lack of a better term) has also generated some negative regional implications in feudal Somalia and Sudan, where the Islamic-oriented Khartoum Government has been battling the more Christian and animist southern rebel groups for 15 years now. Kenya continues to be beset by a number of internal political and economic difficulties with which the Moi regime continues to wrestle. And one of Africa's poorest countries, Tanzania, continues to deal with its myriad political and economic problems while hosting the Rwandan genocide trials and efforts to somehow resolve the ethnic conflict that has been going on in Burundi for a number of years.
I have done an injustice in attempting to cover the turmoil in sub-Saharan Africa in such a brief manner. Having set the stage, what I hope to do is generate some discussion of these issues and events primarily with our African foreign area officers serving with great distinction as attaches and security assistance officers in a number of these countries about which I have written so briefly.