GREEN POLITICS, "VOICE" OF SALVATION FOR THE 3RD MILLENNIUM ON THE AFRICAN CONTINENT

Jean NKE NDIH
President of the Green Party
Defence of the Cameroon Environment (DEC)
PO 6361 Yaounde

email: dec.verts@camnet.cm

Since the advent of modern African states in the sixties, our continent has been characterised by dictatorships which have impeded any constructive evolution; worse still, environmental protection has been sacrificed to the so-called economic modernisation that has led to the results we are familiar with today.

Thanks to a combination of various circumstances, democracy re-surfaced in Africa in the nineties. This openness which began with the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 has triggered the birth of green parties across the continent. This proliferation of African green parties was a direct consequence of economic and environmental mismanagement under dictatorships, leading to deforestation, desertification, imported toxic wastes, urban squalor, population impoverishment,etc..In these very difficult and pressing circumstances the green parties in Africa were created.

The ideology underpinning green philosophy can be summed up as a concept of healthy management for a healthy environment in order to promote sustainable development for all layers of society. This ideology is based on solidarity, equity, respect for the environment,etc...It goes beyond tribes and ethnicities. It is universal.

In the African context, we have been able to determine that the powers that be have no real program other than the defence of the interests of tribes and their associates, which explains the chaotic situation on the African continent at the end of this millennium. What's deplorable is that any visible opposition parties in almost every country on the continent use the same methods as the governing parties that they're supposedly in opposition to. That is easily explained as they're all former friends who have become separated by their appetite for their own interests and that's the reason why Africa is constantly prone to civil wars. The defence of the tribal interest is a rousing call and easily exploited by and for politicians.

In the face of this failure, the greens are talking about something else; about altruism and humanism, which focuses on man in an environment which he needs to protect in order to protect himself. This kind of talk is frank, devoid of demagogy and calls on the whole of society to face up to their responsibilities. A pre-condition of effective environmental protection is the establishment of true democracy, which in African countries is not the catchcry we hear.

The different green parties which have been set up, often by intellectual minorities living in the large cities where life has been degraded at all levels, still allow room for hope. But it's still far from easy for these "African greens" to achieve anything, and for various reasons. Apart from current dictatorships viewing this ideology (that counters their management at all levels) with suspicion and not being averse to intimidation and blackmail, there are also myriad financial and logistic difficulties stemming from the fact that these green parties have not emerged from the ranks of former barons who pillaged their countries in order to build their own fortunes.

Given this situation, the African green parties followed the old adage of "unity is strength" and decided to regroup. The first step was taken from 30th May to 2nd June1994, when 11 green parties from 9 West African and Central African countries met in Niamey (Nigeria). This meeting led to the formation of the African Greens Committee, whose objective was to funnel all the green forces on the continent towards the same goals and to allow them to swap experiences.

The Committee survived for 4 years, when it became apparent that another structure was required to further integrate activities, which is the reason why from 7-9th May 1998 at the Bissau congress, the Committee was transformed into the African Federation of green parties. This new structure has new objectives, especially as the time approaches for the greens throughout the world to come together; which explains the participation at this congress in Guinea-Bissau of a delegation from the Federation of green parties in the Americas and their signing on that occasion of a partnership agreement with the burgeoning African Federation.

 Following in this spirit of coming together, a Euro-African Greens Conference was held in Nairobi (Kenya) in December 1998 and set itself new targets within the framework of a partnership between the European and African Greens federations. Thanks to these 2 partnerships, Africa finds itself in the centre of a regrouping of the Greens from the whole planet, since opportunities for this eventuality exist. A meeting was planned for September 1999 in Mexico, where the all the world's Greens were invited. And then there's the global meeting of the Greens the Australian Greens are preparing for the month of April 2001, in order to launch the new millennium, which will no doubt be the Green millennium.

Despite the difficulties currently faced by green parties in Africa, there is no cause for concern, as the dictatorships' chains are already rusting and will surely break. We know well that current African democracies are only a facade but they will evolve in the right direction. Who would have thought that the African dictators who were swearing by one party government more than a decade ago would accept the current openness. In several countries in Europe, a continent which often legitimises the dominance of African tyrants, the very people who beat and vilified the Greens have been obliged to go into coalition with them in order to form government. We see the case of Germany, where not long ago Joschka FISCHER and his friends were pursued in the streets by police armed with batons and subjected to all sorts of harassment. Now, the Grünen are recognised as the 3rd political force in Germany, and are in a governing coalition where they are not disempowered, quite the contrary...in France and in Belgium the Greens are present in governing coalitions.

Returning to Africa we celebrated the great performance of Ram OUEDRAOGO, a green in Burkina-Faso who polled 7% of the vote in the presidential elections in November 1998, behind Blaise COMPAORE the departing president, and who has since  become a senior minister. In Bissau in Guinea, the Greens are also in governing coalition. These examples are perhaps already a sign that the African Greens will mature and their "Spring" will come in the first two decades of the 3rd millennium, if democracy truly comes to the continent.