Fighting to heal Africa’s bleeding heart

Date: 28/01/1999

The EU's special envoy to the Great Lakes region of central Africa insists he's no trouble-shooter. But as Gareth Harding discovers, the Italian diplomat is not adverse to a bit of adventure.

Rooms say a lot about people and Aldo Ajello's office deep in the recesses of the Council of Ministers' headquarters in Brussels speaks volumes about the man charged with bringing peace to the killing fields of central Africa.

The walls are completely bare except for a colossal map of the Great Lakes area which lies at the heart of the continent. On the window ledge, a few primitive statues stare out over the bureaucratic capital of Europe.

The problems of central Africa may seem a million miles away, but they are always close to the surface of Ajello's mind.

For the past three years, this Italian diplomat and politician has devoted himself to cleaning up the mess left over in central Africa from decades of colonial misrule and tribal blood-letting.

But Ajello's self-confessed love affair with the 'dark continent' began a long time before he was appointed as the EU's special envoy to the Great Lakes in March 1996. As a member of the foreign affairs committee of the Italian senate and parliament, he was deeply involved in development issues. And after a 15 year stint in Italian politics, he spent almost a decade working for the United Nations Development Programme in Geneva and New York.

But Ajello's big break came in 1992 when he was chosen to lead the UN peace-keeping operation in Mozambique. "On what basis I was selected remains a mystery to me," says the Italian.

But he has no doubt that the three years he spent cementing the peace in Mozambique were the best of his life. Apart from the challenge of managing a 7,000 strong peace-keeping force, the diplomat particularly enjoyed the task of cajoling the country's warring factions into keeping the peace.

One incident Ajello remembers well was a showdown with guerrilla leader Afonso Dhlakama after rebels threatened to tear up the carefully stitched-together peace accord.

After flying to their base in the interior of the country, Ajello told Dhlakama that he led a "bunch of bandits" and that if he wanted to gain the respect of the Mozambican people, he would have to "use his brain as well as his muscles".

Dhlakama listened carefully and at the end of the tense tête è tête, said only three words: "Wisdom, not muscle". According to Ajello, the rebel leader kept his word and did not lead any more attacks.

While Ajello's role in Mozambique was high profile and backed up by the international community, his present mandate is less clearly-defined and more modest in its ambition.

Rejecting any comparison with US trouble-shooter Richard Holbrooke, Ajello says: "I do not bash any heads together, I am not a conflict-solver and I cannot even be considered a mediator.

I am more a facilitator."

Instead of seeking to impose a deal or threaten sanctions, boycotts or military intervention, Ajello uses the more traditional diplomatic methods of gentle persuasion and arm-twisting.

Because of the widely differing interests of European countries in the region, these are necessarily limited. "There is no EU plan for central Africa," he insists, adding that all the Union can do is put pressure on both sides to come to a solution by using its limited leverage with the countries of the region.

"We are quite pleased with the plan the Africans have agreed themselves," says the EU envoy, referring to efforts to broker a peace deal amongst the warring nations which have been underway since violence engulfed the region four years ago.

After militant Rwandan Hutus massacred almost a million Tutsis in 1994, a murderous civil war broke out in the tiny land-locked country which eventually led to the defeat of the Hutus. Forced to flee to neighbouring Zaire, since renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo, hundreds of thousands of Hutus have since launched a sustained attack on the Rwandan state.

They have also become embroiled in the Congolese civil war - first on the side of rebel leader Laurent Kabila in his struggle against former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and now backing rebel forces opposed to the increasingly dictatorial Kabila.

"There are lots of defeated armies hanging around with nothing to do and they represent a kind of potential mercenary force to anyone with the money to recruit them," says Ajello.

Rebels in the east of Congo appear to have plenty of this, and since last year have taken over almost half of Africa's third-largest state.

As Congo is "unable to defend itself", in the words of Ajello, the armed forces of Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola, Sudan and Chad have come to its rescue. With Rwandan and Ugandan forces supporting the rebels, what was once a civil war has been turned into an international conflict with potentially spine-chilling consequences.

US Under-Secretary of State for Africa Susan Rice has warned that the fight might develop into the continent's "first world war". The EU envoy agrees with her analysis. "As long as every country keeps exporting its problems, the potential is always there for a more dangerous war in the future," he says.

Hopes of a long-term solution to the conflict have been heightened by last week's cease-fire amongst warring parties in Congo. However, foreign forces have yet to agree to pull out of the central African republic and rebel groups - who were not invited to last week's peace talks in Namibia - have refused to lay down their arms.

Whilst the root causes of the conflict remain, Ajello will continue shuttling between Great Lakes capitals and Brussels briefings to seek an African solution to an African problem.

This largely means persuading those involved in the fighting to sign up to peace proposals put forward by the Southern African Development Commission (SADC) - a regional grouping of neighbouring states. Once the fighting has stopped, SADC is urging warring parties to pull out of Congo and agree to the setting up of a buffer zone between the country and Rwanda.

However, Ajello also emphasises that there will be no end to cross-border conflicts unless countries' internal problems are sorted out.

"Insecurity has a tendency to be exported," he says, citing Rwanda as an example of a country where "the chapter of genocide is still open". The war-ravaged state is a "kind of wound that bleeds", he adds, "and as long as it continues to bleed, there is no chance of peace in the region".

Whilst praising the present Rwandan government for its willingness to close the chapter on the horrors of the past, the 63-year-old diplomat stresses that "there is a need to end the culture of impunity and start the culture of forgiveness".

Since the autumn, Ajello has met every central African leader and is a familiar figure on the conflict-prevention conference circuit. To get around, the EU envoy spends a large chunk of his annual €1-million budget on a private plane which is equipped with "everything but a toilet", in Ajello's words. "Luckily it only has fuel for four hours," he quips.

Despite his impeccably conventional credentials - a law degree, experience as a civil servant, legislator and UN crisis-solver, and a dapper appearance - this EU envoy is not your average diplomat.

For one thing, he still talks like a politician. For another, he appears to relish risk-taking and adventure.

"I have never been in danger, although afterwards I was told I was," he says, telling the tale of one of his many meetings with rebel leader Dhlakama in Mozambique. "We landed in the bush on an almost non-existent air strip. We were then put on the back of motorbikes ridden by rebels and on the way back, Dhlakama drove me himself. We got closer, maybe a bit too close."

It is supposed to be a scary story about the dangers of African-style diplomacy. But from the way Ajello tells it, you get the feeling he enjoyed every minute of the escapade.

Interview with Aldo Ajello, the EU's special envoy to the Great Lakes region of central Africa.