Union uses aid to help broker peace

Date: 25/02/1999

By Gareth Harding

THE EU is stepping up its efforts to find peaceful solutions to the numerous conflicts in Africa, using the carrot of humanitarian aid to get warring parties to lay down their arms.

In a flurry of diplomatic activity last week, high-level EU envoys shuttled round the continent trying to negotiate agreements in Ethiopia, West Africa and the Great Lakes region of the Congo basin.

In the wake of a ministerial meeting between the EU and its African, Caribbean and Pacific partners in Dakar, Senegal, Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Emma Bonino brokered the first-ever meeting between the President of Guinea-Bissau João Bernardo Vieira and rebel leader Ansumane Mane.

A vicious civil war is currently raging in the country, and Bonino warned that "if there is no political solution, chances of instability spreading throughout the region seem real to me".

Down the Atlantic coast in Sierra Leone, where another civil war has erupted, the Italian Commissioner also attempted to bang heads together. She said that as long as there was no political resolution to end the violence, the EU would not be able to provide humanitarian assistance to the zone.

The Union has also weighed into the conflict engulfing the Great Lakes region of central Africa, declaring itself "deeply concerned" by the ongoing crisis in Congo. The EU has pledged to help rebuild the war-torn country if the fighting factions declared a cease-fire and the government made steps towards democracy.

The EU envoy to the region, Aldo Ajello, is currently in the area drumming up support for a cease-fire.

High-level representatives from Austria, Finland and the German presidency of the EU are also in the Horn of Africa, attempting to broker a peace deal between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

The EU is stepping up its efforts to find peaceful solutions to various conflicts in Africa.