How did others do it?

I am thinking of UNITA in Angola. Members of my generation of Africans grew up thinking that the war in Angola will never end. UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi looked like the kind of man who will fight forever. He had absolutely no desire to talk to or compromise with the left-wing MPLA in Luanda. He […]

I am thinking of UNITA in Angola. Members of my generation of Africans grew up thinking that the war in Angola will never end. UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi looked like the kind of man who will fight forever. He had absolutely no desire to talk to or compromise with the left-wing MPLA in Luanda. He had support from Mobutu Sese Seko, CIA and South Africa’s apartheid-era rulers, plus control of rich mines. Then one day an Angolan fighter plane streaked in and shot up Jonas Savimbi. Within weeks UNITA collapsed and the interminable Angolan civil war ended. Nigeria Air Force, over to you.
Apart from UNITA, Angola also had FNLA and FLEC. The late Major General Joseph Garba told the story in his book of how FLEC [Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda] announced its secession from Angola on the day he was appointed Nigeria’s Foreign Minister in 1975. The permanent secretary brought to Garba’s house a statement condemning the secession. The new minister had never heard of FLEC and he had no map of Africa in his house to check where Cabinda was. Top shots in Nigeria today should learn from Garba’s agony and keep an Atlas nearby in case they have to find out where Bama is.
Anyway, today we don’t hear about FNLA, FLEC and UNITA any more than we hear about RENAMO, the Mozambican rebel group supported by South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. Many shocking episodes of brutality and senseless murder that we associate with Boko Haram today were the hallmarks of RENAMO in those days. In fact, the African war that most closely resembled Boko Haram was Algeria’s brutal civil war of the 1990s. Unlike FIS [the Islamic Salvation Front] in Algeria, Boko Haram never won an election here but it is a sure copy of the Algerian Islamists’ ideology and their methods of wholesale slaughter of villagers. Algeria is more sparsely populated than Nigeria, with more open terrain but a much more efficient state structure, yet the carnage lasted for many years before it subsided. Another group that won many laurels for beastly behaviour was Foday Sankoh’s RUF rebels in Sierra Leone but the British went in and routed them. We should ask, how did the Sierra Leoneans lure in the British?
Trouble does come out of the blues. Two years ago, all Africans were puzzled that Tuareg rebels swept down from the Sahara, declared an Azawad State and were soon in control of two thirds of Mali. When an Al-Qaeda linked army supplanted them, the French went in with guns blazing [with an African force in tow] and soon cleared the way. Some Nigerians must be hoping that an Al-Qaeda-linked group will supplant Boko Haram so that French Mirage jets will streak into Sambisa.
Throughout my youth, I thought that Colonel John Garang and the South Sudan rebels would fight forever. Today the Afghan Taliban look like they are the world’s permanent warriors, having battled the Soviets, battled many local enemies, battled Americans and NATO since 2001 and are set to continue the war against the successor to Hamid Karzai. Latin America also has rebel groups that have been around for many decades, such as Colombian FARC rebels and their neighbours, Peru’s Sandro Luminoso [Shining Path]. The path darkened for Shining Path when its leader Abimael Guzman was captured in 1992.
Last week when I saw a picture of Oga Jonathan with Ali Modu Sheriff sitting in Chadian President Idris Deby’s study, I thought, how times change and how fortunes are reversed! Back in 1979, Chad was so ravaged by armed militias that General Obasanjo summoned them to Nigeria to broker a truce. Hissene Habre, Goukouni Waddeye, Abdulkader Kamougoue and many other Chadians had private militias of their own. We disarmed all of them and sent a peace keeping force to Chad. Now we are begging Idris Deby to help us contain Boko Haram.
Probably no region of the world has produced as many armed groups in modern times as did the Middle East due to the interminable Arab-Israeli conflict. Even there, we no longer here about some groups that were once very prominent such as the Palestinian groups Al Saiqa, Black September, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [PFLP] and PFLP-General Command. Little is heard today of the Lebanese Druze militia, of Christian Phalangists or the Shiite Amal militia. Only Hezbollah and Gaza’s Hamas are still visible, lately joined by ISIS.
Nigerians thought the solution had arrived when several Western powers and China offered help in the wake of the Chibok girls’ abduction. After several months, all we hear is silence. Not too long ago, many of these countries had armed insurgents of their own. At least they should tell us how they managed to contain them. Among the armed rebel groups that have fizzled out, there is the Red Brigades in Italy. The Italian state is sloppy by European standards and it suffered many embarrassments in the hands of the Red Brigades. The 1978 abduction and murder of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro was as traumatic to Italians as the Chibok girls’ abduction has been to us.
The German Red Army Faction is also history now. If Italy could be considered to be the Nigeria of Europe, Germany is the most efficient of human societies. Yet, Andreas Baader and his girlfriend Ulrike Meinhof wrecked havoc in that country until they were captured. In fact, Boko Haram is not more fanatical than the Japanese Red Army which did international contract terrorist jobs, such as the 1976 attack at Tel Aviv Airport on contract from the PLO. Many things Japanese tend to be grisly, such as the Aum Shim Rikyo cult that released sarin gas on the Tokyo subway. Little is heard of both groups now. Britain has also seen the back of the Provisional IRA, though it took more than two decades of “the troubles” in Northern Ireland.
Talking about the IRA and the Good Friday Agreement that disbanded it, some Nigerian intellectuals and media writers have argued that “all wars end at the peace table.” At the table yes; at the peace table, not necessarily. Sometimes combatants go to the table not to negotiate but to sign the instrument of surrender. The biggest war in human history, the Second World War, ended at the table where the Axis Powers signed the Instrument of Unconditional Surrender.
Sometimes the reverse happens and a war ends with insurgents’ triumph. In Africa here, it happened in Ethiopia in 1991 when Ethiopian and Eritrean rebels jointly drove out Mengistu and the Dergue and assumed power. The Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese triumphed in 1975 when they drove out the Americans and captured Saigon. Even the most impossible looking rebel demand sometimes succeeds. My friends and I used to laugh at a line in Frederick Forsyth’s book The Devils Alternative about a Ukrainian rebel group that wanted to secede from the Soviet Union. It ultimately happened.
Could Boko Haram ever hope to overrun Nigeria or at least the North? When Japanese Emperor Hirohito asked his admirals in 1941 to assess the prospects of war against the USA, they said the US “is too big to be conquered and occupied.” I don’t think Shekau has military staff planners of similar quality at his Sambisa headquarters. They should quote for him the story of Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers, which ended a 30 year war without a single political benefit.
So, with time, with patience and with luck, Boko Haram will one day be a footnote in Nigeria’s history. But try telling that to an Internally Displaced Person from Bama.