When Bullets Start To Flower
China’s Special Envoy on Darfur, Liu Guijin, has defended his state’s sale of weapons to Sudan, amidst blame for non-action over the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, a region the size of France! Guijin added that his country ‘only’ accounted for 8% Sudan’s total arms imports. Unfortunately, the countries that should keep the Eastern giant on toes are not clean either. Despite some harsh words to Khartoum, it is reported that the leading suppliers of arms to the country are the USA, Russia and the UK. About 200,000 people have died in the five years of conflict between rebels, the army and pro-Khartoum militias. Which way forward Africa? Is there no single African government that would prefer peace to conflict and the needless killing of citizenry? The countries that supply arms to the world’s second-largest continent are just conducting profit-making business. Human life is irrelevant to their interests.
I am tempted to agree with noted scholar, Prof. Ali Mazrui, that the biggest institutional problem the colonizers left the continent is a standing army. It is this military that either places people in power or blackmails governments into making them happy, lest the soldiers mutiny. This, coupled with weak governance institutions just compounds the problems of rulership in Africa. We can surely do better than this, dear continent. Surely, once we know what our problem is, why not take proactive measures to rectify the same? When will my beloved continent’s bullets start to flower?
