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CONFLICTS AND CAUSES OF CONFLICTS IN AFRICA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Conflict can be defined as a clash or disagreement often violent between opposing groups or individuals. It can also be said to be an incompatibility, as of two things that cannot be simultaneously fulfilled. The word conflict is as old as mankind. This is because the word has been in existence in all area of man life since the inception of the world. The word conflict is derived from the Latin word configure, meaning to strike together. Conflict also means contradiction arising from differences in interest, ideas, ideologies, orientations, beliefs perceptions and tendencies. Conflicts usually occurs primarily as a result of a clash of interests in the relationship between parties’ groups and states, either because they are pursuing opposing or incompatible goals.

CAUSES OF CONFLICT IN AFRICA

Conflict arising from the militarization of the society: abundance of weaponry and trained soldiers and untrained volunteers available to any would be warlord with resources and determination.

1.  Poor economic performance: a more basic and long-term cause of conflict has been the catastrophic economic performance of many African countries. Coupled with the debt problem. Poor flows of private capital into some African countries and foreign and programs often inefficient as Neil. Economic discomfort can bail out into conflict. The deepest causes of the conflict; economic despair, social injustice, and political oppression. In the midst of poverty, African ruling classes or the elite group who happen to hold power at a particular time, have enriched themselves and become the targets of envy or of rivalry by other elite groups.

2.  Political/Domestic: Power struggles hostile groups over population economic or religious disparities oppression and demand for democracy communal or ethnic violence related to economic social religious cultural or ethnic issues.

3.  Political/International: These takes the form of ideological or political campaigns territorial claims and religious expansionism against other states regional rivalries terrorism, coercion or discrimination respecting the trade or economy of other states.

4.  Ethnicity; a major cause of Africa conflicts been ethnicity and it has continued to be so, the creation of independence was accompanied urgent calls for nation building by the new African leaders who were well aware of the difficulty in transcending Africa ethnic and regional loyalties .There have been a number of separatist movement causing attempts of secession such as Katangain Zaire, Biafra in Nigeria and others in Sudan Ethiopia and Somalia.

5.  Military: Interstate aggression annexation intervention or hostility for example support for the rebels of other states or for separatist movement.

6.  Inter-state borders: Common to many conflicts is the unsatisfactory nature of interstate borders. Nearly all the borders were inherited from colonial times and were the product of negotiations and treaties between the colonial power decided in Europe with the aid of poor maps and with scant attention to Africa peoples, the African government shield away from making adjustments and in any case these was difficult as they did not all reach independence at the same time.

7.  Persecution: It connotes violation of human rights mass movements of refuges poverty or instability caused by the mismanagement or ineptitude of the government including evident andperceived levels of corruption by the government beyond and acceptable limit of traditional toleration.

8.  Conflict over psychological needs: Conflicts over psychological needs of group and individuals are conflict which cannot be seen but affect the psyche of the individual and groups self-actualization need for individual and group respect attempt to protect on group to be better than the others.

9.  Conflicting involving values: Contradicting value system such as religious belief and ideological position and general worldview is another factor responsible for social conflict among the interacting parties.

10.  Conflict over resources: This kind of conflicts are usually easy to identify because they can be seen and amore potentially easy to resolve. This conflict occurs when two or more people are competing for inadequate (or perceived to be inadequate) resources over a period of time. The competition may assume negative or destructive dimension when the available resources are not evenly and judiciously distributed.

TEN CONFLICT RESOLUTION MECHANISM BY THE UNITED NATIONS

The United Nations primary mission is symbolized by the opening words of the charter. They dedicate the united nation to saving “succeeding generations from the scourge of war which has brought untold sorrows to mankind and the maintenance of international peace and security. The United Nation through diplomatic intervention has direct role in assisting and encouraging countries to settle their disputes peace and security contribute to world peace and security in this regard the United Nations performs the following function.

1.  Inquiry: fact finding by neutral investigation, they find fact by neutral investigation they investigate about things they also inquire about things that happen in the nation.

2.  Good Offices: encouraging parties to negotiate. The United Nations encourages parties to negotiate they prefer other parties to relate with each other to do things in common.

3.  Mediation: making suggestions about possible solutions acting as an intermediary between two parties to suggest about possible solution. They also serve as middle men between two different parties to help them suggest about possible solution.

4.  Arbitration: Using a special panel to find a solution that all parties agree in advance to accept they find solution to all parties.

5.  Adjudication submitting disputes to an international court such as the United Nations international court of justice (I.C.J).

6.  Enforcement of sanction: peace maintenance involves three distinct but interrelated activities.

7.  Peacekeeping: It involves coordinated efforts to ensure stability and relative chaotic situation. Peace keeping has no express constitutional legislation in the UN carter it’s a pragmatic response to the program.

8.  United Nation extend goal is to create conditions conducive to establish lasting political settlement they help to create a conducive environment for last longing political settlement.

9.  United Nations resolves conflict in Africa by using mediation conducted by the use of good will eminent personalities mandated by the assembly of head of states and government. They help to develop tools which were quite effective in the mediation of interstate conflict.

10.  Another mechanism was the mounted operations by the United Nations the Africa union and other organization such as the commonwealth ECOWAS ranging from political missions and election monitoring missions to military and civil policy observer groups, or to peace keeping and peace enforcement missions.

Types of Conflicts in Africa

The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Aide-Memoire equates conflict in Africa to civil war and describes four dimensions of a civil war, one of which is that “significant military action must take place with at least 1000 battle related deaths per year (inclusive of civilians) […] recorded” (ECA Aide-Memoire  2000, 2)! Presumably if there are 950 deaths, then the conflict will not be a civil war but something else – a hostility? Or if the recording system of the rebel movements in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) or Uganda is not up to the standard of the military bureaucrats of the Western military or the UN Blue Helmets, then the conflict will not be considered to be a civil war! I am raising this issue in this manner in order to bring to attention: (a) the difficulties we are facing on this issue, and (b) that even if we accept the definition of civil war described by the AideMemoire, it is still important to point out that a civil war is only one type of conflict taking place in most African countries. It could be an important type, but nevertheless one type.

Given the fact that there are several types of conflicts in African countries, a broader definition of conflict, which takes into account the African conditions and relies less on recorded numbers as criteria, will, in my view, be more useful.

Writers often discuss conflict in Africa without any attempt at describing or defining the term. They often use terms such as civil war, violent conflict, civil strife, hostility, war, and political instability, interchangeably. I am not a definition hard-liner, but there is a need to clarify the concept or phenomenon one is writing about. A rule of thumb definition would be useful here in contrast to that of the Aide-Memoire.

The term conflict in this study is use to mean a violent and armed confrontation and struggle between groups, between the state and one or more groups, and between two or more states. In such confrontation and struggle some of those involved are injured and killed. Such a conflict can last anything from six months to over twenty years.

Given this broad working definition, we can proceed to discuss the different types of conflicts that are and have taken place in Africa.

Conflicts can be categorised in various ways depending on the type of criteria one uses. For example Salim (1999) classifies conflicts in Africa as follows: 

•       boundary and territorial conflicts, 

•       civil wars and internal conflicts having international repercussions, 

•       succession conflicts in territories decolonised, 

•       political and ideological conflicts, 

•       others including those related to transhumance and irredentism. 

Similarly, Collier and Binswanger (1999) classify conflicts into (a) loot seekers and (b) justice-seekers, classification which is based more on value judgment rather than analytical criteria. Nevertheless, both Salim and Binswanger use what they consider to be the objectives of the rebel groups as criterion for classifying conflicts. Others, as I will do below, classify conflicts on the bases of the actors involved in a conflict. Still others are concerned only with conflicts in which the state is a party to the conflict.

In general, most writers tend to think of conflicts in Africa as being political conflicts such as wars between states, armed rebellion against states (ranging from small-scale low intensity conflicts to large-scale civil war), armed secessionist rebellion (also of various scales), and coup d’etat. Indeed, most African conflicts which are reported and which draw international attention, are those which fit the above description. 

There are, of course, other types of conflicts which in the past were not given much attention. These are urban violence – sometimes they take the form of ethnic conflict, sometimes religious conflict, and sometimes they are class-based – the poor of many ethnic groups attacking government properties and installations, or attacking shops and houses of the rich and middle classes. Urban violence, however, tends to be intermittent rather than continuous. Urban violence is not a new phenomenon but has been taking place since the colonial period. While urban violence and conflicts last only for a few days, a specific incident or situation often triggers them. In the past such violence was focused against the colonial authorities for deplorable living conditions and colonial control system. However, recently urban violence has taken the form of reacting to poverty and to struggles between supporters of political parties – parties which are often ethnically based.

In rural areas of many countries there are many conflicts which are ethnically based, mainly over grazing land and over cattle amongst pastoral people. Similarly, there are conflicts over cultivable land amongst peasant farmers within the same ethnic group and also between ethnic groups. Sometimes these inter-ethnic conflicts over land and cattle develop into rebellions and armed fighting between the ethnic groups and the state, when the latter sends in the military to stop the fighting or even to take side.

For example, the Karamajong of Uganda and the Pokot of Kenya (on either side of the Kenya/Uganda border) have been fighting over grazing land and over cattle for more than three decades. Such conflicts amongst pastoralists are common and widespread in many countries. Similarly conflicts for fertile and cultivable land have been taking place amongst many ethnic groups in many countries.

Most of these rural conflicts over land and cattle have been going on over a long period, with very little attention given to them. Even today most such conflicts go unnoticed and unreported – unless large-scale killing and injuries takes place and the state intervenes militarily. 

The distinction between the two categories of conflicts – political conflicts in which the state is involved in one way or another, and the less well-known urban and rural conflicts in which generally the state is not a party, and which conflicts are not well reported2 – is useful. While most research publications and media reports cover the political conflicts, little research has been done to indicate the extent of the latter type of conflicts in African countries. At the beginning we pointed out that during the four decades of independence there have been roughly 80 violent changes of government. This fact is basically given to indicate the extent of conflicts in Africa. But it is important to point out that this is only one type of political conflict.

There are other political conflicts – mainly rebellions and civil wars which are well known. Yet we do not really know the extent of the urban and rural conflicts as described above. Indeed, there may be more of these latter types of conflicts than the political conflicts. And if this is the case, the policy implication here is serious. While the states are more concerned with rebellions against them, the real arena and drama of conflicts in most African countries may be somewhere else. And the state’s normal reactions to these “other” conflicts are simply to send the police, paramilitary and the army to quell the conflicts. As we will point out below, different conflicts emerge under different political, social and economic conditions. Similarly, their causes may be different. And unless these issues are properly understood by the states, it will be difficult to manage and resolve these conflicts in the short term, let alone tackle their long-term root causes. Lack of comprehension of their conflicts by African states has led to the present situation where there are no strategies, policies or mechanism for dealing with on-going conflicts in their countries. Still less are there any strategies for tackling the long-term causes and conditions of conflicts.