Victoria Brittain
The United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, has unveiled a plan for Africa that could bring an end to wars and destabilisation activity in at least seven countries: Angola, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Annan’s blueprint for action by UN member states would curb arms sales and covert arms trafficking, end economic sanctions that harm civilians, accept the Organisation of African Unity’s plan to cancel all debt for the poorest countries, and toughen the administration of refugee camps so that civilians cannot be used as shields by terrorists.
The blunt report says, of Rwanda, Somalia and Liberia, that “by not averting these colossal human tragedies, African leaders have failed the peoples of Africa; the international community has failed them; the UN has failed them”.
Such public criticism is rare from a UN diplomat. Annan has been one for so long he can gauge better than anyone the impact the report will have on UN members. The initiative was expected to be taken up at ministerial level in New York this week.
UN officials hope both African and Western countries will find it impossible to ignore the challenges laid out in the report. The UN itself is already clearly accepting the report’s call for different practices and an open admission of failures.
Annan’s demand for neutrality in refugee camps, and for them to be moved away from borders, is a tacit recognition that the UN refugee agency failed in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, when it allowed its camps to be used for the rearming of Hutu extremists.