FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1998 All Rights Reserved.
| VIEWPOINT Presidential woes and financial disaster are hypnotizing the industrialized world. Relegated to the back of the newspapers, however, two developing stories that affect millions of people are left unanalyzed, unfit for Western consumption. In Central Africa, the Congo has become the focal point for the problems of Angola, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda. In Afghanistan, the ongoing power struggle over this keystone state between Russia, Iran, India and Pakistan is escalating into a regional conflict. These two regions could be on the brink of prolonged wars that would create international ripples big enough to make the Asian flu look like a mild cold. First it was Rwanda, then Burundi, now the Congo is the focus of the central African ethnic conflict between Hutu and Tutsi tribal members. The world was shocked by the grotesque violence that broke out in Rwanda and Burundi in 1994. The aftershocks are still being felt in the region, but the danger facing the area today is growing beyond the ethnic conflict that defines Central African society and its governments. Laurent Kabila overthrew the ailing Mobutu Sese Seko to take over the Congo 14 months ago. Even though Kabila was called a revolutionary leader, it was not a revolution. Kabila's vague prescriptions for reform have not resulted in any changes. Now Kabila is threatened by another indistinct collection of "revolutionaries" with no ideology and no plan. Supported by Uganda and Rwanda, but lacking any broad support from the Congolese, the rebels made rapid headway against Kabila's poorly equipped army over the summer. The two countries are backing the rebels in the hope of controlling the areas within the Congo that their own rebels use as bases. The plan unraveled only weeks ago when Angola and Namibia gave Kabila troops and planes. The rebels were forced back to eastern Congo. While the reason for Namibia's intervention is unclear, Angola's involvement stems from a desire for control over the areas of the Congo used by their UNITA rebels. All the parties involved, except the rebels, have met on numerous occasions in the last few weeks in an effort to control the expanding conflict. The talks have failed to produce any kind of agreement. Any agreement would have to be viewed with suspicion due to the instability of the governments involved. No one agreement can settle the tensions that have washed over this region in the last five years. Instability is all Afghanis have experienced for the last two decades. Truly a pawn in the game of Cold War power politics, the recent U.S. cruise missile attack simply reinforces the view that Afghanistan is a plaything in others' political games. A government which is hard to love, the fundamentalist Taliban, with considerable help from Pakistan, is the first to bring the entire country under its control since before the Russians invaded in 1980. During their conquest, the Taliban made a few enemies. One of them is their populous neighbor to the south, Iran. The Taliban captured a number of Iranian military advisors - Iran calls them diplomats - when it captured the last of its opposition's strongholds. The Taliban are Sunni Muslims, and Iran, governed by Shiite Muslims, had been providing military support to the Shiite minority in Afghanistan. In response, Iran has moved at least 200,000 troops to its border with Afghanistan. So far, Pakistan's reaction to Iran's overtures remains unreported, but it has invested millions into Afghanistan and considers the country a part of its sphere of influence. On the sidelines, anything that affects Pakistan is of interest to India, and, in light of the recent nuclear breast-beating exercises India may be looking for a Pakistani weakness to exploit. Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have always been paranoid about Afghanistan exporting Islamic fundamentalism. With the Taliban in power, that fear has grown larger. Neither conflict has started, but each region has all the required ingredients for the kind of wars that create millions of victims and no winners. Numerous weapons have been poured into these areas in the past few decades, the disagreements are long-standing, each area has weak governments with nothing to lose, and the rest of world is distracted by the financial crisis and the debate over impeachment. |