volume 17
New Routes published by the life & peace institute
4/2012 New Routes 4/2012
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A journal of peace research and action
Peace without borders Regional peacebuilding in focus
Regional peacebuilding: A new challenge ‘ PAIX SANS
FRONTIÈRES ’:
Building peace across borders Regional peacebuilding learning – rewarding and challenging experiences PE ACE IN COLOMBIA ?
A regional perspective to a regional problem THE AFRIC AN UNION :
A potential driver of change entering its second decade GENDER AND VIOLENCE :
Small arms – a human security issue THE MANO RIVER UNION :
Regional peacebuilding – a collective initiative by various actors CE WARN :
Data-based conflict early warning – a vital instrument in peacebuilding KENYA ’ S NORTHERN FRONTIER :
Opportunities and threats for regional peace and security Between war and peace in the DRC The making of the Great Lakes generation
Contents
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Regional peacebuilding: A new challenge Peter Wallensteen
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‘ PAIX SANS
FRONTIÈRES ’:
Building peace across borders Alexander Ramsbotham
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Regional peacebuilding learning – rewarding and challenging experiences Reina Neufeldt
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PE ACE IN COLOMBIA ?
A regional perspective to a regional problem Colin Walch
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THE AFRIC AN UNION :
A potential driver of change entering its second decade Mehari Taddele
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GENDER AND VIOLENCE :
Small arms – a human security issue Marren Akatsa-Bukachi
: 20 Regional peacebuilding – THE MANO RIVER UNION
a collective initiative by various actors
Regional peacebuilding – more than bits and pieces from the horn of africa to the Fergana Valley and from the Andes to the Great Lakes, the regional dynamics of conflict are well known to peacebuilders on the ground. And there is a growing eagerness to identify effective interventions that address regional dimensions of conflicts that transcend multiple power centres. This volume of New Routes offers a window to some of the needs for, challenges of, and responses to date to regional conflicts. We are proud to have a broad representation from leading organisations, agencies and unions among the authors, many of them well experienced practitioners. The articles compel us to deepen our knowledge, refine our analyses and explore new ways of working. Peter Wallensteen in his introductory article points to the fact that in some cases neighbours to a country in civil war are actively involved in it. This aspect creates a thorny challenge to the international community. Alexander Ramsbotham stresses the need to think beyond national borders and search for new ways to strengthen areas of common interest. Reina Neufeldt relates the lessons learned from a regional peacebuilding learning structure in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Colin Walch lifts up the promising signs of a beginning of the end of the 50 year long Colombian civil war, which has destabilised bordering regions. The peacebuilding efforts of some regional bodies from the African context, like the AU, CEWARN/IGAD, EASSI and MRU, are described in a number of readable articles, and readers who want to explore the subject in-depth are recommended to study the list of further resources. Please tell colleagues and friends about the possibility to sign up for a free online subscription to New Routes! kristina lundqvist
[email protected] [email protected]
about the authors
Grace Maina and Warigia Razia
: 24 Data-based conflict early warning CE WARN
– a vital instrument in peacebuilding Tigist Hailu
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KENYA ’ S NORTHERN FRONTIER :
Opportunities and threats for regional peace and security Nyambura Kimani
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Between war and peace in the DRC David Zounmenou and Naomi Kok
The making of the Great Lakes generation Lena Slachmuijlder
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Regional peacebuilding: A lot more to read Compiled by Esmeralda Van den Bosch
38 LPI News 40 Reviews and Resources
peter wallensteen is Senior Professor of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, and Professor at the University of Notre Dame, USA. dr alexander ramsbotham is the Accord series editor at the peacebuilding NGO Conciliation Resources. reina neufeldt is an Assistant Professor in the Peace and Conflict Studies Program at Conrad Grebel University College, University of Waterloo. colin walch is a PhD-candidate at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University. dr mehari taddele maru is an international consultant on the African Union, peace and security as well as migration matters. marren akatsa-bukachi is the Executive Director of the Eastern African Sub-regional Support Initiative for Advancement of Women, based in Kampala, Uganda. grace maina is the immediate former Manager of the Knowledge Production Department at The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes.
warigia razia is a pan-African independent consultant, engaged in advising, equipping, and knowledge generation in conflict and gender sensitive conflict prevention, peacebuilding and statebuilding. tigist hailu currently works as CEWARN’s Public Relations and Communications Officer. nyambura kimani is a researcher in the areas of governance, peace and security. She holds a MA (Hons) in International Relations from the United States International University in Nairobi. dr david zounmenou is a senior researcher in the Conflict Prevention and Risk Analysis Programme at the Institute for Security Studies Pretoria office. His focus area is West Africa. naomi kok is a research intern in the same programme, focussing on the Great Lakes Region. lena slachmuijlder is Chief Programming Officer for Search for Common Ground. She is a graduate of Stanford University. esmeralda van den bosch is an intern at LPI’s Programme Unit, Uppsala.
regional peacebuilding: a new challenge
New Routes 4/2012
Peter Wallensteen
Regional peacebuilding: A new challenge Regional peacebuilding constitutes a new challenge to peace practice and research. It is an important notion but has seldom had the focus that is required. For instance, without mentioning this concept, this was still what the Norwegian Nobel Committee alluded to when announcing on 12 October, 2012, that the European Union was this year’s winner of the Peace Prize: “The stabilizing part played by the EU has helped to transform most of Europe from a continent of war to a continent of peace.” Regional peacebuilding aims exactly at this, turning conflictual regions into areas of positive cooperation, where the likelihood of another war is reduced or even eliminated. Failed regions During the Cold War, ideas for regional solutions were many. They ranged from nuclear free zones covering whole continents, to more limited efforts of demilitarization along the East-West divide to reduce regional tensions. Remarkably, much of diplomatic practice and academic work on civil war after 1989 has neglected this aspect. The UN Security Council mostly describes civil wars as waged in one country and its decisions
New Routes New Routes is a quarterly publication of the Life & Peace Institute (LPI), produced with financial support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). Sida has not been involved in the production and is not responsible for the contents of the journal. Material may be reproduced freely if New Routes is mentioned as the source. Opinions
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REGIONAL PROGRAMMING
“How hard can it be? It came from IKEA”
pertain to that particular situation. The regional dimension is not prominent. This means that peacebuilding strategies after a war typically are geared towards one country. This is why regional aspects constitute a new challenge. Data now demonstrates convincingly that neighboring countries are not only affected by refugee flows, disruption of transportation routes and smuggling
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The regional dimension has to be part of an international peacebuilding strategy.
of weapons. They are often actively involved in these wars. Governments may support particular opposition groups on the other side of the border. One government may align itself with the
expressed in New Routes do not necessarily reflect LPI policy positions. Editorial committee: Helena Grusell, Bernt Jonsson, Kristina Lundqvist, Henning Melber, Mark Rogers, Eva Palmqvist and Tore Samuelsson. Editor: Kristina Lundqvist Cover photo: Colin Walch Layout: Georg Lulich Grafisk Form, Uppsala, Sweden Printer: Lenanders Grafiska AB, 54688
neighboring government against particular rebel groups. Such interconnections are common. In theory this goes against international norms of the territorial integrity of the states. However, security concerns have been allowed to overrule international legal limitations. In recent times, credible reports point to Pakistan’s involvement in Afghanistan and Afghan Taliban activities in Pakistan. Rwanda and Uganda have been accused of having connections to rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Such actions make civil war in one country a regional concern. What is sometimes described as ‘state failure’ could equally well be labeled a ‘regional conflict complex’ or even a ‘failed region’. Seemingly unrelated conflicts become interconnected through alliances, enmity and opportunism.1 For many years the economies of Central America were severely affected by the Cold War proxy wars in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala. The same could be said of the Horn of Africa, Indochina and the Middle East.
Life & Peace Institute Eddagatan 12, SE-753 16 Uppsala, Sweden Phone +46 18 66 01 32, fax +46 18 69 30 59 e-mail:
[email protected] website: www.life-peace.org
ISSN 2000-8082 (electronic version) ISSN 1403-3755 (printed version)
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regional peacebuilding: a new challenge
New Routes 4/2012
The ending of the Cold War increased the chances of finding regional solutions. Most ingeniously this was done through the peace processes in Central America, where the peace initiatives promoted by Costa Rica also aimed at reducing the influence of major powers. Other regions have been less fortunate, and conflicts have instead become cemented. This calls for new ways of thinking about regional approaches.
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Practical regional cooperation around major lakes, archipelagoes or oceans may stimulate cooperation.
Not least is this so, as the end of the Cold War has sparked new conflicts, with prominent regional dimensions. One report shows that three-quarters of the armed conflicts in this period have seen international support to one or the other of the belligerents and that this mostly stemmed from neighboring states.2 This includes Serbia’s involvement in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and other conflicts in the Balkans during the 1990s. More recent are neighbors intervening in the DRC, in Somalia and in Bahrain. The internal conflict in Colombia has generated tensions with neighboring Venezuela and Ecuador. Neighboring states often have their own agendas, and this is likely to affect the termination of the conflicts as well as their aftermath. The regional dimension, in other words, has to be part of an international peacebuilding strategy. There are several challenges for peacemaking in these conditions. Ending regional conflicts First, there is a need to think of how to end regionally intertwined conflicts. It is a matter of choosing policy: should the international community deal with the conflicts in an incremental way, one conflict at a time, or take a bolder approach, by trying to find a regional settlement for all conflicts at the same time. The incremental approach is often more realistic, as it is easy to identify the ac-
tors and approach them, one by one. The peace process in Burundi may serve as an example. After a settlement between some actors, others joined in and a momentum was generated. However, at the same time conflicts continued in neighboring DRC, threatening to undermine peace achievements. One could say that the core problem of regional instability, the DRC, was not targeted first, and until this situation is solved, there will be no regional peace. In theory, dealing directly with the key issue may yield more results, but at the same time the chances of success were greater in Burundi. A bolder approach is to deal with a region in its entirety. An example is the Great Lakes initiatives, attempting to generate a regional momentum for conflict resolution. A precedent is the way the wars ended in Central America, where a vision included an end to all conflicts. This was achieved by the mid1990s, when political armed conflicts ceased in the region. There is no evidence to suggest that one is more effective than the other, and in fact the incremental and bolder approaches may not exclude each other. Building regional peace The second challenge is building lasting regional peace. There are several concepts of interest. One is the idea of a security community, where the countries would stop considering problems for
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Understanding regional peacemaking and peacebuilding is a multifaceted and pertinent topic of inquiry.
neighbors as security threats or power opportunities. Instead they would embark on a ‘normal’ process of cooperation building on shared values. In this concept the states retain their sovereignty, respect each other’s territorial integrity and stick to a policy of non-interference. This can be enhanced by shared practice in peacefully solving new disputes. A more radical approach to regional peacebuilding is the one represented by the EU: a deliberate attempt to integrate
economic activity in crucial fields, such as industrial production, agricultural development, common customs systems, and equalized market conditions. This is done in order to reduce the ability of the members to wage war against each other or domestically. In the countries of the Global South there are few attempts in this direction. However, there are projects for regional integration, mostly driven by needs for mutual economic benefits. Examples of regional organizations are found in West Africa (ECOWAS), in Central America (SICA), some parts of Latin America (Mercosur), in Southern Africa (SADC), in South Asia (SAARC) and in Southeast Asia (ASEAN).3 Of these projects, the Central American System of Cooperation has come furthest. It is interesting, as it has been stimulated by the regional solutions to conflicts in the region. It comes closest to the EU model, even having a Central American Parliament. There are also other regional schemes, working on particular regional problems. The security and peace implications of these efforts may not necessarily be spelled out. A promising start was IGAAD, the intergovernmental agency that originally dealt with joint drought problems in the Horn of Africa. It has today expanded to have a deliberate security agenda, however, still without the full inclusion of Eritrea. Shared problems Focusing on particular shared problems results in a different form of regional peacebuilding. It may, in fact, result in the depolitization of particular issues. An example is shared waterways. The oldest still functioning international organization is the Rhine Commission in Western Europe, handling issues of one of Europe’s largest rivers. The cooperation began in the early 1800s. The scope has expanded. It certainly has not prevented wars in Western Europe during this period, but issues of the river and its management have not been part of the conflagrations. This is an argument for making such arrangements as early as possible, in order to prevent them from becoming elements in political relations. It is an old functionalist dream, where practical matters are dealt with by practical organizations and thus managed more or less as technical problems.4 This could be applied to other internationally
regional peacebuilding: a new challenge
5 PHOTO: MAR TIN BAR AN
New Routes 4/2012
Instead of being subject of competition, lakes, rivers and oceans may inspire to regional cooperation, of which the Great Lakes initiative is an example. Here from the shore of Lake Tanganyika, the second largest freshwater lake in the world by volume. shared rivers, such as the Nile, Congo, Mano, Zambezi, Mekong, Ganges or Amazonas. In the same spirit, practical regional cooperation around major lakes, archipelagoes or oceans may stimulate cooperation, as seen in the Baltic Sea, in the South Pacific, and in the Caribbean. Whether these efforts will serve as peacebuilding depends on their ability to actually handle crucial issues of contention among the member states as well as towards outsiders. However, finding international ways to deal with lack of access to water, transportation, smuggling, trafficking, drought, climate effects or other challenges may suggest new ways for cooperation. It may not only be economical for poor countries to find cooperative solutions but may also reduce the likelihood of new conflicts. At the same time, there are regions without such regional cooperation. The most remarkable is the lack of a shared framework in Northeast Asia, where
the interests of China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Russia and the United States intersect. The lack of a regional framework indicates the absence of shared thinking for conflict resolution and peacebuilding. The creation of regional frameworks serves to enhance a broader perspective on settlement and a shared future. A new development is the rise of civil society organizations, not least in countries of conflict. These organizations have played a role in ending wars, for instance, in Liberia. Most interesting is that the organizations may have greater incentives to cooperate across borders and thus ultimately contribute to closer integration. This is a factor that only of late has become important in the peacebuilding efforts of Western Europe, which originally were statedriven. With more civil society-based initiatives, regional peacebuilding may contribute not only to ending wars and promoting integration. It may also have
an effect of increasing participation in post-war societies. Understanding regional peacemaking and peacebuilding is now a multifaceted and pertinent topic of inquiry. This is also what this particular issue of New Routes hopes to demonstrate. +
1
Wallensteen, Peter and Margareta Sollenberg (1998), ‘Armed Conflict and Regional Conflict Complexes, 1989-1997,’ Journal of Peace Research, 35: 593-606.
2 Harbom, Lotta and Peter Wallensteen (2005), ‘Armed Conflict and Its International Dimensions 1946-2004,’ Journal of Peace Research, 42: 623-635. 3
ECOWAS: Economic Community of West African States, SICA: System for the Central American Integration, SADC: Southern African Development Community, ASEAN: Association of Southeast Asian Nations
4 Mitrany, David (1948), ‘The Functional Approach to International Organization,’ International Affairs, 24: 350-363.
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New Routes 4/2012
building peace across borders
Armed conflicts are neither defined nor confined by national borders. Peacebuilding strategies need to ‘think outside the state’ – through regional diplomacy and crossborder civil society networks, and by strengthening the social contract in conflict-prone borderlands.
‘Paix sans frontières’:
Building peace across borders Alexander Ramsbotham
Wars do not respect political or territorial boundaries. Instead, armed conflict should be considered as part of wider, regional conflict systems affected by dynamics that cross borders. Refugee flows, ‘nomadic’ armed groups like the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), narcotic or criminal networks, illicit trade in ‘blood diamonds’ and small arms all play a part in the complexities of conflicts across borders, while cross-border political, economic and social ties add further levels of intricacy to the issues. The LRA survives in the hinterlands of four states in East and Central Africa, far from the reach of international interest or national jurisdiction. In weak or fragile states, trans-boundary ethnic and social ties often provide stronger bonds for communities than with national capitals. Many vulnerable Lebanese groups do not look inwards to Beirut for protection and association, but outwards – to Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia or the West. However, while policy is well established between states (diplomacy) and within them (governance), there is a policy gap across borders and in borderlands where diplomacy and governance struggle to reach, as conflict response strategies habitually prioritise states as the central unit of analysis and intervention. Efforts to resolve the longstanding conflict in Jammu and Kashmir in India are defined by dysfunctional diplomatic relations between Mumbai and Islamabad. On the ground, affected Kashmiri communities remain physically divided by the impassable Line of Control (LoC) and excluded from discussions to determine their own future. Building peace beyond the state Regional integration can help to ‘soften’ problematic borders, as shared membership of regional organisations can dilute
state sensitivity to sovereignty through 03) and Lightning Thunder (2008-09) collective purpose and goals. Regional did not end the conflict and have in fact bodies can instil confidence in peace served to disperse it much more widely processes, add impetus to inter-state – ‘like throwing stones at bees’, as the peace processes and bring practical as- LRA area of operation expanded by 20 sistance in delivering peace dividends. times following Lightning Thunder. But regional organisations are not al- Today, the UN and the African Union ways best placed to resolve cross-border are again looking to a military response conflicts. They have to navigate (often to the LRA through deployment of a fierce) rivalries among their own mem- 5,000-strong Joint Task Force. bers, while organisations in the most conflict-prone regions tend to face the Building peace below the state most acute capacity challenges. Sub-state cross-border networks that European integration facilitated prob- exist through social and cultural ties lem solving in Northern Ireland, helping between borderland communities can to balance disparity of power between provide policy ‘entry points’ for regionLondon and Dublin and providing a al peacebuilding. Civil society can play more level playing field for talks. Fur- peacebuilding roles across borders that thermore, the EU has also been directly governments and intergovernmental supporting local regeneration and rec- bodies cannot. Shared experiences, traonciliation across the Irish border. How- ditions, social structures and kinship ever, the EU has not been able to engage provide powerful tools to foster social significantly with the Basque conflict, cohesion and cooperation when diplonot least due to Spanish and French matic channels are blocked. resistance to ‘internationalising’ it. In an alternative response to the LRA Regional organisations have often conflict, affected communities from four found it easier to agree on ‘hard’ rather countries have been coming together than ‘soft’ security solutions – border se- as part of a Regional Civil Society Task curity, military cooperation or peacekeep- Force. It has been pursuing a strategy ing coalitions. However, cross-border of encouraging LRA rebel abductees to conflict dynamics are varied and complex return home – for example using the and demand soft as much as hard ap- traditional Mato Oput reconciliation proaches. Regional initiatives that focus ceremony from northern Uganda to help exclusively on security address the symp- communities accept them – in order toms and not the causes of conflict. As to deplete LRA ranks, reduce violence a result, they will struggle to engage in and rebuild damaged communities. conflict prevention or resolution, leaving By working together, communities are in place many of the structural drivers transforming themselves from LRA that underpinned cross-border violence victims to become ‘anchors of resilience’ in the first place. to the violence. An example of this is the regional There are a number of examples responses to the LRA that have often from recent history and current conprioritised joint military operations by flict situations where the difficulties the Ugandan government in collabora- surrounding inter-state relations are tion with its neighbours. But regional stark. When international pressure conmilitary operations like Iron Fist (2002- vinced Rwanda to withdraw support for
building peace across borders Laurent Nkunda’s National Congress Trade across the LoC in Kashmir for the Defence of the People, for exam- resumed after decades of impasse in ple, dialogue between Rwanda and the 2008 to develop economic linkages Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and build confidence between parties. was encouraged. Although large-scale Cross-LoC trade has helped to soften violence was reduced, inter-state se- the border and is assisting Kashmiris curity cooperation has failed to tackle to re-establish links between divided structural drivers of violence in eastern families, trading communities and civil DRC related to governance and border- societies. A significant development has land marginalisation. been the formation of the Federation of Conciliation Resources also works Jammu and Kashmir Joint Chamber of on the LRA conflict in its remit as a Commerce, the first official cross-LoC peacebuilding NGO. Originating in institution, which connects Kashmiri northern Uganda in the late 1980s, the civil society and traders to governmental LRA conflict has more recently spread apparatus on both sides of the line. However, the impact of the trade initiative has thus far been limited. Traders have to use a highly inefficient barter system to overcome currency barriers, and exchanging goods across the LoC takes place through intermediaries, leaving little people-to-people contact. The Joint Chamber provides a mechanism to develop and cohere the economic and peacebuilding functions of the trade initiative: to build grassroots pressure for normalising relationships across to the neighbouring countries of South the LoC, to support sustained economic Sudan, the DRC and the Central African interdependence, to develop collective Republic. For a just and lasting peace Kashmiri strategies and capacity, and to be possible, governments need to to mainstream peacebuilding objecaddress the root causes of the conflict, tives. Today, cross-LoC trade is gaining involve those affected in finding solu- momentum as an important outlet for tions and take a regional approach. By business as well as a vital peacebuildsupporting a Regional Civil Society Task ing activity. Force in East and Central Africa, Conciliation Resources has been supporting Promoting trickle-up traditional, religious and civil leaders Connecting supra- and sub-state peacefrom affected countries to join together building can help to develop regional to combine and amplify their voice and peacebuilding strategies that can tackle capacity regionally. By connecting their cross-border conflict dynamics at both efforts with policy-decision-makers re- their ‘branches’ and their ‘roots’. Civil gionally, the profile and importance society can provide bridges into borderof cross-border dynamics has been lands and help diplomatic initiatives to raised both in LRA-affected countries engage with the communities who live and among international policymakers there. and practitioners. Academics in Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador linked up with borderland The potential of cross-border trade and other communities affected by the Cross-border trade can also contribute spread of violence from the war in Coto building trust or establishing inter- lombia. Indigenous and Afro-Colombian dependencies across borders. These communities, women’s organisations, can provide incentives for cooperation humanitarian agencies, environmental and collective action and increase the associations, schools and local governcosts of war. It is important to unpack ments: all played a role in developing precisely how trade interacts with other a regional citizens’ response to border conflict drivers and dynamics, to distin- tensions. Working with the media and guish corrupt or illicit cross-border trade international civil society partners, they and regional war economies from other were able to mobilise at critical moments cross-border economic activities that can of diplomatic tension and, ultimately, to contribute to peace and development. challenge populist nationalist discourse
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Regional organisations have often found it easier to agree on ‘hard’ rather than ‘soft’ security solutions.
New Routes 4/2012
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between Colombia and Ecuador. The support of the Carter Center helped to connect their efforts diplomatically with the Organisation of American States. Linking regional networks with regional diplomacy States are important peacebuilders. However, international policy has become dominated by statebuilding as a response to conflict, while promoting the ‘trickle-up’ approach of including local groups and borderland communities is given less prominence. Statebuilding involves creating state institutions and the provision of services. While it can be useful to help rebuild fragile societies, it is not synonymous with either peacebuilding or nationbuilding and can ignore or exacerbate cross-border conflict dynamics. States can do a lot to minimise tensions in borderlands by investing in border areas to reduce the alienation of local communities. More effective border management regimes can facilitate legitimate movement and trade, maintain accountable cross-border security and encourage cooperative management of resources and infrastructure. Linking regional civil society and business networks with regional diplomacy can help to fill the policy gap across borders and in borderlands, and to move from regional security cooperation to conflict prevention and resolution. State efforts at peacebuilding need local inter-community and coordinated interstate efforts to underpin their action. Without these supporting activities occurring ‘below’ and ‘beyond’ the state, state policies, even when focused on peacebuilding, remain unsupported and insufficient. + This article is an abbreviated version of the introductory article in Conciliation Resources’ publication ACCORD, no. 22.2011: Paix sans frontières: building peace across borders. The publication is available at www.c-r.org/accord/crossborder
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regional peacebuilding learning
New Routes 4/2012
Regional peacebuilding work is often a more demanding task than in-country programs, but with sufficient time and resources available, it is often a fruitful effort. This article describes the regional learning collaboration of the Catholic Relief Service’s Southeast Asia Pacific Regional Office between 2003 and 2007. Among the positive outcomes of the regional learning were enhanced analytical capacity and a greater understanding of theories of change and evaluative thinking among peacebuilding staff and, to some extent, local partners.
Regional peacebuilding learning – rewarding and challenging experiences Reina Neufeldt
Hard-earned lessons with regional relevance often remain restricted to the countries where they were learnt. There are numerous non-governmental organizations that support peacebuilding programs in several countries within a given region, such as Search for Common Ground, CARE, Catholic Relief Services, Life & Peace Institute. They often have several programs going on in nearby countries like those in the Great Lakes region of Africa or in South Asia. In-country programs often operate independently with little chance for deep joint engagement and collaborative learning. This is understandable, given the intense demands of working to build or consolidate peace in any one particular conflict context. Finding the time and resources to enable regional learning on how better to support building peace is not always prioritized, the main exception being places where regional projects are established to address cross-border issues, such as livestock raiding and natural resource management, in which collaboration sometimes occurs only as long as the project exists. Different organizations address the need for regional learning in different ways. For example, some use internal communities of practice or cross-fertilization events. This article describes one experiment with a regional model of learning that was not project-specific or project driven: the regional peacebuilding learning structure of Catholic Relief Service’s Southeast Asia Pacific Regional Office (SEAPRO) between 2003 and 2007.
The experiment produced rich regional learning for peacebuilding staff and, to a lesser degree, for local partners. The regional learning collaboration built staff and partner capacity to analyze and reflect upon their work more methodically, enhanced skills in thinking through theories of change and evaluative thinking, promoted cross-fertilization of program ideas, and it generated resource materials like Reflective Peacebuilding: A Plan-
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Working on collaborative regional peacebuilding projects proved to be the greatest challenge.
ning, Monitoring and Learning Toolkit.1 It also created a strong peer network of peace actors engaged in similar work who could serve as resources for each other, which was particularly valuable for people working in small offices or in relative isolation. The experiment included an organizational structure to support collaborative learning, the commitment of staff from five main country program offices in South East Asia, and a partnership with a leading academic institute. The region recognized the need to “create organizational memory and build knowl-
edge by … researching and documenting successful peace building practices”, as well as the need to apply learning to improve peacebuilding capacity, quality and the impact of its peacebuilding programs in South East Asia.2 Regional learning was led by a regional technical advisor based in the region, who worked with staff in the country programs and liaised with the university partner.3 One to two country program staff from the Philippines, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Cambodia, and Vietnam served as key contacts for the learning alliance and there was regular participation by country leadership. Academic partnership CRS SEAPRO partnered with the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, Notre Dame, in a learning alliance. John Paul Lederach was the point resource person from the Kroc Institute to the region. He participated regularly at regional technical commission meetings, providing input and supporting staff capacity building in peacebuilding. Lederach also advised teams of three Kroc graduate student interns who worked with the country programs for periods of six months on a rotating basis. The intent of collaborating with the Kroc Institute was to “improve the quality and impact of CRS peacebuilding work in collaboration with its partner organizations on the one hand, and, on the other, provide a venue for the Kroc Institute to link theory building to ongoing field challenges found in CRS programming in the Region”.4
regional peacebuilding learning The collaboration with the Kroc Institute involved an annual peacebuilding technical commission meeting, Kroc Master’s students interning with CRS country programs, and the opportunity for a CRS staff member to be in residence at the Kroc Institute as a visiting Fellow to do research. On the latter point, two staff members from SEAPRO were in residence at different points of time. A senior peacebuilding staff member from the Philippines, Myla Leguro, contributed significantly to Kroc discussions and research on strategic peacebuilding, and two years later, she
New Routes 4/2012 ing peacebuilding work in emergency settings, theories of change, conflict analysis), process skills (e.g. developing reflective capacities), and they also addressed organizational interests, such as monitoring the regional peacebuilding strategy. Commission meetings often also included a conflict analysis from the host country, a trip to partner organizations or particular sites, as well as team-building activities. Meeting content was captured in a learning document, which was purposely designed to not look like meeting minutes. Learning documents captured the distilled learnings and substantive content, presented in a visually integrated fashion. This document was often created as the meeting went along, with daily learning teams generating the central content. Learning documents and research papers
entered the Master’s program at the Kroc Institute. The central architectural feature of the regional learning collaboration was a week-long Peacebuilding Technical Commission Meeting. This meeting was hosted by one of the country programs and its content designed by a team that included the regional technical advisor, country program and regional staff, and a faculty member from the Kroc Institute. Meetings were typically attended by two members from each country program (frequently including country representatives alongside peacebuilding staff), one to three local partners of the host-country, two regional staff,5 one to three members of the Kroc Institute, and a member of Cordaid – an organization that partnered with CRS and helped fund some of the peacebuilding work in the region. Regional peacebuilding technical commission meetings were structured to focus on issues that cut across the country programs. Meetings focused on a mix of substantive issues (e.g. do-
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not have time to cohere and develop as a stand-alone initiative before CRS’ regional restructuring. However, it is difficult to gauge how much the absence of regional collaborative projects may have affected the success of the regional learning structure. While some collaboration continues between the Kroc Institute and individual CRS country programs in South East Asia, the learning alliance no longer exists in the same form. This model required significant organizational commitment and ongoing attention and investments in terms of personnel, time and travel budgets to be sustained. Organizational commitment in particular proved problematic when organizational management and the structure of the region changed in 2008. The region, its collaborative learning structure and commitment to peacebuilding were, as a result, largely disbanded. The regional learning collaboration was unique and provided a wonderful vision for learning and collaboration in the region. The experience of the learning collaboration was that there could be very fruitful cross-program learning, as well as academic-field engagement that contributed to improved peacebuilding programming in the field. +
As noted above, the regional collaboration produced a number of valuable outputs and outcomes. Direct outputs from the regional technical commission meetings included the annual learning documents, The author would like to thank LPI for as well as Reflective Peacebuilding. The editing feedback and encouraging the Kroc interns generated research papers, production of this article, and colleagues which contributed directly to program at CRS for their input and ideas. The redevelopment outcomes. For example, opinions reflected here are solely those of a research paper on youth attitudes to- the author and do not represent Catholic wards the Cambodian genocide resulted Relief Services. in findings that the local partner used to develop a new module for their youth training program.6 Other research papers focused on assessing programs 1 See http://www.crsprogramquality.org/ like the Mindanao Peacebuilding Instorage/pubs/peacebuilding/reflective_ peacebldg.pdf stitute, or the ways in which Zones of Peace operated in the Philippines to 2 CRS SEAPRO. 2004. Concept note: The KrocSEAPRO Regional Peacebuilding Learning maintain peace pacts in particular geoAlliance. Indonesia: CRS. graphic areas. The learning documents 3 In this case, I was the regional technical from the technical commission meetadvisor between 2005 and 2007, having ings captured some of the theories of previously been a technical advisor at CRS headquarters in Baltimore. This position was change skills that staff developed, and part of a regional technical team headed by other evidence of this skill was found the SEAPRO Deputy Director of Program in the country program strategy docuQuality. ments and program designs. 4 CRS SEAPRO. 2004. Concept note: The KrocSEAPRO Regional Peacebuilding Learning Working on collaborative regional Alliance. Indonesia: CRS. peacebuilding projects proved to be the greatest challenge. For example, a 5 The Regional Technical Advisor and the Assistant Regional Director for Program nascent effort to build peacebuilding Quality. capacity and a network of inter-faith 6 The research paper was written by Hala Fleihan. religious leaders begun in 2007 did
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peace in colombia? a regional perspective on a regional problem
After decades of failed peace negotiations and armed conflict, it appears that Colombia is ready to open a new chapter in its history. Following a year of exploratory talks between guerrilla leaders and government officials in La Havana, Cuba, peace negotiations began in Oslo and La Havana in October 2012. The current harmful stalemate appears to have led to a more serious willingness to reach an agreement than in the past.
Peace in Colombia?
A regional perspective on a regional problem Colin Walch
Fifty years of armed conflict has left deep been enough to defeat the guerrillas million victims of paramilitary violence. wounds, considerable distrust and fear as was expected. The guerrillas (both The right-wing paramilitary groups have in Colombian society, together with a FARC and the National Liberation Army, claimed to be acting in opposition to cultural acceptance of violence. The ELN) show an incredible capacity to the left-wing guerrillas. The law also conflict has also bubbled over, destabi- adapt and survive, and are able to take provides for giving back land lost during lising border regions with refugee fluxes advantage of weakly-controlled borders the armed conflict. This smart and proand providing a hub for the drugs trade. with Venezuela and Ecuador to rest, re- gressive move demonstrates that the govSpringing from the conflict, intra-state equip and trade drugs. In addition, they ernment is serious about social justice, military intimidation occurred between have adopted more defensive tactics reconciliation and rural development, Colombia and Venezuela and to a lesser characterised by sabotage attacks, car which are important issues for which extent between Colombia and Ecuador. bombs, improvised explosive devices the guerrillas have been fighting. As Diplomatic relations were broken off in and landmines.2 described by International Crisis Group, 2010 after Colombia accused Venezuela At the same time, the guerrillas have “an agreement on rural development, as of providing a safe haven for the Revolu- lost their urban presence and some of foreseen in the pre-accord, could be a tionary Armed Forces of Colombia (the their support from the agrarian rural bridge to legal political participation for FARC guerrilla), decreasing economic population due to increased (guerrilla) the guerrillas”.3 exchange between the two countries. violence against civilians, and to their The regional negative effects of the involvement in the drugs trade since An elite with regional ambitions armed conflict have embittered the the 1980s. Given their limited military Although President Santos was seen as relationship between the neighbour- capacity and isolation in the political the heir to Uribe, the two men come ing Andean countries. Even in Central and particularly the public sphere, a from different elites. Uribe belongs to America and Mexico, drugs cartels have peace process presents an opportunity a regional elite made up of large landbeen involved in direct contact with the for the guerrillas to show their inter- owners and regional entrepreneurs. guerrilla and other Colombian illegal est in improving the conditions of the This regional elite had strong links with armed groups through the drugs trade marginalised rural population and to paramilitary movements in the 1990s, and arms trafficking.1 clarify their political discourse, perhaps as the guerrillas directly affected their Since the failure of the negotiations facilitating a smoother transition from economic interests and very often their between Colombian President Andrés armed conflict to politics. The FARC physical integrity. In addition, the assasPastrana and the FARC (1998-2002) leadership appears to agree that a peace- sination by the FARC of Uribe’s father and the subsequent election of Alvaro ful settlement of the conflict is prefer- in the mid-1980s contributed to his Uribe, the FARC have lost strength and able to continued fighting. The ELN hardline stance against the guerrilla. the government’s military advantage have also declared their willingness to Many people in Uribe’s government and over the FARC is quite clear. Through negotiate, but their participation in the close entourage have been condemned the Plan Colombia – a US aid package ongoing peace process is still not clear. for paramilitary ties, and it is not a coto help the Colombian government to In addition to putting constant mili- incidence that Uribe has had the leverfight against the drugs trade – the Co- tary pressure on the guerrilla, in June age to convince the United Self-Defense lombian armed forces have undergone 2011 President Juan Manuel Santos’ Forces of Colombia (AUC) – the largest unprecedented reform, especially in (2010-) new government adopted an far-right paramilitary group in Colomthe building-up of their intelligence, “historic” law (the Victim and Land bia – to demobilise. More recently, Uribe counter-insurgency tactics and air power. Restitution Law), which provides for has been accused of receiving financial However, this set of reforms has not the payment of reparations to over four support from the AUC for his election
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tos. The role of Chavez is balanced by the facilitation of the Chilean President Sebastián Piñera, a good friend of Santos, and more politically in line with him. Cuba and Norway are seen by the guerrillas as safe places to negotiate, given that some of their leaders are listed as terrorists and drug traffickers by the US. In addition to having extensive experience in international mediation, Norway has been involved in Colombia for a long time and is a major aid donor to the country. Just recently, the Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff offered her help to Santos for the negotiation process, claiming that the talks between the government of Colombia and the FARC were key to the stability of the region as a whole and especially to the countries that share borders with Colombia.9 Although numerous failed peace negotiations have taken place in the past, this type of regional and international involvement in Colombia’s peace negotiations is unprecedented. Failed peace processes in Central America If the regional perspective is increasing the chances of reaching a peace agreement between the FARC and the government of Colombia, there are a number of challenges remaining. The negotiations need to bring real peace dividends to
PHOTO: COLIN WALCH
in 20024 . That said, Uribe still enjoys bia have hindered the development of great popularity in Colombia and draws bilateral trade exchanges between the many of his followers from the regional two countries, due to violence along the agrarian elite, parts of the military and border and subsequent heavy security political circles. To a large extent, the check at border crossings.6 secret negotiations in Cuba that ended Venezuela, Cuba, Chile and Norway in the current pre-accord were a way of have all been involved in attempting to preventing spoilers, like Uribe and his facilitate conflict resolution within this followers, from criticising the negotia- regional context. In addition to its role as tion process. the main economic partner of Colombia, President Santos comes from an ur- Venezuela is a key actor in resolving ban elite with a long standing presence the armed conflict, due to the activities in Colombian politics, where the political of the FARC along its vast and porous interests of the agrarian elite vary. San- border with Colombia. Many people tos, cosmopolitan and a strong believer have been displaced along the 400 kiloin free-market economics, represents metre border with Venezuela. In this the interests of a growing liberal elite “no man’s land”, paramilitaries, drug that wants to embellish the international cartels and the guerrillas have fought, or image of Colombia in order to draw in- sometimes collaborated, to control drug terest from investors. Most importantly, routes to Venezuela, terrorising and conSantos’ government has been working trolling local populations. It is estimated hard to integrate the country more thor- that between 120,000 and 200,0007 oughly into the Latin American regional Colombian refugees have moved to the economy by being more active in vari- border region in Venezuela due to growous regional organisations, something ing insecurity on the Colombian side, that Uribe had failed to do, especially characterised by selective assassinations, with regard to Venezuela, Colombia’s kidnappings and extortion.8 Similar second largest economic partner after spillovers are affecting Ecuador and to the US.5 Regional trade dynamics were a lesser extent Peru, Brazil and Panama. at the root of the Santos administration’s Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez willingness to agree to a pre-accord with appears to be a key player in the nethe FARC. Indeed, guerrillas and other gotiation process, given that he has illegal armed groups acting along the privileged contact with the FARC and border between Venezuela and Colom- a good relationship with President San-
New Routes 4/2012
Activists from la Defensoría del Pueblo (the public Ombudsman’s Office) putting up a banner saying: “Never more. Never more disappearances. Never more silence” at the 10th anniversary of the massacre of Alto Naya in 2001.
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peace in colombia? a regional perspective on a regional problem
local communities that have suffered have emerged from the imperfect dethe majority of the violence in Colom- mobilisation of the main paramilitary bia. One of the principal challenges in group, AUC. Fragmentation of the FARC the negotiation process will be the is- together with an incomplete demobilisue of a cease-fire. Negotiation within sation presents a bleak outlook in the a context of violence is never easy and construction of a less violent society. can provide justification for parties to Many experts, both international and leave the table. If ongoing armed hostili- national, claim that a combination of ties between the FARC and the govern- part of the guerrillas, new illegal armed ment during the peace process do no groups and drug cartels have formed not decrease, local communities may a sort of alliance against government begin to doubt the usefulness of such a law enforcement.11 These types of low process. Continuing violence and a lack profile violent groups are more difficult of tangible results may erode public sup- to deal with than an organised guerrilla port for the peace process. The peace and they represent a significant concern negotiation should also more actively for security in the region. These illegal integrate conflict-affected communities, armed groups operate in a similar way particularly Afro-Colombians and indig- as other criminal groups in Central enous people, whose voices so far have America and Mexico and could step not been taken seriously.10 into the void created by a demobilised Even if a peace agreement between guerrilla. Colombia risks a situation the guerrillas and the government is like that of Guatemala, Honduras and concluded, there are still many chal- El Salvador: countries officially at peace lenges to be met in building durable and but with one of the highest levels of positive peace in Colombia. The main violence in the world. This high level challenge for the Colombian govern- of violence is rooted in a history of civment will be to curb the hybrid politico- il wars and violence, rather similar to criminal violence related to the fragmen- the Colombian history of violence. The tation of armed groups, both guerrilla peace negotiations that officially brought and paramilitary, involved in the drugs armed conflicts to an end in Guatemala, trade, extortion, and assassinations. A Honduras and El Salvador have failed to successful negotiation might still fail effectively monitor the demobilisation of to neutralise FARC fractions that are paramilitary and guerrilla groups that deeply involved in the drugs business regenerated themselves into criminal and the occasional alliances with ex- gangs involved in drug trafficking, exparamilitaries and criminal gangs that tortions and kidnapping.
To a large extent, the peace agreements in Central America have not improved the security situation of the marginalised part of the population, and in some places the situation is even worse than during the civil war. In hoping to offer a more peaceful future to their children, Colombia and its neighbours have much to learn from these former peace negotiations. Obviously, successful negotiations are not enough to bring peace and reconciliation in Colombia. The voices and concerns of those who have been most affected by the conflict need to be better integrated during and after the peace process, especially in the reconciliation process, as sustainable peace needs to be rooted in the bottom of the society. +
1
El Espectador, (2012), ”Las Farc y los carteles mexicanos”, http://www.elespectador.com/ impreso/nacional/articulo-357264-farc-y-loscarteles-mexicanos
2 International Crisis Group (2012), ”Colombia: peace at last?” http://www.crisisgroup.org/ en/regions/latin-america-caribbean/andes/ colombia/045-colombia-peace-at-last.aspx 3
Ibid.
4
Colombia Reports, (2012) “AUC donated more than $134K to 2002 Uribe campaign: Former lawmaker”, http://colombiareports. com/colombia-news/news/26391-aucdonated-more-than-134k-to-uribe.html
5 Le Monde Diplomatique (2012) ”Quand Alvaro Uribe exaspérait le patronat colombien”, http://www.monde-diplomatique. fr/2012/10/RAMIREZ/48300
PHOTO: COLIN WALCH
6 Insightcrime (2012), ”Venezuela, Colombia Security Forces Talk Daily: Santos”, http:// www.insightcrime.org/nsews-briefs/ venezuela-colombia-security-forces-talk-dailysantos 7
Refugees International (2009) http:// refugeesinternational.org/where-we-work/ americas/venezuela
8 For more information, see Verdad Abierta (2012) “ La estampida del miedo en la frontera colombo-venezolana”, http://www. verdadabierta.com/component/content/ article/38-desplazados/4227-la-estampidadel-miedo-en-la-frontera-colombovenezolana/ 9 Samana (2012), ”Rousseff le ofrece ayuda a Santos en el proceso de paz”, 9 October 2012, http://www.semana.com/politica/rousseffofrece-ayuda-santos-proceso-paz/186185-3. aspx 10 Open Democracy (2012), ”Indigenous people ’provoke’ peace in Colombia”, http://www. opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/kristianherbolzheimer/indigenous-people-provokepeace-in-colombia
Families of the victims and community members attending the 10th anniversary of the massacre of Naya, in which at least 24 people were brutally killed by members of the paramilitary Calima Front.
11 International Crisis Group (2012), ”Colombia: peace at last?” http://www.crisisgroup.org/ en/regions/latin-america-caribbean/andes/ colombia/045-colombia-peace-at-last.aspx
the african union: a potential driver of regional change
New Routes 4/2012
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The African Union’s first decade has seen great challenges, some of which have been met with considerable success by the AU, with special mention of the total rejection of unconstitutional changes of government. Since 2002 there is a strong wave of democratisation across the African continent, but the frequent post-election violence is a matter of serious concern. With a radical reform of the AU Commission, the AU could become the driver of regional change in Africa.
The African Union:
A potential driver of change entering its second decade Mehari Taddele Maru
Currently African conflicts take the form of localised manifestations and coverage, rather than civil wars that engulf entire countries. That is the reason why Africa faces three times more internal displacement than refugees. Even if the manifestations of these conflicts are local, their impact is, however, global and transnational in nature and thus, demanding international response. However, the responses to these localised conflicts have sometimes been too internationalised, limiting engagement by the local state or community affected or sub-regional organs or regional bodies. The interventions in Libya, Darfur (Sudan) and the Democratic Republic of Congo are good examples of this. These internationalised interventions have not rendered sufficient space for communities, local administrations, individual states, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the African Union (AU) to seek local solutions and opportunities, by making use of regional comparative advantages. They have actually in some cases undermined the role of states and non-state actors at local level. Formidable challenges Unconstitutional changes of government in more than 20 African countries, particularly in Western Africa, remain an old and a new challenge.1 Recently Mali, Guinea-Bissau, Niger, Madagascar, Mauritania, Guinea, Sao Tomé and Principe, Togo and Côte d’Ivoire faced a form of unconstitutional changes or extensions
of mandate and some of them faced A different challenge that emerged coups d’état.2 For the past ten years, no with the North African uprising is the principle in the AU Constitutive Act was rise to power of religious based political implemented more effectively by the AU groups through democratic elections. In than the principle of total rejection of these countries Islam is providing the unconstitutional changes of government. basis for mobilisation of groups that reSeveral unconstitutional extensions of mained intact during dictatorial regimes. term of office such as in Nigeria, Sen- Understandably, Islamic political parties egal, Niger, Uganda, Algeria and other in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Morocco have emerged victorious in the recent elections. A serious challenge lies with the transition to, and maintenance of, democratic constitutionalism that ensures the minority rights of religious and political groups. Another component of this is to ensure constitutional limitations of the powers of the majority through democratic institutions. The role of the military and armed groups in many African countries remains a source of grave concern in some countries faced formidable challenges. cases, such as Guinea Bissau, Mali, LibThe AU has been successful in working ya, and even Egypt, as the economic for the return of elected governments in patronage that these military establishsome of the countries, for example Niger, ments enjoy persists. The expanding while still working in cases such as Mali, role of the military in the economic Madagascar and Guinea Bissau. spheres in Egypt, Uganda, Sudan, EriEmerging threats in Africa include trea, Ethiopia and other countries could the recent devastating indigenous social be a cause of concern for democratic and armed opposition groups gaining civilian control of the military in the inspirational and material support from future. international terrorist elements like the Boko Haram violence in Nigeria, as well Strong on the wrong functions, as terrorist attacks in the Sahel region weak on the right areas
“
A serious challenge lies with the transition to, and maintenance of, democratic constitutionalism.
and North Africa. Piracy, drug trafficking and organised crime, including arms proliferation, threaten the peace and security as well as governance and development of many African nations.
Central in all these protracted and complicated problems in Africa is the existence of failed states, or poorly performing states. Many African states in conflict are strong in the wrong
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New Routes 4/2012
the african union: a potential driver of regional change PHOTO: UN PHOTO/PAULO FILGUEIR A S
functions of the state, focused only on government security, the interest of political parties and select individuals or groups. At the same time these states are weak on the right functions of the state, mainly in ensuring the human security of their populations. These characteristics indicate the poor performance or total state failure which constitutes the highest threat to human security. State failure happens when a state fails, due to inability or lack of willingness, to provide the legitimately expected services, i.e. when it fails to deliver public and political goods such as law and order, necessary hard infrastructure and basic necessities for its citizens. State failure may also be caused by the absence of popular legitimacy, deriving from a highly diminished or total lack of democracy in the form of participation and contestation. Indeed, largely as a result of bad governance in the post-independence Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, recently elected chairperson of the African Union African states and the harmful prescripCommission, the engine on which the Union depends, not only for its effective tive policies of donors and international functioning but also for its ability to achieve its objectives. She has served as home financial institutions, such as structural affairs minister, foreign affairs minister and health minister in South Africa. adjustment programmes that led to the end of many social and health services in Africa, some African states have been The state actors and political groups various kinds of policy and decision reduced into ‘police-states’, which are hell-bent on ascending to and main- making bodies, as well as frameworks strong only on securing and unconsti- taining power by any means must take such as the African Governance Architutionally maintaining power through the lion’s share of the blame for these tecture (AGA), the African Peace and brutalising politics and sheer brute force. problems. Nevertheless, the unbalanced Security Architecture (APSA), and variThese states are often seen as enemies focus on non-state actors has acceler- ous legislative and policy frameworks, of their own societies. Furthermore, be- ated the delegitimisation of the state the AU has promulgated many concause of the different forms of external in Africa. In addition, the resulting, ventions, designed numerous policies interference, and as a result of internal increased legitimacy of non-state ac- and strategies and established many causes, the roles of African states have tors has resulted in a backlash from institutions. Regional Economic Communities been minimised, and non-state actors, states, attempting to stifle CSOs. That enjoying international support, offer is the reason why many African states (RECs) such as IGAD, within the AU, are many of the services that states are sup- have been open to cooperation with active in mediation and peacekeeping posed to provide. China. Through its model for an un- missions in Somalia and Abyei. The inSeveral Western initiatives, including conventional development path and its ternational community has outsourced the Washington Consensus, involved offer of soft loans, China has provided its responsibility for the mediation bethe empowerment of civil society or- African governments with the possibil- tween South Sudan and Sudan to the ganisations (CSOs) to deliver most of ity of tipping the balance of legitimacy Mbeki Panel (the AU High Level Panel). the soft security, and in some cases in favour of the state, at least in the The same can be said about ECOWAS in hard security, through private security delivery of some public goods. This Mali and Guinea Bissau. The Southern firms. Done at the expense of states, this will continue to attract African govern- African Development Community has resulted in weak and non-viable states, ments to China, which may undermine been highly involved in the political most often unable to carry out state progress to democracy unless Chinese processes in Madagascar, Zimbabwe, core functions that could have endowed pragmatism leads it to put pressure Lesotho and Burundi. Moreover, the AU them with the legitimacy that states on African governments to exercise has been highly involved in monitoring elections in Africa and subsequently in require. African states became fragile, legitimate power. mediation efforts when post-election with vulnerable institutions and with violence occurred in many African counlimited control of the means of violence Interventionist and tries. In this regard, the AU has made and of their territories, leading to un- integrationist agenda governable spaces, where most of the The AU has become both intervention- enormous efforts, albeit with a varying massive human rights violations and ist and integrationist under the AU degree of success in Kenya (2007) and population displacement occur. Constitutive Act. Engaged in building Zimbabwe (2008).
the african union: a potential driver of regional change Ten years of great changes
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peace and development remain futile. The main issues to look at are the capacity and the will of states to discharge their obligations under the AU and international law. In this context, the interventions by international actors should aim to empower states while holding them accountable. As this researcher has argued elsewhere: “International law does not aim at weakening or destroying states; it tries to make states accountable and at the same time capable of dealing with the problems their populations face.”3 As revealed in the North African uprisings, development partners need to revisit their policies related to identification of the drivers of change in African peace and development agenda. The existing capacity of states in terms of repression, intelligence and surveillance employed to maintain power needs to be shifted, and put to use instead to ensure the human security of their population. In addition, the binding constraints imposed on states, which limit their
PHOTO: AU
Today’s Africa significantly differs from that of 2002 when the AU was established. Africa has witnessed what one may call ‘generational progression of democracy’. Each decade, the numbers of democratically elected leaders in Africa have increased faster than before. While Africa has shown a marked progress in terms of conducting internationally accepted elections, however, it has also faced serious challenges in the management of elections. This is evident in the increase in post-election disputes and violence that has undermined mandates and reduced the legitimacy of contending parties. Moreover, these democratic elections and changes are yet to lead to better and legitimate constitutional governance in Africa. There needs to be a transformation in the behaviour of states and contending political actors in order for such democratic transitions and power handovers to bring substantive change beyond the transfer of power
from one person/group to another. This presents new challenges for Africa, and for the AU, which has a role to play in this regard. For the AU and its component REC, the North African uprisings have produced significant lessons. The preventive and reactive role of the AU to situations that could lead to violence, armed struggle and revolution should be assisted by the full operationalisation of the APSA. Early warnings need to be matched by early responses. Political decisions should lead to united action, including rapid deployment of the standby forces. The gaps between funding and aspirations, between political statements and actual commitment, need to be bridged. In order for all of this to happen, the AU, and particularly the Peace and Security Council, the AU Commission and the Assembly, need to be agile and practical. States are the key drivers of change in Africa, without which efforts towards
New Routes 4/2012
The African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The AU has 19 directors, and 691 staff members, of which 293 are professionals. However, 324 professional posts are vacant, and the budget execution rate is only 40 per cent.
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the african union: a potential driver of regional change
ability to deliver legitimately expected services, such as law and order, peace and security, public utilities and major infrastructural developments, need to be removed. Aid agencies could contribute significantly in this front.
the AU is covered by external donors. Thus, the AU is working with half its approved human resource and absorption capacity.
End norm setting, focus on norm implementation
Regardless of the controversial election campaigning, the chairperson Dr Dlamini-Zuma’s legitimacy will be determined by her performance, whether she creates an efficient AU Commission or not. With the right leadership, the AU Commission has all the elements of becoming a ”game changer” in Africa. This role can only be achieved if the leadership tackles the following five issues, which have been pressing needs for the AU since its creation: 1) radical internal reforms of the AU Commission to make it a machine of innovative delivery on the AU’s four pillars; 2) recruitment of competent Africans to realise the full complement of the AU Commission based on meritocracy; 3) postponing further norm-setting and utilising all resources for norm-implementation; 4) increasing the contribution and seeking alternative sources of funding and living within the means in order to limit the parentage share of donor fund and enhance the ownership of the AU projects and set priorities as dictated by the needs of Africa; 5) capacitating states and enabling RECs to deal with the issues of integration and human security within the AU normative and institutional frameworks. The AU should turn to the member states to facilitate the diffusion and implementation of these norms. The first measure could be to conduct AU National and Regional Consultative Conferences (NCCs) in each member state on the implementation of the various norms and institutional frameworks. The NCCs will be used for diffusion, ratification, consultations in domestication and designation of a focal point as well as serve as an exercise in the oversight function on implementation. This would also provide an opportunity for the member states to show their political will in practice. The AU has a long way to go to build the requisite capacity of its organs, particularly the AU Commission, to ensure effective implementation of these norms. The transformation should begin with the reform of the AU and RECs themselves, in order for them to galvanise
The AU’s different normative and institutional frameworks are designed to enhance state capacities to fulfil the responsibility of delivering democracy and public goods. Its four strategic pillars are: peace and security, integration, development, and capacity building. The AU has more than 200 well-advanced legislative and policy frameworks on several issues covering the four pillars, including 43 treaties and conventions. These policies cost at least 1 million USD, from the first draft by a consultant to adoption by the heads of state. The AU and its member states need to swiftly implement these policies in order to increase the impact and relevance of the AU on the ground. With strong leadership by the AU Commission, and a focus on its vision and legacy, the AU could easily become the driver of change in Africa. But first the AU Commission itself needs internal good governance. So radical reform of the AU Commission is in order. With ten elected portfolios, 700 permanent staff members and 900 temporary consultants, the AU Commission has six core functions. A vital organ of the AU, the AU Commission serves as the secretariat responsible for conducting the day-to-day affairs of the Union. 4 More importantly, it provides substantive expertise for various bodies, such as the Peace and Security Council of the AU and coordinates their activities and meetings.5 While member states are the body parts of the AU, the Commission is the engine on which the Union depends, not only for its effective functioning, but also for its ability to achieve its objectives as set out in the Constitutive Act of the AU. The leadership and management of the Commission is therefore a key factor for the success of the AU. Nonetheless, the current human capacity of the AU Commission is 52 per cent of its approved staff complement. Moreover, its programmatic budget execution rate remains at disappointingly low 40 per cent, while 55 per cent of the budget of
The leadership for change in the AU
member states to diffuse, implement and supervise the progress. Ultimately, capacitating states to ensure both popular and performance legitimacy through the delivery of legitimately expected public services requires revising the previous policy direction of weak states, and encouragement and engagement with states to change their behaviour. Democratising the internal dynamics of social groups and political parties constitutes the next main task to be undertaken in order to promote a healthy African political landscape. In this regard rethinking and readjusting the role of international actors, such as the UN, and dominant powers, such as the EU, USA and China, as well as aid agencies, is in order. +
1
See African Union Reports of the Fourth Session of the AU Conference of Ministers for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 28 Sept – 2 Oct 2010, and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime Transnational Trafficking and the Rule of Law in West Africa: A Threat Assessment, Vienna, July 2009.
2 See Stephen Ellis, ‘West Africa’s Drugs Trade’, African Affairs, 2009; ‘Cocaine Coast,’ Africa Confidential, 14 March 2008. See ‘Cables Portray Expanded Reach of Drug Agency’, New York Times, 25 December 2010; ‘A Cocaine Coup Fails’, Africa Confidential, 30 April 2010, Vol. 51 N0 9; Benjamin Weiser and William K. Rashbaum, ‘Liberia Aids US in Drugs Fight,’ New York Times 1 June 2010; Robert Booth, ‘Embassy cables reveal concerns over Latin American cartels and terror groups using West Africa as drug route into Europe’, the Guardian (UK), 14 December 2010; Benjamin Weiser and William K. Rashbaum, ‘Liberia Aids US in Drugs Fight’, New York Times 1 June 2010. 3
Mehari Taddele Maru, ‘African Union and Its Policies on Voluntary and Forced Migration’, in Clara Fischer and Ruth Vollmer (eds), The Security-Migration Nexus I: Migration and Displacement in Sub-Saharan Africa, Brief 39 (Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC), Bonn, BICC ISSN 0947-7322), pp. 8494, available at http://www.bicc.de/uploads/ pdf/publications/briefs/brief39/brief39.pdf (accessed 7 October 2009).
4
Art. 2, Statutes of the Commission of the African Union (2002)
5 Ibid.
gender and violence: small arms – a human security issue
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Sexual violence and the use of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) are among the most severe hardships for women in conflict and post-conflict contexts. The risk of being exposed to rape or armed violence is an all too common impediment in women’s daily life activities. The Eastern African Sub-regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women, working in eight countries in Africa, advocates the inclusion of the human security aspect in the discussions on gender and SALW.
Gender and violence:
Small arms – a human security issue Marren Akatsa-Bukachi
They march and chant in unison. Women, all dressed in black from head to toe. Their head ties all the same. Black polythene bags. These black polythene bags are a sign of rape. The same uniform on 99 per cent of the marchers. The day is hot and dusty but the demonstrators are energetic, angry and passionate. I am one of them. I am donning a black T-shirt. On the back, the words ‘Komesha ubakaji’ – Kiswahili for ‘Stop the Rapes’– and on the front, ‘Mimi, wewe, sisi sote tukomeshe ubakaji’, ‘You and I, all of us can stop the rapes’. We were in Rutshuru, Goma, in North Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in December 2010, where women from the Great Lakes region held a peaceful walk condemning the increase in mass rapes in the country. The women drawn from Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda and Sierra Leone joined their female counterparts in Congo to urge the government to combat the culture of impunity and end the sexual violence. More than 2,000 women marched along the Rutshuru roads, waving placards bearing anti-rape messages. According to a Human Rights Watch report released that year, 10 victims of sexual violence are reported daily in Bukavu hospital in South Kivu and at least 16,000 cases of fistula have been reported since 2000. Over 200 girls and women were attacked, raped and defiled recently in Rutshuru. As we marched, young men sat idly by the roadside and called out derogatorily, ‘Do you want to be raped?’ The women presented petition requests to the DRC government that include a commitment to strengthen
the implementation of the Sexual and Gender Based Violence law that sets a penalty of 25 years for the perpetrators. They also called upon the National Assembly to enact laws and ensure that women are incorporated in the postconflict peacebuilding of their country. ”The law should be protecting us”, the women chanted as they marched on the streets. For 32-year old Justine Ritondeyeubusa, a normal day, fending for her family, turned out to be the most traumatic day to-date. While on her farm last year, harvesting beans at noon, a group of five armed men ambushed her, dragged her to the heart of the forest where they repeatedly raped
“
Women are often targets of certain types of violence involving small arms, particularly domestic violence and rape.
her until the next morning, leaving her for dead. Today, she would rather stay indoors and wait for her husband to risk his life on their farm, which is in the mountainous Rutshuru area where rebels reside. ”There is a lot of food on my farm but I cannot go out, because I fear I will be raped again”, Justine says. She was in hospital for eight months undergoing reconstructive surgery to her reproductive organs that were badly
bruised. Her hip was also dislocated from the rape experience. Mr Camara Sinduvasi, 50, was the only man in the procession and joined the women in condemning rape cases that have become prevalent in the North Kivu province. Tens of thousands of women and girls in the DRC have become victims of sexual violence over the past fifteen years. Small arms linked with women’s rights But how is this linked to small arms and light weapons (SALW) and what is the significance of Mr Camara as the lone supporter of the women in the march? Guns such as small arms and light weapons have rarely been associated with women’s rights. Guns are considered a masculine thing and so women just do not come into it. However, the impact of armed violence on women should not be underestimated – women are often targets of certain types of violence involving small arms, particularly domestic violence and rape. Gender is relevant to the discussion of small arms, since a disproportionate percentage of the owners and users of small arms are men, both in conflict and non-conflict situations (Cukier, 2000)1. In most countries of the world, women make up at least half of the population. Because of this, it is important to include women in arms control and disarmament initiatives simply as a matter of democratising peace and security processes. It is also a progressive move towards gender equality, and a sign of commitment towards inclusive development processes.
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gender and violence: small arms – a human security issue
New Routes 4/2012
Gender based violence is used as a deliberate and strategic weapon in warfare between different parties in many conflict settings around the world. By causing as much humiliation as possible, often directly in front of the husband and children, the perpetrators spread fear and chaos. In the majority of cases the perpetrators are men. Hence, no men joined our march apart from the lone man who was brave enough to stand up and be counted, because he had witnessed first hand the humiliation of rape of close female family members. Studies from around the world have shown how the presence of firearms can significantly increase the risk that domestic violence results in fatalities. In many conflict situations, small arms have been used to threaten women and communities and to perpetrate sexual violence. Small arms do not necessarily have to be fired to pose a serious security threat. The visible impact of small arms includes lives lost, injury and psychosocial trauma, while indirect impacts include death and injury of family and peers, displacement, and reduced access to, or quality of, health. If there were no proliferation of illegal small arms in the DRC, would there be the same high level of impunity and almost casual attitude to rapes? The answer is ‘no’. Despite increased discussion around gender and SALW, it is still not an established practice to incorporate gender considerations in SALW policies in the region. The work to limit the proliferation of SALW is dominated by technical processes, such as marking and tracing, disarmament, collection, destruction and storage of arms, and not by human security elements. The human security elements are those that take into consideration the human impact of small arms, both present and in the future, and aspirations to address and mitigate these impacts. It is important to understand how communities are constructed and how different groups, including women and men, perceive their situations. However, even at this level, discussions on the relationship between gender and small arms have tended to focus on documentation of women’s experiences with SALW rather than the understanding of conflict and their effects. The low level of participation of women and youth in SALW activities is an indication that they are not effectively involved. It
is important to ensure that stakeholders are fully skilled in understanding gender and gender mainstreaming to be able to address the needs of both genders in SALW programmes across the region. Regional basis for gender issues This is one of the reasons why the Eastern African Sub-regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women (EASSI), a women’s rights organisation, became involved in the gender dimensions of small arms to ensure inclusion and elaboration of gender issues in planned interventions. Since 2006, EASSI has evolved into a lead organisation in the advocacy for the gender dimensions of SALW in East Africa. To ground its work in the five east African states of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, EASSI began by conducting a gender audit of SALW National Action Plans. This would be the basis for future work in the region. The results were obvious: none of the National Action Plans on small arms management had a gender dimension, let alone a human security element. Out of this audit, EASSI prepared a document on engendering the East African Community SALW strategy. This led to EASSI being requested to provide technical support to the Regional Centre on Small Arms (RECSA) on the development of a gender policy on SALW in the Great Lakes Region and Horn of Africa.
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The presence of firearms can significantly increase the risk that domestic violence results in fatalities.
The involvement of women was promoted through experience sharing visits among women affected by conflict, for the purposes of sharing coping/mitigation mechanisms. This involved women and men affected by conflict participating in exchange visits. The first one was a visit to Kenya by women from Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Tanzania in early 2008, fol-
lowing the post election violence. This grew into a project known as the Regional Women’s Voices for Peace. Other exchange visits have involved Kenyans coming to northern Uganda, which was involved in a 20-year war with the Lord’s Resistance Army, as well as women and men from northern Uganda travelling to Burundi and Kenya, respectively. During these visits, participants freely share their experiences and learn the coping mechanisms from one another. Another part of EASSI’s regional work has involved the introduction of gender mentorship programmes to develop a critical mass of young, passionate and informed advocates to demystify the security sector and encourage greater involvement by women and girls as reformers. Since 2009, EASSI has trained over 500 security sector personnel on gender mainstreaming in both regional and national workshops. These personnel have gone on to train others. In Burundi, gender mainstreaming training has become one of the key programmes implemented by the office of the National Focal Point on Small Arms. Recently, RECSA invited EASSI to conduct gender mainstreaming training for its members in Ethiopia, DRC, Djibouti and the Central African Republic at regional level which cascaded into national trainings in each of these countries. This regional work has translated into more awareness on the need for gender mainstreaming in the security sector in Eastern Africa. Daily life limits The fear of being attacked may limit women’s freedom of movement, can prevent them from carrying out their daily activities, from fetching water and firewood, and from taking public transportation to work. Again, many women do not seek help or report their experiences of violence, often due to limited availability of services, stigma or fear. Cockburn argues that understanding the ‘continuum effect’ in violence enables us to seek out possibilities for interrupting the continuum. By intervening at one point in the sequence, we may be able to reduce violence at another.2 Violence against women is often less evident than the deaths and injuries of men fighting in armed conflict or as gang members in violent drug wars. Yet women and girls are often victimised, or affected in other ways, in all armed
gender and violence: small arms – a human security issue
New Routes 4/2012
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violence settings. Women and girls are quently outlast peace agreements and bearing on the possibility of achieving also common targets of sexual violence are taken up again in the post-conflict sustainable development. in armed conflict and fragile states, and periods by criminal gangs, vigilantes, We came up with a regional SALW they suffer disproportionately from its dissidents and individuals concerned Gender Institute that would build the caindirect consequences. about personal security. In some places, pacity of government officials on the link The economic and social effects of the low cost and availability of firearms between gender and small arms. This armed violence are devastating. In ad- can promote what experts call a ‘culture initially began as annual one month dition to the costs of lost productivity, intensive trainings at EASSI headquarmedical treatment for injured victims, ters in Kampala, Uganda. The trainings and loss of income, women especially began in a small way with countries suffer additional indirect effects. In sending only one staff member. They many situations, when their husbands were conducted using a curriculum are killed, women and children lose acthat EASSI developed and pretested in cess to their homes and livelihood and 2008. After the trainings, each particiare forced to choose prostitution, compant would go back to their country and mercial labour, or domestic servitude train others there. As we speak, we have in order to survive. trained over 800 participants from the Even if women are not primarily gun security sector, through our alumni in wielders, their victimisation is enabled Burundi, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and by these weapons. They are the weapons Rwanda, and the trainings have been of choice in domestic violence, in politidecentralised to the national level, since cal violence and in sexual violence. The we have many converts to the gender issue of masculinity also plays in. Men of violence’, where gun ownership be- cause. Countries are including gender and youth are often attracted to owning comes a symbol of power and status and issues in their national action plans guns because of the power it affords gun violence a first resort for the settle- on small arms management and invitthem. Women, for example in Latin ment of personal or political disputes. In ing women’s organisations to be part America and Jamaica, are also attracted Africa, it has become more dangerous to of their committees on small arms at to men who own guns, believing they be a woman fetching water or collecting grassroots level. are protected and secure. Often they firewood than a fighter on the frontline. In March, we collaborated with the are proved wrong. On the contrary, they Many of the doors that we knocked East African Community in Arusha, are often subject to intimate partner on did not reveal receptivity to the idea Tanzania, and the German Society for violence. of human security, let alone a gender International Cooperation to launch Because of this, it is necessary to perspective to small arms and light the first ever Gender Week, the theme integrate gender perspectives and un- weapons. They were doors of military of which was the gender dimensions of derstandings of violence in arms control men and experts in peace and conflict small arms. This included exhibitions, work in conflict and non-conflict situa- resolution. They told us that small arms demonstrations and workshops creating tions. Doing so can help programmes, are a security issue. We said that small awareness on the negative effects of policies and projects to address armed arms are a human security issue and small arms on women, the triple effects violence and the proliferation of small that the two cannot be separated. In of disempowerment, sexual degradation arms comprehensively. order to determine the extent to which and poverty. The campaigns have not the two issues are currently connected remained at national and regional level Gender violence in peacetime in existing policies, we undertook a but have been taken up at a global level. Two crucial areas of concern, the prolif- small analysis of National Action Plans In conclusion, violence against womeration of SALW and the link between on Small Arms Control and Manage- en is a global problem and an internagender and SALW in the National Ac- ment of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. tional security threat, which might reach tion Plans, speak to women in armed It was not an easy survey, as we were catastrophic proportions when used as conflict and violence against women. denied information for the reason that a strategic weapon in warfare as a way In 2005, EASSI, under its ‘women in it was confidential and not a matter for to terrorise, humiliate and break down the peace processes programme’ real- the public domain. We persevered and women and society as a whole. In this ised that there were many barriers to used information available on the In- context small arms act as a multiplier women’s enjoyment of peace even af- ternet. The results were glaringly obvi- of violence impacting on women, both ter cessation of war. One of the major ous: There was no ‘gender’ in any of the directly and indirectly. + causes was the existence of small arms National Plans. and light weapons that continue to proThis convinced us to begin to highliferate, whether in conflict periods or light the link between gender and small peacetime in EASSI’s member states. arms at every forum and opportunity. The durability of small arms ensures The link we made was that women’s 1 Cukier, Wendy (2000). Gender and Small Arms. A Special Report for the Small Arms that once they are present in a country, rights are human rights and that the Yearbook Project, Geneva. they present a continuous risk, espe- effect of small arms and light weapons 2 Corey Barr with Sarah Masters: Why Women? cially in societies where there are large on women should be discussed at the Effective Engagement in Small Arms Control, accumulations of weapons. They fre- negotiation table, because it has a larger p. 18. IANSA Women’s network, Oct 2011.
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In Africa, it has become more dangerous to be a woman fetching water or collecting firewood than a fighter on the frontline.
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regional peacebuilding – a collective initiative
New Routes 4/2012
The Mano River Region in West Africa has been known as a conflict hotspot for decades. Instability and conflict easily spill over porous national boundaries and affect all the countries in the region, feeding into existing conflicts or generating new ones. Frequent examples of this are seen when political leaders support rebel groups in neighbouring countries or vice versa, resulting in cycles of complex civil wars. Regional peacebuilding measures are crucial, but must be seen as a complement to local and national initiatives.
The Mano River Union:
Regional peacebuilding – a collective initiative by various actors Grace Maina and Warigia Razia
Scholars and practitioners have varying perspectives on the definition of peacebuilding, as the concept is extremely broad and conflicts around the globe diverse. In spite of the widespread debate on its instrumentalities, there is common agreement on the goals of peacebuilding. Peacebuilding seeks to prevent, reduce, transform and help people recover from structural and other forms of violence. It empowers people to foster relationships at all levels that sustain them and their environment. Further, peacebuilding seeks to break cycles of violence by taking a series of interrelated, connected and coherent actions. It is a systematic process that facilitates the establishment of sustainable peace and tries to prevent the reoccurrence of violence by addressing the root causes and effects of conflict. It does this through conflict prevention, conflict transformation, relationship building, promoting social cohesion, institution building and political transformation, facilitating economic transformation and strengthening civil society. “Overall, peacebuilding is a long term process that occurs before, during and after conflict has slowed or abated.”1 The promotion of national and local level peacebuilding initiatives shows the now widely shared acknowledgement that the root causes of conflict in general, and in Africa in particular, are context specific. With the end of the Cold War and at the end of the last millennium,
a global decline in violent conflict was noted in all regions – except for Africa and Asia. Although there has been a decrease in the number of violent conflicts in Africa in the new millennium, there is strong evidence of recidivism in many
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Instability easily spills over national boundaries and affects all the countries in the region.
d’Ivoire, Guinea-Conakry, Liberia and Sierra Leone.5 These countries are linked beyond their geographically shared borders. Their colonial legacies, histories, political dynamics, economies and ethnic groups are intrinsically linked and cannot be considered in isolation. The success of national peacebuilding efforts thus depends heavily on progress made towards finding regional solutions, as regional dynamics affect national contexts in what is commonly referred to as regional conflict complexes/formations. A regional conflict formation is a set of transnational conflicts that form mutually reinforcing linkages with each other across state borders. These links may be so substantial that changes in conflict dynamics and the resolution of one conflict will have an effect on a neighbouring conflict.6
post-conflict countries.2 Over half of these conflicts were linked to conflicts in neighbouring states.3 The linkages are multifaceted and sustained through a range of interconnected political, socio- Cross-border spillover conflicts economic and cultural factors that tend An assessment of the regional conflict to have deep roots in the history of the dynamics of the Mano River Region different regions. Instability easily spills requires a holistic understanding of over national boundaries and affects the common trends across the region. all the countries in the region, feeding Whilst these states established the Mano into existing conflicts or generating River Union (MRU) as a sub-regional new ones. The main protagonists of entity that would consolidate their apconflicts often operate across borders. proach to regional threats and opportuConsequently, efforts to solve these con- nities, the same union has been inactive flicts and build sustainable peace are and incapable of addressing the regional bound to fail, if they do not take into threats, and is in need of revitalisation.7 account such cross-border dynamics. 4 The realisation that the MRR is a conflict This is characteristic of the Mano River hotspot that will impact negatively on Region (MRR), which comprises Côte the stability of the broader West African
regional peacebuilding – a collective initiative
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the movement of these persons and weapons. This has adverse implications for peacebuilding processes. Weak governance at border areas is a symptom of a fragile state. Most fragile states are characterised by weak institutions and poor governance structures, severe economic decline, disintegration, social unrest and loss of state legitimacy, massive human and capital flight, absence of the rule of law, and decline in public services. They are increasingly divided along various lines, including ethnic, regional, linguistic, political and religious ones. This is compounded by government corruption, which repels external and domestic investment as well as official development assistance.11 The presence of such fragile states poses a challenge to peacebuilding in the MRR, necessitating the adoption of both conflict transformation and structural approaches to peacebuilding. Disputes over scarce resources For decades the region has experienced intermarriage and the migration of ethnic groups for economic reasons.
PHOTO: ALE XIS ADÉLÉ/IRIN
region requires specific attention and 2011. Grand Gedeh County in Liberia is, focus, and the MRU needs to strengthen due to the relationship that developed its efforts in light of this fact. during the war, predominantly proIn studying conflict trajectories in the Gbagbo (their militia received support MRR, it is evident that successful na- from Gbagbo) and thus ‘allied’ with tional peace processes in the region have their ethnic ‘brothers’ the Guere on the a tendency to fail due to the spillover of Ivorian side of the border, whereas the insecurity and conflict from neighbour- Gio/Mano of Liberia are predominantly ing countries. Illustrations of this can Ouattara supporters and ‘allied’ to the be seen in how political leaders have Yacouba, their ethnic ‘brothers’ across supported rebel groups in neighbour- the border.10 It is this form of regional ing countries, or received support from insecurity, for example, that resulted in neighbouring states and rogue rebel the killing of seven United Nations (UN) groupings, resulting in extremely in- peacekeepers deployed in Côte d’Ivoire tertwined regional civil wars.8 Liberia, at the beginning of June. through President Charles Taylor, for Weak governance at border areas is a example, supported the Revolutionary pertinent concern in this region. HistoriUnited Front in Sierra Leone, and the cally, the border regions of these states Liberians received support from Guinea were of little importance and received in the Second Liberian Civil War.9 very little investment and services, furThe crisis following the post-election ther making them a haven for illegal acstalemate between Laurent Gbagbo tivities such as the proliferation of small and Alassane Outtara in Côte d’Ivoire arms and light weapons and crimes is the most recent demonstration of like kidnapping and drug trafficking. the interconnectedness of the region. This is compounded by the presence Ouattara won the election, but Gbagbo of retired or ex-military trained perrefused to accept defeat until he was sonnel and non-state combatants. The ousted through military force in April porous borders in the region facilitate
New Routes 4/2012
People at a bus station in Abidjan’s Adjamé District, Côte d’Ivoire, trying to flee the increasingly severe post-election fighting, March 2011. In his refusal to accept the result of the November 2010 elections and recognise Alassane Quattara as the winner, Laurent Gbagbo staged a constitutional coup and resorted to violence to stay in power.
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New Routes 4/2012
PHOTO: MASÉCO CONDÉ/IRIN
As a result of years of coexistence and easy movement across borders, ethnic groups are not focused within the geographical territory of a country, but are spread across the different countries. This brings to the fore the ethnic and economic dimensions in the MRR. Specific examples in Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea-Conakry highlight the impact of identity and ethnicity in these national conflicts. Conflicts between indigenous groups, such as the Kpelle and Guerze, and settlers, like the Mandinka and Kouranka, have raged on in Guinea, as they fight for control over land and other resources.12 Questions of identity have been the basis for exclusionary policies, as seen in Côte d’Ivoire with arguments over who is or is not an Ivorian. This is at the core of the conflict dynamics within Côte d’Ivoire. The constant refugee flows across the different countries due to conflict have become integral to understanding the history of the MRR. The huge influx of refugees from Liberia and Sierra Leone into Guinea from 1990 to 2005, and the 2010 influx of Ivorian refugees into Liberia following the presidential elections are illustrative of this.13 This often creates growing competition and increased disputes over land and other resources between refugees and indigenous groups, with negative consequences for already struggling economies. As discussed above, refugee flows also create instability, as ethnic groups ally with their ethnic ‘brothers’ across borders and provide support, such as
regional peacebuilding – a collective initiative refuge for crimes, which contributes to a culture of impunity. The MRR has a rapidly growing youth population and has to meet the challenge of finding ways to constructively engage this part of the population. Urban centres are populated by unemployed youth, who are used by politicians for violent activity. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Sierra Leone identified youth marginalisation and political exclusion as one of the root causes of the Sierra Leone conflict. The presence of a large number of unemployed, unskilled youths that can be easily instigated to violence threatens the consolidation of peace and regional stability in the MRR. The socio-economic realities that characterise these environments force youth to engage in violence and/or shadow economic activities for survival. This is compounded by a logic and culture of violence. With the exception of Sierra Leone, the MRR has been characterised by ineffective demobilisation and disarmament and unsuccessful reintegration processes. The involvement of multiple players in a holistic approach aimed at full and self-sustained social and economic reintegration is key.14 Following the conflicts in the MRR, there has been rampant growth in the number of civil society organisations (CSOs) working in the area of peacebuilding. While there have been attempts to coordinate the different civil society initiatives in the region, there is still a major need for a more coherent and coordinated approach amongst civil
society actors. Failure to do this has resulted in unnecessary duplication of peacebuilding activities and unhealthy rivalry between and among many peacebuilding actors, for instance, in the way CSOs work with national governments, inter-governmental, and regional organisations. While synergising peacebuilding activities is desirable in order to maximise comparative advantage and available resources, this has not been realised in the region. An integrated peacebuilding framework would be more effective in reaching its goals than the present fragmented approach.15 Promote regional peacebuilding It is difficult, if not impossible, to overcome the challenges that lie at the root of violent conflict without the requisite resources. Peacebuilding is daunting and the financial resources required can be overwhelming. While there has been donor support and aid from the international community to assist, through different actors, including the UN, this falls short of the real needs and development challenges, which continue to plague these states. However, the real challenge lies beyond the amount of aid given, and more in the focus and design of peacebuilding programmes and support. The sustainability of the different interventions is questionable, and there must be a conscious effort by all peacebuilding actors to formulate viable initiatives that are long term, incorporate local ownership right from the design, build local capacities for peace and utilise local resources. In addition to local and national peacebuilding interventions in the MRR region, it is imperative that donors encourage programmes that have a regional approach, given the interconnectedness of the region. A critical challenge in all peacebuilding initiatives in post-conflict states is how to measure impact. Following years of peacebuilding in the MRR, it is imperative to explore whether what
Armed soldiers move to stop violent protests in Conakry, Guinea, 2 February 2007 against the rule of President Conté. During three weeks of demonstrations, security forces killed more than 40 protesters. Some days later the President declared a state of emergency and instructed the army to restore order.
regional peacebuilding – a collective initiative has been done over the years has been effective in contributing towards sustainable peace. The reflective practice of monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment is critical to understanding outputs and assessing the impact and outcome of all interventions. There has been limited research in this regard, but this remains key to understanding what the obstacles to peace are. The lack of reflective spaces to analyse and judge the efficacy of different interventions continues to be a challenge to the realisation of sustainable peace in the region. Multi-level peacebuilding Peacebuilding efforts in the MRR will have to acknowledge the regional nature of the conflict dynamics and develop processes to accommodate the complex multi-level character of the conflict, the proliferation of actors at different levels, and the rapidly shifting boundaries.16 Regional peacebuilding can, therefore, be summarised as a collective initiative by various actors aimed at ensuring the absence of violent conflict and the presence of positive/structural, sustainable peace from a regional perspective – taking into account the geographic and functional elements of the regional conflict formation. As many conflicts are found to take place in states with weak authority, and have been preceded by a break-up of the state or a loss of legitimacy of the incumbent government, creating regional mechanisms for peacebuilding across state lines has the added advantage of bolstering national institutions.17 In addition, legitimate states are necessary for effective regional peacebuilding, as the state remains the framework within which solutions to violent conflict will be found.18 The weakness of state institutions, including citizenship and border control, facilitates illicit transnational trade networks, war/shadow economies, and the spread of rumours, all of which adversely impact the state and peacebuilding. In conclusion it is important to note that regional peacebuilding does not in any way negate national and local peacebuilding efforts, but instead seeks to complement these with additional levels of action that would not ordinarily be targeted through the latter. National peacebuilding initiatives focus on promoting peace on a national level, but are not designed to accommodate specific
transnational problems, which have arisen out of particular dynamics of the conflict. Regional mechanisms can play a crucial role in bridging the gap. A solid regional peacebuilding approach must critically and continually examine and analyse the dynamics and security threats in a region. The MRR requires such an approach due to the unique nature of the region and the common characteristics and experiences that tie member states together. The role of the MRU, its Secretariat and Joint Security Commission, play an important role in contributing to conflict prevention and the achievement of sustainable peace. In aiming for conflict prevention and in contributing to peacebuilding, the MRU can be enhanced through sustained dialogue, creation of stronger regional management and coordination bodies, and constant information sharing amongst the different actors and institutions within the region. In the end, collaboration and integrated partnerships with commitment to local ownership and responsibility by all actors in all peacebuilding efforts will contribute to stability and sustainable peace in the MRR. + This article emanates from Ettang, D., Maina, G. and Razia, W. (2011) ‘A Regional Approach to Peacebuilding: The Mano River Region’, ACCORD Policy and Practice Brief, Issue 006, May 2011; and Mano River Region: Peacebuilding Challenges, Prospects and Interventions workshop hosted by ACCORD’s African Peacebuilding Coordination Programme (APCP), in Monrovia, Liberia, on 27-29 October 2010.
1
Karbo, T. (2008) ‘Peace-building in Africa’ in Francis, D.J. (ed) Peace and Conflict in Africa, New York, Zed Books.
2 Ibid. 3
4
EURAC. (2004) ‘An EU Regional Approach for the Great Lakes, Africa’, Position Paper, Belgium, EURAC; and Wallensteen, P. and Sollenberg, M. (1998) ‘Armed Conflict and Regional Conflict Complexes 1989-97’, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 35 (5), pp. 621-634. Ibid.
5 The Mano River Region refers to the geographic arrangement of the countries within the broader region of West Africa, which include Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Mano River Union is a regional intergovernmental body aimed at fostering economic cooperation amongst member states.
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6 See Centre for International Cooperation, New York University and Africa Peace Forum. (2001) ‘Regional Conflict Formation in the Great Lakes Region of Africa: Structure, Dynamics and Challenges for Policy’, Conference Report, Nairobi, Kenya. 7
Kromah, L.M. (2010) A Case for a Revitalised Mano River Union, Unpublished Document, Durban, Republic of South Africa.
8 Albrecht, P., and Drew, E. (2011) Security and Governance in the Mano River Borderlands, London, Conciliation Resources. 9 Ibid. 10 Bøås, M. (2012) ‘Liberia Elections – No Quick Fix for Peacebuilding’, New Routes, Vol. 17 (1), pp. 15-17; and United States Department of State. (2011). ‘Côte d’Ivoire’, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011, http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/186399.pdf (accessed September 09, 2012). 11 Karbo, T. (2008) ‘Peace-building in Africa’ in Francis, D.J. (ed) Peace and Conflict in Africa, New York, Zed Books; Kromah, L.M. (2010) A Case for a Revitalised Mano River Union, Unpublished Document, Durban, Republic of South Africa; and Razia, W. (Forthcoming) ‘Transitional Justice in Post-Conflict and -Crisis Reconstruction and Development in Africa: The Controversies, Contradictions and Tensions’, UNDP Africa Democratic Governance Community of Practice Meeting Discussion Paper, New York, UNDP. 12 Silberfein, M. and Conteh, A. (2006), ‘Boundaries and Conflict in the Mano River Region of West Africa’, Conflict Management and Peace Science, 23, pp. 343-361. 13 Bøås, M. (2012) ‘Liberia Elections – No Quick Fix for Peacebuilding’, New Routes, Vol. 17 (1), pp. 15-17; and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (2011) ‘Côte d’Ivoire Situation Update No. 7’, http://www.unhcr. org/4d997bee9.html (accessed January 4, 2011). 14 Karbo, T. (2008) ‘Peace-building in Africa’ in Francis, D.J. (ed) Peace and Conflict in Africa, New York, Zed Books. 15 Razia, W. (Forthcoming) ‘Transitional Justice in Post-Conflict and -Crisis Reconstruction and Development in Africa: The Controversies, Contradictions and Tensions’, UNDP Africa Democratic Governance Community of Practice Meeting Discussion Paper, New York, UNDP. 16 Centre for International Cooperation, New York University and Africa Peace Forum. (2001) ‘Regional Conflict Formation in the Great Lakes Region of Africa: Structure, Dynamics and Challenges for Policy’, Conference Report, Nairobi, Kenya; and Wallensteen, P. and Sollenberg, M. (1998) ‘Armed Conflict and Regional Conflict Complexes 1989-97’, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 35 (5), pp. 621634. 17 Kromah, L.M. (2010) A Case for a Revitalised Mano River Union, Unpublished Document, Durban, Republic of South Africa. 18 Razia, W. (Forthcoming) ‘Transitional Justice in Post-Conflict and -Crisis Reconstruction and Development in Africa: The Controversies, Contradictions and Tensions’, UNDP Africa Democratic Governance Community of Practice Meeting Discussion Paper, New York, UNDP.
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conflict early warning in peacebuilding
New Routes 4/2012
In its ten years of existence, IGAD’s Conflict Early Warning and Response Mechanism (CEWARN) has been a principal platform for regional cooperation on conflict prevention and mitigation, in what is often dubbed as the ‘conflict-ridden’ Horn of Africa region. The fact that IGAD member states have agreed to cooperate to deal with trans-boundary security issues is a proof of its importance. CEWARN’s Director, Dr. Martin Kimani, in an interview with the author reflects on its achievements so far and its role in the future.
CEWARN:
Data-based conflict early warning – a vital instrument in peacebuilding Tigist Hailu
CEWARN is first and foremost a prom- joint response to trans-boundary secu- as a pioneer in setting up a region-wide ise by the states of the Horn of Africa to rity challenges is a further testament to mechanism that constitutes a whole their people to work to prevent violent the critical hope that CEWARN’s exist- spectrum of governmental and nonconflicts that have cost so many lives ence represents. governmental institutions. Its presence and destroyed so many hopes. The name stretches from local communities to stands for the Conflict Early Warning policy-level structures in member states. and Response Mechanism, and repreDuring this time CEWARN has gained sents the need for consistent conflict invaluable experience and credibility prevention through early warning that with officials and peace workers in its was on the minds of many at the end areas of operations, and acquired methof the 1990s when so many lives had ods that are needed as much today as been lost to mass violence that could they were a decade ago. have been averted. Recognising this, the member states CEWARN as an organisation was have asked CEWARN to expand the established in 2002 on the basis of kinds of conflict types it covers and to a protocol signed – and later ratified expand its work significantly. This re– by the member states of the Interflects not only a welcome faith in their governmental Authority on Developownership of the mechanism, but also ment (IGAD). Its mandate was bold: to a real sense that solutions to preventing provide credible, evidence-based early For hope to tangibly improve lives, violent conflict must be home grown warning information and analysis in concrete work in the real world is needed. and must arise from combining local, a fashion that would inform timely This has been the case with CEWARN. national and regional efforts. CEWARN action to prevent or mitigate violent The IGAD member states decided a dec- is a rare institution that does this as a conflict. ade ago to set an operationalising chal- matter of course. Meeting the demands This network of actors, driven by a lenge to the men and women recruited of the member states, the CEWARN secretariat based in Addis Ababa, Ethi- to start up CEWARN. They would work mechanism has crafted a forward lookopia, was, from the very beginning, to provide conflict early warning analy- ing, innovative strategy for expansion, forged to join government and civil so- sis and response options on cross-border increased relevance to decision making ciety, at a time when security had mostly violent conflicts between pastoralist and actions that widen and entrench been the exclusive preserve of states. groups and communities. This would peaceful outcomes to conflict throughThis, plus its fractal structure, joining be the starting point for an eventual out the member states. regional, national and local dimensions expansion into covering other kinds of High-level IGAD member state ofin data collection, analysis and decision violent conflict types and areas through- ficials endorsed the CEWARN 2012making, made it a significant milestone out the region. 2019 Strategy on 4 September 2012 in in the regional and continental efforts to After nearly a decade in operation, Kampala, Uganda. This historic meetbuild peace and security. That member focusing on pastoralist and related con- ing was presided over by H.E. First lady states in a region with such a long his- flicts, CEWARN has become a conti- and Minister of Karamoja Affairs of tory of violent conflict could agree to nental benchmark for data-based early the Republic of Uganda, Hon. Janet establish an organisation cementing a warning and response systems, as well Museveni.
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The driving idea is that effective conflict early warning is best delivered and acted on by governmental and non-governmental actors.
conflict early warning in peacebuilding
New Routes 4/2012
disparities, among others, form the con- with the mechanism’s regional, national text that turns group conflict into mass and local actors to provide analysis and violence. scenarios that help deliver a peaceful CEWARN is a unique institution in election and its aftermath. its structure and its mandate. It brings together government and civil society. How would you describe the CEWARN It operates on the regional, national and mechanism’s work? local levels. This means it is very well At the heart of the functionality of the structured to support peaceful media- CEWARN mechanism is data collection, tion of conflicts from an early warning data analysis and the dissemination of In your view, what are the major peace perspective, and its decade long experi- information and knowledge to the right and security challenges facing the ence has served as a continental bench- people and institutions in a timely manIGAD region at the moment and how is mark that is now going to expand to ner. The driving idea is that effective CEWARN positioned to respond to these deliver more tools and more opportuni- conflict early warning is best delivered challenges? ties for conflict prevention. and acted on by governmental and nongovernmental actors. Through practice, The major peace and security challenges What are your immediate priorities as the CEWARN mechanism has evolved facing the IGAD region center on scaryou implement the new strategy? the working understanding that solucity, perceptions of scarcity, and group tions are best developed and delivered alignments to fight for scarce resources. The new strategy that informs CEThese perceptions and realities cause WARN’s work in the post-2012 period as close to the problem as possible. conflict. However, that conflict becomes calls for an expansion of the monitorviolent to the extent that communities ing and analysis of the types, causes What are your major achievements and and government structures don’t have and drivers of violent conflicts, as well challenges in preventing conflicts in your the tools and orientations to encourage as our geographic focus. This expansion areas of operation so far? and facilitate peaceful mediation. Added is based on extensive national consul- We have a decade of experience in supto this, environmental stress, climate tations on priorities and will be led by porting local institutions to expand volatility, fast population growth, urbani- the mechanism’s national arms. For their capabilities and responsibilities sation, politicised identity and economic instance, in Kenya, we will be working in conflict prevention. This involves
PHOTO: CE WARN
Dr. Martin Kimani has been Director of CEWARN’s regional office in Addis Ababa since April 2011. He played a crucial role in leading the mechanism’s transformation and describes CEWARN as “a regional hope in peace built on shared understanding and united action against violent conflicts”. Below are excerpts of conversations with Dr. Kimani:
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Conflict prevention has proved to be more efficient if it is well anchored at all levels. Through the CEWARN mechanism, local voices are integrated into national and regional peacebuilding discourse and action.
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the recognition that the solutions are located among the people most at risk during violent conflict. We have married contemporary and customary Conflict Prevention Management and Resolution (CPMR) tools and social structures, supported local peace champions, and have been identified as an important partner in peacebuilding in regions such as the Somali Cluster. In terms of challenges, we struggle daily to align our operational methods and tempo with an extremely dynamic and complex region. We, like the rest of the conflict prevention community, are often playing catch up. Much of the challenge revolves around infrastructure and communications technology needed to effectively link actors locally and nationally. But this challenge will be overcome with time. The region’s phone and data networks, not to mention its roads, are growing rapidly. We will only need to ensure that these tools meet with a well-developed culture of collaboration so that they really deliver.
PHOTO: CE WARN
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Dr. Martin Kimani, CEWARN’s Director since April 2011, giving a speech at a launch event of the national CEWERU of South Sudan in Juba.
CEWARN is part of the African Peace In South Sudan, the government has and Security Architecture through its set up a national early warning and reworking and legal linkage with the Af- sponse system modeled after CEWARN. rican Union’s continental early warning While the system‘s geographic coversystem. The principles of vertical coor- age is currently limited, it is growing dination, subsidiarity and coherence, steadily towards nation-wide relevance. among others enshrined in the conti- This is an important effort, given the nental architecture, inform the relation- multiple internal and regional risks of ship between the AU and IGAD. violent conflict facing the world’s newest Do you believe there is enough good will In operational terms, the CEWARN nation-state. CEWARN is a strong ally among the governments of the region to mechanism is a building block of the in support of this effort and is already collaborate on peace and security matters AU’s continental early warning system. structurally present in the country to that are politically sensitive? We regularly engage with the AU and contribute to the process. In addition, CEWARN launched a The existence of CEWARN is living other sub-regional early warning institutions to share experiences and coordinational unit in South Sudan in May proof that the governments of the region nate the development of our technical 2012 with the inspiring leadership of have a profound understanding of the tools, methodologies and best practices. H.E. Vice President Dr. Riek Machar. need to cooperate on peace and secuThe national unit brings together key rity. IGAD, as a community of member What is the CEWARN mechanism doing government and non-government inin Somalia? And what is your role in the stitutions. Through CEWARN, these peace process between Sudan and South structures are linked to the early warnSudan? ing and conflict prevention systems run by South Sudan’s neighbours who are We think that the new government in Sopart of the seven IGAD member states. malia and the rather peaceful separation of the Republic of Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan offer the region great As we were closing our conversation, Dr. opportunities to build sustained peace Kimani shared some of CEWARN’s asand prosperity. This of course does not pirations going forward, contained in its states, has delivered high-level peace mean that there are no problems or risks 2012-2019 strategy framework: agreements in Sudan and Somalia to of violent conflict. – CEWARN is keen to avail deep mention just a few. States have interIn Somalia, the government’s stabi- analysis that informs policy decisions ests. This is a fact not only in the IGAD lisation policies will deeply involve the in the region. It will also promote the region but throughout the world. We Somalia Conflict Early Warning and integration of early warning and prealso observe that many state interests Response Unit (CEWERU) which is the paredness in regional governance. In have points of convergence. It is these in-country unit of the CEWARN mecha- addition, CEWARN will continue to that provide opportunities for CEWARN nism, and its member institutions. We focus on sustaining preventive response to facilitate effective collaboration in ad- are already working hand in hand with initiatives by increasingly engaging indressing peace and security challenges. the Somalia CEWERU to strengthen its dividuals as well as private and other capabilities and extend its data gather- enterprises to contribute to human seHow does CEWARN relate to other subing and analytical reach and to support curity in the region. + regional and continental mechanisms its development and implementation of such as the African Union (AU) contilocal developmental projects that cement nental early warning system? peace and good governance.
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Solutions are best developed and delivered as close to the problem as possible.
kenya’s northern frontier: opportunities and threats
New Routes 4/2012
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The long and porous border with Kenya’s northern neighbours is a frequent scene of outbreaks of conflict. Economic marginalisation and political rhetoric, often with ethnic undertones, are some of the root causes of the volatile situation. Economic diversification, better access to national resources, and strengthened regional efforts to minimise violence are paramount in order to enhance peace and security.
Kenya’s Northern Frontier:
Opportunities and threats for regional peace and security Nyambura Kimani
In May 2011, there was cross border The livestock economy is one of the so- ity on Development (IGAD). While this cial, cultural and economic ties shared kind of cooperation is welcome, there violence in which more than 40 Kenby communities living along common needs to be a national security policy yans were killed on the Kenya-Ethiopia borders in the Horn of Africa region. To developed that complements and sup- border, when Merille tribesmen (also these nomadic peoples of Eastern Africa, ports the wider regional framework un- known as the Danassech in Ethiopia) livestock (cattle, goats and camels) carry der IGAD. Citing recent developments, invaded Kenyan territory in search of significant socio-economic and cultural this article outlines the issues of main- grazing land and access to water. 4 Again, value, as it has for centuries been both a taining security along Kenya’s North the Kenyan government responded by source of food and an occupational activ- Eastern border, policy shortcomings, beefing up border patrols, while the ity. In contemporary times, rapid com- and conflict resolution mechanisms Kenyan President and Prime Minister mercialisation of livestock has emerged and concludes with recommendations. reassured the public that the governprimarily due to increased demand for ment was in control and was acting meat in Africa and the Middle East. Eco- Cross border violence to forestall recurrence of violence in nomic competition has contributed to Kenya’s boundary length with its north- the area. The Kenyan government conflicts and insecurity due to practices ern neighbours is as follows: Ethiopia also stated that the two governments such as cattle rustling and rivalry over di- 830 km, Somalia 682 km, Sudan 232 were planning to hold joint ministerial minishing resources such as water and km, altogether yielding a massive stretch meetings to “resolve outstanding border pasture. Traditionally, stock theft was of 1,744 km.2 issues and facilitate harmonious codone to replenish animals for subsistIn Kenya, regions that fall within existence of the various communities ence living.1 However, in modern society, or border the North Eastern Province3 living along common borders”.5 In April factors such as financial profit, the lack have experienced increased insecurity 2011, two army men were killed and six of organised market systems and deeper and violent conflict. In August 2012, civilians injured by Toposa militia in issues of marginalisation seem to have four fatalities were reported in Mu- Nadapal region on the Kenya-Southern exacerbated the practice, so that these radellow village in Mandera North. In Sudan border. Overall it has been estiareas have now become synonymous August-September 2012, inter-ethnic mated that 70 Kenyans have died from with the terms ‘bloodshed’, ‘banditry’, conflict broke out in the Tana River attacks on this porous northern border ‘conflict’, ‘insecurity’ etc. Delta, which borders the North Eastern since January 2011.6 In February 2010 The outbreak of low-intensity cross- and Coast Provinces, claiming at least a similar aggression by Merille bandits border conflicts from competitive live- 100 lives. In March 2012, clashes broke claimed the life of a member of Kenya’s stock raids is a major security issue out in Mandera, in El-Golicha village, armed forces. in the region. Yet, it still ranks low on close to the Kenya-Somalia border. AfIt is widely recognised that Kenya’s the political agendas of countries in ter the Tana River Delta violence, the vast northern border is poorly manned, the Horn of Africa. This phenomenon government responded by deploying rendering it a regional security hotspot, appears to be oversimplified and inad- security personnel. The deployment particularly during periods such as the equately reflected in the national and took place after several retaliatory at- recent drought. These cause significant regional security policies of member tacks and threats or fear of attack by the pressure on already scarce natural restates. Kenya in particular seems to two ethnic communities entangled in sources, which often leads to internal have its policy driven by the Conflict the conflict. The government has also and cross-border conflicts between comand Early Warning System (CEWARN) set up a commission to investigate the munities. Where fatalities are high, the within the Intergovernmental Author- causes of the violent conflict. interests of sovereignty have prompted
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the Kenyan government to send border reinforcements and close borders as crisis management measures. The response of the government has mainly been deployment of security personnel to deal with the aftermath of these violent cross-border clashes. Causes and effects of border insecurity
detached from these regions. For all Will economic advancements in the intents and purposes, economic diver- area necessarily lead to peace and secusification and functional infrastructure rity? Researchers exploring the larger does not exist. As a consequence, these dynamics of conflicts in the Horn of areas have become unproductive and Africa argue that capital infiltrations unattractive to investment. The ma- from Chinese foreign investments in jority of the inhabitants depend exclu- the Isiolo region of northern Kenya have sively on an underdeveloped livestock only served to benefit the political elite economy. When droughts and natural at the expense of local pastoral groups.7 disasters hit, these populations typically Secondly, Kenya’s north eastern have to compete for resources such as peoples have been subjected to endwater and grazing land or relief aid as less political rhetoric on peace and a last resort for survival. development. Political incitement is Nobel Prize Economist Amartya also common with politicians using Sen noted that nature causes droughts, the long-standing grievances of these while the lack of planning by govern- marginalised populations to advance ments causes famine. Recent social their agenda, regardless of whether it and political developments in Kenya serves to discredit or promote the govand the greater Horn have attested to ernment. Heightened rhetoric that even this truth, demonstrating that where leads to violent conflict is a common the country’s strategic food reserves occurrence, particularly as the country are inadequate, or where distribution approaches general elections. It leads networks are inefficient, food crises and to hostilities and aggression between famines result. This ultimately leads the different ethnic communities, esto loss of lives through both natural pecially given the ethnicised nature calamities and avoidable man-made of politics. This amounts to feelings causes, which mainly calls for a com- of disenfranchisement at the political, bination of both national and regional social and economic level. Communisecurity efforts. ties in the North East often consider
PHOTO: TORE SAMUEL SSON/LWF
Since independence, internal and border pastoral conflicts have become a recurrent fixture in Kenya’s domestic and regional politics. The cyclical nature of these conflicts is attributable to structural and proximate factors outlined in the subsequent paragraphs. Political and economic marginalisation are rooted in historical causes. The northern regions are situated largely within the arid and semi arid rangelands, which are characterised by low rainfall and harsh climatic conditions. The regions are also underdeveloped and lack access to essential public service institutions required for enhancing sustainable peace and security. The long-standing perception is that the central government is significantly
kenya’s northern frontier: opportunities and threats
In July 2011, Dadaab Refugee Camp saw an influx of 1,300 refugees a day, mainly Somalis who crossed the nearby border to escape the cycles of war and drought in their homeland. Today Dadaab holds around 470,000 refugees and is often described as the world’s largest refugee camp.
kenya’s northern frontier: opportunities and threats
New Routes 4/2012
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PHOTO: ILRI
ties have been caught off-guard by these attacks and confrontations. In the last two months, what has instead followed is the (delayed) deployment of security forces. It must be noted that while this is intended to be corrective, these are largely stop-gap measures. At any rate, the security personnel are not wellprepared to handle such complex crises. They only pacify the communities and do not deal with the structural and underlying causes of the violence. Collaborative security efforts
To nomadic people in eastern Africa cattle are of major socio-economic and cultural value but may also give rise to conflict. Cattle rustling and competition over scarce resources like water and grazing areas are common. themselves a minority that is distant in culture and identity from the notion of being ‘Kenyan’.
ficking. Liboi is a famous smuggling point for immigrants from Somalia seeking to flee into Kenya. Corruption by various government personnel Firearm-related insecurity also contributed to the illegal entry of Additionally, weak border security 140,000 Somali refugees/asylum seekframeworks have encouraged the pro- ers into Kenya between January 2007 liferation of Small Arms and Light and April 2010. Kenya reacted by ofWeapons (SALW). The porosity of ficially closing its border with Somalia Kenya’s northern border with Sudan, to prevent the uncontrollable influx Ethiopia and particularly Somalia has facilitated the illicit trafficking of SALW, which continues to trigger conflict and violence. The Kenya-Uganda border is also one of East Africa’s most severely affected areas in terms of firearm-related insecurity. The easy access to the illicit weapons has drastically changed violent engagement, with the communities adopting modern weapons. State control has only achieved a relatively small measure of success in containing the flow of small arms.8 SALW make of asylum seekers into the country. it easier to attack, injure and kill, and, However, the 2011 drought-induced as Paul Eavis rightly observes, “the le- humanitarian emergency in the Horn thality makes reconciliation more dif- of Africa reshaped Kenya’s regional ficult”.9 Vengeance manifests itself as policy to accommodate the massive vicious attacks. This therefore helps influx of Somali asylum seekers. In to explain the context of the latest at- July 2011 alone, some 40,434 (an avertacks as Merille tribesmen avenged the age of 1,300 per day) Somalis arrived murder of four of their kinsmen killed in Dadaab Refugee Camp – the highest on the shores of Lake Turkana (Kenya). monthly arrival rate in the country’s The arms hasten the escalation of an- history.10 cient antipathies and therefore fuel the Ultimately, the volatility is a sign of conflicts even more. dysfunctional intelligence networks The porous border has also facilitated meant to warn governments of impend‘lucrative’ opportunities for human traf- ing conflicts. Time and again, authori-
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It is widely recognised that Kenya’s vast northern border is poorly manned, rendering it a regional security hotspot.
Kenya and Ethiopia share relatively peaceful foreign relations and cooperation. Their cooperation is visible in the common positions they have adopted on issues such as cross-border terrorism, piracy and regional integration under the umbrella of IGAD. The two countries’ strong advocacy for peace and security in the region was demonstrated by their role in brokering peace in Sudan through the signing and adoption of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the North and the South. Moreover, the two countries’ past and current punitive military incursions to expel Al Shabaab and similar terrorist elements from their strongholds in Somalia is yet another approach to peace and security in the Horn of Africa. In a seemingly conducive foreign policy climate, the border conflicts and insecurity should have been long resolved. However, the cyclic border incursions are often greeted with political rhetoric and reactionary behaviour that at best offers only short term solutions. There appears to be a disconnect between policy and practice in a matter that should be afforded priority in national and regional politics in these countries. This is not to undermine any efforts underway to address this issue. Mechanisms such as the CEWARN are an indication that cross-border pastoral conflicts are duly recognised and reflected in regional security policy. CEWARN is a collaborative effort of the seven IGAD member states (Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda) and constitutes one of IGAD’s programmes targeted at mitigating and preventing violent conflicts in the sub-region. Since its establishment in 2002, CEWARN has been functioning with a particular focus on cross-border pastoralist and related conflicts and is an important element
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kenya’s northern frontier: opportunities and threats
of IGAD, which is consequently a key vulnerability and lack of commitment to cooperation area between Kenya and the issue of pastoral communities. Yet Ethiopia. Notably, IGAD was initiated a critical analysis of this “low politics” in recognition of the role and poten- matter shows that it is a manifestation tial impact of cross-border conflicts in of policy shortcomings on strategic isthe Horn of Africa. The peace accords sues, such as food security, and towards signed between the Borana and Gabbra a fragmented society caused by social, communities was one of the concrete political economic exclusion. outputs of CEWARN at work.11 Violence Economic diversification should be between the two communities is now the first consideration in any of the less common, and there is a renewed government’s development priorities, collective will to share resources and because the region, though agriculturinteract peacefully since the set up of ally unproductive, nevertheless holds the accords in 2008-2009. an enormous potential for the minInnovative conflict management ap- ing and drilling industry. In any case, proaches such as CEWARN have led to dependency on the livestock economy transformative outcomes in regional (or food aid in the extreme) is unsuspeace and security. For a long time, pas- tainable, especially with unpredictable toral citizens hoped that the govern- environmental patterns. Moreover, afment’s and civil society’s promises of firmative action needs to be reinforced peace and investment would be realised. in order to facilitate easier integration However, the deteriorating security situ- and better access to national resources ation forced them to seek new ways of for the local communities. With the addressing the conflict, since no mean- enactment of Kenya’s progressive coningful development was possible in a stitution, whose spirit and philosophy volatile environment. The community- is centered on the people, this is now led initiatives embarked on searching a possibility. Devolution of power and for a pragmatic and integrated conflict resources will now give each region the resolution mechanism that involves all right to determine their leadership and actors: men, women, youth, warriors, development priorities. elders etc. That is, an approach that Concerning SALW, it is commendinvolves “interconnected efforts by a able that Kenya and its counterparts coalition of pastoralists and others, af- in the Horn of Africa and the Great fecting whole conflict systems”.12 The Lakes region make significant legal and result has been innovative peacemak- institutional commitments14 to stifle ing that is anchored in traditions of the flow of arms. Following the recent pastoralist culture, law, religion and outbreak of conflict in the Tana River understanding in “a basic framework Delta, the state has undertaken forced of acceptable justice”.13 disarmament measures, with additional The ensuing peace and security be- police posts in the area. Effective imtween these two communities has had a plementation is only possible with tight positive effect on neighbouring border coordination between authorities at communities desiring to adopt similar cross-border level. In the absence of this, initiatives. It therefore appears that the the political will and commitment will solution is to support local, communi- not translate effectively into concrete ty-supported initiatives, which attract actions. greater consensus, use less resources Kenya’s commitment to defend and carry the cultural legitimacy and borders should be accompanied by an much needed acceptance from its mem- even stronger commitment to defend bers. Suffice it to say, such a low-level affected people through enabling peace approach is more effective than the for the affected pastoral communities. high-level retaliatory border closures At the regional level, mechanisms such and security reinforcements. as CEWARN should be fully endorsed and supported as a proactive means Conclusions of employing indigenous systems of Pastoral cross-border and internal con- conflict resolution on a wider scale. As flicts present a continuing security com- the leading sub-regional body mandated plex that the region is yet to comprehen- to deal with peace and security issues, sively deal with. In Kenya, the frequent IGAD needs to take greater responsibilborder incursions from Ethiopia and ity and focus more on these recurrent Uganda continue to expose the state’s hotspots.
Ultimately, no solutions can work in the absence of a real political commitment to enhance governance through a functioning administration and security and intelligence sector, respect for human rights, equitable representation and participation of ethnic groups and promotion of national identity for these historically marginalised groups. + This article is a revised version of ‘An examination of Kenya’s Northern frontier: Opportunities and threats for regional peace and security’, published in Horn of Africa Bulletin, Aug-Sept 2011.
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Historically, cattle rustling was a means of wealth redistribution and ensuring that all were fed in times of scarcity and also a means of paying bride price and making of alliances with other groups. See Kennedy Mkutu, “Small Arms and Light Weapons Among Pastoral Groups in the Kenya-Uganda Border Area,” African Affairs, Vol. 106/422, 2006, p. 47
2 http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com 3
The Northern Frontier makes reference to Kenya’s North Eastern province which is vast, arid and primarily inhabited by the Cushitic communities.
4
Barnabas Bii, “Security beefed up on KenyaSudan border”, Daily Nation, June 17, 2011, p. 11
5 Presidential Press Service, “Govt intensifies patrol along Kenya-Ethiopia media,” KBC News http://www.kbc.co.ke/news. asp?nid=70299 6 Bii, op. cit. 7
Panel & Session summaries, International Conference on Global Land Grabbing, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK, 6-8 April 2011, http:// www.future-agricultures.org
8 Mkutu, op. cit. p. 47 9 Paul Eavis, “SALW in the Horn of Africa and Great Lakes: Challenges and way forward”. The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Spring 2002, Vol. IX, p. 251 10 www.unocha,org/crisis/horn-africa 11 A week in the Horn, “Core principles of Ethiopia’s foreign policy: Ethiopia-Kenya relations”, see www.afweki.com 12 Pastoralist News, “New Initiative Investigates Pastoralist Peace Management”. http://www. pastoralists.org 13 Ibid. 14 Examples include the Nairobi Declaration on Small Arms and Light Weapons, the Kinshasa Convention and the Bamako Declaration
between war and peace in the eastern drc
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The Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, bordering with Rwanda, can at best be said to be a place of non-war, but real peace seems to be far away. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the consequent refugee flows into, above all, the DRC, are to this day some of the main causes of the frequent outbreaks of violence among the numerous armed factions in this area. The so-called M23 rebellion in April this year deteriorated the situation even further.
Between war and peace in the Eastern DR Congo David Zounmenou and Naomi Kok
When the 1994 genocide took place in Rwanda almost two decades ago, no one could have predicted that the tragedy in this tiny county would continue to eventually destabilise the entire region. Most severely affected is Rwanda’s much larger neighbour, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The Rwandan genocide is often viewed in isolation, but it is in fact one of the root causes and a key factor explaining the neverending cycle of conflict and violence in the Eastern DRC. When the Rwandan Patriotic Front managed to bring an end to the genocide by taking control of Kigali in 1994, many of the perpetrators, particularly the mostly Hutu soldiers of the Forces Démocratiques de Liberation du Rwanda (FDLR), fled across the border into the DRC. Pursuing these genocidaires was Rwanda’s initial excuse for putting boots on the ground in the DRC, but soon the Rwandan presence in the east of the country split its focus between pursuing the FDLR and gaining control of the East’s mineral resources. After the DRC’s civil war (1998-2003), there was an attempt made in 2003 to unify the country through integrating the various armed groups into the Forces Armées de la Republique Démocratique du Congo (FARDC). The Rally for Congolese Democracy, a group composed largely of Tutsi Congolese, resisted being integrated and subsequently launched a new rebellion under the name Congrès national pour la défense du peuple (CNDP). The CNDP managed to take control of much of the East. Eventually, Rwanda brokered a peace deal, which included putting the CNDP leader Laurent Nkun-
da under house arrest in Kigali, and in November 2011, contributed to the replacing him with Bosco Ntaganda, a further deterioration of the situation. suspected war criminal for whom the International Criminal Court had issued The causes of the mutiny an arrest warrant in 2006. History seems to be repeating itself in On 23 March, 2009, the CNDP was the Great Lakes. While Rwanda’s Forintegrated into the FARDC without eign Minister, Louise Mushikiwabo inthe necessary measures to disband the sisted that the world should no longer group’s command and control. In fact, view the dynamics in the Great Lakes the March 23 peace deal was clearly through an ethnic prism, it cannot be not a success, as the CNDP continued denied that what has transpired since to function as a unit, following its own April 2009 has its roots not only in parallel chain of command within the the Rwandan genocide, but also in the FARDC. The M23 rebellion that started Congolese wars. Many of the massacres in early April 2012, is essentially an- that took place in the Eastern DRC have other version of the CNDP. When Bosco simply been forgotten, with some of the Ntaganda in the CNDP got word of his local people not even knowing where possible arrest, accused of conscript- and how their families died. The horing and enlisting child soldiers, he ror stories of 1994 in Rwanda, such as defected from the FARDC along with the killings of groups of people seeking refuge in churches, were replicated in the Eastern DRC. This is the situation that the people in the East have to live with each day, memories of violence and injustice. In the Eastern DRC today, the Hutu-Tutsi divide is probably deeper than ever. The grievances of the M23 are not entirely unfounded. It is true that the Tutsi, or anyone speaking Kinyarwanda, have a number of his loyalists. On 7 April, been targeted in the East. However, this Ntaganda fled to his farm in Masisi, group is also guilty of targeting others from where he continued to command simply because of their ethnicity. In fact, the mutineers. Ntaganda subsequently Vianney Kazamara, the M23’s spokesperembarked on a campaign to recruit men son announced in October that the M23 and children to swell the ranks of the is committed to fighting the FDLR and M23. In addition to this, members of the Mai Mai armed groups. The situathe CNDP, which were integrated into tion has over time become extremely the police under the 2009 peace deal, complicated, as not only ethnicity, but were also rallied to defect and join the also control over natural resources, and M23. The recent electoral debacle in opportunities to make money through Kinshasa, following flawed elections corruption are now fuelling the conflict.
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In the Eastern DRC today, the Hutu-Tutsi divide is probably deeper than ever.
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Alliances in the DRC are definitely ethnically based but these ethnic alliances often become blurred when they are restructured for the purposes of illegal business. Effects of the mutiny
However, perhaps the most serious consequence of the rebellion came after the release, on 26 June 2012, of the addendum to the UN Group of Experts Report, arguing that Rwanda has been backing the M23. This report claims that Rwanda was directly involved in the creation of the M23: it provided recruits, weapons and ammunition and supported individuals already under
The mutiny has had an extremely detrimental effect on the Eastern DRC, and in particular on North and South Kivu. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, the recruitment of child soldiers has increased and there has been a massive influx of refugees into Rwanda and Uganda. The M23 have recaptured a number of towns that were under CNDP control during the previous rebellion, including the strategic town of Rutshuru. UN sanction, and also supported sevIronically, the mutiny left many FARDC eral other mutinies. In addition to this, positions deserted, which allowed other the addendum to the report claims that groups, including the FDLR to gain Rwandan Defence Forces moved into ground. Also, the CNDP used its alli- Congolese territory to reinforce the M23. ances with local armed groups to gain This would then mark the third time control of a number of mines. Currently, that Rwanda invaded the DRC. the M23 is controlling a large area from Because of this history, and the fact Njerima to Nyamilima. In early October, that the M23 have been causing such the M23 announced their plan to spread severe suffering for the local population, their control even further towards Lake anti-Tutsi, and anti-Rwandan sentiments Edward and also to take the town of Isha- have increased massively in the East. At sha on the Ugandan border, and Goma, the same time the relationship between the capital of North Kivu. Kinshasa and Kigali has deteriorated.
International responses The International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) has met four times in three months without being able to reach a consensus on the way out of the crisis. Eventually, the ICGLR concluded that the solution to what is happening in the East would be to establish an international “neutral force” that will stabilise the region. There are many questions regarding the “neutral-
PHOTO: SANDR A COX/AC T ALLIANCE
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History seems to be repeating itself in the Great Lakes.
In September, Rwanda presented a rebuttal to the UN Security Council claiming that Kigali is innocent of all the accusations contained in the addendum to the UN report. This was followed by the sudden withdrawal of a large number of Rwandan special forces from the Eastern DRC. The presence of these Rwandan troops was revealed for the first time by their public withdrawal from the region. This led to President Joseph Kabila’s opposition seizing the political opportunity to accuse him of treason, claiming that he authorised the presence of these troops and that this is in violation of the constitution. Though realistically unlikely, the opposition is now calling for President Kabila to be impeached.
In Shasa camp, inhabited by people forced from their villages by fighting, rain turns the streets into mud. Among the root causes behind the conflict are ethnic tension, land issues and the Rwandan presence in eastern DRC since the genocide in 1994.
between war and peace in the eastern drc ity” of this force, and how it should be determined. Another question is what the neutral force will do that the UN force in the DRC, MONUSCO, has not been able to do. There are also obvious problems with the funding and the mandate for this neutral force. To date, not much progress has been made, despite all the meetings held by the ICGLR. Continued talk about operationalising the “neutral force” has become just another distraction, and is not addressing the root causes of the problem.
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In order for the situation in the East to improve, all of the complex causes will have to be addressed.
The African Union has also not come out with a clear response, except for a Peace and Security Council communiqué that requested the UN to support the “neutral force”. There appears to be “international fatigue” regarding the DRC, with none of the relevant actors truly displaying the will to fund a military operation or to get involved in any other way in this intractable conflict. Indeed, the most concrete response from the African continent has come from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) of which the DRC is a member. SADC has announced that it is ready to send South African and Angolan troops to the DRC. But even this is highly contentious as it hinges on the ICGLR’s approval. With the strained relations between South Africa and Rwanda, it is difficult to see SADC’s proposal being accepted by the actors in the region. Breaking the cycle of violence In order for the situation in the East to improve, all of the complex causes will have to be addressed. There are four mutually reinforcing factors that keep on fuelling the conflict: the first is ethnic tension, the second is the weakness of the Congolese state and the third is Rwanda’s involvement. Finally, there is a fourth factor, which is the complex synthesis of President Kagame’s and President Kabila’s vastly different leadership styles.
The ethnic tensions that have for so long characterised the region will only ever be eased if the leaders of the region commit to stop manipulating these tensions. The RDC/CNDP/M23 have long been used by Rwanda to ensure its internal security as well as its business interests in the DRC. The Congolese government has also used the group to manipulate the outcome of the November 2011 elections. The identity of the group is very significant in providing it with unity, strength and discipline. It is also because of this identity that the group keeps on fighting, as many of the fighters in the group have an ethnic score to settle themselves. The weakness of the Congolese state stems from the time of former President Mobuto Sese Seko, who tore apart his own government institutions as his paranoia over losing power through a civil war got the better of him. Since then, the DRC has not seen a constitutional appropriation of power, and thus the very foundations needed to build a strong state have effectively been eroded.
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make it succeed, otherwise the events of April 2012 will simply play out again. If Rwanda is truly concerned about the FDLR, it should improve its own border security instead of maintaining troops in the Eastern Congo. In addition, the protection of civilians should be the responsibility of well-trained Congolese troops and not any foreign group sent in to make peace in the DRC. When all of this is in place, the East will finally be able to go through a process of transitional justice, where, similar to Rwanda’s Gacaca courts process, people will be able to find out the truth about what happened to their loved ones. Hopefully, they will then, finally, be able to overcome their memories of violence and move on. The role of the international community is now to apply serious pressure to the relevant actors, especially Kigali, through imposing sanctions. Ultimately, however, the fate of the Eastern DRC, is in the hands of the leaders of the Great Lakes. +
Responsibility of the leaders Essentially, the civilians in the East are References caught up in conditions created through President Kabila’s weak leadership and Gouby, M. (2012): M23 rebels aim for President Kagame’s extremely calcu- Ugandan border town. Associated Press. lated and disciplined leadership. While International Crisis Group, (2010): it must be mentioned that the DRC is Congo: no stability in Kivu despite rapa victim of its size, and that natural re- prochement with Rwanda. Africa Report sources governance has become a night- No. 165. mare, it is ultimately President Kabila IPIS/International Alert, (2010): The who is primarily responsible for the complexity of resource governance in a context of state fragility: the case of the instability in the Eastern DRC. President Kagame also has his own Eastern DRC. share of responsibility. On the one hand, Stearns, J. K. (2011): ‘Dancing in the President Kagame has managed to turn glory of monsters’ United States: Perhis own country into one of the safest seus Books. on the continent, while on the other Stearns, J. K. (2012): The role of Rwanda hand he is almost constantly waging in the DRC insurgency. Usalama project a war in the DRC. Many observers document, Rift Valley Institute. warned that if the M23 continue to take United Nations, (2012): Letter dated 21 control of more strategic towns in the June 2012 from the Chair of the Security East, this could eventually provide Presi- Council Committee established pursudent Kagame with the opportunity to ant to resolution 1533 (2004) concerning extend his rule. In this way, he would the Democratic Republic of Congo adhave legitimised his presence in the dressed to the President of the Security East once again. Council Lasting peace will prevail only if and United Nations, (2012): Letter dated 26 when the presidents of the two countries June 2012 from the Chair of the Security are able to talk and agree that the hu- Council Committee established pursumanitarian situation in the East should ant to resolution 1533 (2004) concerning no longer be allowed to continue. Any the Democratic Republic of Congo adfuture peace deals will have to be ap- dressed to the President of the Security proached with an indomitable will to Council
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Three countries. One Vision. One programme. Generation Grands Lacs (GGL). The author traces the creation and implementation of the Great Lakes’ one and only live cross-border youth radio programme, GGL, broadcast in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda and Burundi). Now Chief Programming Officer for Search for Common Ground (SFCG), Lena Slachmuijlder pioneered this innovative peacebuilding initiative six years ago during her period as Country Director for SFCG in DRC. In this article she reflects on how it has contributed to a new, positive youth identity in the region.
Youth in the Great Lakes region:
The making of a new generation Lena Slachmuijlder
“He brought WHAT? Honey? You mean … Really? No!” Now why would a Congolese journalist carry a bottle of honey all the way with him from Kinshasa to Kigali? Fearful that he might not find honey in Kigali? Absolutely not. He was bringing the honey to “protect himself” from the witchcraft and poison that all his compatriots had assured him he’d meet as soon as he put his foot over the border into Rwanda. His fear was that palpable. Reminiscing about this today sparks smiles and nods by the team of the Generation Grands Lacs (GGL) radio programme. Six years running, the GGL team is proud of having surmounted the obstacles of polarisation, trauma and fear in the region, amplifying a positive young voice of confidence, tolerance, and initiative. How did it all begin? It was a bold idea. Taking a conversation between youth in one of the world’s most polarised regions, and putting it live on-air every week entailed many risks. Technically, we needed to connect radio stations from across the region through the Internet, raise capacities of the journalists and technicians, and take on the challenge and stress of a live regional programme. But the human hurdles were even more daunting. We were trying to change the way the youth perceived themselves and their peers in the neighbouring countries. The walls of prejudice were high, and the degree
of trauma experienced by the youth in all three countries was profound. A baseline survey revealed that 97 per cent of the Congolese youth had directly experienced violent conflict, half of the youth surveyed in the three countries had lost family members in the conflict, and 17 per cent of the girls said that they had been victims of sexual abuse. The youth had grown up in an environment of hatred and fear of those from the neighbouring countries. People felt that their physical security would be in danger, were they to travel to the neighbouring countries. How were we going to be able to convince journalists and radio station directors to buy into the vision?
the other stations to pick it up over the Internet and broadcast it over the FM airwaves. For the first time, listeners across the three countries could phone in to the same live radio programme. Although the programme was in French, the language diversity of the journalists meant that they could engage in discussions with callers in Swahili, Lingala, Kirundi, Kinyarwanda and English. The 60-minute programme included prerecorded field segments, an interview with an in-studio guest, and interaction with callers and listeners participating by sms.
How did the programme work?
We were very conscious of our intentions from Day One. In our first planning session with the journalists, we created our own vision statement: Through our initiative, the youth of the Great Lakes dialogue sincerely and act for the prevention and transformation of conflicts and to build peace. While recognising the need to ‘sensitise’ youth, GGL needed to support them in shifting their attitudes and widening their perspectives. What the youth needed was a programme that would make them feel differently about themselves and their neighbours, instilling a sense of pride in being from the Great Lakes. The strategic choice of the word ‘Generation’ resonated with the new-ness of identity, image and role for the youth in the Great Lakes.
The programme was designed in a way that had never been done. In the first two years, there were four partner radio stations, with two journalists from each station. In later years, a large private radio station (RTGA) based in Kinshasa with 14 relay stations across Congo, joined on board, making the GGL journalist team 10 in number. The location of the actual live broadcast rotated each week between Bujumbura, Kigali, Bukavu and eventually Kinshasa. Each radio programme was hosted by two journalists, always of different nationalities, and produced by one of the GGL journalists who were based at the station hosting the programme that week. The hosting station would webstream the live radio programme, which enabled
What was the change that we were intending to make?
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PHOTO: LENA SLACHMUIJLDER
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A live production of the radio programme Generation Grands Lacs in Gisenye, western Rwanda. This production brought youth together from the DRC, Rwanda and Burundi. We gave attention to setting the right ‘tone’. GGL needed to address serious issues, but also be fun and captivating for the youth. A funky theme song was composed. ‘Three countries. One Vision. One programme’ was one of the jingles, while another seduced youth with a catch phrase ‘Cross the borders every week with GGL – no need for a passport!’ Did GGL have an outreach and promotion strategy? The programme was designed with multiple layers to reach out to our listeners. Listener groups were created in partnership with youth organisations for monitoring purposes but also to encourage participation of a consistent group of youth from the three countries in each programme. Secondly, each of the journalists who was not either presenting or producing the programme was sent out with cell phones to facilitate youth calling into the programme during the live broadcast. Thirdly, in universities across the three countries, a regional youth organisation organised listening sessions followed by debate, sometimes with a guest speaker or facilitator. Lastly, competitions were
organised several times to promote entrepreneurism, innovation and creativity amongst the GGL audience. These outreach strategies were designed for many reasons. Firstly, we wanted to engage youth directly in the ‘GGL experience’. Secondly, even though the live nature of the programme meant that we couldn’t predict or plan who would be phoning in, we wanted to be deliberate in reaching out to youth around the country who we knew, through our networks, cared about the region, and had positive suggestions to make in addressing the challenges. Thus, while we didn’t want to – and couldn’t – exclude or censor out the extremist voices, we wanted to encourage more moderate and collaborative voices on the airwaves. How was GGL coordinated? The programme required a high degree of planning and coordination. Every two to three months, the core journalists from the five stations would meet for three days of evaluation of the past programmes and planning of the upcoming twelve programmes. Three representa-
tives of the youth outreach partner also participated in the planning sessions. These regular encounters strengthened the bonds between the GGL journalists, as friends and as professionals committed to the GGL vision. They expected high standards of each other, and settled each other’s fears and trepidations as they tackled more and more challenging issues over time. When they would return to their newsrooms, they brought a new confidence and perspective. ”After my first visit to Rwanda, my newsroom colleagues didn’t believe what I was telling them”, recalls Francois Kadima, who was part of GGL as a RTGA journalist. ”But after the Burundians and Rwandans came to our station in Kinshasa to present the programme, I could see the attitudes changing. One colleague told me that he could never imagine sitting in the same room with a Rwandan, and now they were working together on GGL”, recalls Francois. Was GGL able to tackle important issues? In our first planning sessions, we knew that the level of mistrust and tensions
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between the communities posed a lot of risks. At SFCG, we had consistently avoided doing live programmes for many well-founded reasons. Once you’re on air, you can’t cut out the hate speech. Callers could attack the journalists themselves; they could insult the various heads of states. Would our young GGL team be able to handle this? “In the beginning, we tried to get beyond the surface and talk about those underlying fears, rumours, and misunderstandings”, remembers Laurent Kasindi, who joined the founding team of GGL in 2006 as a Radio Maendeleo journalist before later becoming the GGL coordinator with SFCG. “I remember one of our first programmes was ‘getting to know the unknown’, and it was really simple. We asked questions like, ‘Are you ready to try a new food? Are you ready to go somewhere you’ve never been? Do you believe everything that people tell you about a place, or a person?’ From there, we moved on to shows about some key words, like stereotypes. We broke it down, made it simple”, recalls Laurent. GGL rapidly gained credibility, and doors opened when journalists approached guests to be on the show. By engaging with a diversity of perspectives, from those of ex-presidents and parliamentarians to youth leaders, GGL gave voice to youth leaders representing a huge diversity of perspectives: displaced youth, politically-mobilised youth, youth in refugee camps, and youth who had taken up arms as child soldiers. With more than 250 programmes already broadcast, GGL has been able to clarify issues, engage in sincere dialogue and seek solutions. Even the most sensitive of issues were eventually tackled; the programme was never censured or denounced by any government or media regulatory body in any of the three countries. “We didn’t have to jump right away into the very tense relationships between Rwandan and Congolese”, explains Nestor Nkurunziza, media coordinator for SFCG at the time of launching GGL. “We needed to establish first that, as youth in the region, they had a lot in common. That’s where we started from – learning from each other, and establishing that trust.” Did GGL resonate with the audience? We received consistently positive feedback from youth from all three countries, via sms, via e-mail, and later on,
via the Facebook page. These comments were read on air, and suggestions from listeners were woven into the programme planning sessions. “GGL brought a new perspective to our listeners around the DRC. Before, we mainly talked about Rwanda or Burundi in light of their role in the war and what they had done to our nation, to our people. Now, there was a chance to hear new voices, the voices of ordinary youth who shared, largely, many of the concerns that Congolese youth did”, said RTGA Director of Radio Simon Kabamba. The youth identified with the style of GGL, according to Audace Machado, a founding member of GGL from Burundi’s Radio Isanganiro. “I have seen many youth clubs created in the spirit of the GGL programme. I felt youth were longing to be able to speak that language of openness and frank dialogue. GGL gave them that opportunity.” “I was invited by another youth organisation from Lubumbashi who wanted to organise their own cross-border youth event in Lubumbashi”, recalls Laurent Kasindi. “They didn’t know me personally, but wanted to invite me as a way of giving credibility to their own initiative.” How did we measure the impact of GGL? SFCG used a range of traditional media monitoring tools over the life of the project. This was done in consultation with our donor, USAID, over the first four years of the project. This included audience surveys amongst the general population, as well as amongst key target groups, such as university students in Bukavu, Kigali and Bujumbura. In 2007, after the first phase whereby the outreach sessions had specifically targeted the universities, we found that between 68 and 90 per cent of university students in the three cities knew of the programme and listened to it. Amongst youth in general, nearly 80 per cent had listened several times or listened regularly. On other occasions, we conducted surveys including questions and affirmations, and then were able to compare knowledge and attitudes between GGL listeners and GGL non-listeners. This was revealing and informative. Among other things, GGL listeners were found to be: • more likely to reject political stereotypes about other countries or groups;
• more likely to choose dialogue in the face of a conflict, and in general have more options to deal with a conflict; more likely to be open to dialogue on political issues; • able to see more in common with youth from neighbouring countries; • more likely to respond more collaboratively to a rumour; • sharing the belief in the constructive role that youth can play in the region; • more likely to strongly disagree with the statement ‘one group is responsible for the problems in the Great Lakes region’; and • more likely to disagree with the statement ‘If a person criticises their own country to someone else of the Great Lakes, that person is a traitor’. We had achieved reach into our target audience, and resonance with this audience in terms of GGL’s intended shift in knowledge and attitudes. These broader monitoring tools were complemented by countless anecdotes, many of which were collected by the GGL presenters themselves. GGL continues today, with a new version launching dialogue between Uganda and Rwanda. Recent tensions in eastern Congo have seen the GGL team going into the most sensitive areas of North Kivu, amplifying the voices of Rwandans, Congolese and Burundians who want an end to the violence. The GGL team has incorporated waves of new journalists from new partner radio stations, while still retaining the tone and responsibility of the programme. Ongoing monitoring and evaluation continues to keep us on track. GGL has proven that dialogue through radio, even in the most polarised regions, can strengthen a new generation of peace builders. +
1
Formats ranged from field reports, to interviews, vox pops, testimonies or portraits, depending on the subject.
2 The Inter-University Forum of the Great Lakes was the youth outreach partner, who had a presence on university campuses across the three countries, and whose vision was in alignment with that of GGL.
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Regional peacebuilding: A lot more to read The following recommendations aim at inspiring people interested in regional peacebuilding to engage in further reading. The discussed organisations, reports or academic articles do not claim to give a comprehensive overview of the available information and research but rather serve as an entry point for deeper investigation. Centre for Conflict Resolution (CECORE) http://cecore.or.ug/ CECORE is a Ugandan-based NGO working in the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region in partnership with the Intergovernmental Authority for Development, the Conflict Early Warning and Response Mechanism, the Conflict Early Warning and Response Unit, and the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict and Global Alliance on Armed Violence – East Africa on empowering communities through training, research, advocacy and networking. The organisation facilitates projects on cross-border trade, runs a project on minority rights and conflict prevention and works on issues of early warning, especially within the Karamoja cluster. Conciliation Resources http://www.c-r.org/ Conciliation Resources (CR) is an international peacebuilding NGO active in seven conflict-affected regions around the world: East and Central Africa, South Caucasus, the Philippines, Jammu and Kashmir (India), Fiji, Colombia and Mano River Union. One of the thematic approaches integrated in their programme work concerns cross-border peacebuilding. CR also publishes the series Accord: an international review of peace initiatives. Accord informs and strengthens peace processes worldwide by documenting and analysing peacebuilding lessons. Eastern Africa Sub-regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women http://www.eassi.org
conflict countries, a report on the lessons learned from the Great Lakes Region. Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute, Philippines http://www.mpiasia.org/ The Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute (MPI) is an Asian training institute grounded in the Mindanao, Philippines, context. It was established in 2000 through the collective effort of the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, Catholic Relief Services, and Mennonite Central Committee, to bring together peacebuilders from the Asia-Pacific region in its annual peacebuilding training. MPI provides a space for people of diverse backgrounds and cultures to get together, share, and learn in a safe environment where all viewpoints are encouraged and respected. MPI is a resource for peacebuilders: providing skills, conducting research and building solidarity within the region. Nairobi Peace Initiative http://www.npi-africa.org Nairobi Peace Initiative (NPI) is a pan-African (with a special focus on the Greater Horn and the Great Lakes region) peace resource organisation promoting conflict transformation and reconciliation. As a learning organisation, NPI dedicates a major part of its work to peacebuilding practice, research, reflection, learning, documentation, and influencing policy in areas relevant to conflict and peace. Saferworld http://www.saferworld.org.uk/
International Alert http://www.international-alert.org
The work of Saferworld, an international NGO, aims at enhancing local people’s safety and security. Their work is informed by research and analysis, which is also used to influence local, national and international policies and practices. Saferworld is active worldwide on a country-level as well as on a regional level (including the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Great Lakes Region and Horn of Africa). Moreover, they work on relationships between the areas where they are present. Their emphasis is on security, justice and Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW). Readworthy is their report on SALW in the Great Lakes Region and the Horn of Africa, Strengthening small arms control.
The peacebuilding work of International Alert focuses on countries as well as regions, depending on the conflict context. They are currently working in the African Great Lakes, the Caucasus and Central Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia and West Africa. Recommended for reading are the following publications: Walking in the dark, Small-Scale Trade and Improving CrossBorder Relations between Goma (DR Congo) and Gisenyi (Rwanda) on informal cross-border trade, and Women’s political participation and economic empowerment in post-
UN and intergovernmental organisations International organisations such as the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) recognise the value of a regional approach to peacebuilding as well. For example, the EU has developed a strategic framework to guide the EU’s engagement in the Horn of Africa Region. The UN Development Programme has developed five regional bureaus, supporting its country offices. Moreover, each regional bureau has a regional programme of its own.
The Eastern Africa Sub-regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women (EASSI) is a programme of advocacy on the gender dimension of Small Arms and Light Weapons. EASSI was formed in 1996 in response to the 4th World Conference on Women held in Beijing, China. It works in eight countries, namely Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda.
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Regional organisations such as the Regional Economic Communities in Africa (IGAD, ECOWAS, and SADC) are becoming increasingly engaged in peace and conflict issues and have taken initiatives on specific themes such as small arms by forming a Regional Centre on Small Arms. For more on this, read the recent report from the International Crisis Group on Implementing Peace and Security Architecture in Southern Africa. (http://www.crisisgroup.org/ en/regions/africa/southern-africa/191-implementing-peaceand-security-architecture-ii-southern-africa.aspx) The report evaluates the peace and security efforts by the SADC. The Greater Horn Horizon Forum fulfills a similar role in the Horn of Africa for IGAD. This research-policy forum aims to encourage reflection on current and future challenges in the Greater Horn Region, focusing on the commonalities of the people. OTHER NETWORKS AND FORA A lot of organisations with a regional focus concentrate on networking. Activities include bringing together practitioners, organisations or intellectuals for exchanging knowledge and experience or working on common threats to the regions and common problems. Check out West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP), Mano River Women’s Peace Network, Coalition for Peace in Africa, Conflict Early Warning and Response Mechanism (CEWARN). Noteworthy as well is the Caucasus business and development network. WANEP: www.wanep.org Mano River Women´s Peace Network: www.marwopnet.org Coalition for Peace in Africa: www.copafrica.org CEWARN: www.cewarn.org Caucasus business and development network: caucasusbusiness.net FROM AN ACADEMIC ANGLE Buzan, B., and Waever, O. (2003), Regions and Power: The structure of International Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Barry Buzan and Ole Waever, often referred to because of their contribution to “securitisation studies” and the Copenhagen
LPI News International Advisory Council: Fruitful inaugural meeting in Nairobi LPI’s International Advisory Council (IAC), a 15-member body set up earlier in 2012 (see LPI News, New Routes no. 3.2012), met for the first time in Nairobi, Kenya, in October. In addition to the regular board of directors, the council includes international peacebuilding experts, academics and practitioners from various organisations and institutions, particularly Africa-based ones.
School, have an interesting book on regions. They argue that since the end of the Cold War, the regional level of security has become more important and more autonomous. The volume introduces the ‘regional security complex theory’, arguing that security threats and divisions of power are more important in a specific region since threats diminish over distance. Feil, M., Klein, D. & Westerkamp M, Regional Cooperation on Environment, Economy and Natural Resource Management: How can it contribute to peacebuilding? (Brussels: Initiative for Peacebuilding, 2009). This report includes lessons for peacebuilding, from regional cooperation on economy and environment. Giroux, J., Lanz, D. & Sguaitamatti, D., The Tormented Triangle: The Regionalization of Conflict in Sudan, Chad and Central African Republic LSE Crisis States Research Centre Working Paper No. 47 (2009) is an analysis of how the conflict is fuelled regionally. Loescher, G., Milner, J., Newman, E. & Troeller, G. (2007). Protracted refugee situations and the regional dynamics of peacebuilding. Conflict security & development, 7(3), pp. 491-501. This article argues that the majority of refugees worldwide live in protracted refugee situations. The authors promote a more regional approach to peacebuilding as to help/target this group of refugees, which is often overseen in large international operations. van Leeuwen, M. (2008). Imagining the Great Lakes Region: discourses and practices of civil society regional approaches for peacebuilding in Rwanda, Burundi and DR Congo. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 46, pp. 393-426. This article examines how local and international organisations try to make the shift towards a regional approach to peacebuilding. The author claims that these organisations have difficulties in analysing the regional dimension of conflict and getting towards a regional collaborative strategy. Recommendations for a better regional approach are made.
Four specific themes related to LPI’s ongoing and future work were prioritised for in-depth review and discussions: • Land and natural resources-based conflicts • Policy work and peacebuilding in “small spaces” • Regional programming (with special reference to the Horn of Africa and Great Lakes) • Dealing with policy issues (with special reference to Somalia advocacy work).
Compiled by Esmeralda Van den Bosch
LPI’s senior staff from Africa-based field programmes and the head office in Uppsala, Sweden, shared working experiences and received valuable feedback and guidance. Thanks to the broad-based composition of the IAC, there was substantial cross-fertilisation of experiences around table. – The advisors confirmed that the complexity of working at the regional level and the constraints of building peace in small spaces are challenges facing the entire field of peacebuilding, says LPI’s Programme Director Mark Rogers.
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– Simple, rapid solutions are unlikely. A number of strategies were discussed. For example, a continuous process of incremental experiments that test and expand boundaries is one way to yield small but significant gains. Several advisors, in addition to the board members, volunteered to remain in touch regarding specific tasks. The next meeting of the IAC will be in October 2013.
Sustained Dialogue learning workshop in Addis Ababa
PHOTO: 3P HUMAN SECURIT Y
During the first week of October 2012, a four-day collaborative exchange visit was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, focusing primarily on the use of Sustained Dialogue (SD) methodology in Ethiopia as an input for the introduction and development of SD methodology in Sudan. The focus was on capacity building of Programme Unit staff from LPI’s Sudan office as well as LPI’s partners Babiker Bedri Scientific Association for Women’s Studies and the University of Khartoum. Malin Brenk, the SD focal point in Uppsala, also attended the exchange visit which was facilitated by Ayten Birhanie, director of the Peace & Development Center.
The International Advisory Council and LPI senior staff from Uppsala, Nairobi, Bukavu, Khartoum and Addis Ababa met at Silver Springs Hotel in Nairobi. The first three days of the workshop explored the SD methodology with focus on the process of training for SD leaders and moderators as well as general steps for planning for an SD project. On the fourth day the participants had the opportunity to hear directly from two student moderators about their experiences and challenges in carrying out SD in Ethiopia, as well as to learn more about the findings of the research project which was carried out in parallel to the SD project at Addis Ababa University. The Sudan team takes this learning back to Sudan, where LPI hopes to accompany
partners in two pilot SD projects. It is foreseen that ongoing experience sharing between partners from the various SD projects in Ethiopia and Sudan will contribute to rich cross-fertilisation between the two programmes.
Peacebuilding in Africa – bridging theory and practice LPI hosted a major conference on “Peacebuilding in Africa – bridging theory and practice” in Bujumbura, Burundi, at the end of November. The three-day meeting, arranged by LPI’s conflict transformation programme in DR Congo, offered some 60 participants good opportunities to listen, discuss and learn from three topics: • Identity and conflict transformation in sub-Saharan Africa • Research and participation – increasing ownership of research to promote peacebuilding • Participatory evaluation in peacebuilding. A more substantial report will follow in next issue of New Routes.
From the workshop of Sustained Dialogue. In the back row: Dr Faiza Hussein, Ms Amani Tabida, Dr Yasir Awad Abdalla, middle row: Mr Ali Mohammed Elhaj, Ms Malin Brenk, Ms Jody Henderson, in front: Mr Shehab Ali Yousef.
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lpi news, reviews and resources
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Growing interest in periodicals and website LPI is experiencing a significant growing interest in its conflict transformation work. The circulation of the publications New Routes and Horn of Africa Bulletin are up, as well as the number of unique visitors on the website. Publications from LPI are also available through the major academic database EBSCO and a special “library” at the fast growing initiative Globethics (www.globethics.net) which now has over 60,000 users world-wide.
Ree has returned from parental leave, taking over from her replacement Linda Forsberg. Similarly, Programme Advisor Malin Brenk has returned from parental leave and her replacement Henrik Halvardson has left LPI for other commitments.
Staff changes
Kenya/Somalia: Four new colleagues have joined the LPI team based in Nairobi, Kenya, serving both the Somalia and Kenya programmes: Njoroge Mburu as Finance Officer, Geoffrey Rotich as Programme Advisor for Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning, Winfred Wambua as Programme Advisor for organisational development and Muzzamil Abdisheik as Programme Advisor for research.
Uppsala: Najum Mushtaq has joined LPI to work as the Policy and Communications Advisor. Programme Advisor Amanda
DRC: Robert Wangachumo has been engaged as Technical Advisor in the programme team and Elizabeth Maroti
Reviews and resources Sudan-China relations: A pilot case with political complications Sudan Looks East. China, India & The Politics of Asian Alternatives (African Issues), by Daniel Large & Luke A. Patey (eds). James Currey, 2011 Having read the important book Sudan Looks East, a first thought is what a relief it must have been for political and oil business leaders in China (as well as in India and Malaysia) to see, in late September 2012, how the main contenders of the Sudanese crisis, the governments in Khartoum and Juba, finally gave in to the enormous pressure from the international community, spearheaded by President Mbeki’s African Union High-Level Implementation Panel, and accepted a comprehensive agreement on most, albeit not all, divisive post-CPA issues, including oil income sharing, paving the way for a resumption of oil production and oil exportation, a vital interest for especially Chinese energy security policy. The story of Sudan-China relations over the last two-three decades, a history of evolving and changing interdependence with political as well as economic drivers, serves as an indispensable reminder of many important facets of the foreign policy interests of both countries – or all three countries, after Sudan’s recent partition and the CPA (Comprehensive Peace Agreement) years preceding South Sudan’s independence in July 2011. In addition to an increasing number of developments tending to complicate China’s established relations with Khartoum, political and economic self-interest also necessitated China’s adaptation to the new realities of
as Financial Assistant in the Bukavubased DR Congo programme.
New interns LPI has an internship programme and regularly accepts interns for work in the various programmes. Five interns are currently enrolled: • Doughlas Katho and Stephen King’oina, both from Kenya, in the Nairobi office, Kenya • Sanna Kaskeala, Finland, and Kaisa Kruusein, Estonia, in the Bukavu office, DR Congo • Esmeralda Van den Bosch in the head office, Uppsala, Sweden
imminent South Sudanese independence. Therefore, finding its interests suffering from the near-war conditions prevailing during the first year after South Sudan’s secession, and given its need for stable, CPA-based, cooperative relations between Khartoum and Juba, China had become a leading sponsor of reconciliation between Sudan and South Sudan. After all, anyone who has invested rather heavily in oil deliveries from Sudan needs to take into account that the new national borders (still to be finally negotiated and managed) provide a dividing line between the oil wells, predominantly in the South, and pipe lines leading to the refineries and export facilities in the North. Consequently, a huge stake for China as the dominant importer, together with the Asian players, India and Malaysia, is permanent, predictable stability (i.e. peace) between the two Sudans. “Sudan Looks East” is a joint, well-documented effort by eminent scholars on the subject matter, enhanced by lengthy introductory and concluding chapters by the editors. It provides the background, the historical and economic anatomy of interdependence between Sudan, needing an economic and political “alternative” to traditional ties with the Western world as a result of the breakdown in relations due to various aspects of the civil war, and China (the thrust of the book is about China), needing different things over time, but with access to Sudanese oil as a paramount interest. Some dates are more important than others here. 1989 was the year of the National Islamic Front (later renamed National Congress Party) coup. The leadership, under Al-Bashir, gradually changed the nature of the regime and directed most resources towards building, with Chinese help, an oil industry infrastructure, which from 1999 started to yield income and thus change Khartoum’s priorities, both in terms of warfare and development. And then there was the CPA in 2005, and the partition in 2011 (and the Addis Agreement in September 2012). And in between, China’s mixed role in and over Darfur.
lpi news, reviews and resources Anyone seriously interested in Sudan’s history of war and peace, China’s strategy to enter the African market via the pilot case of Sudan (before political complications started to take their toll on economic advantage), and the role of oil exploration and oil exportation as an explanatory variable in the study of the Sudanese and other African cases (and issues pertaining to the way ahead of the two Sudans), is recommended to explore this book. It definitely provokes reflection, and imposes insight. Michael Sahlin, PhD Ambassador, former Swedish Special Envoy for Sudan
Darfur: Complex conflict in condensed volume Violent Conflict and Peacebuilding – The continuing crisis in Darfur, by Johan Brosché and Daniel Rothbart. Routledge, 2012 In Violent Conflict and Peacebuilding – The continuing crisis in Darfur Peace and Conflict scholars Brosché and Rothbart make the quite convincing argument that the conflict – or rather conflicts – in Darfur must be understood as a complex web of four distinct conflict types: communal, local elite, centre-periphery and cross-border, all of them deeply interconnected. The book also offers a few closing chapters on the various peacebuilding initiatives in Darfur. This analysis is spread out over some 150 pages in a (steeply priced) hardback. The size and scope of the book stands out as one of the strengths, but is also one of the weak points. But first of all, the book is extremely readable. It never asks of you to be a postgraduate peace and conflict researcher, nor a Sudan expert. As a crash course for any conflict surfing NGO:er or blue helmet thinking of having a go at the Darfur crisis it is a must read, thanks to its condensed textbook format. For anyone – like me – taking a general interest in humanitarian issues, but who has never delved deeper into the Darfur case it serves as a great introduction. But it also leaves me somewhat frustrated. I want more. Thought provoking ideas are sometimes introduced without being followed through. For example, the mainstay of common Darfur lore that this is the first “climate change conflict” is dismissed in a paragraph or two. I have no reason to challenge that judgement – the arguments made are convincing – but I would love a further discussion. That is also true for the brief comparisons made with other Sudanese regions. Why is Darfur in flames, but not the east of Sudan? As a practitioner I would love to read further elaborations by the authors on the future of Darfur and Sudan in general. The closing one-pager named “The road ahead” is commendable, as it features strong political recommendations to different stakeholders. It is an all too rare commodity in much academic literature. But it is much too short, as is the entire closing section devoted to a discussion on the failure of different peacebuilding initiatives. Both authors – I am sure – have a wealth of insight to share on the subject. Another format-related issue is that the most important point the authors are making – that the Darfur crisis is one of great complexity that should not be simplified – is undermined a bit by the academic framework in which the text is written. Using the famous Uppsala Conflict Database, the different ongoing conflicts of Darfur are sorted into the predesigned categories, thereby reducing them to numbers
New Routes 4/2012
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and tag lines. Helpful as this might be for academic purposes, it risks boxing in what maybe should not be boxed in. But these are petty remarks. This is a book that offers a lot of valuable insight in one of the most devastating conflicts of our time. And more than this, it does a great job in exposing the uncomfortable truth that as a general rule, the international community is unable to muster enough insight (interest?) in the local realities that are forming modern day conflicts. Missions and interventions are too often designed behind closed doors in far away capitals, or at best from within the walls of secured compounds. And that merits our full attention. Henrik Fröjmark Policy advisor on peace, security and human rights Church of Sweden
Rule of Law vs. Law of the Rulers Rule of Law Dynamics: In an Era of International and Transnational Governance, by Michael Zürn, André Nollkaemper and Randy Peerenbom (eds). Cambridge et. al.: Cambridge University Press, 2012 For years publicly almost unnoticed, the notion of the Rule of Law (RoL) became an increasingly relevant and integral part of the normative frameworks discussed and applied through the United Nations (UN) in their global governance efforts. In contrast, its more prominent sibling named the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) was at the centre stage of controversial and contentious debates. More often than not, however, the RoL was as much an integral part of decisions relating to the RtoP paradigm. This volume is one of the latest results in a rapidly growing literature, which testifies to a “rule of law promotion industry” (p. 311). In the particular case under review, however, the analyses concentrate more on analytical exploration of the notion. Most of the authors are long-standing experts and highly respected scholars in international law and related areas. Their engagement with the notion documents “a perhaps surprising continuity in the strategies and tools of rule of law promotion” (p. 3). They present complementing perspectives of the normative and analytical dimensions this thematic focus embraces. The volume is therefore more a scholarly than a political intervention. As the editors point out in their introduction, “the parallel recognition of the need for further international law development of the rule of law setting forth generally applicable standards for all states, on the one hand, and the importance of local context, on the other, creates a theoretical and practical tension that has yet to be resolved” (p. 4). A legitimate case for pluralism in law, however, cannot translate into disrespect for fundamental human rights as acknowledged and codified in the conventions and charters of the UN and adopted by its member states. Put differently: the RoL should never degenerate into the law of the rulers, but remain loyal to the universally accepted norms. There exists a minefield in how to go about the necessary reconciliation between global norms and local values, seeking to respect both. At times, they cannot be in harmony, especially not when differing views within societies clash over what constitutes a fundamental local-cultural value to be considered as legitimate practice in a particular society and how this relates to broader norms of human rights.
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The newly initiated transnational debate over the RoL will most likely not be able to provide generally accepted answers. Neither will it offer a panacea to root out discrimination, oppression and the violation of basic human rights by those who claim to execute legitimate rule over others. While it might not solve all problems, however, such a debate might facilitate strategies for the protection of citizens from the abuse of power. After all, “there are … many individuals whose lives would be immeasurably better were they to live in a state governed by the rule of law” (p. 17). Henning Melber Senior Advisor/Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation Extraordinary Professor/University of Pretoria
Human rights revisited Human Rights in the Twentieth Century, by Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann (ed.). Cambridge et. al.: Cambridge University Press, 2011 International Human Rights Movement. A History, by Aryeh Neier. Princeton, N.J. and Woodstock: Princeton University Press, 2012 Human rights were among the first to be adopted in a charter by the member states of the newly founded United Nations – a day after the genocide convention, and with less votes in support. Rights have been at the centre of debate (and contestation) ever since human beings entered discourses on governance related matters, and on protection from the abuse of rule through the execution of power. Despite the normative weight of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the subsequently adopted second and third generation of human rights in the socio-economic and cultural spheres, the controversies over the interpretation of codified norms both in domestic and international settings remain a constant issue within societies and between states. The merit of these two books is to once again remind us in very different ways of the relevance of rights and their meaning. The volume edited by Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann does so through a variety of different contributions in five sections, of which the first recollects the evolution of the concept around the mid-20th century. It is noteworthy, however, that the editor in his own very informative introduction dates “the chimera of origin” (p. 4) much further back in history. The second part engages with important thinkers in a human rights debate after World War II in Western Europe, while the contributions to the third part focus on the Eastern European situation during the Cold War period. Part four and five situate the human rights debate in a variety of contexts such as genocide, decolonisation, humanitarianism and other cases of contestation. In contrast to this rather mixed collection of scholarly contributions (originally presented at a conference in Berlin 2008), which has the merit of illustrating the broad range of human rights oriented discussions ever since the United Nations was founded (while not being able to cover all its aspects), the monograph by Aryeh Neier is to a large extent based on the insights he accumulated during his lifelong advocacy with Human Rights Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Open Society Foundations. The book is easy to read even when it engages with complicated
lpi news, reviews and resources matters. It raises contemporary ethical and moral dilemmas on a variety of issues, and ends with a stock taking overview on a variety of challenges drafted in October 2011. Rather than offering more academic arguments on specific issues, the book provides a range of dilemmas when balancing human rights versus human wrongs – the latter at times even executed with some degree of good intentions or at least claims thereof. Both books are in different forms a reminder and evidence that the human rights debate will continue to challenge us in our efforts to create a better world for many more people for a long time to come. But they do not discourage us. Rather, they motivate us to remain concerned and involved, when it comes to the promotion of human rights and the protection of people from the abuse of power. Henning Melber Senior Advisor/Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation and Extraordinary Professor/University of Pretoria
State failure and state building Consider Somaliland: State-Building with Traditional Leaders and Institutions, by Marleen Renders. Brill, 2012 Marleen Renders’ book Consider Somaliland: State-Building with Traditional Leaders and Institutions, a major contribution to the existing literature on Somalia, is a book dedicated to centrally locating ‘Somaliland’ in the ongoing policy debates on state recognition. The book tries to partially answer the question of whether Somali traditional leaders and institutions can help in terms of building more legitimate, accountable and effective governments in polities, quasistates or ‘states’ under (re)construction. In other words, it is a book that investigates the place of ‘Somaliland’ in this debate, especially after twenty years plus of non-recognition, and with South-central Somalia still fragile, marred by conflict and in a situation of complete state collapse. The most interesting contribution of the book lies in its central focus on the role of the Somali traditional leadership, both individual traditional leaders and their institutional set-ups. And, with a theoretical discussion on state failure and state-building in Chapter I as the point of departure, the book provides an historical background on the failing state and the role of the clan in Chapter II. But, in fact, it is Chapter III that deals more with the role of the clan, branding the first armed Somali rebel group – the Somali National Movement – as a clan-supported opposition force. Hence the formation of a hybrid state by clan elders which is widely covered in Chapter IV. Chapters V and VI move the debate a bit further, introducing the late ‘Somaliland’ president Mohammed Egal’s consolidation of power through clan warfare and traditional peace-making. The chapter also discusses the end of the era of clan-representation. Chapter VII revolves around the issue of the Somali clan Dhulbahante and their displeasure with both ‘Somaliland’ and ‘Puntland,’ the dispute over the Sool-Sanaag enclave and the claims and counter-claims by ‘Somaliland’ and ‘Puntland’ over this area. Chapter VIII dwells more on the late Egal’s major political contributions to Somaliland’s nascent democracy with emphasis on the referendum on the draft constitution as well as the introduction of multi-party politics in ‘Somaliland’,
lpi news, reviews and resources while Chapter IX presents ‘Somaliland’ – a practical case in point – as a model for building proper states. The first of its kind by a non-Somali scholar, this book is rich with Somali history and presents the facts as they happened. Its views are balanced and the author contributes immensely to the existing body of knowledge – and also to the ongoing policy debates – in this field. With an appeal to consider ‘Somaliland’ due to its unique state-building model with traditional leaders and institutions, it is a must read for scholars, policy-makers and members of the wider policy community on Somali affairs. Ibrahim Farah Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies University of Nairobi
Congo: The rich history of a huge country Congo, a History, by David Van Reybrouck. HarperCollins, 2012 Belgian writer David Van Reybrouck’s “Congo, a History”, which was originally written and published in Dutch (2010), has now also appeared in English and French. Translations into Chinese, German, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish and Finnish are either available or will follow. The 700 pages bestseller is a masterpiece, covering the entire history of the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly known as Belgian Congo and Zaïre. From pre-historic times, pre-colonial times well before the arrival of the explorer Stanley, to colonisation, over Mobutu’s Zaïre to the influx of Rwandan ‘genocidaires’, the so-called first African World Wars, and the influence of China in the last ten years, everything is treated in an incredibly readable and empathic way. The economic, political and social complexities of this huge country, the size of Western Europe, are analysed and explained, with an enormous respect for the Congolese population, which underwent centuries of suffering that does not seem to end. Van Reybrouck relies not only on rare archival footage and cutting-edge research, but also on hundreds of interviews he conducted with Congolese. His hundreds of eyewitness accounts come from sources varying from child solders, rebel leaders and smugglers, to ministers and cassava sellers. All their stories form the core of this book coupled with data, facts and a most personal view on the past. Through a pleasant style, the use of anecdotes and amusing facts, this heavy subject is made digestible, and the book reads like a novel. An absolute must-read!
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(CPA) and its potential to propel the issue of Somaliland secession. He gives a long description of the historical background in both cases, and seeks to bolster his argument with an emphasis on international law. He asks the question of why there is – in theory – a discrepancy between South Sudan and Somaliland receiving recognition. By trying to prove his case purely on a theoretical basis, Berekteab forgoes the essential ingredient of the negotiations surrounding the final signing of the CPA. The fact that the former Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) leader, John Garang, effectively forced through – with the tacit support of a number of church leaders from South Sudan – a clause for a referendum for independence to take place six years after the initial signing of the agreement is not mentioned. Sudan was – and is for that matter – a conflict where the international stakes are higher, its resources are coveted by a number of global powers and it represents a new and vast market for all types of private investment entrepreneurs. Somaliland, quite simply, does not have any of these luxuries, hence its stake for recognition – although credible and long overdue – is not likely to succeed in the near future. Overall, this is a timely and relevant piece and, although not taking into account the history of the mediation process that started in the 1990s between the National Congress Party and the SPLM, it keeps Somaliland’s current status firmly on the international radar and particularly that of the African Union. Shane Quinn Peacebuilding and Governance Specialist
Regional integration in Horn of Africa crises Regional integration, Identity and Citizenship in the Greater Horn of Africa, by Redie Bereketeab and Kidane Mengisteab. East African Series, James Currey, 2012
Self-determination and secessionism in Somaliland and South Sudan. Challenges to postcolonial state-building, by Redie Berekteab. Discussion paper 75, Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, 2012
This book points out three interrelated crises in the Greater Horn of Africa: various inter-state wars, civil wars, and inter-communal conflicts; an economic crisis manifested in widespread debilitating poverty, chronic food insecurity and famines; and environmental degradation that is ravaging the region. Redie Bereketeab (researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute, Sweden) and Kidane Mengisteab (Professor of African Studies and Political Science at Penn State University) discuss the possibility of regional integration as a way to resolve these crises. Their motivation behind the idea is the fact that the countries of the region are unlikely to resolve these crises individually, but their chances in a regional collective action might be higher. More precisely, the volume explores the factors that can foster integration (for example, the proper management of citizenship rights) and those that impede it (such as the regional ineffective integration scheme, IGAD). The authors promote regional integration as a way forward to economic development and to tackling issues of identity and citizenship.
In his latest offering on the Horn of Africa, Redie Berekteab explores the fallout from South Sudan declaring its independence as part of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement
Compiled by Esmeralda Van den Bosch Intern, LPI Programme Unit
Pieter Vanholder LPI DRC Resident Representative
Somaliland and South Sudan: Similar ambitions – different backgrounds
“Tell me again. Why do we need a regional programme?”
LPI AND ITS PERIODICALS Life & Peace Institute (LPI) is an international and ecumenical centre based in Uppsala, Sweden, that supports and promotes nonviolent approaches to conflict transformation through a combination of research and action, and hence contributes to the prevention and mitigation of violence as a precondition for peace, justice, and nonviolent coexistence. The Institute’s conflict transformation work is based on an understanding that conflict is a natural part of societies that has the potential for both constructive and destructive change. It also builds on the premise that peace can only be achieved through the active
involvement of the communities in conflict themselves. LPI’s operational focus is on Africa, and more specifically on the Central Africa and Horn of Africa regions. In addition to the head office in Sweden, LPI has programme offices in Nairobi (Kenya), Bukavu (DRC), and Khartoum (Sudan) and staff working with the Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. LPI publishes two periodicals: the quarterly journal New Routes and the bi-monthly electronic newsletter Horn of Africa Bulletin covering the African countries of the Horn. Free online subscription to both periodicals.
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