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AU needs real military plans THE world is remembering the genocide in Rwanda 10 years ago. It is right that it does so. And it is right that it remembers the failure of anyone to act.While hundreds of thousands of people were murdered under a systematic plan, everyone just sat there, wrung their hands and said how dreadful it was. No one did anything. And that was wrong. Africa must take its share of the blame. We did nothing except speak out and condemn. But the murderers and their organisers did not care what anyone said. They carried on killing and killing and killing. The murders only ended when Rwandan rebels invaded from Uganda, and they did their share of killing, admittedly of people identified by survivors as murderers rather than of the inno-cent. We must hope that such terrible atrocities never happen again. But we must also be ready to act if they do. It would have been fairly easy, 10 years ago, for the nations of Southern and East Africa to have assembled within days a couple of brigades of special forces and combat infantry in Tanzania and Uganda with good air support. Such a force could have stopped the killing very quickly. Even the knowledge that such a force was available, and would intervene, may well have stayed the hands of the killers. A previous massacre plan in Rwanda was stopped dead in its tracks when President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, hearing of it, mobilised troops and moved them to the frontier. The African Union, if it is to be the protector of Africans, and no one else will do this, must generate real military plans for armed intervention in emergencies. And it must create a method that such intervention can be authorised very quickly. We do not need a situation where neighbours invade, just because they think it might be a good idea. They might have wrong motives. If a government calls for help, that is easy. But the military dictators running Rwanda at the time were the ones who plotted the mass murders. A solution that ensures intervention can be done promptly when needed but cannot be done unilaterally is not difficult to find. Africa has learned a lot since the Rwandan massacres. West African states have intervened rapidly and forcefully, with full agreement of a vast majority of the states in the region, several times in Sierra Leone and Liberia to prevent genocide by some repulsive governments or when governments totally failed. Southern Africans intervened in the DRC, although it was at the request of the recognised government and so was an easier case to decide. So long as military plans are ready and adequate, troops are in a state of readiness � and everyone keeps some troops in such a state for national defence � it should be possible for the secretary-general of the African Union and his chairman to mobilise the necessary support very quickly and to have general agreement to commit the troops. We can never turn back the clock but we can learn from Rwanda, and from the massacres in Cambodia and from what Hitler did in Europe. Africa is not alone in witnessing the evil men do when driven mad with hate. And we can resolve that it will never, ever happen again. We must remember; we must reflect; we must be ready to prevent another massacre; and we must let everyone know we are ready. If we do that then those hundreds of thousands who died so brutally 10 years ago may not have died in vain. The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy" Groupe de communication Mulindwas "avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie" |
