War and peace in Central Africa was the focus last Thursday and Friday in a conference entitled “The African Great Lakes 2002: Prospects for Peace.”
The University of Wisconsin’s African Studies Program and International Institute hosted the two-day event, which featured numerous speakers including ambassadors, top scholars and expert researchers in the field.
“Central Africa has been in a state of political and military confusion since the early 1990s,” said Aliko Songolo, director of the African Studies Program. “The 1994 genocide in Rwanda was only the most horrific of many calamitous events in the region before and after 1994.”
These issues of war, peace and poverty were heavily discussed during the two-day conference at Memorial Union, which was free and open to the public. Speakers explained the peace proposals directed toward different areas of the country and evaluated the chance that plans would succeed. These proposals are currently under discussion in these regions.
According to Songolo, since August of 1998, the average number of people who die every day in the Congo area alone exceeds the number of victims of Sept. 11. These deaths are essentially known as “Africa’s World War.”
Recent peace initiatives begun in Central Africa were highlighted at the event. A dozen countries have been a part of this “world war” at one time or another.
One particular attempt for peace involves Rwanda and Congo specifically and is expected to be resolved within the next month.
“With the reported withdrawal of troops from Congo by Uganda and Rwanda, the moment seems opportune to discuss a peaceful future while keeping a watchful eye on what possible impediments might still lie in wait,” Songolo said.
Bill Berkeley, editorial writer for the New York Times, spoke Thursday about his new book, “The Graves are Not Yet Full: Race, Tribe, and Power in the Heart of Africa.”
Several sessions, as well as an ambassadors’ forum, were held Friday at the Pyle Center.
Diplomats including Richard Bogosian, of the U.S. State Department and former U.S. ambassador to Niger and Chad, and Howard Wolpe, former U.S. Congressman and presidential representative to Africa’s Great Lakes Region, who is also presently with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, spoke in sessions during the day.
Many faculty members from UW as well as other institutions such as Florida International University, Columbia University, Creighton University and the United Nations Development Program in Oslo, Norway contributed to sessions as well as worked as respondents.
Mwelwa Musambachime, Zambia’s Ambassador to the United Nations, gave the conference’s keynote address Friday.
Other contributing ambassadors included Richard Sezibera, Rwanda’s ambassador to the United States, Faida Mitifu, Congo’s ambassador to the United States and André Kapanga, former Congo ambassador to the United Nations.
