![Cobus Claasens]()
Claasens left South Africa in
1995 |
Each day this
week, the BBC is looking at African problems through African eyes.
Here, Cobus Claasens, a former South African mercenary now living in
Sierra Leone, reflects on why Africa is ridden with conflict.
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I served in the South African army and then in private military
companies after that. I came to Sierra Leone in 1995, worked here and then
formed my own business, and I'm still in Freetown after all these years.
All those horror stories you hear about Africa actually happened here.
People burned alive in houses, girls taken into the cathedral and raped,
beheadings.
The perpetrators were often kids, child soldiers.
Here in Freetown, the victims of the rebels are everywhere - orphaned
streetkids, young girls having to work as prostitutes to keep their
families.
I have my opinions about what causes war in Africa, what fans the
flames of it.
One could easily say that war is the result of failures. Some failures
in Africa don't lead to war and others do. Why do political systems fail?
Why do military forces fail in their duty to protect the people? Why did
they take over power? Why is there corruption? Poverty? Why is there
famine?
Maybe if you ask those questions and you get answers to them then
you'll move closer to why there is war in Africa.
Resources
Throughout Africa, there are people without work, without prospects for
the future. Many young men find it hard to get a job, there is nothing to
do. In the provinces it is worse. That is why the chances of them going to
war are higher.
One Freetown engineer that I spoke to, Michael, told me that people are
afraid, and blame the government, the politicians and the rich.
Studies have shown that when incomes double, the risk of a country
falling into a war halves.
![Mother who has had her hands amputated with her baby]()
Victims of the war are visible everywhere in Sierra
Leone |
But the irony is
that war has often broken out in those countries with the best natural
resources.
Too often, it just creates something worth fighting over, and then the
money to keep the conflict going.
Okere Adams, a Sierra Leone government minister, explained to me that
the country's agriculture industry was virtually abandoned by workers when
diamonds were discovered. The net result was conflict over the diamond
mining areas, and people from other countries joining in in the hope of
winning access to the mines.
And look at Liberia, with its timber and diamonds, or DR Congo.
When the Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi was killed, he'd built up a
$4bn fortune on the back of that country's mineral wealth.
And there are other reasons behind wars in Africa. Look at the mess
that was often left when colonial powers pulled out.
I fought in a counter-insurgency war in the north of Namibia and the
south of Angola with various sideline operations in other Southern African
countries.
Many people say the Angola war has its roots in tribalism. Angola was
carved up like the other countries by the colonial powers - already the
borders misrepresented the geopolitical status of some peoples.
You can take another step back and see how the colonial power had
administered that country.
Imagine it had administered that country in an enlightened way. Let's
say they could look into the future and appoint a consultant from the UN
today to advise them on how to do it.
If this consultant had taught them not to mismanage the human and
natural resources, to educate the people to the fullest extent, to govern
in a humane and internationally recognisable way, and finally had taught
them to reintegrate the people of that country into the government,
imagine that path had been followed in Angola.
Maybe perhaps it would be a prosperous, peaceful country with very
clever people, well educated and rich.
Role model
Politicians justifiably get a lot of blame for what's gone wrong on the
continent. But democracy is slowly spreading.
In the 1960s and 1970s no black African leader south of the Sahara was
voted out of power, and only one in the 1980s.
But from then to 2004, more than a dozen new leaders were arrived via
the ballot box.
So are politicians making good the mistakes of the past?
Minister Okere Adams claims that "we have learned our lessons" and
proudly points out that 17 parties contested the last election in Sierra
Leone.
What about outside influences?
![South Africans queuing to vote]()
Claasens hopes South Africa could provide a model for
the continent |
Here in
Sierra Leone, I fought with Executive Outcomes - in effect a mercenary
unit that was brought into fight the RUF. Later on, the British Army also
got involved militarily.
Both were effective, stopped the rebels and saved thousands of lives.
But Africa has also seen powers from outside fight murderous proxy wars
across the continent.
Simple diplomacy could have solved many of Africa's wars, but there has
often been an unwillingness to intervene in other countries' affairs.
And often, a country's neighbours have their own interests in the war.
Look at the number of countries with stakes in Congo's war.
A UN with a strong mandate to sort out problems, and an African Union
with the willingness and funding to get involved in crises like Darfur,
would be a big step in helping African countries to get their own houses
in order.
The roots of conflict in Africa are complicated, but war costs this
continent so much that some effort must be made to find a role model so
that other countries can avoid what has happened here in Freetown.
Maybe that role model is my own country.
In the 1980s, it looked like it was heading for disaster, but there was
strong leadership from Mandela and De Klerk, there was forgiveness from
the black population for what had been done to them, and pragmatism and
common sense from the whites.
There was also a long term view that reconciliation was the best way
forward for everyone.
That I believe is why we succeeded where so many others
