|
Algeria
Angola
Benin
Botswana
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cameroon
Cape Verde
Central Afr. Rep.
Chad
Comoros
Congo (Brazzaville)
Congo (Kinshasa)
C�te d'Ivoire
Djibouti
Egypt
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Gabon
Gambia
Ghana
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Kenya
Lesotho
Liberia
Libya
Madagascar
Malawi
Mali
Mauritania
Mauritius
Morocco
Mozambique
Namibia
Niger
Nigeria
Rwanda
São Tomé
Senegal
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Somalia
South Africa
South Sudan
Sudan
Swaziland
Tanzania
Togo
Tunisia
Uganda
Western Sahara
Zambia
Zimbabwe
|
Get AfricaFocus Bulletin by e-mail!
Print this page
|
Note: This document is from the archive of the Africa Policy E-Journal, published
by the Africa Policy Information Center (APIC) from 1995 to 2001 and by Africa Action
from 2001 to 2003. APIC was merged into Africa Action in 2001. Please note that many outdated links in this archived
document may not work.
|
Zaire: Oxfam International Statement
Any links to other sites in this file from 1996 are not clickable,
given the difficulty in maintaining up-to-date links in old files.
However, we hope they may still provide leads for your research.
Zaire: Oxfam International Statement
Date Distributed (ymd): 961105
Document provided by ReliefWeb
--------------------------------------------------------------
The Crisis in Eastern Zaire
For further information please contact Justin Forsyth or Quynh
Tran at Tel: (202) 783-3331; E-mail: [email protected].
Oxfam International
Position Paper
The Crisis in Eastern Zaire
November 4, 1996
Background
A human catastrophe is unfolding in eastern Zaire where up to
a million Rwandan and Burundian refugees and Zairians have
fled intensive fighting. These people are without protection,
food, shelter or water, and may be joined soon by an even
greater number if the war continues. Women are especially
vulnerable to the present violence and insecurity. Despite the
enormity of the tragedy in Eastern Zaire, it is only one
aspect of a wider crisis of poverty, suffering and insecurity
across Central Africa. There is imminent danger of a wider war
unless the regional governments and rebel movements, with
decisive assistance from the international community, act to
reduce tensions and attack the root causes of the conflict.
Along with the International Red Cross, Oxfam has evacuated
from Bukavu, South Kivu, as the fighting is preventing any
relief work. The lack of humanitarian activity and
particularly the absence of the Red Cross leaves the people of
this region without any form of protection. No humanitarian
agencies have received replies to demands for guarantees of
security and access to vulnerable populations. Aid agencies
have lost contact with over a half million refugees. In North
Kivu, the UNHCR has reported that 715,000 refugees in the
region have fled westward as Tutsi rebels have taken over the
town of Goma.
Oxfam is painfully aware that the situation across the region
is extremely complex, and that no simple solutions to the
crisis exist. However, the scale of the unfolding suffering
demands a rapid but considered response. This short briefing
outlines what, from our experience across the region, we
believe are the urgent steps which need to be taken to
re-establish protection and humanitarian assistance for the
victims of violence. The briefing also suggests ways in which
the root causes of the crisis across the region have to be
addressed if attempts are to be made to avert a far greater
human calamity. Our Ability to Meet Humanitarian Needs
(Access) There are an estimated 700,000 people displaced by
the current fighting. There is now genuine concern that over
one million lives are at risk.
Policy Recommendations:
- UN Special Envoy Chretien with the backing of the UN and OAU
should undertake immediate negotiations with all parties to
the conflict including the Zairian government and army, the
Zairian provincial authorities, and the Banyamulenge and
Banyarwanda, to establish a ceasefire, security for
humanitarian activity in the region and safe corridors to help
with the delivery of aid and the voluntary repatriation of
refugees. All efforts should be made to convince the parties
to the conflict of the need to uphold the Geneva Convention,
and crucially to guarantee full access of the ICRC to assist
the victims of war.
- Currently the Zairians displaced in North and South Kivu
have no assistance or protection. The UN Secretary General
must extend the mandate of the UNHCR to cover the displaced
Zairian people who are suffering alongside refugees in Eastern
Zaire.
- To ensure humanitarian efforts are effective, the UN
Secretary General should appoint a regional humanitarian
coordinator, with a strong support team, to guarantee the
collaboration and coordination of humanitarian activities to
maximize its benefit for the victims of violence. The regional
humanitarian coordinator should coordinate with the UN Special
Envoy to ensure humanitarian assistance is a part of a wider
political strategy.
The Primacy of a Regional Political Settlement
The international policy vacuum which exists around the Great
Lakes region is a major contributor to the current crisis.
Humanitarian aid has masked the systematic neglect of the
international community to assist the regional governments in
reaching a regional political settlement. Oxfam has long
advocated sustained and concerted action by the international
community to promote a political settlement between the
governments of the region. We have been persistently
disappointed with the response.
While the governments of the region made dramatic progress on
preventing an escalation of the crisis in Burundi, they now
face the momentous task of creating a long term regional
political settlement which will have to address the underlying
causes of the region's instability including:
- The need for justice and an end to impunity in the aftermath
of genocide and atrocities across the region. This will
include strengthening the Rwandan judicial system and the
International Tribunal.
- Tackling poverty through economic rehabilitation and
regeneration as a first step to returning security and a
livelihood to the people's of the region.
- Dealing with repatriation as a political issue requiring the
arrest of the authors of genocide and the intimidators of
refugees in the camps, funds for secure repatriation and an
acceptance that a small number of refugees may never return.
- Developing regional agreements on nationality, citizenship,
residence status and economic migration which is a permanent
feature of the region.
- Moving to prevent the build up of arms and the tolerance, by
governments, of bases of armed organizations determined to
destabilise neighboring territories.
- Building responsive and accountable governments which reject
the traditional politics of exclusion and seeks to represent
the whole of society including the interests of minorities.
- Maintaining emergency preparedness and humanitarian
assistance and protection of people's basic rights.
(For further details see Rwanda: Never Again, The Search for
Durable Solutions in the Great Lakes Region, Oxfam
International, April 1996).
Reaching a regional political settlement becomes ever more
urgent as the threat of further political disintegration
increases, and with it, identifiable and credible negotiators.
Policy Recommendations:
- The UN and OAU should use all the diplomatic opportunities
available to them to support Ambassador Chretien, the new UN
special envoy, to assist the parties to the current conflict
to achieve an end to the fighting and to assist governments of
the region to establish a process to reach a regional
political settlement over the next year.
- The UN and OAU must make a public commitment to provide the
resources and political will to sustain their cooperation and
collaboration with this negotiation over the next year, and
the implementation of the negotiated settlement well into the
next decade. Without the security of long term cooperation by
the international community there can be no hope of sustaining
the slow and arduous climb back from calamity in the region.
- The momentum built by the regional governments for dialogue
between all political parties in Burundi must be maintained
and supported by the international community. This process not
only represents a vital precedent of regional political
cooperation for mutual security, but also, if successful will
take considerable pressure off eastern Zaire where currently
Burundian armed opposition operate.
The Role of Development Assistance and Donors This latest war
is a further indication that economic and developmental
assistance to the region will only be effective and
sustainable if it assists a regional political settlement.
Donors must act in concert to design their co-operation to
encourage regional actors to find a negotiated regional
political settlement.
Policy Recommendations:
- Call an urgent conference of donors, with the OAU, to
establish common goals and strategies for assistance to design
programmes which promote a regional political settlement
between the governments in the Great Lakes. Aid and trade
cooperation should be designed to promote a common material
interest in stability and conflict resolution in the region.
- The principle donors should instruct their executive
directors to the IMF and World Bank to seek an approach by
these two institutions which is coherent with donors' common
strategy to promote a regional political settlement.
Plans for Repatriation
Although, at this time, there is every indication that Rwandan
refugees in Zaire are not repatriating even when they are
caught in intense fighting and have no access to humanitarian
relief supplies, it is important the international community
provides every opportunity for them to return to Rwanda. The
establishment of a cease-fire and safe corridors will be
important in doing this.
Policy Recommendation:
- Establish safe corridors for refugee return. Help break the
hold of the former regime on the refugees by detaining those
implicated in the genocide. In addition it will be important
to ensure the refugees have access to accurate information
about their home communities, and funds are provided for
rehabilitation and reconstruction in Rwanda to create the
conditions for return.
************************************************************
This material is being reposted for wider distribution by the
Africa Policy Information Center (APIC), the educational
affiliate of the Washington Office on Africa. APIC's primary
objective is to widen the policy debate in the United States
around African issues and the U.S. role in Africa, by
concentrating on providing accessible policy-relevant
information and analysis usable by a wide range of groups and
individuals.
************************************************************
|
