The Cold War sometimes saw France cohabitating with the United States and Britain against the former USSR to compete for African favour. But this cohabitation never evolved into collaboration. Although Africa and its problems now occupy a much lower priority in Paris, London and Washington, the differences between adherents to the Francophone and Anglophone camps continue to characterise African politics despite past announcements to the contrary. Ironically, it is the US’ lack of strategic interest that may provide new fuel to age-old differences. For all the abuse so readily directed by Africans against the former colonial occupiers such as France, Britain and Belgium, these countries maintain an interest and a role in Africa exactly because of their historical association with the continent. Their future in Africa is inextricably bound to their past. In the case of the US, on the contrary, Africa was a disposable Cold War battlefield, and its only remaining relevance is represented by the oil fields along the Gulf of Guinea, and possibly in Sudan, where oil discoveries are set to reverse traditional US support to the south.

Foreign policy on Africa of the Bush Administration is unclear. At the time of the US elections, rhetoric around the issue was based on a vague notion of ‘withdrawal’ and somehow being ‘different’ from the policy espoused by Bill Clinton. With no clear alternatives evident, George Bush soon found himself drawn into African conflicts with one of the first tasks facing Colin Powell, incoming Secretary of State, an official visit to the continent — in marked contrast to the pledge to withdraw rather than engage. Important as it was, Powell’s symbolic visit did not provide content for US policy on Africa, a continent now largely of limited commercial interest.

It is in part the retreat of US strategic interest from Africa that is opening up new frontiers for French political cum economic engagement and that may provide the opportunity for a reassertion of ‘competition by default’.

Post-Cold War rivalry between France and the Anglophone world in Africa takes many forms. At the one end of the spectrum are the ongoing attempts to insert a Francophone facilitator (in this case President Omar Bongo from Gabon) either to replace or at least ‘co-facilitate’ in the peace processes in Burundi and/or the Democratic Republic of Congo. In both instances, the intention is to usurp or arrange for a Francophone successor to former president of Botswana, Sir Ketumile Masire (in the case of the DRC), or former President Nelson Mandela of South Africa (in the Arusha peace process on Burundi). On the basis that a large number of people in both countries are English-speaking, Botswana and South Africa are defined, ipso facto, as instruments of American foreign policy in French eyes. This simplistic categorisation can have unintended effects in some instances. A recent example is the active support to the Omega Plan of President Abdoulaye Wade as a ‘Francophone’ alternative to the ‘Anglophone’ Millennium African Recovery Program. The two plans were merged only days before the July Summit meeting of the Organisation of African States (OAU) in Lusaka to constitute what is now called the African Initiative. In the process, French action frustrated South African foreign policy ambitions for no apparent strategic purpose apart from opposition to what is perceived to be Anglophone. Thus, Paris set itself up as an obstruction rather than a potential South African ally in the region.

Elsewhere, the differences appear to be equally reflexive rather than strategic. When Britain and the US pushed for the imposition of sanctions on the regime of warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor in Liberia, France argued against such measures, forcing a considerable weakening of the original intent in the final Security Council resolutions. Admittedly, France has been a staunch opponent of sanctions, evident in its opposition to the measures against Iraq, but even in this instance, it is more a matter of business and competition for favour in the Arab world. One of the enduring characteristics that impact upon French relations is the closer association between commercial and political action, in turn, a function of the much larger role of the socialist state in the economy. This is exemplified by Paris’ direct engagement on behalf of TotalFinaElf in Congo-Brazzaville and Angola.

Closer to home, France became an avid supporter of Laurent Kabila after he removed his (pro-Tutsi) Rwandan and Ugandan advisors, as it was of Mobutu — although the relationship between Paris and Mobutu was often soured by the Zaïrian leader’s continued dalliance with the US. For a time, the shifts in strategic alignments promised interesting bedfellows. As the alienation between Britain and Zimbabwe (Kabila’s staunchest military ally) increased, France found itself on the same side with Mugabe — both resisting Tutsi/Ugandan power in the DRC. No wonder that, several months ago to the dismay of the British, who were at the forefront of condemning Harare for its derogation of the rule of law, President Robert Mugabe, after lunch with the European Development Commissioner, Poul Nielson, was given a warm gallic reception by President Jacques Chirac in Paris.

The extreme impact of these differences is perhaps best illustrated by the events surrounding the world’s most well-known genocide in Rwanda in 1994 — most well-known since it was preceded by a series of selected mass murders, mostly aimed at Tutsis in Rwanda and against Hutus in Burundi since the late 1950s.

At the time of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, France had replaced Belgium as the foremost proponent and protector of Hutu power, first through its support to the founder of Hutu nationalism, Gregoire Kayibanda, the country’s first president from 1962. He was deposed by a fellow Hutu from the same northern region, Major General Juvénal Habyarimana, in a bloodless coup in 1973. Habyarimana signed a military co-operation and training agreement with Paris two years later.

In 1962, the year Rwanda became independent, 163 000 mostly Tutsi refugees fled to neighbouring Burundi, Zaïre, Tanzania and Uganda after the ‘selective genocide’ by Hutus of Tutsis. One of many similar movements between countries in the region, this could not parallel the subsequent slaughter of Hutus by Tutsis in neighbouring Burundi. With Tutsis fleeing into countries such as Uganda, from where Paul Kagame and the Rwanda Patriotic Front would ultimately launch their successful military bid for power, it was no wonder that Tutsi power became associated with Anglophone influence.

In this regard, Rwanda is important not because French is its second language (after Kinyarwanda), but because it is located on a political faultline between Francophone Central and Anglophone East Africa to the extent that Uganda is termed ‘Tutsiland’ by some within the French military.

Given the support provided to Habyarimana, French support to Hutu power translated into virtually unconditional support and Paris became the major weapons supplier to Rwanda between 1990 and 1994. The security agreement between the two countries became an Accord de défense in 1992. With substantial French military assistance, Habyarimana defeated the first and second invasion of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) from Uganda in 1990 and early 1993, but not the third. To many who had grown cynical of developments in the Great Lakes region, France’s Operation Turquoise — executed late in 1994, ostensibly as a humanitarian mission to save lives at a time when the Hutu genocide of Tutsis had largely run its course — was more about protecting Hutu power from the advancing RPF than anything else.

The ‘Anglophone nature’ of Tutsi power was confirmed by the subsequent clandestine US military, intelligence and logistic support provided to the Alliance des forces démocratiques pour la liberation du Congo-Zaïre (ADFL) in its successful march across Zaïre from Goma in the east to Kinshasa in the west. In fact, the rapid conversion of the RPF, under Kagame’s leadership, from a rag-tag bunch of a few hundred poorly armed and trained insurgents to a well-equipped, well-trained military force in excess of 15 000 men in a relatively short period, itself raises interesting questions.

When a UN committee was set up in 2000 to investigate the looting of the mineral resources in the DRC, it primarily denounced Uganda and Rwanda for the illegal exploitation of the country’s resources. Released in mid-April 2001, its report was detailed, naming Major-General Salim Saleh, the brother of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, among the senior Ugandan and Rwandan commanders whom it accused of stealing diamonds, gold, coltan, timber and ivory. It called for sanctions against both countries — a move inevitably blocked by Britain and the US, sudden converts to the anti-sanctions position historically held by France. Paris was delighted with the result - while Uganda, Rwanda and the Rwandan-backed Rassemblement congolais pour la démocratie (RCD) immediately attacked the report as malicious, shoddy and unfair, predictably accusing France of manipulating the conclusions.

Francophone African policy is no longer the exclusive and secret preserve of the French presidency, but has become diffused between various sources of influence, including the office of the foreign minister, the prime minister, the military, Direction générale de la sécurité exterieure (DGSE) and specific commercial interests such as those of the oil and defence industries. Paris has abandoned its past policy of unilateral French armed intervention — evident in developments in Côte d’Ivoire where the coup d’êtat against President Bedié was allowed to run its course in plain sight of the French barracks. Under the stewardship of prime minister Lionel Jospin of the Socialist Party, it appeared for a time as if a greater period of co-operation with Britain had commenced and France sought to emphasise its role in the provision of development assistance to the continent.

To some observers, the differences between Anglophone and Francophone supporters in Africa appear symbolic, an irritating hangover from an earlier, bygone era. But this would be a serious misreading of the situation, for the rivalry between the two blocs is increasingly taken up by Africans themselves who play the same game in seeking support from different alignments in the regional and international system.

The recent visit of French Foreign Minister, Hubert Vedrine, to Central Africa and the Great Lakes Region is therefore important. Vedrine met DRC President Joseph Kabila, but also subsequently Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Rwandan President Paul Kagame, as well as rebel leaders Adolphe Onusumba, head of the Rwandan-backed RCD, and Jean-Pierre Bemba, backed by Uganda. The visit, part of a tour to try and bolster peace efforts in the war-battered region, was the first by such a senior French official to the DRC since the late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko was ousted in 1997. It follows hard on the heels of a visit by the British Minister for Development Co-operation, Clare Short.

Support to opposing camps and alliances in the DRC has the considerable potential to undermine a common international approach to conflict prevention and resolution in this hapless region. The peace mission in the Congo, Mission de l’organisation des Nations Unies au Congo (MONUC), is already clearly split between Anglophone and Francophone interests with French hostility palpable towards the prominent role of British officers in the mission — seen as an unwarranted interference in a French-speaking state. This has great potential to undermine the peace process in the country.

"We are on the razor’s edge," Vedrine said in the interview published by the UN information network after his visit. "Not one of the internal or external participants in the Congolese crisis has a clear-cut interest in the application of the dialogue and process of peace." Africans and their former colonial masters, including the US, will have to make common cause if they are serious in advancing the peace process in the DRC and Great Lakes region.

And so the struggle continues, perhaps driven by sentiment, perhaps by historical memories of earlier times, perhaps by strategic interests. What is clear, is that a common approach towards African solutions by international leaders committed to conditioned support for core values such as the respect for human rights, trade liberalisation, democratisation and good governance would be to the benefit of the continent.