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Inside Africa

Ongoing Conflicts in Somalia, Western Sahara

Aired August 18, 2007 - 12:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

FEMI OKE, HOST: Hello, I'm Femi Oke. This is INSIDE AFRICA, your weekly at life and issues on the continent. Today, we're going to have a closer look at two ongoing conflicts that have resurfaced in the headlines this week. One is the more than three-decade long dispute of a territory in the Western Sahara, a dispute which still seems no closer to resolution at the last week's U.N.-led talks. The other is the situation in Somalia. A newly released report charges all parties involved in the armed conflict with war crimes and violations of the rules of war. Tim Lister has more.
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TIM LISTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's a familiar story in the Horn of Africa -- a violent power struggle causes massive suffering among an already vulnerable civilian population. Human Rights Watch says all sides in Mogadishu -- the insurgents, Somali government forces, and the Ethiopian army -- have shown criminal disregard for civilians.

This was some of the heavy fighting that tore the Somali capital apart back in March and April, killing hundreds of civilians and forcing nearly 400,000 to flee, one-third of the city's population.

The Human Rights Watch says the insurgents deliberately based themselves in densely populated areas and used indiscriminant fire. It accuses the Ethiopians of shelling crowded areas of Mogadishu and targeting hospitals, looting them of medical equipment. Somali government forces are also accused of looting.

STEVE CRAWSHAW, ADVOCACY DIR., HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: Sadly, the word has completely ignored what's been happening in Somali. We hope that our report will help to change that. Horrendous crimes being committed against civilians by all the parties there. In other words, the rebels, the transitional government and the Ethiopian government forces, who have really had a free pass to do what they will.

LISTER: Somalia's interim prime minister says the report is one- sided.

ALI MOHAMED GEDI, SOMALIA INTERIM PRIME MINISTER: We don't request of them to hide what the government is doing, whether good or bad. But they're always focusing on the negative aspect, and they're trying (inaudible) to criticize the government.

LISTER: Ethiopia also rejects the report alleging, "No effort was made by Human Rights Watch to reach anyone at any time. Ethiopian troops actually have an excellent reputation for discipline." It says the report is "... factually and morally unacceptable. It suffers from numerous errors, displays seriously partial attitudes, demonstrated dangerously flawed motives."

Human Rights Watch also takes aim at the U.N. Security Council, which, it says, "stood by while Somalia suffered."

BAN KI-MOON, U.N. SECRETARY GENERAL: Of course, the situation in Somalia is high on my priority agenda.

LISTER: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says he's committed to strengthening the peacekeeping presence in Somalia, currently a small Ugandan force. For now ...

PASCAL GAYAMA, PRESIDENT, U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL: That country, we're pledged - we are ready to provide troops (inaudible) no means for that.

LISTER: For means, read money. The original plan was that the Ethiopians would gradually withdraw to be replaced by an 8,000-strong African Union force. The Ethiopians are still very much in Somalia, targets for an Islamic insurgency, which is becoming more sophisticated. And the violence continues unabated. Among the latest victims, two prominent journalists. Their assailants unknown and unlikely ever to be found.

Tim Lister, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OKE: For more on the findings of the report, I spoke earlier with Iain Levine, program director with Human Rights Watch. I asked him how they put the report together.

IAIN LEVINE, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: The critical and the most -- single most important way of telling the story and gathering the story and understanding the story is through talking to people who've been involved. Victims and witnesses of human rights violations, others who may have been around -- journalists, aid officials -- and then we complement that by looking at data than can help us corroborate information. We look at morgue records, hospital records. There may be pictures, satellite pictures, other kinds of photo or video evidence that allows us to piece together all the different elements of the story and tell in the most objective and meticulously accurate way.

OKE: Your headline for this report was basically all sides of the conflict are war criminals. What do you mean by that?

LEVINE: Well, what we found in the work that we did, in Mogadishu and more broadly in Somalia was that the violence that took place there earlier this year in Mogadishu -- and continues to this day, I should add -- that there were appalling violations of human rights and the laws of war by all those involved in the violence -- the Ethiopian government, the transitional federal government of Somalia, and the insurgent groups. All of them recklessly endangered civilians, fired on civilians and civilian objects, used weapons indiscriminately, and more generally, were involved in a whole series of crimes against -- against individuals, against civilians.

There is a saying in East Africa that when two elephants fight, it's the grass that suffers, and it certainly seems to be the case in Somalia.

OKE: This is incredible emotional material, but who's going to care? And who are you writing the report for?

LEVINE: Well, we're writing the report for a lot of different people. We're obviously writing a report for the people of Somalia, to show them that the world does care about what's happening, that the world is not entirely indifferent to their suffering, and that there are those who will try and mobilize, both within Somalia and outside, to help ensure their protection.

OKE: If you have a situation of chaos, where civilians come under attack, how can any of your recommendations to any of the warring parties actually be implemented?

LEVINE: Our recommendations are always based on the laws of war, and the laws of war do not stop you fighting. The critical issue is that there are limits to the way in which you can fight your war. There are humane standards that have been long established and are widely accepted around the world that tell you how you can fight your war in a way that does not cause civilians, women, children to be killed, to be forcibly displaced, to be injured, to be deliberately targeted. And what we're saying to the warring parties in Somalia is if you insist on having your war, you may do so. Human Rights Watch does not tell people not to go to war, but what we do say is, there are humane and humane ways of fighting war, and in the case of Somalia at the moment, the inhumane ways are those which are predominating. And that has to stop.

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OKE: And that was Iain Levine with Human Rights Watch, speaking to us from New York.

When INSIDE AFRICA returns, more than 30 years of conflict and still no resolution. We take a closer look at the situation in the Western Sahara. Stay with us.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The crisis in Zimbabwe featured high on the agenda at the Southern African Development Community met this week in the Zambian capital of Lusaka. Zimbabwe is one of the organization's four team member nations. The main focus of the nearly three-decade old organization is political, social and economic development. Zambia, which assumed this year's chairmanship of SADC, also called on the organization to double efforts to achieve sustainable economic development.

Mozambique's president in an editorial ahead of the summit said coveted long-term sustainability would come from the true engine of economic growth, private sector enterprise and investment. President Armando Guebuza touted Mozambique's own success in that regard, of maintaining an average 7 percent growth annually since emerging from a 16- year war in 1992.

Kenya said it is forming a new taskforce to study problems affecting its tea sector. The industry, which is one of the country's top foreign exchange earners, is facing tough competition with former importers Rwanda, Malawi, Vietnam and Nepal now also exporting their own tea. Kenya's agricultural minister said the challenges must be tackled immediately if the industry is to maintain its status.

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OKE: Hello again. You're watching INSIDE AFRICA. The conflict in the Western Sahara has been called one of the world's oldest and most neglected. More than 30 years since it began, there is still little hope of a resolution. This past week, U.N. mediators meetings were held between Morocco and the Polisario Front, which has led the fight for independence in the region. It was the second round of talks since June, when the parties held their first direct negotiations in seven years. CNN U.N. correspondent Richard Roth has more.

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RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It sounds like a vacation resort. Western Sahara. Many are fighting to get in, but it's not anyone's idea of paradise. Mineral-rich Western Sahara is a lightly populated zone of northwest Africa, but it's heavily disputed by countries and political movements.

Western Sahara used to be a colony of Spain, but more than 30 years ago, Spain pulled out, and neighboring Morocco's king ordered hundreds of thousands of unarmed Moroccans to march into Western Sahara to symbolically stake a claim. Morocco and Mauritania then fought a war over the territory before Morocco triumphed.

But an Algerian-backed independence movement, the Polisario Front, then took up the fight, in a stubborn war against Morocco's U.S.-equipped army. Eventually, a cease-fire was declared, with the United Nations calling for a referendum of the 260,000 people of Western Sahara. However, 16 years since a U.N.-brokered truce, a vote has never taken place, while the U.N. has spent over $600 million providing assistance.

There have been numerous unsuccessful negotiators who shuttled the region. Even former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker was unable to seal the deal. A main stumbling block has been who is eligible to vote in any referendum. Morocco once favored a referendum, but its current position is limited autonomy for Western Sahara under Moroccan authority. The Polisario Front wants a referendum with the options being autonomy, independence, or integration with Morocco.

JAMES PAUL, EXEC., DIR., GLOBAL POLICY FORUM: Morocco has military control, but they don't really have political control, and so the Moroccans are perhaps looking for some way for a settlement, but their interest in settlement doesn't seem to outweigh their interest in maintaining this territory.

ROTH: Last weekend at a Long Island, New York estate, the second round of direct talks occurred between the two sides after a seven-year break.

PETER VAN WALSUM, U.N. NEGOTIATOR, WESTERN SAHARA: They have committed to continue this negotiations in good faith. They have agreed that the process of negotiations will continue.

ROTH: The U.N. introduced some confidence-building measure, but failed to create any breakthroughs.

CHAKIB BENMOUSSA, INTERIOR MINISTER OF MOROCCO: We just noticed that Polisario has the same position as before.

ROTH: The Polisario disagrees and echoed its stand from earlier this year.

AHMED BUJARI, REP. OF POLISARIO FRONT: Maybe the proposal of autonomy presented by Morocco is good for some province of Morocco. Western Sahara is not a province of Morocco. It's a territory under a foreign and colonial occupation.

ROTH: The U.N. says the best thing now is the two sides are talking.

BAN: (inaudible) has not been any visible progress in this -- progress in this negotiation. Both sides had, I think, have substantively good discussions.

ROTH: Western Sahara remains one the world's longest and most neglected conflicts.

PAUL: I suppose it's because the population of the territory is relatively small, and because they've been acting in a relatively peaceful manner. They haven't been hijacking airliners or assassinating anybody, and so they haven't been making it into the news.

ROTH: The makeup of the Security Council does not spare momentum towards the settlement. On the Security Council, some politically non- aligned countries are supporting Polisario, while the U.S. and France back Morocco. The next round of talks, if they occur, are likely in Europe.

For INSIDE AFRICA, I'm Richard Roth in New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OKE: So, who are winners and losers in this long-running conflict, and what will it take to resolve it? For more on that, I spoke to Anna Theofilopoulou, who covered Western Sahara for the United Nations for more than a decade, from 1994 through 2006. She worked closely with former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, when he was personal envoy from the Secretary-General on Western Sahara.

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ANNA THEOFILOPOULOU, FORMER U.N. OFFICIAL: The people of Western Sahara have been split in two. At the time that Morocco moved in, in mid- 70s, half of the population fled to southern Algeria, and they have been living ever since in camps in the area of Dimduf (ph), run by Polisario. But of course, these camps are in Algerian territory.

The other half -- and we're talking families being split in this particular instance -- have remained in Western Sahara, and many of them, of course, support the possibility of Morocco taking over the territory and continuing being -- having Western Sahara as part of Morocco.

OKE: The U.N. brokered a cease-fire in 1991. That was when the fighting stopped. If there is no fighting, nobody is dying, and politicians just can't get together to agree who owns what -- why should the rest of Africa and the rest of the world actually care?

THEOFILOPOULOU: Well, that has been a little bit part of the problem, the fact that nobody is dying, and nobody is being, you know, killed at this stage. It has pushed the conflict in the backburner for many, you know, many countries. But, of course, especially African countries, they maintain that this is the last remaining de-colonization conflict in Africa, and they would not want to see the U.N. sort of pushing it aside and not trying to resolve it.

Morocco is there occupying the territory, but it does not have the official recognition of anybody as having sovereignty over Western Sahara.

OKE: Who are the losers if this conflict remains unresolved? Who loses?

THEOFILOPOULOU: Both sides lose, because as I said, Morocco needs the international legitimacy over its presence in Western Sahara, and Polisario needs to resolve the problem, because there have been people in the camps for over 30 years, some of them very radicalized by now, and wanting a solution. So, neither side can afford to go on indefinitely.

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OKE: And that was Anna Theofilopoulou speaking to us earlier.

There's more to come on INSIDE AFRICA. Just ahead, from chaos to democracy. Only five years after Sierra Leone emerged from a brutal civil war, the country's held what is described as free and fair elections. But what does that really take? Stay with us.

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OKE: Good to see you again, you're watching INSIDE AFRICA. Presidential and parliamentary elections were held in Sierra Leone this past weekend. And international observers say they were free, fair and credible.

Right now, the vote count is under way, and the final results are expected in the coming days. This poll is actually the second since the end of the country's civil war in 2002. An estimated 50,000 people died in a decade-long conflict, and thousands more had their limbs chopped off. Seven candidates are vying to replace the outgoing president, Tejan Kabbah, who has served the maximum two terms. Presidential candidates need 55 percent of the vote to avoid a run-off. Meanwhile, more than 500 candidates are contesting just over 100 parliamentary seats.

For all about the elections in Sierra-Leone, I spoke earlier to John Stremlau with the Carter Center. Here's what he had to say.

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JOHN STREMLAU, THE CARTER CENTER: I think it's a great story and it's a tribute to the Sierra Leonean people that they have run this election, and they have run it themselves. You know, back in 2002, a big U.N. presence. This was a made-in-Sierra Leone election, and it was free and fair, and the challenges facing the country are enormous, but this is a good step forward.

OKE: But (inaudible) rumblings, anticipation that things would go wrong, there would be some kind of violence. Where does that pessimism come from?

STREMLAU: Well, good question, Femi, because Sierra Leone really was the poster child of Afro pessimists of the 1990s. It's the subject of "Blood Diamond" and the sensationalism that tends to look at Africa's problems rather than Africa's solutions, and I think that legacy is what made people very nervous about this election.

OKE: I just wanted to play a little clip, and it's a soldier saying that he was being enticed during the election or voting period to actually disrupt the elections in some way. He was so adamant that that was not going to happen. I just want to pause and play that little clip.

STREMLAU: OK.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I cannot count their numbers, I cannot measure (ph) it. But it came out. (inaudible) magazine. They wanted -- they were instigating me to fire, but I cannot fire, because it's a peaceful election. We cannot use arms against our brothers, we cannot use arms against our sisters. Because we want to conduct (inaudible) so that the body of international -- international law, they know that we, the Sierra Leone police, we are fighting this issue. We have taken this (inaudible) for granted, we're not going to compromise with any ugly situation in this nation any longer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STREMLAU: Femi, if I can draw a couple of comparisons, this is the attitude I saw in the Congo, because they too want peace, and this is the road to peace.

It makes me worried that in Nigeria, the election we held earlier this year, didn't have more soldiers speaking out as boldly and loudly as this gentleman did, and I would like to see this clip played around the region for a while, because in fact, we have to be sure that elections are protective of everyone's right to express themselves freely and fairly. That's the foundation stone on which you can build democracy. So this was a very important statement.

OKE: What I'm getting from our conversation today is that you are really optimistic, you have optimism about what Sierra Leone has achieved so far. If we look back at that election process, from civil war just a few years ago, what can we learn from Sierra Leone's lesson?

STREMLAU: It's really hope that I have, it's the triumph of the human spirit, Femi, that seems to be in evidence now. But I don't want to diminish the challenges that are facing the people of Sierra Leone, and, of course, across West Africa. Rebuilding a state after it has collapsed, where you have a lost generation of youth, the youth bulge demanding some sort of place in the sun for their generation, you've got governments that are going to be under enormous strain, and I don't want to minimize the challenges ahead.

It's just -- let's stop for a moment and see how far the Sierra Leonean people have come as demonstrated by this election, let's celebrate their progress and let's challenge them to move forward and challenge ourselves to stay engaged and help them as much as we can.

OKE: It's been a pleasure talking to an Afro-optimist.

STREMLAU: An Afro-hopefulist, yes. Thank you very much.

OKE: Thank you very much, indeed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OKE: And that's it for this week's program. But join us next week for an extravaganza of African storytelling. You won't want to miss it. I hope you will let INSIDE AFRICA be your window to the continent every week.

I'm Femi Oke. Until the next time, take care.

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