20 October 2003
Progress But Still Few Rays of Hope in Horn of Africa, Says Former US Diplomat
Amb. D. Shinn cites Sudan and Kenya as showing potential of peace in region
By Jim Fisher-Thompson
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- Although there are a few rays of sunshine illuminating the prospects for peace in the Horn of Africa, the landscape remains bleak and conflicted, says retired Ambassador David Shinn during a discussion of the region sponsored by the School of International Service at American University October 15.
In describing the area in northeast Africa comprising Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia and Kenya, Shinn, who now teaches at George Washington University's Elliot School of International Affairs, said he believed "the Horn was the most conflicted part of Africa ... perhaps even the world."
The major exceptions to his clouded assessment, Shinn said, were Sudan and Kenya where noteworthy progress was being made in the areas of conflict resolution and democratization.
The former U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia (1996-1999) was joined on the panel by Eritrean Ambassador Girma Asmerom, a graduate of American University who was born and raised in Ethiopia, but the Ethiopian Embassy never responded to an invitation to participate, according to an organizer for the university's Student Organization for African Studies.
Shinn said Sudan, the country doing the most bleeding in the region, was not only one of the biggest nations on earth -- "larger than the entire United States east of the Mississippi River" -- but was also economically and politically "a very critical part of the Horn of Africa."
Although a long civil war has cost the country as many as two million lives, "fortunately, now there is some good news in Sudan," Shinn said. "The southern Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) ... and the Government based in Khartoum have had a several rounds of peace talks going back to an original meeting in Machakos, Kenya last year ... and they are edging very, very close to a breakthrough toward peace."
Shinn, familiar with conflict on the continent, after 34 years as a diplomat in five African countries as well as State Department coordinator for Somalia and director of East African Affairs, believes "that [the Sudan] peace process now seems to be irreversible.
"Mind you, this is a country that has witnessed almost constant conflict since 1955" with the exception of a 10-year hiatus starting in the mid-1970s, he said. "There are a lot of problems to overcome [in Sudan] and some serious issues that haven't been resolved yet, but it is the one really bright spot at the moment as we look at the Horn of Africa."
On the negative side, Shinn said Sudan, like other countries in the region, "has played this game over the years of supporting dissident groups in neighboring countries. Some do it very effectively and do it very frequently. Sudan is guilty of that whereby they have supported groups aimed variously at Uganda, Ethiopia and Eritrea over the years. And some of those countries play the same game by supporting the SPLA or other groups against the Government in Khartoum. It's a little tit-for-tat game that can get very nasty and can result in an awful lot of harm done over the years."
Shinn said Kenya was another bright spot in the region not only by virtue of the democratic gains made in the recent election of President Mwai Kibaki but also for the impetus the Kenyan government has given to the separate peace processes in neighboring Sudan and Somalia. One result is that, "Kenya by and large has experienced less conflict than other countries in the Horn."
Kenya's stability in a perilous sea of troubles was acknowledged recently by President Bush, when he hosted President Mwai Kibaki to a state dinner at the White House. At the October 6 event Bush hailed Kibaki as a true democrat and ally "committed to the war on terror," adding, "Our two nations are old friends and natural partners. Today, we stand together against the forces of terror and in the defense of human dignity."
Turning to Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea, Shinn refrained from assigning blame in the border conflict that claimed 120,000 lives from 1998 to 2000. During his tenure as U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia, he said, he and other State Department officials "had a very rude surprise at the outbreak of war" between the two countries in 1998 when their relations went from "very cordial" to "quite hostile" practically overnight.
The border dispute was especially upsetting, Shinn said, because "those of us on the outside [foreign analysts] thought this was going to be a long-lasting, cooperative relationship between these two countries that seemed to have such similar interests."
[Now, however, even the U.S. Congress has lost patience and a bill is moving through the House of Representatives that would cut development aid to both sides if they continue foot dragging in the peace process.]
After two years of bitter war with Ethiopia, Eritrean Ambassador Asmerom told the American University audience, "We are now in a peace process ... [and] the future is bright." The greatest challenges his country faces, he added, are to fight corruption and reconstruct a damaged economy, especially a fishing industry that had been drastically reduced by the war.
As for the recent findings of a Border Commission, which both sides initially agreed to but that Ethiopia has since rejected, Asmerom said, "We are still experiencing a standoff, which is being fueled by the Ethiopian Government's attitude of ‘My way or the highway.'"
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
This page printed from: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2003&m=October&x=20031020161450rehsiF3.298587e-02&t=usinfo/wf-latest.html
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