Mail & Guardian reporter
Conflict is once again engulfing Central Africa, killing the dream of regeneration and renaissance that came with the euphoria that accompanied the fall of the Zairean despot Mobutu Sese Seko more than a year ago.
Then, it was believed that the series of interlocking wars, from Sudan in the north-east to Angola in the south- west, would be replaced by a new era of stability and development in the continent.
The alliance that toppled Mobutu was led by a new generation of African leaders – Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, Paul Kagame in Rwanda and Laurent- Dsir Kabila in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Under American stewardship and with the support of the rehabilitated and rising giant South Africa, Africa was about to take a great leap forward.
But in Africa dreams often fall on hard ground. The underlying problems have not been addressed: the illogical boundaries inherited from colonial times, the ethnic tensions born of injustice, insecurity and the desire for revenge, and the disintegration of nation states.
At the epicentre is the unresolved ethnic conflict in the Great Lakes, sprawling through Burundi, Rwanda and eastern Congo. With the genocide of 1994 fresh in their memories, the Tutsi minorities of those territories cannot permit the more numerous Hutus and other hostile groups to dominate them.
At the edges of this vast swathe of land, two wars believed to have been settled by the end of the Cold War and the acceptance by the United States of a new leadership role – Angola and the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea – have re-ignited.
Even the man regarded as the most successful leader in the region, Museveni, has been unable to quell the rebellions of the Lord’s Resistance Army and the West Nile Bank Front in the remote north of Uganda.
And in Sudan, the world’s longest war continues with the hopeful signs of a breakthrough earlier this year once more bogging down as famine has returned to the land.
The resumption of full-scale war in Angola now appears probable as reports arrive of massacres carried out in the north of the country, and the number of refugees flooding into Zambia is calculated in tens of thousands.
Unita strongman Jonas Savimbi is a warlord whose reluctance to play the game – and to get away with that – is indicative of the international community’s loosening hold on Central Africa. In parts of the continent, private armies backing up those searching for diamonds and minerals have more power than the decaying nation states.
Savimbi’s allies include those who were ousted from power last year: the Hutu extremist militias, Mobuto’s old guard and even right-wing former South African security forces. Savimbi territory is their safe haven, where they have regrouped and are ready to inject more tension into the region.
In Congo, Kabila, who came to power as a front-man for what was essentially a foreign legion, now faces a rebellion from the very Rwandese troops who helped him to power. His alliance is disintegrating by the day, and even the Americans appear to have given up on the former gold smuggler with the genial smile.
The consequences of what is happening now are immense: the dismemberment of the state of Congo, perhaps the redrawing of the entire map of the Great Lakes region from southern Sudan, through Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, to eastern Congo.
The winds of war blowing through Africa might precipitate a change greater even than the colonial scramble 120 years ago.