Ssemakula <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Current conflicts in AfricaWed Jun 22, 7:03 AM ET
Following is a summary of the major conflicts in Africa:
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO -- Rwanda and Uganda invaded the former Belgian colony in 1998, saying they wanted to protect themselves from fighters who had fled to Congo after the 1994 massacre of 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda.
-- The five-year war sucked in six African nations and nearly 4 million died. The war was declared over in July 2003 after a series of peace deals. The transitional government is still struggling to impose its authority.
-- In its biggest peacekeeping mission, the United Nations has 16,700 troops in Congo. In June, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said more troops would be needed to prepare for elections, originally due in 2005 but now more likely in 2006.
SOMALIA -- Somalia, the anarchic Horn of Africa nation, collapsed into chaos after military ruler Mohammed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. Conflict and famine have killed hundreds of thousands.
-- President Abdullahi Yusuf's government, the 14th attempt at installing effective administration, has been based in Kenya since it was formed in 2004, but is now returning home.
-- It says it will base itself in Jowhar until security improves in the capital Mogadishu.
-- Yusuf has asked African and Arab states for 7,500 troops to protect his administration.
SUDAN - Africa's biggest country ended 21 years of civil war by signing a peace deal with southern rebels in 2004. The continent's longest-running war pitted the Islamist government against rebels in the mainly Christian and animist south. Around 2 million died.
-- A second rebellion began in Darfur in February 2003, with rebels accusing Khartoum of marginalising the western region. Darfur rebels say Arab militias armed by the government have conducted a campaign of killing and rape against non-Arabs.
-- The U.N. has estimated at least 180,000 people have died in Darfur from fighting, hunger and disease.
-- About 2,300 African Union troops and hundreds of civilian police are monitoring a shaky 2004 ceasefire.
UGANDA -- Northern Uganda has suffered nearly two decades of war between the Ugandan military and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels.
-- Up to 100,000 people have been killed and 1.6 million have been driven from their homes. LRA fighters have abducted 20,000 children and forced them to serve as soldiers and sex slaves.
-- Fighting intensified after landmark talks -- including the first meeting between government and rebels for a decade -- broke down late in 2004. Joseph Kony, the LRA's self-styled prophet leader, is believed to be hiding in southern Sudan with some of the children kidnapped by his cult-like group.
OTHER CONFLICT AREAS:
Ivory Coast - Both sides frequently accuse each other of plotting to resume all-out fighting in the former French colony, divided since civil war blew up out of a failed attempt to oust President Laurent Gbagbo in September 2002. Thousands of U.N. and French peacekeepers patrol a no-weapons buffer zone between the rebel-held north and government-run south.
Liberia - Around 250,000 people died during two wars: from 1989 to 1996 and again from late 1999 when rebels took up arms against Charles Taylor, an ex-warlord who emerged strongest from the first conflict and was elected president in 1997.
Rebels pushed into the capital Monrovia in 2003 and Taylor, under international pressure to stand down, fled into exile. A peace deal was agreed and a transitional government formed to usher in elections, due in October 2005. Some 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers have helped disarm more than 95,000 ex-rebels and pro-Taylor fighters.
Ethiopia - Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a border war from 1998-2000, which killed 70,000 people. In December 2004, Ethiopia moved as many as 48,000 soldiers closer to the border, saying the deployment was defensive. Eritrea said it was provocative.
Copyright © 2005 Reuters Limited.
Yahoo! Sports
Rekindle the Rivalries. Sign up for Fantasy Football
_______________________________________________ Ugandanet mailing list [email protected] http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/ugandanet % UGANDANET is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/
