"I lost everything," said Amina Aden of Somalia. "I had my home burnt down and my property lost," said a woman from Sierra Leone. "Those who do not lose their lives, lose their dignity," said Stella Obasanjo, the first lady of Nigeria at an African Peace Forum in Ethiopia.

This decade has witnessed massive wars in Africa. As the decade (and the millennium) draws to a close, at least eight states are embroiled in conflict in central Africa. In the horn of Africa, Ethiopian and Eritrean forces battle over borders and in southern Africa, the lines are being drawn between the supporters of Unita's Jonas Savimbi and the governing president Eduardo dos Santos of Angola.

The common gender denominators in all the wars are men. There are no female rebel leaders making demands on short-wave radio; no female generals sending troops to battle their own people. But the impact of war is felt by all. Inter-state and intra-state conflicts have displaced 7.3-million people in Africa. Amina Aden, who now lives in a camp on the border of Ethiopia, is one of 3.3-million continental refugees who live outside their borders. There are 1.6-million internally displaced people who have to flee their homes, but remain in their country. About 1.3-million people have recently returned home. A Burundian woman told the conference about the challenges of rebuilding destroyed infrastructure and economies. War is most often a boys' game, but women in Africa are battle-weary and have red-carded the generals.

That was the overriding impression at a Special Forum on Peace held in the course of the Sixth African Regional Conference underway in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Conflict is sapping the meagre continental resources available for gender and development and women are saying enough, both in the halls of high power and at the grassroots.

The African Women's Peace Network is an NGO that spans all the African conflict zones. Supported by UNIFEM, this network has become a strong lobbying voice against war. Its representatives demand a key role for women in peace-missions, peace making and peace keeping. The Beijing Platform of Action, sealed after the global women's conference in 1995, promises: "Equal access and full participation of women in power structures and their full involvement in all efforts for the prevention and resolution of conflict are essential for the maintenance of peace and security."

With this pledge signed by most African governments, women peaceniks now want them to make good on the promise. With the assistance of organisations like UNIFEM, they no longer regard themselves as passive bystanders. They are trained in conflict resolution, trauma counselling and have special skills to reintegrate former combatants. The Sierra Leone women's movement for peace has been influential in the peace deal signed there earlier this year. They are now working to ban small arms in West Africa - Mali has already acceded. "We appeal to you to block the trafficking of arms into Sierra Leone," a delegate told the African Women's Committee on Peace and Development, a lobby chaired by Dr. Specioza Kazibwe, the vice-president of Uganda.

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