Of Europe’s twins and Africa’s quadruplets

Seeking solution to conflicts is ever in the air. The flurry of diplomatic activities along this line in recent times cannot but be noticed in Europe and in Africa.

Common to two of such conflicts on both continents is the struggle over territory; and of interest to this piece is the multinational approach to resolving them. Take Ukraine that has attracted trouble from bearish Russia, for instance.

The EU and other NATO countries have been running in every direction to find solutions; and years after Nigeria has singlehandedly nursed the Boko Haram menace flu, Niger and Cameroon have finally caught it, too.

In the event, the EU and the United Nations have appointed themselves as physicians to manage the case. Just as Ukraine’s president doesn’t refuse the EU’s offer of assistance to resolve its problems with Russia, so has President Goodluck Jonathan opened the door of his fine reception rooms in the State House to everyone who offers assistance to deal with Boko Haram.

The other day, he welcomed Ibn Chambas, Representative of the UN Secretary General, with a presidential handshake and smile that must have been reserved exclusively for old friends.

“The UN stands firmly with Nigeria in the fight against Boko Haram,” Chambas had said to news hunters after he conversed with the President. Words of support of this nature have also been flowing in the direction of Ukraine for some time.

Ukraine has the misfortune of sharing borders with Russia in an area that’s core to the latter’s strategic geopolitical calculations. All the 15 nations that were formerly a part of the defunct communist USSR but have become free at the end of the Cold War fall into this category.

Most of them have been quiet since 2014 when Russia occupied a part of Ukraine with the excuse that it was protecting its nationals; all of that had followed the uprising in Ukraine that threw out a pro-Russia president and led to the election of a pro-West leader.

From the time Russia occupied Ukraine’s territories, Western powers have read the move as a breach of some written and unwritten rules about what belongs to the West and what belongs to Russia after the end of the Cold War.

The Americans have been vocal; as President Barack Obama issues warnings, so do the lawmakers send threats. Both want to send arms to Ukraine. There’s more to it than that though, and the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, has been speaking about it.

Late January, Putin said the West doesn’t do all it does in the region in the national interest of Ukraine. He accused the West of having entirely different goals, and that such are tied to the achievement of the geopolitical goals of containing Russia. His argument is understandable.

During the Cold War, the USSR with the Warsaw Pact countries covered half of Europe and the entire area where Ukraine is located. Most of those countries have since joined NATO, or have queued up to join.

This is unacceptable to Putin, a former agent in the Soviet intelligence service, KGB, and a nationalist bent on bringing back the lost glory of Russia.

This is being hindered by further inclusion into NATO of Ukraine and other countries that he prefers to have under Russia’s sphere of influence. This part, the desire of a nation to embark on adventures to regain something as intangible as a “lost glory” is a recurrent factor on the international stage, one that regularly led to wars down the centuries, and which will continue to lead to conflicts in the centuries to come.

Note that Russia didn’t go about pursuing lost glory in its weakest moment after the collapse of the former Soviet Union, but at this time when it has regained some confidence on crucial fronts. This angle to its conflict with the West over Ukraine is equally interesting and it’s worth being reserving for a fuller treatment on another day.

For the moment, how Europe disagrees with the US on how to resolve the Ukraine matter is also important to consider. Both want peace for Ukraine; how to achieve it is what they disagree about. Fed up with Putin, the Americans want to send arms but the Europeans have a different view.

Unlike the Yankees, they are closer to Ukraine, to Russia, to all the other vulnerable nations on that axis, so they prefer diplomatic solutions to deployment of more arms. The EU has more reasons, and France with Germany are the heads that do the reasoning.

As powerhouses in the EU, they have the leverage to back up whatever they say among members.

They take many of the steps that they take because it’s in their interest to keep Europe under one umbrella; lessons from World War 1 and World War 11 are the reasons. Add this to the fact that both countries have the resources to bark and bite on the international stage. Through them, this writer continues to find the idea of seeking diplomatic solutions to conflict a fascinating exercise.

So, when Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel held hands and went to Moscow early February in search of peace for Ukraine, it was time to pay attention. For not long ago, one had had reasons to discuss on this page (“Within the EU, one plus one isn’t two”, November 21, 2014) the beauty in the French and German foreign ministers going to world capitals, including Abuja, for diplomatic reasons.

It’s worth noting that within a week after Hollande and Merkel visited the Kremlin, they got Russia, Ukraine and everyone else concerned to agree to a peace deal in Minsk, Belarus.

Except for slight additions, the deal was similar to the one agreed to last September and which collapsed as soon as it was signed. On this occasion, it was agreed that there would be a ceasefire and heavy weapons would be withdrawn from the frontlines of the conflict, which has killed at least 5,300 people in almost one year.

Ukraine will take control of some 400-kilometre stretch of Russia’s border with rebel-held Ukraine, but only after local elections are held. Not one of the attendees as well as the Americans who watched from afar had much hope that the Russians would trouble themselves to ensure that the agreement worked; so before they left the venue, Hollande and Merkel had begun to issue threats of more sanctions to Russia.

Yet no matter how things turn out, no one would say Europe’s twins didn’t try. What made them do what they did, and their efforts to continue to find diplomatic solution to conflict is a permanent feature of international relations. Without meaning to be pessimistic, what France and Germany did will be repeated in another form in another place tomorrow.

At the moment, how these countries adapt to changing circumstances in order to confront emerging challenges is the more important point; it’s the point that leads back to the efforts being made by Africa’s quadruplets.

It’s worth noting that Chambas’ visit to Abuja happened as Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon sat to arrange how a regional force could be utilised to combat the Boko Haram insurgency.

The four had since agreed to fight under the umbrella of the countries that belong to the Lake Chad Development Commission. That’s an adaptation of an institution set up for other purposes to meet new challenges, and it’s important if it’s considered that it’s under the watch of this same body that Lake Chad lost more than 60 per cent of its size.

Now threats to their individual peace by Boko Haram insurgents who have divided that region into their own emirates that cut across international boundaries have got the concerned countries to sit up.

This writer argues here that while the circumstance is not the best, countries concerned are kept on their toes because a new challenge forces them to be. Just as a challenge got France and Germany to speak up where only the US used to have a voice, it may be that the current challenge will keep Africa’s quadruplets working together for some time.

It may also be that it will make them extend the new partnership into working out how Lake Chad can be used to improve the economic condition of the people in that region and thus undo a few of the factors that have made Boko Haram attractive to its recruits.