Crises in Several African Nations Rival Sudanís But Getting Little Attention Worldwide by Craig Mauro More than 1 million Africans have been displaced from their homes, fleeing an armed militia that carries out untold atrocities. There are reports of rape and routine abductions of children, who are brainwashed into attacking their own villages or forced into sexual servitude. The national government and humanitarian relief agencies struggle to contain the situation. Pleas for help are issued to the international community. This horrific scenario is not unfolding in Sudan. Itís taking place in a country just to the south, in Uganda, and itís been going on for 18 years. Three provinces in the north of that country have been brutalized since the 1980s by the Lordís Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel group whose fanatical leaders say their powers come from witchcraft and whose original goal was to install a society based strictly on the Ten Commandments. The current crisis in Sudanóundoubtedly a massive human tragedyóhas captured the attention of the worldís media and political leaders in recent months. The United Nations has branded it the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. But just a year ago, Jan Egeland, the U .N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, told the BBC this: "I cannot find any other part of the world that is having an emergency on the scale of Uganda, that is getting such little international attention." Uganda isnít the only country in Africa with a conflict often missed by the media spotlight. Tensions are simmering in a range of places, from the vast Democratic Republic of the Congo to the tiny Central African Republic and even to CÙte díIvoire, a former bastion of stability where violence flared again last month after a one-year ceasefire between the government and a rebel group. In the north of Uganda, the conflict is essentially fought by children. Operating out of camps in southern Sudan, the LRA has kidnapped thousands of them. Girls are often made into sex slaves. Boys are turned into killing machines who sometimes must attack the very villages from which they were abducted. Although the rebelsí stated goal is overthrowing the Ugandan government, their victims are mostly civilians. Edith Grace Ssempala, Ugandaís ambassador to the United States, recalled an anecdote of a teenager who escaped the LRA to describe the psychological terror inflicted by the group. "This young man told us that one day he was faced with the possibility of killing his own father," she said. "They raided his village and he came up to his father and his father asked him, ëDo you want to come back?í And the young man said, ëIím not interested in what you have to say. I came to kill you.í His father said, ëThen if you want to kill me, do it.í "The boy ended up not killing his father," Ssempala continued. "He eventually escaped and he told how the LRA trained children by forcing them to eat blood of human beings, forcing them to kill each other. To villagers, they will chop off their ears and noses." About 1.6 million Ugandansó90 percent of the population of three provincesóhave been displaced by the fighting. Rights workers estimate the rebels have kidnapped 30,000 people. The rampages have created a unique subculture of people known as the "night commuters." Every night, thousands of villagers trek into larger towns nearby to sleep in the streets to avoid abduction. At dawn they hike back to their villages. Ssempala is optimistic that the beginning of the LRAís end is near. She said Sudan has allowed Uganda to root out LRAís base camps in its country and that all Uganda needs is logistical support from the international community to launch a military deathblow against the rebels and their leader, Joseph Kony. By the ambassadorís own account, an amnesty law for fighters and various presidential pardons hasnít depleted the LRAís ranks. At one point, Ssempala said, there were more than 140 ministers and deputy ministers in the governmentóan attempt by President Yoweri Museveni to appease the opposition. In central Africaís giant, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), there is also some hope, but itís muddled by ongoing violence in the eastern provinces that government officials say is fueled by foreign-backed militias. In the late 1990s, Congo (formerly Zaire) was wracked by an internal war that took 3.5 million lives in five yearsóthe most of any conflict since World War II. Since last July the country has been governed by a power-sharing coalition that includes two former rebel movements and a nonviolent political opposition party. National elections are set for July 2005, although they may be delayed a few months, said Faida Mitifu, the DRCís ambassador in Washington. "The country is united at this point, but weíre still faced with the challenge of expanding the central governmentís authority throughout the entire territory. In the eastern part of the country, there are still pockets of conflict, and those are unfortunately still orchestrated by neighboring countries," said Mitifu. "Right now we are in the process of forcing these foreign militia to disarm, demobilize and return to their country. We have signed a tripartite agreement with Rwanda and Uganda to work toward those goals." If voluntary disarmament wonít work, she said, the government will resort to force. The humanitarian consequences of Congoís brutal war will take years to sort out. Two million people are displaced internally, and thousands of Congolese refugees are scattered throughout neighboring countries. According to the United Nations, access is so bad in the east that more than 3 million people are out of reach of aid workers. Mitifu said the government is now collecting data on how many women were victims in mass rapes by militia fighters. So far the preliminary number is 25,000, but that will likely grow. "We must deal with those consequences," said Mitifu. "How do you heal these communities? This war has created a huge gap among some of the communities in the area. So weíre working on bringing them together in places like Ituri province and the Kivus [provinces in the east]." Mitifu said she doesnít have an answer as to why some tragedies and conflicts garner the worldís attention and others donít. But sometimes, she said, she feels like a short person in a room full of tall people, trying to get everyoneís attention but constantly being overlooked. "All we can do is just keep pushing, keep reminding people that Congo still needs attention," she said. "The international community cannot allow a vacuum in the Congo. It cannot allow its disintegration." To the north, in landlocked Central African Republic (CAR), a president who came to power by coup in March 2003 appears to be making progress in setting up a democratic transition. Former Army Chief of Staff Francois Bozize seized power and suspended the constitution after a series of military mutinies and looting in the late 1990s led to an attempted coup by rebel forces loyal to a former president. The fighting and economic upheaval prompted an estimated 41,000 Central Africans to flee to neighboring Chad. Emmanuel Touaboy, CARís ambassador to the United States, said more than 90 percent of those people have returned. "The humanitarian consequence is the economic situation that all that created," the ambassador said. Touaboy added that the government has held a national reconciliation conference, which produced an economic development plan that entails generating tax revenue from the countryís mostly black-market trade in gold and diamonds. The International Monetary Fund has approved a post-conflict credit for CAR. The country is also set to hold a national referendum this month on a new constitution. Presidential elections are scheduled for January, and legislative elections for February. "Right now there is peace and hope in our country," Touaboy said. One African nation that has recently been catapulted into the international headlines is CÙte díIvoire. An amnesty law had been in effect between northern rebels and the government in the south, but frustration with stalled disarmament by rebels led the government last month to break an 18-month ceasefire. The Ivorian air force strafed positions in the rebel-held north. One strike hit a French peacekeeping base, killing nine French troops and a U.N. aid worker. The government said the strike was a mistake, but French forces subsequently wiped out CÙte díIvoireís small air force. That sparked riots and looting in Abidjan, the countryís largest city, with mobs reportedly targeting foreign-owned businesses. CÙte díIvoire accused French forces of firing on crowds of protesters. Bamba Mamadou, press counselor at the CÙte díIvoire Embassy in Washington, said at least 60 Ivoirians have been killed and hundreds more injured in the violence. O bservers around the world are waiting to see if the country will descend into anarchy. As of mid-November, more than 5,000 French foreigners evacuated the country, and more than 10,000 African citizens fled to neighboring countries. The U.N. Security Council has adopted a French-sponsored resolution to ban arms exports to the African nation to stem the violence, which will remain in place until December of next year. CÙte díIvoire had enjoyed relative political stability for nearly 40 years since independence in 1960, but that began to unravel in 1999. A military coup was followed by a contested election process and two more attempted coups. The second one, in September 2002, evolved into a rebellion against President Laurent Gbagboís government, with a rebel group led by exiled military officers taking over the north. The French-brokered Linas-Marcoussis agreement led to a power-sharing government last year under Gbagbo and laid out a set of laws and constitutional amendments to be passed. Mamadou, the embassy press counselor, said the Parliament has not only passed an amnesty law but six other laws to accommodate the rebels. Of the 16 recommended constitutional amendments, seven have been adopted and eight others are either with Parliament or the Council of Ministers. Yet little progress had been made on disarmament, Mamadou said, so the government decided to attack. Meanwhile, despite the media attention on the violence in Abidjan, a humanitarian crisis persists in the rebel-controlled areas, home to 15 percent of the countryís 18 million people. "Since the beginning of 2002, there are no banks, no pharmacies, all government administration is completely shut down. It is only through international organizations that some hospitals were kept open, but not all of them. There are no more schools," said Mamadou. "We do not have news from there. [The rebels] have seized the local TV station in BouakÈ, people in the north couldnít see what was going on national TV. We donít know presently what is really going on there." Craig Mauro is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C.