"THIS is interference, which must stop. We must not have another kind of nonsense called competition in Africa - we must organise ourselves." Mr Julius Nyerere was at his most emphatic during an interview this week in Dublin when he was asked about the division between Francophone and Anglophone countries and France's concern that the balance between them should not be altered by the political crisis in the Great Lakes region.
"We are not French or English," he went on, "but Africans until the end of time." Europe "must stop that nonsense" about such spheres of influence". He quoted General de Gaulle: "Geography is a permanent factor in history.
On this basis the states neighbouring Rwanda and Burundi have a much better claim than France to concern themselves with their affairs, because their interests have been directly touched by the crisis. Tanzania, Mr Nyerere's own country, has had to give shelter to 700,000 refugees, for example.
A state collapse in Zaire would destabilise the entire region. He is determined to avoid a repetition of the interference in its affairs that was a highlight of the Cold War period. "Europe and the US interfered a great deal when Zaire achieved independence," Mr Nyerere insisted, notably in ensuring that the unelected Mobuto replaced the assassinated Patrice Lumumba, who was elected. Zaire was then used to destabilise its neighbours, Angola especially, using the excuse of the Cold War.
"Today I hope that is history. But there are fears that France may be using Zaire to destabilise Rwanda."
Mr Nyerere is currently chairman of the OAU's regional conference seeking to bring peace to Burundi. He has brought a new effectiveness to regional diplomacy and is intimately involved in the wider efforts to bring ceasefires, rehabilitation and settlement talks to the Great Lake area as a whole.
He appeals to Europe and the Irish presidency of the EU: "Please help us to clean up the mess."
Justice must be seen to be done in Rwanda if the tradition of impunity for atrocities (laid down during colonial rule by the Germans and Belgians) is to be challenged and surpassed. For this reason the former leaders of the extremist Hutu Habyarimana government, currently in exile in European countries (such as Belgium and France), should be surrendered. When pressed, Mr Nyerere agreed that he would "ask my friends in Europe to ask these states" to take action on this matter.
For all his preoccupation with the immediate political issues, Mr Nyerere has not lost his vision for greater regional integration among the African states whose borders were artificially drawn by European imperial conferences. In Berlin in 1885 the original border lines were agreed, reflecting European power relations and domestic pressure groups rather than African divisions, rivalries or unities and at Versailles in 1919 Germany's African colonies were shared out among the victors of the first World War, at which time Belgium added Rwanda to its Congolese domains.
"Had it not been for the Versailles Treaty we would not now be hearing of Hutu Tutsi competition. They would have been living in a wider area and would have had room to move rather one another."
While it is essential to stop the killing, get a ceasefire and talk, Mr Nyerere is very well aware that this will not be a permanent answer. There is no sense in returning to tribal division and it is essential to create a new sense of nationality even in the context of these artificial borders which leave a permanent legacy of stranded minorities, an invitation to ethnic cleansing and the withdrawal of citizenship, which he condemns.
He is therefore strongly impressed with the logic of multinational co operation for Rwanda and Burundi he is convinced this must mean working in an east African context. During his time as president of Tanzania from 1963 to 1985, when, before the experiment went off the rails economically, he was a hero for his communitarian socialism, he was also known as a visionary of regional co operation between the east African states of Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. He believes strongly that this is part of the solution to the Great Lakes crisis and notes that the governments of Rwanda and Burundi have committed themselves to practical measures of such co operation.
At 77, he has lost little of his commanding presence and passionate but rationalist powers of persuasion.
This is where Francophone and Anglophone interests come in. The victory of the Rwanda Patriotic Front in 1994 after the genocide was also a victory of an English speaking group 94 Tutsi exiles, who had been refugees in Uganda for a generation after independence; the repeated denial of citizenship to them there and the eventual withdrawal of land rights to them in 1990 triggered the invasion of Rwanda. It culminated in the Arusha power sharing agreement of 1993, the rejection of which, by the Hutu extremists in April 1994, led to the genocide.
The French government became heavily involved in arming and training the Intrahamwe militias and its intervention force in 1994 helped to consolidate their base in the Zaire refugee camps, along with politically blind international NGOs, from which they have only recently been separated.
An influential strand of French geopolitical argument believes that its interests in Africa are gravely threatened by a possible shift in the balance of power in the Great Lakes regions. The Francophone and Anglophone areas follow a roughly eastwest divide; were Rwanda and Burundi to develop towards east Africa, as Mr Nyerere advocates, this would be seen as a strategic shift - especially were it to be accompanied by a disintegration of Zaire. It should not be forgotten that Britain, Belgium and France, as former colonial powers, retain substantial economic and political interests in Africa, which can easily give rise to the new interference, Mr Nyerere denounces.
He is critical of the Organisation of African Unity's silence in the face of internal repression and genocide, but welcomes a new readiness after the end of the Cold War to become involved in such questions of governance and human rights. He hopes it will be possible for the EU to present a more disinterested and sympathetic face to African requests for help, redirecting the interests of former colonial powers; but he remains to be convinced by action and practical solidarity that this is so, notably by passing on the experience of regional integration.
