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NEWS & LETTERS, January-February 2004Our Life and Times by Kevin A. BarryCentral AfricaAs 2004 opened, several ethno-religious conflicts in Central Africa came closer to resolution. * In Burundi, the Tutsi minority (15% of the population) controls the military and is opposed by guerrillas from the Hutu majority in a brutal ethnic war that has claimed 300,000 lives since 1994. Several years of peace negotiations, mediated by South Africa, seem on the verge of creating a coalition government that would represent all factions. * In Rwanda, the Tutsi minority suffered genocide in 1994, as the world looked on while 800,000 died. Sporadic attacks have continued since then by remnants of the Hutu GENOCIDAIRES based in Congo. A few weeks ago, a top Hutu militia leader laid down his arms. Also, three leaders of the 1994 genocide were convicted of incitement to genocide at the Arusha Tribunal, the first such conviction since the Nuremburg Tribunal of 1946. * In Sudan, whose southern region borders Congo, Islamist northern military rulers have resorted to slavery and murder against efforts by the largely Christian and animist South to free itself from Islamic sharia law and to achieve other basic rights. This 20-year conflict, which has claimed the lives of two million Sudanese, is now drawing to an end. |
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