Russian-President-Vladimir-Putin-attends-a-meeting-with-delegations-of-African-leaders-at-the-Constantine-Palace
Kampala, Uganda I HABARI DAILY I The recent peace mission which involved several African leaders who engaged in shuttle diplomacy in Moscow and Kiev should be applauded.
But my question is: Can Africans, who are used to political squabbling, with blood sprinkled all over their backyards, be ambassadors of peace? At second thought, I think they can. But this is not to say that their recent peace mission to Moscow and Kiev was a success.
Scepticists like me were of the view that African leaders were too blood thirsty to engage in a conversation of peace. And not when that conversation involves a Super Power with the second strongest army on planet earth.
But as the saying goes, “Let’s give peace a chance.” We were all hoping for a breakthrough between Russia and Ukraine. Maybe the African leaders possessed the magic wand that would crack the nut of acrimony at long last.
I for one was of the view that the experience African leaders have from internal and regional conflicts would have enabled them to come up with an “out of the box solution”.
However, this conflict is so complicated as it is multilayered and intertwined. That’s the reason why the Americans, Europeans and the Chinese have made a go at finding an amicable solution to it, but failed.
To make matters worse when it comes to the delegation from the black continent, many African countries have been divided over their response to the conflict. Some have sided with Ukraine, while others have remained neutral or gravitated towards Moscow.
During their meeting with Zelenskyy, the Ukraine president requested the African leaders to push Putin to release political prisoners as a confidence-building measure. This would have been the minimum achievement of the peace mission, but it was never realized.
To hit the nail deeper into the coffin of peace fantasy, Ukraine’s leader said after meeting the leaders, that peace talks with Russia would be possible only after Moscow withdrew its forces from occupied Ukrainian territory.
That was the stroke that broke the camel’s back. If they cannot monitor their own adversaries back home, who keep on infiltrating national armies to orchestrate coup d’états that throw them out of presidential palaces, how can they possibly suggest troop withdrawal of the second strongest army in the world.
At long last, I believe it’s good to keep dreaming
