Africa’s problems forgotten – Geingob

CONFLICT-RIDDEN … Troops drive through Goma in eastern DRC in November last year. Photo: The Conversation

The chairperson of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation (Troika), Hage Geingob, has said there has been a lack of effort to address Africa’s problems, and the continent has been sidelined.

President Geingob voiced his frustrations with the lack of attention paid to Africa during a courtesy visit to State House by the United Nations special envoy for the Great Lakes Region, Huang Xia, on Wednesday.

“So we have equal situations in Africa, but nobody cares about it. We are being cajoled to support or condemn Russia, but we have our own problems that nobody seems to pay attention to,” Geingob told Huang.

“We can give an example of how people are so eager to help in the process in Europe. Even football has been made a political arena,” he said.

Geingob said this after announcing that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has decided to refer the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to the UN.

“SADC also decided this problem isn’t only a SADC problem. It is becoming an international crisis. We must first elevate it to the African Union (AU). From the AU, it must go to the United Nations. It is now time that it is elevated to that level. People are dying,” the president said.

This decision was made as a result of a lack of capacity within SADC to deal with DRC.

“It is an African problem, but again capacity is the problem. Therefore, we appeal to the organisation we belong to. We don’t have capacity,” he said.

Geingob said they are also wary of the fact that it can spill over to other countries within the region, which cannot be afforded.

“We have our own problems in our countries. We don’t want to bring the same problems. If people in other countries rise up because of the problem we are facing, to extend it to all of us [sic].

“Where we are coming from, first the Covid situation, now the economic spectra. The means are not there, financially,” Geingob added.

NEXT STEP

Therefore, Geingob announced that deputy prime minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah is set to head to the African Union headquarters and that of the United Nations to table the DRC matter.

In the most recent report, about 30 civilians have been killed as suspected armed groups raided villages in DRC. The conflict has been raging since December 2017 when these civilian attacks became more frequent.

Two weeks ago, during their extraordinary summit of the heads of state and government held in Windhoek, the leaders approved the deployment of a regional force to DRC to help restore peace and security in the eastern part of that country.

In a communiqué, the leaders expressed concern over the deteriorating security situation prevailing in the eastern DRC and reiterated their strong condemnation of the upsurge of conflicts and activities of armed groups, including the resurgence of M23 rebels.

Geingob convened the summit as the chairperson of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation. South African president Cyril Ramaphosa, DRC president Felix Tshisekedi and Tanzanian president Saima Hassan also attended the Windhoek Summit, while the governments of Angola, Malawi and Zambia were also represented.

ANALYST

Political analyst Ndumba Kamwanya says Africa finds itself in a world geopolitical system that is very imbalanced, unequal and biased against some civilisations, especially the African continent whose resources are exploited.

“But Africa is also to be blamed, we allowed ourselves to be at the mercy of others. We like to play victim to every problem confronting us. We are our own saviours and need to put strong political, economic and cultural systems that can work for us and make us independent,” Kamanya argues.

Kamwanya has little hope that something tangible will come out of that to solve the DRC problem.

“There are just too many players, including major powers, with vested interests to want the conflict to continue rather than a peaceful DRC,” he added.

“DRC fatigue” has kicked in, even at the UN level, he said.

“That the world does not want to hear about the DRC conflict again, for support and solutions have become limited now,” the analyst said.

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