online at http://www.c-r.org/occ_papers/af_media/contents.htm (Part 4 of 5)
African Responses to Conflict
Governmental Responses
The United Nations has been a key actor in responding to African conflicts
starting with the Congo crisis in 1960, and more so with the end of the Cold
War. Recent UN involvement has included operations in Namibia, Rwanda,
Somalia, Angola, Mozambique, Western Sahara, Liberia and recently Sierra
Leone. The UN has used diplomacy, peacekeeping and observation as military
intervention, and the relief, development and humanitarian activities of its
various agencies to respond to African conflicts. Those initiatives have
more often than not been constrained by ambiguous political and financial
support from member states, unclear mandates and inefficient operations.
Looking through the list of UN interventions above, failures to actually
realise the promise of peacekeeping or peacebuilding have outweighed
clear-cut successes by a wide margin. With the end of the superpower
competition, increased demand on the UN for peacekeeping and peace
enforcement and continuing heel-dragging on the part of member states to
empower the world body, where they exist, regional organisations such as the
Organisation for African Unity (OAU) are being pressed to assume greater
responsibility for peace and security.
Although it was founded to manage inter-African conflict, the OAU's handling
of internal conflict in member-states has been negligible. As Makumi Mwagiru
has pointed out, OAU heads of state and government, "all come to the
Assembly through different ways: political assassination, civil war, coups
d'état, and for a few, through democratic elections. Yet all of them
subscribe to the same Charter... which... condemns political assassinations,
encourages the peaceful settlement of disputes, and affirms the principle of
non-interference in the internal affairs of states. That this can happen
within the same organisation might be attributed by optimists to a certain
cosmopolitanism in the organisation. But to serious analysts, it points to a
crisis within the OAU, which continues to hamper its operations,
particularly its conflict management."
Nevertheless, the OAU has managed to play roles in defusing tension in Congo
in 1993 and in the border disputes between Nigeria and Cameroon, and Namibia
and Botswana, and by deploying an observer mission in Rwanda in 1992. There
have been numerous calls for the establishment of permanent conflict
prevention structures -- an African Security Council. The stillborn
Commission of Mediation, Conciliation and Arbitration would have enabled the
OAU to effectively mediate in internal and interstate conflict. This
function has been generally performed by ad hoc committees since the
commission failed to materialise, as explained below. This trend led to
increased pressure for a permanent conflict-handling facility. In 1993 the
OAU heads of state agreed to establish a Mechanism for Conflict Prevention
and Resolution.
The roles of other international organisations are also worth noting. The
Commonwealth has consistently played a mediatory role in African conflicts,
especially in Zimbabwe and South Africa and more recently in Nigeria's
political crisis. The Organisation of Islamic States has also been involved
in the Western Sahara dispute between Morocco and the Polisario Front. A
relative newcomer to intergovernmental mediation, has been the
French-speaking counterpart to the Commonwealth, la Francophonie, in Rwanda
and Burundi.
With the OAU largely sidelined in internal disputes because of the
ineffectiveness of its Mediation Commission, the field has been virtually
open for individual states and sub-regional groupings to intervene in
conflicts. This has in part been driven by the increasing reluctance of the
broader international community to run the political, military and financial
risks of intervening in African conflicts. But it has also been attributed
to the realisation by African leaders that modern internal conflicts, aside
from the massive destruction of human life, the fuelling of disease and the
devastation of infrastructure, agricultural land and private property, can
have extremely costly regional impacts. On the negative side, some
commentators have pointed to competition for international prestige,
personal and state financial interests and cronyism as the motivating forces
behind the emerging trend toward interstate intervention.
The Nigerian-led Economic Community of West African States Ceasefire
Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) in Liberia and the triumvirate of Tanzania, Kenya
and Uganda in the Great Lakes region are two examples of regional
initiatives. After the May 1997 coup which ousted President Ahmad Tejan
Kabbah in Sierra Leone, the OAU commended ECOMOG's attempts to pressure the
junta to relinquish power. This was achieved by force in February 1998.
However, nearly 10 months later remnants of the junta and the RUF were far
from being neutralised and ECOWAS and donor nations faced a long-term
investment of lives and money in re-establishing adequate levels of security
within the country.
In southern Africa, the leaders of Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe have
formed a mediation forum and since 1994 have played the lead role in
attempting to resolve constitutional crises in the region, notably in
Lesotho, Swaziland and Malawi. This co-operation apparently laid the
foundation for the Southern African Development Community's (SADC) Organ for
Politics, Security and Defence, which was established in 1996. SADC's
conflict resolution credentials were badly tarnished by South Africa's
ham-handed military intervention in Lesotho in September 1998 to prop up the
contested government, as well as by the personal antipathy between South
African President Nelson Mandela and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe.
Beyond the efforts of African and non-African governmental organisations to
establish effective mechanisms to deal with African conflicts, the
individual efforts of a number of former heads of government or top
international bureaucrats merit mention. Julius Nyerere, Olusegun Obasanjo,
Canaan Banana, Mohammed Sahnoun, James Jonah and others have been in the
forefront of conflict resolution efforts as Special Envoys of the Secretary
General of the United Nations or OAU, in eminent persons groups, or on their
own initiative.
The complexity of modern conflicts has led some observers to conclude that
formal peacemaking can seem a fruitless task. Tim Allen has written, "one
consequence of these characteristics [of modern conflict] is that many
agreements, conventions and other mechanisms which have been painstakingly
negotiated since the 1940s to contain or limit violence have proved fragile
or irrelevant."
On the other hand, of the dozens of internal and international wars which
have taken place since the 1940s, most have come to either a negotiated or
de facto conclusion. Even though more international wars end through
negotiation than do internal conflicts, some internal wars have formally
been ended through peace negotiations and agreements and some of those
settlements remain a foundation for continuing peace, as in Mozambique and
Mali.
However, it is apparent that focusing on formal settlements to disputes is
far too narrow a framework for understanding and responding to the variety
of complex social and political conflicts within Africa. In recent years
there has been a growing realisation that responses to complex and
multi-levelled problems demand a variety of responses at different levels
from governments, ordinary people and non-governmental social and political
groups.
Non-Governmental Responses
The myriad networks of African voluntary organisations, community groups,
women's associations and co-operatives, student and youth groups, religious
organisations, traditional and social societies, human rights organisations
and the media all provide evidence of a vibrant, if not always free, civil
society in many African countries.
Ghanaian political scientist Michael Oquaye has written that, "The extent to
which a civic public realm exists and how it is operated by political
actors, some of which are in the state and others who are in the civil
society, determine political stability. A free and vibrant civil society
promotes competition in the body politic."
The Carnegie Commission's final report on Preventing Deadly Conflict
published in 1997 had a slightly different emphasis: "Non-governmental
organisations, an institutional expression of civil society, are important
to the political health of virtually all countries, and their current and
potential contributions to the prevention of deadly conflict, especially
mass violence within states, is rapidly becoming one of the hallmarks of the
post-Cold war era.
"As pillars of any thriving society, NGOs, at their best provide a vast
array of human services unmatched by either government or the market, and
are the self-designated advocates for action on virtually all matters of
public concern..."
Despite the increased attention being paid to civil society and its
potential to constructively influence conflict situations, faced with
repressive regimes or armed insurgents, the impact of civic groups has been
limited to date. Nonetheless, in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Nigeria and
elsewhere, individuals and groups have continued to demonstrate and lobby
against violence, injustice and inequality, and, in some instances, have
been directly involved in peace negotiation and mediation efforts, as well
as efforts to promote reconciliation and reconstruction.
Religious and women's organisations have most often been in the forefront of
these activities. Religious organisations, with their constituencies of
followers, a unifying spiritual message, and effective organisations, have
often come together or acted individually to promote peaceful resolution of
conflict, protection of human rights and reconciliation. Women's groups have
also shown their ability to mobilise massive support for peace initiatives
and, in doing so, have rallied women and men across ethnic, political,
economic and social divisions.
Other actors who have a significant influence on African conflicts are
development and relief organisations, which have proliferated in Africa in
response to natural disasters and the consequences of civil wars and
international wars, now euphemistically called "complex emergencies".
While there are fundamental problems with the mode of operations of some
international NGOs, including direct or indirect support for oppressive
governments, lack of proper consultation with local populations, cultural
insensitivity and disempowerment of ordinary people and local organisations,
NGOs have saved countless lives and provided social and economic support for
tens of thousands of people in distress. Often at the grass-roots level and
on the front lines in providing humanitarian assistance in conflict
situations, NGOs also have opportunities to reshape conflict situations and
influence outcomes. Although their actions or inaction can inflame tensions,
their (sometimes unfounded) reputation for non-partisanship often means that
the information they provide and the local and international warnings they
sound about conflict situations can be crucial to conflict prevention,
management and resolution.
There are also a growing number of conflict resolution and transformation
organisations, both African-based and international, which have become
involved in attempting to help prevent or mediate conflict situations. Among
these are the Nairobi Peace Initiative, Responding to Conflict, the
Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy, the International Crisis Group,
International Alert and Conciliation Resources.
Grassroots Responses
For ordinary people at the grassroots level who face severe conflict the
paramount instinct is self-preservation. The most common response to armed
conflict or the threat of conflict is flight. In Africa, widespread violence
has predominantly led to massive refugee flows and the internal displacement
of millions of people. That dislocation has meant the abandonment of
property and livelihoods, reliance on humanitarian assistance and usually
harsh and sometimes life-threatening subsistence in refugee camps, in shanty
towns or on the streets of urban centres.
But even in desperate circumstances, ordinary people have shown sometimes
astonishing resilience in adapting to new circumstances and reconstituting
social, political and economic activities. In many cases, the dispossessed
have also been welcomed and aided by generous relatives, friends and
complete strangers, as they flee the consequences of war.
It is also ordinary people that are the principal actors in reconstruction
and reconciliation when violence subsides, because settlements signed by the
leaders of opposing groups are only the first step on the road to social
peace. Building new, non-conflictual relationships within society
necessitates the involvement of victims of violence and perpetrators of
violence. "Bottom-up" peacebuilding can be carried out by all members of
society, acting individually or within organisations.
