International Peace Day 2010: We must all wage Peace

INTERNATIONAL PEACE DAY: Sept 21, 2010

Please spare a moment to reflect on the how we can actively promote a culture of peace in our communities, our nations and our world.

Read my reflections in "The Mark" on the conflict in the Congo and why the international community must do more to find lasting peace. Also read the reflections of other on other conflicts - Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine, Aboriginal people in Australia and the Kurdish Question.

Congo's Precious Peace

The war in the DRC officially ended in 2003. So why has the fighting not ceased?

To discuss the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo is to speak in superlatives. It is the widest interstate war in modern African history, drawing in at its height six countries and leaving an estimated four million people dead. It has been described as Africa’s World War and the world’s deadliest conflict since the end of the Second World War. Until recently, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the country was the biggest UN operation in the world.

A resource-rich nation the size of Western Europe, the DR Congo has a long history of colonial repression, military dictatorship, and conflict. In the early 20th century, Belgian forces arrived and enslaved millions, while Belgium’s King Leopold ruled the country as his personal fiefdom. A painful struggle for independence that almost disintegrated the country was followed by the long and repressive reign of Joseph Mobutu, one of Africa’s most ruthless dictatorships.

The current conflict in the DR Congo is a legacy of this troubled history and centres on struggles for control of the nation’s vast reserves of diamonds, gold, copper, cobalt, and zinc. The stakes are high. What could easily have been one of Africa’s richest countries has suffered a devastating regional conflict involving several neighbouring countries and rebel factions. A UN report has accused all sides in the conflict of using the cover of the war to loot the country's riches.

An agreement in 2003 between the warring parties marked the formal end of war and the establishment of a democratic transitional government. However, lasting peace has remained elusive. Former warring parties have been reluctant to give up power to a centralized and neutral national administration. The transitional government has been unable to fully assert political and military control over the vast country. The east of the country remains plagued by army and militia violence. People in the Congo are still dying at a rate of an estimated 45,000 per month, mainly from widespread disease and famine. The death toll as a result of violent military, militant, and insurgent actions was estimated at more than 1,000 in 2009.

A major threat to peace in the DR Congo has been the government’s tendency to sacrifice justice and accountability for political expediency. It has largely turned a blind eye to warlords absorbed into the army widely accused of carrying out atrocities and running their own personal militias. The government has also not vigorously pursued justice for victims of war. So long as the government condones warlord atrocities and doesn’t punish them, impunity will continue to threaten peace and stability in the country.

International apathy is another impediment to finding lasting peace in the DR Congo. Although the country currently has one of the largest UN peacekeeping missions, the conflict has never commanded the level of international attention that it deserves. Even at its height, the war rarely made news headlines. The UN's peacekeeping mission has been in DR Congo for 10 years with a 20,000 personnel mandated to protect civilians and help in the reconstruction of the country. However, as the battles in the eastern part of the country have continued, the role of the UN forces has become increasingly murky. UN forces have been reluctant to intervene more actively to protect civilians from attacks. There have also been accusations of sex abuses and gold smuggling by peacekeepers.

The UN has now begun talks with the Congolese government to withdraw its peacekeeping mission by 2011 despite ongoing military operations in different parts of the country. The Congolese authorities have also been pushing for the withdrawal of UN peacekeepers. This does not portend well for the country. Given the fragile security situation, it is crucial to maintain the UN peacekeeping mission for the foreseeable future. There is real risk that the factionalized country may quickly slide back into violence amidst the political tensions of the presidential elections scheduled for late 2011.

What is urgently required is concerted pressure on both the Congolese government and the UN for a more constructive and engaged role for the international community. Such international engagement must go beyond peacekeeping to put in place mechanisms for sustainable peace building and transitional justice.

International Peace Day 2010: We must all wage Peace

9/21/2010 06:00:00 AM africa, human rights, war and peace, world

Tribute to Moses Oisakede

I wrote this tribute in 1999 after the untimely death in a car crash of one of the most vibrant, energetic and socially conscious students I have encountered in my University teaching career. His name is Moses Oisakede. He was a medical student at Edo State University, Nigeria and a student activist who became the president of the largest student organization in Nigeria, if not in all Africa – the “National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS)” He died while travelling from to another University for a meeting of the Association. Eleven years after, Moses Oisakede remains fondly remembered by many who knew and admired him.

Tribute to Moses Oisakede

Until he became the president of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) about a year ago and his untimely death in a car accident recently, not many had heard of Moses Oisakede. He could have passed for any other Nigerian university student struggling to keep up with his academic work and the challenge of surviving on campus. But for those who knew Moses, his was a short but eventful life marked by an unwavering commitment to the cause of Nigerian students.

I first met Moses five years ago. Then, as a lecturer at the Edo State University (now Ambrose Alli University), where he was a second year medical student, he had approached me to become a staff patron of the Reformers Academy - an inter-campus organisation intended to mobilise Nigerian students towards greater political and social awareness, which he and others had formed. Given my previous experiences with students' organisations, I was initially reluctant to accept the invitation. But Moses, never one to take no for an answer, persisted.

To convince me that his was going to be a different organisation, he presented me with an ambitious but impressive proposal of how the Reformers Academy would become "the springboard for the social and intellectual emancipation of Nigerian students and workers". Indeed, under his leadership, the Reformers Academy became a melting pot of students' activism on campus. Through its regular public lectures, seminars and workshops, it became an influential forum at which both students and faculty addressed a variety of topical issues.

My association with the Reformers Academy was the beginning of a relationship with Moses which went beyond that of teacher and student. He became a friend and a trusted confidant. What first struck me about Moses was the sheer intensity and tenacity with which the young man carried his convictions. When sometime in 1996, he informed me that he intended to contest for the presidency of the University’s Students' Union, I had my apprehensions. Not that I had any doubts that Moses was eminently qualified for the position, but because knowing the kind of dedication he brought into anything he believed in, I feared that he would pursue the cause at the expense of his studies.

"How can you possibly combine students' union presidency with your studies as a medical student?", I recall asking him. His response was typical.

"Sir, I will do my best ...but you see, things have just got to change around here and we can't afford to just sit and watch". He would often remind me of his favourite Franz Fanon quote - "Out of relative obscurity, each generation must discover its mission, fulfil it or betray it". He believed that there was an urgent challenge to fulfil the mission of his generation.

Moses was subsequently elected president of the students' union putting, as I feared, all his time energy and resources into the office. His tenure as president is still fondly remembered by students at the Ambrose Alli University (then Edo State University) as the "Aluta era", an allusion to his uncompromising attitude with the authorities on student’s welfare.

Even as president of the EDSU students union, Moses was actively involved with NANS. As many of his colleagues in NANS would attest to, he was an advocate for unity and reconciliation at a time when the organisation was threatened with opportunism and factionalism. When, after his tenure as University’s Student Union president, he stood for election as NANS president, he was seen by many as a natural choice.

I met him soon after his election as NANS president and congratulated him. His mood was still upbeat. His response to my banters was typical of his humility and sense of duty.

"Congratulations, his excellency Mr. President", I teased.

"Ah, no sir. I am not his excellency ....just a servant of Nigerian students"

I persisted.

"Where is your mobile phone? (This was when mobile phones in Nigeria were the ultimate status symbol). The president of NANS should be entitled to a mobile phone"

"How will I justify such ostentation before the mass of impoverished Nigerian students?" he responded.

During our brief encounter, he spoke about his vision for NANS which were typically ambitious. He spoke about restoring the lost glory of NANS; reconciling the opposing factions within the organisation and bringing students and workers welfare back to the top of the national agenda. He also talked about linking up with students in other African countries in some sort of pan African students’ organisation.

Indeed, his tenure as NANS president was marked by characteristic activism. He was at the forefront of the fights against cultism in many campuses and was quite vocal in articulating the position of NAN on such contentious issues as the introduction of school fees in the universities. The fact that he died while on a peace mission to a University campus is, in many ways, a testimony of the commitment and dedication with which Moses carried the cause of Nigerian students.

Although he was only 28, Moses Oisakede in death as in life remains a symbol of the promise and potential of Nigerian youth. He may never have become a medical doctor or a biochemist as he so earnestly wished but in his commitment to the cause of Nigerian students, Moses has served the country as well as any doctor or biochemist ever could.

Bonny Ibhawoh

December 1999

Another tribute to Moses Oisakede published in Sahara Reporters

Tribute to Moses Oisakede

9/10/2010 09:53:00 AM Tributes

A Story from South Africa

I have been reading Desmond Tutu’s No Future without Forgiveness again after I first read it when it was published. It remains fresh, powerful and irresistible. For me, the most compelling part of the book is a letter written by one “Helena” to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which Tutu reproduces in the book. It is a compelling story that brings a different angle to the pain of Apartheid.

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My story begins in my late teenage years as a farm girl in the Bethlehem district of the Eastern Free State. As an eighteen-year-old, I met a young man in his twenties. He was working in a top security structure. It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. We even spoke about marriage. A bubbly, vivacious man who beamed out wild energy. Sharply intelligent. Even if he was an Englishman, he was popular with all the "Boere" Afrikaners. And all my girlfriends envied me. 'Then one day he said he was going on a "trip." "We won't see each other again . . . maybe never ever again." I was torn to pieces. So was he. An extremely short marriage to someone else failed, all because I married to forget.

More than a year ago, I met my first love again through a good friend. I was to learn for the first time that he had been operating overseas and that he was going to ask for amnesty. I can't explain the pain and bitterness in me when I saw what was left of that beautiful, big, strong person. He had only one desire-that the truth must come out. Amnesty didn't matter. It was only a means to the truth. A need to clean up. He was gruesomely plucked out of our lives at the beginning of the year. Was that the price he had to pay for what he believed in?

After my unsuccessful marriage, I met another policeman. Not quite my first love, but an exceptional person. Very special. Once again a bubbly, charming personality. Humorous, grumpy, everything in its time and place. 'Then he says: he and three of our friends have been promoted. "We're moving to a special unit. Now, now, my darling. We are real policemen now." We were ecstatic. We even celebrated.

He and his friends would visit regularly. 'They even stayed over for long periods. Suddenly, at strange times, they would become restless. Abruptly mutter the feared word "trip" and drive off I ... as a loved one ... knew no other life than that of worry, sleeplessness, anxiety about his safety and where they could be. We simply had to be satisfied with: "What you don't know can't hurt you." And all that we as loved ones knew . . . was what we saw with our own eyes.

After about three years with the Special Forces, our hell began. He became very quiet. Withdrawn. Sometimes he would just press his face into his hands and shake uncontrollably. I realized he was drinking too much. Instead of resting at night, he would wander from window to window. He tried to hide his wild, consuming fear, but I saw it.

In the early hours of the morning between two and half past two, I jolt awake from his rushed breathing. Rolls this way, that side of the bed. He's pale. Ice cold in a sweltering night-sopping wet with sweat. Eyes bewildered, but dull like the dead. And the shakes. 'The terrible convulsions and bloodcurdling shrieks of fear and pain from the bottom of his soul. Sometimes he sits motionless, just staring in front of him. I never understood. I never knew. Never realized what was being shoved down his throat during the "trips."

I just went through hell. Praying, pleading: "God, what's happening? What's wrong with him? Could he have changed so much? Is he going mad? I can't handle the man anymore! But I can't get out. He's going to haunt me for the rest of my life if I leave him. Why, God?" 'Today I know the answers to all my questions and heartache.

I know where everything began, the background. 'The role of "those at the top," the "cliques" and "our men" who simply had to carry out their bloody orders . . . like "vultures." And today they all wash their hands in innocence and resist the realities of the 'Truth Commission.

Yes, I stand by my murderer who let me and the old white South Africa sleep peacefully. Warmly, while "those at the top" were again targeting the next "permanent removal from Society" for the vultures.

I finally understand what the struggle was really about. I would have done the same had I been denied everything. If my life, that of my children and my parents was strangled with legislation. If I had to watch how white people became dissatisfied with the best and still wanted better and got it.

I envy and respect the people of the struggle at least their leaders have the guts to stand by their vultures, to recognize their sacrifices. What do we have? Our leaders are too holy and innocent. And faceless. I can understand if Mr. de Klerk says he didn't know, but dammit, there must be a clique, there must be someone out there who is still alive and who can give a face to "the orders from above" for all the operations. Dammit! What else can this abnormal life be other than a cruel human rights violation? Spiritual murder is more inhumane than a messy, physical murder.

At least a murder victim rests. I wish I had the power to make these poor wasted people whole again. I wish I could wipe the old South Africa out of everyone's past. I end with a few lines that my wasted vulture said to me one night: "'They can give me amnesty a thousand times. Even if God and everyone else forgives me a thousand times-I have to live with this hell. 'The problem is in my head, my conscience. 'There's only one way to be free of it. Blow my own brains out. Because that's where my hell is."

Helena

P.S. 'Thank you for your time. 'Thank you for listening to the story of a loved one out of the old South Africa. For sharing her pain.

A Story from South Africa

9/08/2010 09:14:00 AM human rights, politics, reflections