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Towards a Plan for Central Africa

Background

The present humanitarian drama in eastern Zaire and the urgent need to deliver humanitarian relief to vulnerable populations in the area have rightly if somewhat belatedly attracted the attention of policy-makers in the international community. However, there is a danger that the emphasis currently being placed on short-term relief measures will eclipse efforts to find longer-term solutions to the underlying problems fuelling crisis across the Great Lakes region.

The Great Lakes crisis has been fermenting for many years. But the risk of a major humanitarian disaster spilling over national boundaries and engulfing the entire region has increased dramatically in the last three years and in particular since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda which created massive refugee flows and destabilised neighbouring countries. Today, there are three major poles of instability in the

1. Rwanda - which must absorb hundreds of thousands of returning refugees and manage an ongoing process of political change and restructuring without provoking further uprisings and bloodshed.

2. Burundi - where over 100 people a day - almost all civilians - are dying in a bloody civil war between rebel militia and a military government resistant to calls for a redistribution of political, military and economic power within the country.

3. Zaire - where the capacity of the state to maintain national unity is in question as President Mobutu's power and health fade and rebels continue to roll back government forces in the east of the country.

ICG believes that if a new massive regional disaster is to be prevented, enduring, long-term political solutions will first need to be found to each of these three national crises. As well as addressing issues relating to the distribution of power, authority and opportunity within each country, this will also require action to tackle some of the international issues that are adversely affecting all countries in the region. These include most notably the problems of land scarcity; impunity; arms flows; and refugee resettlement.

A proposed role for ICG

As an independent organisation with a track record of high quality analysis of the causes of crisis and high level advocacy of preventive solutions, ICG believes it is well placed to play a role in support of preventive efforts in central Africa.

If the international community is to play a positive role in helping the countries of the region to overcome their internal problems, address long-term regional issues and achieve a greater degree of stability, international policy-makers will need a sound body of information and analysis on which to base their decisions. Although there is a plethora of groups following one or other aspect of the crisis in one or other part of the region, (for example, hate-mongering media in Burundi or the collapse of the judicial system in Rwanda), there is at present no source of comprehensive analysis of the full range of factors fuelling crisis across the region as a whole. It is this role that ICG proposes to undertake by producing clear, detailed and wide-ranging analyses from the field and using its extensive advocacy capability to promote sensible, practical policy proposals to decision-takers in both the region and the wider international community.

The first stage for ICG will be a short reconnaissance mission to the region to gather information; identify the key issues on which ICG's assessment should focus; and map out a strategy for ongoing ICG engagement in the region. The immediate outcome of the mission would be a report which would be discussed and refined by two panels of experts on the Great Lakes appointed and convened by ICG for this purpose.

Once agreement has been reached on the way forward, ICG will move on to the second stage of the assessment process: the deployment of a full field team to monitor the situation in the region; produce regular, comprehensive analyses; and issue and advocate strategic recommendations for preventive action.

Immediate tasks

• A two-week, two-person reconnaissance mission to central Africa visiting Rwanda, Burundi, Zaire, Uganda and Tanzania.

• The preparation and dissemination of a mission report containing a provisional analysis of the situation across the region, identifying the key issues on which ICG's regional assessment should focus and setting out a proposed strategy for ICG engagement in the region during 1997.

• The convening of two meetings of experts in Brussels and Washington DC, to discuss the mission's findings and agree the precise objectives, outcomes and methodology of ICG's proposed engagement .

It is proposed that the mission to the region will take place during the first half of January 1997. Two field analysts with previous experience in the region have already been selected to undertake the mission and are prepared to leave within the first few days of January. A report containing findings and setting out a proposed strategy for engagement will be prepared immediately following the mission and distributed to members of the two panels of experts. The panels will then meet, at the end of January, to discuss the report and agree a way forward. The first stage would then have been completed.