Expert warns on "language of ethnic cleansing"

The region is in danger of another genocide if politicians continue to rely on ethnicity as a political tool, according to a London-based think-tank on Africa. "The political language of ethnic cleansing and killing continues in the Great Lakes region," said Abdul Mohammed, a researcher with the InterAfrica Group, quoted by the Ethiopian newspaper 'The Reporter'. "The lesson that seems to have been learned by too many military commanders and aspiring leaders in the region is that ethnic
politics - including ethnic cleansing - is a normal and even legitimate means of conducting political business," Mohammed warned in a paper presented at a workshop in Addis Ababa to commemorate the sixth anniversary of genocide in Rwanda. The effects of the 1994 Rwandan genocide are still reverberating throughout the region, he said. "Its echoes are not dying away... In fact, in some respects, they are becoming stronger," the paper quoted Mohammed as saying.